The Joy of Christ

Consecrated to Christ

Is a joyless disciple now reading these lines? Pause and ask yourself, “Wherefore joyless?”

Have you yet put yourself in the way of attaining the joy
of Christ? Have you set yourself apart, and placed yourself on God’s
altar, to live not to please yourself, even as Christ lived not to
please Himself, but to consecrate yourself to the work for which Christ
consecrated Himself—that is, the salvation of precious souls?

If you have not done this, you have not yet come to the
point where you can have the full joy of Christ. Set yourself apart
now, to live outside yourself in the will of God.

What had Christ to do with merely human satisfactions,
apart from the will of His Father? He took upon Himself not the nature
of angels but the nature of men and was very man as truly as very God.
But He lived not to please Himself.

Resolve that you will live no longer to please yourself
but that all your joys will be Christ’s joys. And with this resolve set
yourself apart to work for God.

After you have laid yourself and your will on every point
upon the altar, you may know that God receives you; for the altar is
God’s altar, an altar most holy. The moment your offering is laid upon
it, it is sanctified; for the altar sanctifies the gift (see Heb. 2:11).

Whatever touches the altar will be holy. You present your
sacrifice through Christ, and an offering presented to God through
Christ is holy and acceptable.

While resting on this hallowed altar—on Christ, whose
atonement takes away the sins of the world—let not your chief thought
be about joyous emotion. What you need is holiness, the image of God.

This you receive in resting your whole being on Christ.
The Bible says that “as many as touched Him were made well” (Mark
6:56). Thus you have only to touch Christ in faith, and according to
your faith it is done unto you (see Matt. 9:29).

Is the offering now presented? Can you say, in the words
of the hymn “O Happy Day,” “’Tis done! The great transaction’s done! I
am the Lord’s, and He is mine”?

Then begin from this moment to act upon the principle
that you are no more your own. You belong to Christ. Let Christ’s work
be your work.

If He came from heaven to Earth to save sinners, then
deem no traveling, no work and no exile from close friends or blissful
climates too self-sacrificing. Think of your Divine Redeemer, your
precious Savior, “who, for the joy that was set before Him, endured the
cross, despising the shame, and…sat down at the right hand of the
throne of God” (Heb. 12:2). Then you shall have the joy of Christ
fulfilled in yourself.

Phoebe Palmer (1807-1874) was a forerunner of both the Holiness and the Pentecostal-charismatic movements. This selection is adapted from Entire Devotion to God by Phoebe Palmer. Published by Schmul Publishing Co., Inc. Used by permission.