The Consecrated Life

1 Corinthians 6:19-20 What? know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own? For ye are bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are God's.

I’m going to try to speak about consecration. The problem is, I’m not there yet to be an expert on this subject so I’m going to use the words of prophets in order to learn, and I pray that the Spirit will be with us that we may learn together. Consecrate means: To set apart, dedicate, or devote, to the service of God. The question, then, is: “How do we consecrate our souls, body and spirit, to the Lord?”

Answer: We grow up in the Gospel. In the same way we grow up physically, almost imperceptibly, we can grow up spiritually, however, this process doesn’t happen automatically. Nobody improves or grows in any way without going through each of the four steps:

1. A goal
2. A plan
3. A commitment
4. A sacrifice

Example: To learn to play the piano, grow up physically, build a house, or any improvement we want to make, we must go through each of the four steps.

THE goal
We need to ask, what is our goal? There are all sorts of goals in the world. The uniqueness of being a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is that it is the ONLY organization in the whole world that can give you the highest goal in the Universe – Eternal Life. No other religion or organization even knows about this “greatest of all the gifts of God.” D&C 14:7  If your goal is not ETERNAL LIFE, then you don’t need to be here, this Church is only for the “A” students who want to learn, grow, and achieve forever.

Every blessing has a law attached: D&C 130:20-21
"There is a law, irrevocably decreed in heaven before the foundations of this world, upon which all blessings are predicated—And when we obtain any blessing from God, it is by obedience to that law upon which it is predicated."  In other words, if we want to receive the blessing of Eternal Life, we must know the law upon which it is based – and keep it! This is a plan, indeed, THE plan.

THE plan
What does it take to obtain this blessing of Eternal Life? Why, that’s easy! It’s the PLAN OF SALVATION or the PLAN OF HAPPINESS. It's the GOSPEL, or the GOOD NEWS that Christ made our ultimate goal a possibility, even a reality. You already know what this entails, let’s start with the first principles and ordinances:

1.      Faith in the Lord, Jesus Christ
2.      Repentance
3.      Baptism by immersion for the remission of sins
4.      The laying on of hands for the gift of the Holy Ghost

From here, we learn gradually as we grow up in the Gospel. Just like every form of growth, we learn a little at a time, as Nephi explains: 2 Nephi 28:30
“For behold, thus saith the Lord God: I will give unto the children of men line upon line, precept upon precept, here a little and there a little; and blessed are those who hearken unto my precepts, and lend an ear unto my counsel, for they shall learn wisdom; for unto him that receiveth I will give more; and from them that shall say, We have enough, from them shall be taken away even that which they have.”

Commitments
Covenants are an intrinsic part of the Gospel. Baptism is the first covenant. From there, we go on to make covenants in the Temple, including the covenant of consecration. These covenants do two things:

1. They commit us to stay with the program, even when it gets hard. All of the hard things that help us to grow require commitments: Parents are committed to their children -- even if it gets hard.  Marriage is hard, at times, but because of the commitment we stay with it and keep trying. Statistics tell us that even marriages on the rocks will be better in 5 years if the couple continues to try to work it out. Likewise, we make a covenant with the Lord to "endure to the end" and end up happy.
2. Also, covenants allow the Lord to give us a curriculum, test us, and coach us through our trials and sacrifices. For example, baptism is the covenant that brings us into the Church, or the classroom of the Spirit. We are baptized for the remission of sins so we can have the Holy Ghost to teach us at all times. Without this covenant we can’t have the Spirit in this manner so we have no teacher. Without a teacher we cannot grow, learn, or reach the goal.

Sacrifice
The trials of life are the sacrifices we make for the Lord. Ultimately, He requires one sacrifice, as He commanded: D&C 59:8 “Thou shalt offer a sacrifice unto the Lord thy God in righteousness, even that of a broken heart and a contrite spirit.”

What is a “broken heart?” The heart is our deepest desires, wants, and needs. When we lose or don’t get the deepest desires of our hearts we have a broken heart. There are three ways this happens:

1. We receive all we desire, and find out that it doesn’t really fill our needs.
2. We have all we want and then it is taken from us.
3. We never get our needs filled.

President John F. Kennedy said, "Life is perfectly fair, sooner or later it breaks everyone's heart."  There are two ways people respond when they have a broken heart.

1. The pain of loss causes people to become bitter and angry.
2. We can choose to turn to the Lord and give our broken heart to Him.

When we turn to the Lord, He gives us comfort, and fills our hearts.

What is a “contrite spirit?” It is being broken, bruised, or worn. “Con” means “with,” and “trite” means “bruised or worn.” I think a broken heart is something that happens to us, whereas a “contrite spirit” is what we do. If we have a contrite spirit we put aside our own desires and wear-out our lives in the service of God.

When you feel broken, bruised, and worn-out, turn to the Lord -- This is our only acceptable sacrifice. It doesn’t happen over a day or a year, but rather over a lifetime. We cannot rush the process any more than Alex who exclaimed at the age of two when he got out of diapers, “I all growed-up!” Why couldn’t the five wise virgins share their oil? Why were the foolish virgins gone so long that they missed the feast? Growth takes time and cannot be given to another.

Listen to the earnest pleading of Alma (and Mormon) to us: “And now, my brethren, I wish from the inmost part of my heart, yea, with great anxiety even unto pain, that ye would hearken unto my words, and cast off your sins, and not procrastinate the day of your repentance; But that ye would humble yourselves before the Lord, and call on his holy name, and watch and pray continually, that ye may not be tempted above that which ye can bear, and thus be led by the Holy Spirit, becoming humble, meek, submissive, patient, full of love and all long-suffering; Having faith on the Lord; having a hope that ye shall receive eternal life; having the love of God always in your hearts, that ye may be lifted up at the last day and enter into his rest.” Alma 13:27-29

We come to have a consecrated life as we become more and more obedient to the Lord. The process is amazing! First, we start with belief – we believe that only Jesus Christ can help us find our goal of Eternal Life. This brings us to pray for help and guidance. When our prayers are answered and He tells us what to do, either through the Holy Ghost or His servants on the Earth, and then we exercise faith by doing exactly what He says. We gradually learn to live “by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.” (Matthew 4:4) As we keep His word, we come to understand His voice better and better. This allows us to keep more commandments and exercise more faith. At some point, we have direct communication with Heaven and know the will of God in all things. This is where we can consecrate our lives fully to Him.

Back to our definition: Consecrate: To set apart, dedicate, or devote, to the service of God.
If we don’t know the will of God, we have no way of consecrating our lives to Him. We can only guess, make assumptions, or do what we feel is right. How much damage has been done by well-meaning people! This is not consecration, rather it is doing our own will, according to our own understanding.

The key to this process is coming to know the Lord and His will for us. This only happens over a long time of keeping His commandments as we come to know them. Those who keep His commandments will receive more, until they know them all. John tells us that Jesus went through this same process: “And he received not of the fulness at first, but continued from grace to grace, until he received a fulness;” (D&C 93:13) Christ shows us the way. He did all the same steps He asks us to follow:

1. Goal – He had the goal not only of Eternal Life for Himself, but also to bring the opportunity to everyone else as well.
2. Plan – There was a plan for His life to bring salvation to all mankind.
3. Commitment -- He was baptized, and kept his covenants, living by every word of God.
4. Sacrifice – He made the ultimate sacrifice, descending into hell to bring out all those who are willing to follow Him.

The Lord, Jesus Christ, showed us how to consecrate our lives to the service of God. He said, “I seek not mine own will, but the will of the Father which hath sent me.” (John 5:30) He willingly went into Gethsemane and took upon Himself the sins of the world. He didn’t want to, but submitted to all the will of His Father. Matthew tells us what happened in the Garden: “And he went a little further, and fell on his face, and prayed, saying, O my Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me: nevertheless not as I will, but as thou wilt.” (Matthew 26:39)

Jesus is the Christ, the Anointed One. He lived a consecrated life. We can do the same as we believe in Him and receive more commandments as we do exactly, and only, what He tells us to do. We must seek the will of God in all things, and willingly do it, even if it hurts, or is very hard. We only grow when we do more than we can. Through Him we can do all things, because He “giveth no commandments unto the children of men, save he shall prepare a way for them that they may accomplish the thing which he commandeth them.” (1 Nephi 3:7) Through Him, everyone can reach the goal of Eternal Life! EVERYONE! He showed us the way. He IS the way. I testify in His holy name, Jesus Christ, Amen!