The First Line

The first line of the Wesley Covenant Prayer should alert us to the reality that this is not a "Mickey Mouse" prayer. It is not some prayer prayed out there in a world of make believe, but a hard prayer which if taken seriously will shake the foundation of our spiritual reality.  Too many people who set out to follow Jesus do so thinking that the commitment to follow Christ is a peripheral issue of life.  To say that faith in Christ is a peripheral issue is to say that it is something to which lip service is given.  It is something which is not going to have a great impact on how we actually live.   

The first line is a personal word to God in which we declare, "I am no longer my own, but Thine."  Before letting the cement get hard, stop and consider what those words mean.  Are we really willing to turn lose the controls of our life?  Are we truly willing to submit willingly and without any reservation to His will for us even though it is contrary to our own will?  Is His agenda really more important to us than our own?  Are we willing to forsake any right to ourself for the sake of His?  Only the foolish would listen to these words coming forth from their own lips without a trembling of the spirit.  To really hear these words and to take them seriously is likely to send us back into the realm of declaring reservations and compromising the commitment.  

As we utter the very first words of this Wesley Covenant Prayer, we are either aware that we are stepping off the cliff with no safety net, or we have not really heard the intent of the words at all.  Wesley's words take us to the heart of the Apostle Paul who wrote at the very beginning of his letter to the Roman Christians, "Paul, a servant of Jesus Christ..." (Romans 1:1).  The word "servant" may be the more palatable translation, but the Greek word being translated is one which is defined as "slave."  Wesley's prayer speaks of our choosing willingly and without reservation to be as a slave to Jesus.  Hear the beginning words of the prayer carefully for such is who we are declaring ourselves to be and God is listening.