Dedicating a New Year!

2 Chronicles 2:4-5 Behold, I am building a temple for the name of the LORD my God, to dedicate it to Him, to burn before Him sweet incense, for the continual showbread, for the burnt offerings morning and evening, on the Sabbaths, on the New Moons, and on the set feasts of the LORD our God. This is an ordinance forever to Israel. And the temple which I build will be great, for our God is greater than all gods. (NKJV).

For several weeks leading up the end of the year I have had a sense that the new year 2010 was going to be different. Yes a new year but a new decade. There was a feeling that it was going to be a “new” year, in that it wouldn’t be the same old same old! We like many others have had an…, well…, shall we say…, interesting year! There’s been some changes we hadn’t seen coming and plans have had to be remade. Then on the 31st December I picked up a book from my bookshelf that I haven’t looked at for years, and flipped through the pages with an open heart and mind, but also prayerfully. I’d been asking God almost every moment to lead and direct in the new year, to show us what He wanted and what His plans were for us, and that He would lead guide and provide.

The pages of my little book opened to the following, a dedication prayer of Charles de Foucauld, (brother Charles of Jesus), the French explorer and hermit, writing at the start of the twentieth century. This is what he prayed: “Father; I abandon myself into Your hands; do with me what You will. Whatever You may do, I thank You; I am ready for all, I accept all. Let only Your will be done in me, and in all Your creatures – I wish no more than this, Lord. Into Your hands I commend my soul; I offer it to You with all the love of my heart. For I love You, Lord, and so need to give myself, to surrender myself into Your hands, without reserve, and with boundless confidence. For You are my Father!”

My prayer was an echo of his! Two things struck me from his prayer. Firstly his dedication was with abandonment into God and His plans, His will, His love. Charles de Foucauld’s release of himself into God and His ability to look after him, meet his needs and lead him, was total. He left nothing of himself to himself. He offered to God the most important part, his soul.

Secondly, there seemed to be a calling and an invitation from God to do the same. Although his dedication prayer doesn’t say that, I believe the Holy Spirit is calling for such a prayer from us. Charles de Foucauld offered to the Lord his soul. We know the soul is the mind, emotions and the will. That’s the greatest thing, the most central part of us that can be offered. All offerings come from there. If our mind, our emotions and our will are surrendered completely to God and His will for us, then He can do in us and through us what He wants. Dedication and abandonment to His plans and will is always the pathway into His purposes.

Down through the years of our history in New Zealand many faithful saints have prayed and believed and have “seen from afar” God moving across our land bringing in a harvest of souls. (Long may that continue!). There has been an increasing tiredness with the “here today gone tomorrow” revivalistic triumphalism. Yet there is a feeling that God is up to something; something good, something genuine, something powerful. The reality of God and an encounter with Him is being sought. I believe the desire for a genuine, life-changing Holy Spirit filled relationship with God is growing in the hearts of many believers, and non-believers.

Now to our text for this Brief Word. We know Solomon to be the wisest man who ever lived. (See 2 Chronicles 9:22). Yet Solomon’s wisdom was not given him just for speculation to entertain himself, or merely for conversation to entertain his friends, but for action! Solomon built a temple and was extravagant in his dedication of it to the Lord. Notice the following about the temple.

Solomon DEDICATED the temple to the Lord. To dedicate, means: to set aside, for a particular purpose, the quality of being devoted or committed to something, to commit yourself or your life to something, to set something apart as holy. That is exactly what we should do, and what the Lord is inviting us to do, and is what He responds to. It is what Charles de Foucauld did in his prayer of dedication. When we dedicate our life to the Lord, (set it aside for His purposes, commit it to Him, entrust it to Him as holy), then there will come into the temple of our life the glory of God, as it did in Solomon’s temple.

We are a temple, a place for God to dwell. (See 1 Corinthians 3:16-19). We should be doing all we can to build, maintain and keep holy that temple. When we know that our temple is something “dedicated” it does change things, in the way we live and the attitudes we hold, and the direction we desire to go in life.

Incense is the prayers of the saints going up to the Lord. (See Revelation 5:8). Prayer is always and has always been a key to knowing God and engaging in His plan for our life. Offerings are a sweet smelling aroma to the Lord. (See Philippians 4:18, Ephesians 5:2). The best offerings are the ones that cost the most. They’re the ones that have the greatest impact upon the giver and the receiver.

So, let’s offer a dedication prayer to the Lord of our own at the beginning of this new year and this new decade! The invitation from God is there for us to set apart our life as a living temple for His glory! Let’s dedicate our mind, our emotions and our will to Him for this year, and believe that His plans and purposes will be worked out through us. Let’s dedicate some time to personal prayer and Bible reading this year! Let’s make and dedicate some genuine offerings to the Lord this year, and not just from our left-over’s, our excess.

We read that after Solomon dedicated his temple to the Lord, (See 2 Chronicles 5:13-14) the glory of God filled his temple! The cloud of God’s presence came in. O that the same might happen in our lives! That the cloud of God’s presence and glory might so fill our lives as a result of His love for us and our dedication to Him. That “God things” might happen all around us brought about by His power and not our own efforts. Why not reflect again on Charles de Foucauld’s dedication prayer, pray it as your own, or make up your own and earnestly pray it with abandonment and confidence!

May 2010 be your best yet!