What does it really mean to be consecrated to God? - Religious Words Part 1

What does it really mean to be consecrated to God?

In this episode of the Archie & Etta Podcast, we talk about consecration — not as a religious word, but as a real-life call to be set apart for God’s presence, purpose, and glory. Throughout Scripture, consecration shows up before moments of encounter, assignment, worship, and obedience. Before Israel met with God at Mount Sinai, they were told to consecrate themselves. Before crossing into promise, Joshua said, “Consecrate yourselves, for tomorrow the Lord will do wonders among you.”

But consecration is not just about what we avoid. It is about who we belong to.

We unpack what it means to surrender our bodies, motives, habits, homes, gifts, and decisions to the Lord. From the Ark of the Covenant to Romans 12, from priestly preparation to becoming vessels fit for the Master’s use, this conversation is about carrying God’s presence God’s way.

In this episode, we discuss:
What consecration means biblically
Why being set apart is different from being isolated
How surrender prepares us for God’s assignment
Why God’s presence should never be treated casually
What it means to be a living sacrifice
How to become a vessel useful to the Master
The connection between holiness, obedience, and intimacy with God

Key Scriptures:
Joshua 3:5
Romans 12:1–2
2 Timothy 2:20–21
Exodus 19:10–11
1 Chronicles 15:12–15

Consecration is not about performing for God. It is about belonging fully to Him.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:04

Welcome to the Arching Edda Podcast, where real conversations meet biblical truth, where husband and wife talk through faith, life, marriage, calling, and culture through the lens of God's Word. Pull up a chair. Let's grow together. Alright, welcome back to the Arching Edda Podcast. Today we're gonna start with this topic called the consecration, and it might turn into a series where we discuss and attempt to demystify some religious words.

SPEAKER_03 0:37

The big Christian words.

SPEAKER_00 0:39

The Christianese.

SPEAKER_03 0:42

I feel like that's a separate topic.

SPEAKER_00 0:45

Alright. Another series, another day. Okay. So consecration. Um, I think at first, when I just think of consecration, I don't think that my brain right like goes directly to the meaning that it's probably supposed to. And so I did a little bit of reading, looked up some Bible verses. I think that you probably have more depth of understanding just buried in your soul uh on the topic.

SPEAKER_03 1:15

But well, you should start with what you thought it was before you say what you learned.

SPEAKER_00 1:19

Yeah, for sure. Um, and I'm not saying I learned very much. But what I would have thought, or what I was thinking, consecration, was like something about this process more similar to like sanctification, like getting more right with God or something like that. But that's a word for another day. We're not gonna get into that. Um, and then if I really wanted to give like the you know, whatever goofball answer, it'd be like the process of being consecrated. Um, but consecration, I think, I was thinking, I should say, um was just that. But it's probably it's probably a lot more than that, and it's probably a little bit different. And and so I want to think about these words in terms of like how do we put it in modern day English in a way that we can like understand and that makes it real. Like how does that what does that look like in a day-to-day life?

SPEAKER_03 2:20

Application.

SPEAKER_00 2:22

So where what am I missing?

SPEAKER_03 2:27

Well, I thought you were gonna tell us what you read.

SPEAKER_00 2:29

Oh, oh I got a bunch of stuff on here. But um, okay. So the the the first place that I kind of went to is um the examples of I don't think I want to start there. Okay. So Exodus 3030. Aaron and his sons were anointed and consecrated to serve as priests. So there's something in consecration that has purpose.

SPEAKER_03 3:02

Yep.

SPEAKER_00 3:03

Um there is Leviticus 8, 10 through 12. Moses anointed the tabernacle, the altar, utensils, and priests, setting them apart for holy use.

SPEAKER_03 3:17

Yep.

SPEAKER_00 3:18

So there's like a part of consecration that is holy use.

SPEAKER_03 3:24

It's specific.

SPEAKER_00 3:26

Specific. Intentional. Uh jumping ahead. First Chronicles 15, 12 through 15, David tells the Levites to consecrate themselves before bringing up the Ark of the Lord, something we talked about before. This is key in the, I think the whole like carrying of God's presence. I think there's a part of consecration that's about carrying God's presence. Um, I just said like a bunch of Bible verses, and I I know you have ex expansion of those.

SPEAKER_03 4:07

Yeah. Uh when we were talking about Christian words, I brought up the fact that even though I grew up in church, I didn't actually fully understand what they meant till I was in my degree for philosophy, religion, and taking actual courses on religion, philosophy, biblical study, church history, all these things. And that's when I finally started to understand what these big Christian words meant and why they're so big, because they mean this whole huge concept boiled down to one word. So it isn't something you can just sort of like flippantly say, because it means this whole history, this whole, you know, understanding of the word and things like that. So I can understand why people get confused and why people just make assumptions. Cause I used to do that until I took the time to study it. Um and even after college, I still have put some study into some of these ideas just because I want to have excellence in everything I do, including my walk with the Lord. So if he's trying to tell me something in his word, I want to receive the message fully. And I can be a bit dense sometimes, so I need to study it.

SPEAKER_00 5:43

I think a lot of us can. Speaking for myself. Uh you said something there that made me think more. So I think maybe one of the reasons these words have become a little bit tricky is because, of course, this isn't the original language.

SPEAKER_03 5:59

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 6:00

And in the original language, the way that they wrapped words as containers for meaning was different than English. Like English, we may have a word that has multiple different um, we have the same word, different meanings, different contexts. Yeah. They had like so many different things sometimes wrapped into a word.

SPEAKER_03 6:20

Well, yeah, like a biblical Greek word can mean 10 to 15 meanings for one word, and and a lot of times they meant all the meanings at once.

SPEAKER_00 6:30

Which is nuts.

SPEAKER_03 6:31

Um, and then I I liked what you were saying about context because a lot of these words specifically, I think, came with a lot of unspoken assumptions and cultural contexts for the original uh hearers of the word, if you will. I was listening to an uh an interview yesterday where a guy was talking about his ministry into some Muslim communities around the world. And he was reaching these communities through relationship, not through like typical whatever. But he was saying how he would get to these places where the people would want to meet Jesus, they would want to hear from God. And so, like, he'd ask them, like, oh, do you want to hear from God for yourself? And they'd say yes, and they'd stop and go wash their hands and like prepare themselves because in their culture, that's how they prepare themselves to pray to Allah. It's like they wash their hands, I think they wash their face, maybe. Like, there's a whole like ritual to meeting with God that they just automatically brought that context, that that um series of preparation. And the guy who's like from somewhere in America, I don't know, he was like, I was just sitting there with my coffee, and they came back and they were like, What are you doing? Why aren't you preparing to hear from God? And it made me stop and think, like, how familiar are we with God that we're just like, yeah, he's my bro. Like, yeah, I'm just gonna talk to him, I'm just gonna call him up, you know? Yeah, you know, just creator of the universe with a word, just gonna casually sometimes we've lost what it means to have that healthy fear of the Lord, that need for consecration.

SPEAKER_00 8:34

Yeah, it's almost like the I know we would say like reverence, but maybe that's another word that we have to get into later on, but it's that respect and understanding like the fear of the Lord. That's that's probably another one. Um yeah, it's how much do we just in our own limited perspective think, yeah, I'm just gonna talk to God right now. Of course, we don't want to create a new barrier in the New Testament, but there's I think there's something cool there with that, like the give us clean hands.

SPEAKER_03 9:09

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 9:10

And a pure heart.

SPEAKER_03 9:11

Well, I think too, that's one of the reasons why it's so hard to understand a word like consecration. There's not really anything like it in our in our Western American culture.

SPEAKER_00 9:21

Yeah. Cleaning your hands to to cook a meal.

SPEAKER_03 9:26

Hopefully.

SPEAKER_00 9:28

Otherwise, you can get some extra antibiotic resistances in there. It could be worse. Okay, so the other one, I I think that there's there's probably some of these dimensions that we were already touching on that is stuff that I wasn't even recently considering involved in consecration. And I think this next piece of it that I wrote down is where I normally think of it. So I think I normally think of it as consecration as like holiness and separation. And I think that's my original thought. I was a little limited. So, like 1 Peter 1, 15 and 16, be holy in all your conduct. Consecration is not just a moment, it becomes a way of life. Um, 2 Corinthians 6, 16 through 18, God calls his people to come out from what is unclean and be separate because they are his temple. Um and then this is quintessential goodness, James 4.8. Draw near to God and he will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands and purify your hearts. So we see this like there's this piece of cleansing, there's repentance, like purity, and that's related to nearness in some space. Um Thessalonians 4, 3 through 7. This is the will of God, your sanctification. So here Paul is actually connecting God's will to actually like us to be sanctified. Which is like, of course, he wants our sanctification. Why does he why does he want like why does God want us to be holy and separated and sanctified?

SPEAKER_03 11:24

Well, if you look at the Bible, consecration did always go with an element of setting apart. If you think about it, like all of Israel is set apart from the rest of the world, God's chosen people, and the main sign for that was circumcision and also some dietary rules.

SPEAKER_01 11:51

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 11:52

So that was one level of consecration. But then there's the Levites who are further consecrated, and that doesn't make the rest of the Israelite tribes like less holy, they're just less set apart, less consecrated because their role and purpose is different. So Levites had the circumcision, had the dietary laws, but they also had some restrictions on what they were allowed to own and what they were allowed to um wear in some instances, who they were allowed to marry in a lot of instances, and um, and also their time.

SPEAKER_00 12:41

Their time.

SPEAKER_03 12:42

Because some were priests and some were handling and like taking care of the tabernacle and later the temple, but all the elements, but all the liketenance guides and craftsmen. So they were handling that tribe handled everything that had to do with worship, and that took a certain amount of time, and they sort of took turns uh putting time into that, but also having time for their like lives and marriages and children.

SPEAKER_00 13:14

So they weren't they didn't have like a crew of recently retired dudes to maintain it, like a lot of churches today. Everybody needs some bob slies.

SPEAKER_03 13:25

You're born into it. Well, then within the Levites, you have the priests. Not every Levite was a priest, and they had further consecrations of what they were allowed to do with their their time, their clothes, their hair. Like there's further um, I guess, habits and standards of living, standards of knowing the word. Um, like standards of priests had to do a certain amount of sacrifices to keep themselves holy while they ministered to God on behalf of the people. So they had an extra tithe, if you will. If you think about sacrifices, that's resources. So they had to have extra resource to carry out that consecration. Then you have the high priest, even more so. Then you have Nazarites, so that could be anybody.

SPEAKER_00 14:32

Yeah, the Nazirite vow, like Samson.

SPEAKER_03 14:34

Nazirite vow, and it could either be for a certain period of time or it could be lifelong. Samson was supposed to be lifelong.

SPEAKER_01 14:41

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 14:42

Um, Hannah, Samuel's mom, basically had to live under a Nazirite vow while she was pregnant, and then Samuel was under a uh Nazirite vow. I can't remember if he was lifelong or not.

SPEAKER_00 14:55

Well, wasn't there like there's also that um, and I I I feel like it shows up a bunch of times, but it's like the firstborn of the womb is holy to the Lord.

SPEAKER_03 15:05

And that reminds me of what you had to redeem them through a special sacrifice to remember um the the last plague in Egypt of redeeming the firstborn through the blood of the lamb on Passover. But it's also kind of a first fruits thing. There's a lot to that.

SPEAKER_02 15:28

Okay.

SPEAKER_03 15:28

Um but a Nazarite vow was even more uh diet restrictions, like you couldn't have anything to do with a break a grape, not even just wine and alcohol, but like couldn't eat a grape, couldn't touch a grape.

SPEAKER_00 15:44

Made it real clear that you're not like, well, this grape is only a half a day fermented.

SPEAKER_03 15:49

There was no playing or running on the line, like it was very clear set apart.

SPEAKER_00 15:55

There will be no grapes.

SPEAKER_03 15:57

You can't you can't participate in the four full glasses of wine at Passover. Like there's just even more so I'm set apart, and they couldn't cut their hair. So again, restrictions on on something to do with their body. And the Nazarite vow was was a very extreme form of consecration. Right. And people didn't take it lightly in the Old Testament. I mean, Samson kind of did, but if that's your whole life, he had a certain level of familiarity, I think. Right. And it lost some of its edge for him. But all this to say, okay, here's all these levels of increasingly limited sets of I mean rules, but I would like to think of it more as choices of choosing not to participate in order to be prepared for something. So Israel is set apart as God's people. So that's why they're set apart. So the whole world knows we're God's people.

SPEAKER_00 17:10

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 17:11

Levites are set apart because they're ministers unto the Lord. So they have a special closeness to the Lord, and that requires being prepared for that. Priests, even more so. Nazarites often carried out a specific, special purpose. Like Samson was a judge, Samuel was a judge and a priest. Um and I think John the Baptist had the Nazarite vow as well, if I remember correctly. And he was a prophet.

SPEAKER_00 17:44

Prepare the way.

SPEAKER_03 17:45

Mm-hmm. So it's a specific purpose. And I liked what you were saying earlier, where a lot of the times it's to carry the glory of God. It's to be able to draw near to the Lord without something getting in the way. So I think that consecration is, yes, it's holiness, yes, it's set apart. But there's also an element of at least nowadays, like when it applies to now. If I want to do something for the Lord, I don't want to have distractions. I don't want to have stuff that's gonna dull my mind and my emotions and my my spirit. Like I want to be sharp, I want to be intentional so that I can carry out the purpose um wholeheartedly.

SPEAKER_00 18:39

Yeah, it reminds me of like fasting. Yeah. So if you do fasting these days, um I think that's kind of the place that I end up, and it's and I think part of it is just the spiritual discipline of like doing that with the intent purpose of hearing from God or trying to be closer to him and it and to be more perceptive and receptive to what he's saying and what he's doing in the world, and and you're more spiritually in tuned, I feel like naturally when you're fasting for the right reason. And I think like I was trying to think about what pieces like today would be considered consecration, and I just keep going back to that, like we're in the world but not of the world, and that when we look more and more like the world and the world's cultures, that's just kind of blending in, like kind of fitting in, and I think part of consecration that's set apart, that separation, is kingdom. What does it look like to be more like God's people, his kingdom, his chosen, his child, and not like just what the world wants us to kind of conform to?

SPEAKER_03 19:57

Right. Now, as Christians, we're set apart because we're children adopted in through the blood of Jesus.

SPEAKER_00 20:07

Um that's really good. Uh let's see. I think there's another part of consecration that is, I mean, a little, I touched on a little bit, but um, but it's like surrender and obedience. Um so Luke 9, 23, if anyone comes after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. Um, you know, Galatians 2.20, I've been crucified with Christ. It's no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. I think there's some degree of surrender, right? Because we're giving up whatever whatever the social comfort is of doing what everyone else does, you know, like Samson, you know, super long hair. I love how John the Baptist talks about like he ate bugs and and he was locusts and wild honey. He was a wild-looking man, but he was a great man for the purpose that he was called to. But a lot of this is they're surrendering what else they could have done. I mean, like the Levites is a great example too, because like you said, their whole their whole lives, they they were trained to you know, to tend to the temple and to the worship and to the sacrifice, and and that was it wasn't just a tithe, it was more like a a New Testament when Jesus is like, give it give it all. I want all, you know. Yeah, it's it's everything.

SPEAKER_03 21:39

I mean, geez, if you want to talk about what Jesus asked for, he asks for your thought life, he asks for your intentions and your heart.

SPEAKER_00 21:46

Don't be challenging. What is this?

SPEAKER_03 21:48

He doesn't just leave it at oh, wear this fabric, oh, eat this food on this day, oh, you know, don't kill somebody. He's like, Don't Hate anybody.

SPEAKER_00 22:01

Yeah, because because committing that in your heart is like is like doing the same damage.

SPEAKER_03 22:08

Well, I love what C. S. Lewis says about that commandment, that particular conversation in the Sermon on the Mount, where he says, if you kill somebody, if you murder somebody, which that's in the Ten Commandments, thou shalt not murder.

SPEAKER_00 22:22

Bad idea.

SPEAKER_03 22:23

It's just the one time. You murder the person and that's it, one time. But if you hate somebody, and you know, if you're like picturing murdering them, dwelling on it, like all the evil stuff that comes out when you really let hate take root and ruminate and grow, he's like, you could potentially be killing that person in your mind and your heart over and over and over and over again. And they're not dead, they're still there making you angry, making you feel hate. And that's so much more damaging to your soul over time.

SPEAKER_00 23:00

I mean, even if you don't go to that, what we would consider probably, well, maybe not as much as it used to be, but a pretty extreme example of actually killing someone. But if you just think about hating someone and how much we have wished someone harm to any degree, or like, hey, I wish this bad thing would happen to them so that they wouldn't be around, like, hey, this person is just the worst to work with, and it wouldn't be bad if they got fired. Yeah. And you just wish you wish bad things on these people that you don't want around, or you you know, want in a different situation, or whatever that is. And like doing that hating and sitting in that place, like it's obviously it's bad for you, but like to think about it like you just framed it, like Lewis did, that you're like committing that over and over and over, that's um that's corrupting you.

SPEAKER_03 23:56

Eats away at your soul. Jeez, that's uh and like I think Jesus knew that.

SPEAKER_00 24:02

I think he knew a few things, but I um yeah, there's so much there, but I I think that goes to just how Jesus went after the thought life.

SPEAKER_03 24:13

Uh but your heart life takes the heart, your intentions in your heart.

SPEAKER_00 24:18

Yeah, and you know, he also like said some other things like, you know, maybe you should pray for your enemies instead of hating them. Well, yeah. And I think that's that's the it's also both of those things because it shifts your heart posture back to love and to grace. That's what I was gonna say. And like, and I I achieved a certain degree of measure of freedom in my own heart many years ago when the Lord revealed to me um that that justice is actually his. And so, like, my human idea of revenge or someone else, like, man, you know, people love to talk about karma, but like, I want someone to get what they deserve, and it's like actually the God's gifters that we don't get what we deserve. Um, yeah, and like Jesus, in his example of telling us to love our enemies and to pray for them, it's like, hey, this puts your heart in the right place. Yeah, it's not just that you're doing this to them, which can minister to them and the Lord can work in that, but it also puts your heart right.

SPEAKER_03 25:22

Yeah, he he doesn't just say, Hey, do this seemingly impossible thing. He like gives you the way to do it. He doesn't just leave you hanging, he enables you to stop hating, and that's by praying for your enemies.

SPEAKER_00 25:37

I didn't even think we were gonna get into that at all with consecration, but it is making you very different.

SPEAKER_03 25:43

The Christian consecration is you have to take every that every thought captive and place it under obedience to Christ. It's renewing your mind. Like it that's part of it if you're a Christian consecration of your mind, setting apart, going into everything about your life. Like you said, from a kingdom perspective, from a kingdom purpose, from a I'm a child of God. How is that gonna change how I live my life? Because it should.

SPEAKER_00 26:12

I'm learning, I got a lot of work to do.

SPEAKER_03 26:17

Sometimes I complain to my friends that I that I have to be intentional about every single thing in my life. Yeah. Because walking through, you know, it a healing journey emotionally, like, but also just maturing and stepping up for our kids as a mom and also for you as a wife. Like, if I was just gonna coast, I don't think we would have a good marriage. I don't think our kids would be doing as well as they're doing. Yeah. I definitely wouldn't be doing all that great internally. So, like, there's a reason I have to be intentional about everything. But even more than that, like I was saying at the beginning, like I want to do my walk of faith with a level of excellence, and that means learning what God said, and then figuring out how to do that, and that takes intentionality, that takes consecration.

SPEAKER_00 27:12

I think so. We talked a little about this earlier, but I think I keep kind of going back to this because I feel like it's really easy for us to take this religious word and then leave it in a spiritual place only, but there is a real physical, like there's a body thing, consecration of the body. And I know you were talking about the Levites, there's the Nazarite vow and stuff like that, but I think there's a lot here, and this reminds me of a song I wrote in college. But um, 1 Corinthians 6, 19 through 20, your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, you are not your own, you were bought at a high price. Um, and then Romans 6 13, present yourselves to God and your members as instruments for righteousness. We're probably gonna have to do an episode on that. Yeah, yeah, your members, the active parts of the body, yeah. Um not church members, yeah. But righteousness, we're probably gonna have to come back another day for that part. Band members, not not worship band members. Well, they are also holy to the Lord. Okay. Uh 1 Corinthians 10 31, whatever you do, do all to the glory of God. Um, I think so, in in these examples, it reminds me of so there's a song I wrote in college called Expensive Eyes, and a bunch of my dude friends were like, You gonna play that song today? And it was one of their favorites.

SPEAKER_03 28:44

It was a big hit on campus.

SPEAKER_00 28:46

Yeah, in terms of campus songs, um, it was probably my best one. I think the rest were owned by JD and like Jonathan, but anyway, uh dear friends. Um, I think this consecration of the body thing I have gotten better at, and I didn't understand it for a long time, and uh, I think I would have gone through different seasons of how I take care of my body and for why. Um, it's really easy in our culture to be like people who take care of their body for for vein reasons or for image reasons or for like um purpose, like they're you know, training for something.

SPEAKER_03 29:24

I was gonna say there's like a job or yeah, it sometimes it can be related.

SPEAKER_00 29:28

Yeah, you need certain physical conditions.

SPEAKER_03 29:29

Professional athlete required um to be a certain fitness.

SPEAKER_00 29:35

And I think it for whatever reason that you're doing it, to any degree that you're trying to do something like, you know, eat healthy or or to live healthy lifestyle and to, you know, whatever version of exercise if you get walks with your dog, or like if you actually like, you know, do weights and all that kind of stuff, I think it's good to be healthy, but there's also this thing for the Lord that's like treating your body like a temple of the Holy Spirit that puts it in a frame that goes, if I really believe the Holy Spirit is indwelling, that this is a temple, and the Levites spent their lives maintaining that temple, yeah, tending it, tending that temple, you know, do doing all of that consecration work, then it what in me am I doing for this temple where God lives?

SPEAKER_03 30:30

Yeah. Yeah, I thought about that a lot as a young person. Um just having people in my life who weren't tending their temple, who were experimenting with all the substances in the 90s and whatnot that was rampant at the time. Um yeah, and activities and whatnot. And like seeing the fruit of that in their lives, seeing what it did to their mind and their body, like, yeah, there's that. But I met Holy Spirit at a pretty young age. I think I was six or seven when that missionary came through and befriended my dad and taught us how to pray a different way. I started talking to God at a pretty young age and listening for his response. And I loved that conversation. And I remember making a choice as a teen, like when I was encountering things that were really hard and painful, and it would have been easy to just follow some of those examples of the people in my life and be like, oh, well, you just numb it out, you just take this and whatever. But I knew that it would stop the conversation with the Lord. I knew that it would either drive the Holy Spirit away or just make me so numb and unavailable that I wouldn't be able to hear him.

SPEAKER_02 32:02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 32:02

And I wasn't willing to give that up. So I did not participate and just sat in the pain for some long years just to keep that conversation going because I didn't want to alienate the Holy Spirit.

SPEAKER_00 32:18

See, it's it's interesting because at a younger age you had more depth of understanding of that part of knowing Holy Spirit than I did, and I didn't I didn't really get that um well you got saved a little until later, but yeah, I don't know. But I was I was trying to just do the right thing. And it was like I I was familiar with Jesus, I was familiar with the Father, and I wasn't really familiar with Holy Spirit yet. And so in my space, in similar things, like I would go to stuff with friends and they would, you know, partake in those activities and um and consume specific things, and and then I would just be the safe person that made sure everyone got home and you know, stuff like that. I did some of that too, yeah, and and and to me it wasn't from that place, which is beautiful, but for me it was like I've decided. Yeah, I made a boundary ahead of time, and this is important to me in my life and how I want to serve God, so I'm gonna do that. And so it was almost like duty and and just like morality. And for me, it wasn't this sweetness that I didn't want to lose. I didn't learn that until later when I got to know Holy Spirit. Um, and that is a that is a different motivator. I'm actually putting that in one of my uh fantasy books, but anyway. Um okay, the last piece of this I want to make sure we get into because I think this is so powerful, is God calls people to consecration before He takes them on specific journeys or purposes or tasks or great things, right? And calls them to consecration, and it's almost like their readiness.

SPEAKER_03 34:07

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 34:08

And without it, they may not do well, they may not have the same result, they they may encounter things differently, and like I think there's a ton of examples, but um, you know, Jeremiah actually 1 5 says, Before you were born, I consecrated you, I appointed you a prophet to the nations. Um, and Isaiah 6, it's you know, here I am, send me. Um, in Acts 13, there's a bunch of examples of fasting and praying and laying hands on like Barnabas and Saul and sending them out, and this there's this consecration that takes place before putting people on mission.

SPEAKER_02 34:51

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 34:52

And and I'm gonna reframe this in a second, but I want to get to this point of I think if you really want to partner with God, and like I've had this thing in me since I, as long as I can remember, it's why I wanted to do martial arts and be a ninja, is I wanted to be a hero. I wanted to do something great, you know, I wanted some great purpose, I wanted, I wanted to like make a dent on the world in some good way. And I used to have dreams about, you know, some bank robber showing up in the grocery store and fighting him off and being a hero, like funny stuff, kid stuff, you know, in in my mind. But there is this piece of if you really have that feeling in your heart, like I have a I'm supposed to have a purpose and something's missing, like something's supposed to be great, you might want to start with consecration and asking the Lord to prepare you.

SPEAKER_02 35:53

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 35:54

Um doesn't mean it's not gonna be a dangerous thing to be praying or to be doing. Um, because a lot of the time if you're gonna be on the front lines, there's there's a there's a lot of implications in spiritual place, but I think consecration is a thing that we should be using to understand how we are prepared to do the work of the kingdom, to do the Lord's work on earth. Um so how can I be consecrating myself?

SPEAKER_03 36:31

Like if I wanted to intentionally set myself apart and be prepared. Um, well, fasting's a good way, like you were seeing earlier. It creates all of this clarity and it's easier to hear from the Lord. So if you're asking him, What do you want me to do? How do I get ready? If you're fasting, I think you're gonna get a response to that clearer, more clearly.

SPEAKER_00 37:00

We're not recommending a specific fasting regimen that's between you and the Lord. I've done Daniel fasts, I've done differently.

SPEAKER_03 37:09

I mean, some people with um certain physical, like like medical limitations where they really can't mess with their diet, right? They'll fast a certain snack.

SPEAKER_01 37:19

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 37:20

It doesn't have to be the extreme. Obviously, you can go extreme study before you do that, please. There's great books on fast water fasting in 20 days and and all that. But if fasting, I think, is more about a heart posture and preparing yourself to hear from the Lord, creating some sort of discomfort or stop in your normal autopilot daily routine to make you stop and hear from the Lord.

SPEAKER_00 37:50

Um it's that doing a new thing and changing that rhythm and right.

SPEAKER_03 37:54

It creates space. So even fasting social media, yeah, that's a great one to create a lot of space.

SPEAKER_00 38:02

Just don't fast podcasts.

SPEAKER_03 38:05

But it can kind of quiet down some of that noise in your head and in your brain chemistry to maybe hear from the Lord. So consecrating, I think, is for me, it has been whenever I feel like I'm in a transition, I and the Lord's gonna ask me to do something specific. I know he's gonna ask me to stop doing something. And sometimes it's specific and sometimes it's kind of more general. But it it's that fact of consecration and kind of going to the next level of uh set apartness, if you will. Um like certain TV shows, certain types of movies. Yeah. I love TV, I really do. And there's been transitions and points in long along the way where the Lord's like, and you're done watching that. And you're done. Um I don't know, excusing feels like justifying.

SPEAKER_00 39:13

Justifying. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 39:14

But it it it was never condemning. He never was like, oh, you were so unholy from the world.

SPEAKER_00 39:19

I don't believe you watched gossip girl.

SPEAKER_03 39:20

Whatever it was okay, that was just for the clothes.

SPEAKER_00 39:24

But look, I'm just a great example. Yeah, okay.

SPEAKER_03 39:27

But yes, he got he he gets to a point where it's not about condemnation, it's about come closer. Yeah, it's about we're gonna do this cool thing, or we're gonna do this new thing. So that means you're done watching this type of show or movie. Or there's even been times where he's like, and you're done uh walking a close line with certain forms of dressing. I wouldn't say I've ever been immodest just because I was raised in the church and had some parents with strong feelings about clothes. But I definitely like rode the line pretty hard in my 20s of what I felt like was a little bit racy and showed a little bit of wrist. Things like of that nature. Where then the Lord was like, okay, now you're done toying with the idea of rebellion.

SPEAKER_02 40:25

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 40:26

And you're gonna dress a certain way. That's still like fun and pretty. But there's a there's a a set apartness.

SPEAKER_01 40:36

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 40:37

And uh so yeah, I think it's diet, it's uh it's media, it's clothes. I've uh heard stories of people like having to move to a different part of town, having to change the type of car they drive, having to um I'm trying to think, like like what they do with their money. If thinking of that friend in an old small group where he got radically called to pay down all of his debt, like student loans and and all this debt, and he talked about how he was eating a lot of eggs because they were nutritionally dense and cheap, and you could tell he was not enjoying the eggs, right? But it was serving the purpose of what God had called him to do with his finances, yeah. And that for him in that season was a consecration. Yeah. In order, like you said, to be able to do this this purpose, this obedience, he had to change how he was eating. So, and and it can be also your time. Like, what are you doing with your time? When we graduated in 2008 and there was the crash in the market, and we both were struggling to get work, you got four part-time jobs, and I got nothing. So I learned how to cook um because I had the time, but I also spent about four hours a day reading my Bible and praying because I felt like God was saying to me, you have this time and you're not just gonna waste it watching TV. And this season is rare, and this time with me is actually gonna be pretty rare. And I couldn't understand it at the time. I didn't necessarily know I was gonna be a mom. I definitely didn't know we were gonna have four kids. I didn't know what it meant to have no time. Right. I didn't know what it meant to make time, right? I just had time. That's all I had. That was what you had, and God was like, and you're gonna spend a good chunk of that with me. And those are some of the sweetest times in memory um with the Lord and getting deeper into his word, getting deeper into prayer. Um so yeah, like it can be time.

SPEAKER_00 42:59

Yeah. So I feel like in our quest to make real world sense of consecration, we have actually just opened the beginning of how complicated, like how much is involved. Like we've just really expanded.

SPEAKER_03 43:20

Well, it's not a formula because it's right. Your walk with God is a relationship. So what he's gonna ask you to do for consecration is probably gonna be different than what he's asking the next person.

SPEAKER_00 43:32

Well, I guess I'm not just gonna go open the Old Testament and do what all the Levites were doing then.

SPEAKER_03 43:36

I mean, it can be a good starting point. All right, we're gonna need some livestock, and just well, I just love I think that ties back to what that moment with Jesus and Peter and John, where Jesus was talking about the ways he was kind of hinting at the ways the disciples were gonna die. Oh, and Peter was. Like, oh gosh, like because he was saying this Peter specifically, you're gonna be allowed where you don't want to go. Yeah, uh, you're gonna he's kind of referencing the way Peter was gonna die. It sounded pretty awful, and it was pretty awful if you look at history. And he's listening to this, and he's like, Well, what about John? Is he gonna have some of this, some of this awfulness? Right. And God just was like, What's it to you? What how he ends, that's his story. You're this is your story, I'm talking about, and kind of like kind of makes a good point of you know, your story is your story, and John's story is John's story, but also it's kind of like a the mystery of the Lord where it's not gonna be the same and we don't know why. Yeah, but I think too, it emphasizes the fact that there is no formula when it comes to following Jesus because he's a person, because he wants relationship, which he made really clear in a lot of places in the Bible.

SPEAKER_00 45:02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 45:02

If we have a formula, we don't need to talk to him.

SPEAKER_00 45:07

Yeah, if we can formula anything out and turn it into a system, we absolutely do that in the Western culture.

SPEAKER_03 45:14

Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 45:15

And then we just follow the system because then we're replicating this is how God did the thing, so we're just gonna keep doing the system, but actually you have to do the hard thing of keep consecrating and going on that journey so you hear from God actually, and not just I'm just gonna do the same thing over and over and over. Like I've known people who are just really sweet, really great people who um read their Bible every day and they have a certain degree of spiritual discipline, um, and they love the Lord, but they also don't really know Holy Spirit, and they don't really hear from God. Um, and there's that one step riskier, and yeah, this isn't meant to be any negative to them. They're beautiful people, um, but there is this deeper thing of actually stopping and doing listening prayer, getting silent, making space for God and and hearing from him, and not just um learning about him or following, just like you were talking about in your younger years, how your reason for the decisions that you made was because you didn't want to stop hearing God and you didn't want to lose that sweetness. And for me, I was just doing it out of sort of moral obligation. I just decided this is the right thing to do. That was your formula, that was my formula, which kept me from some trouble. Um, but also, you know, I was missing, I didn't quite have the richness, and I think that's part of the consecration is to be set apart and holy and to be close to God. Right. And that's the beauty in it.

SPEAKER_03 46:54

That's unto relationship, and that nearly Jesus is the actual reward, and it's the arc example to carry the presence.

SPEAKER_00 47:02

You're when you're consecrated, you can carry the presence.

SPEAKER_03 47:05

Right. Right. You can bring forth worship and sacrifice and draw near.

SPEAKER_00 47:15

Alright, I think we found the best. I think the rest will just be more pontification on my part. I'm sure you have more good things, but thanks for joining. Thanks for listening to the Archie and Edda podcast. We hope this conversation encouraged your faith, challenged your thinking, and pointed you back to God's Word. Until next time, keep walking with Jesus, keep loving well, and keep leaning in to what God is speaking.