1. _Individuality._ It is to be a personal thing. "Present yourselves." We cannot fulfil our Christian mission by transferring it to other hands. There are no proxies in religion. Organisations, committees, associations, the giving of money--all have their propriety, but none of them can take the place of personal "presentation." For convenience' sake, organisations of various kinds may be resorted to with a view to the maintenance and spread of the gospel in the world, and undoubtedly may be usefully employed in spheres beyond the reach of personal endeavour; but the individual Christian must _himself_ be engaged in the service of God. Every believer in the Saviour has his own sphere of service, in which no fellow creature can be substituted for Him. The Christian law is: personal service always in so far as it is possible; vicarious service only in so far as personal service cannot be rendered.
2. _Activity._ "A living sacrifice." No man fulfils his Christian commission in mere retirement and contemplation. It is true that he is not to be "of the world;" but in the nature of the case he must be "in" it. Retirement and contemplation are, indeed, needed for the rest and growth of the soul; but action is at least equally indispensable. Our practical life is the chief part of our testimony for God, and the chief weapon of our aggressive warfare upon the unbelief and irreligion around us; and in order that it may be effective, it is required, in its fulness and in its energy, to be pervaded, invigorated, impelled, and directed by the Christian spirit. Every scene, every experience, every development of life is to be hallowed. If we "present ourselves a living sacrifice," we relinquish all self-claim, and give ourselves up to God to be used by Him for the purposes of His glory. As Christ's sacrifice began with the moment when He left His Father's throne, so ours must begin with the first consciousness of our salvation--"a living sacrifice," the consecration of the whole life with all its powers.
3. _Holiness._ "Holy," because _to God_, with the full intention and devotion of the soul. This scarcely needs to be insisted on. There may be an apparent religious devotedness which is not real, because it takes the form of ostensibly religious acts--acts, however, which have not their origin and their impelling force in grateful love to God for His saving mercy, but in some kind of selfishness, and which are therefore unholy in themselves, and unacceptable to God. The consecrated life is the life which is in sympathy with the whole character and will of Him by whom the supreme blessing of redemption has been bestowed.