A Prayer for Kingdom Life
I wrote this prayer as part of a larger document I put in the Pages section of this blog. As I read through the prayer it hit me how solemn an occasion it would be to pray this prayer and really mean it. It is a dangerous prayer. If you pray this prayer and you really mean it, look out. Your life will change.
If you are reading this blog, it is probable that you are already living in the Kingdom of God. None of us live there perfectly or completely. All of us need to repent daily. But since the emperor Constantine, the Gospel of the Kingdom has been largely replaced in the Church with the Gospel of Salvation or, as Dallas Willard calls it, the Gospel of Sin Management. It is possible that you have never heard the Gospel of the Kingdom preached or explained. If you find yourself increasingly anxious, fearful (and there is a lot of fear in the world today), discouraged, depressed, and wondering where Jesus is in your life, perhaps you are living too much in the kingdom of self. My prayer for all of us, me included, is that by the grace of God we will find in His Kingdom the abundant life God has always desired for His children and that by this same grace we will be the vessels through which His Kingdom life pours into the lives of others.
Jesus, I can no longer live in my own power in this coffin the world calls life. It is not too hot, not too cold; it is not too light, not too dark. It is a place of emptiness, a place of settling for the unimaginative, the easy way, a boring life of giving in and getting something more than death but less than the life that my soul aches to know. I am living a meaningless and poor existence where the most important person is ‘me’. I am constantly surprised that the world doesn’t share this view, doesn’t even acknowledge my needs. I am alone living in the kingdom of self, even in the midst of family and friends I am depressed, afraid, anxious, and at the end of my rope.
Jesus, I sense deep in my heart that there is another way to live. I have heard about your Kingdom and frankly it sounds too good to be true. A life of peace, joy, and hope? An exciting, bright, shining life of freedom, power, and goodness? A life filled with the Holy Spirit? Where someone other than me is at the center, and all the pressure is off to produce and live up to the world’s expectations? Where I no longer have to worry about acceptance, where I am no longer afraid of rejection? Where I can have an unoffendable heart? Is this life really possible right now? I don’t have to die to experience this?
Jesus, I am ready to surrender my life to you and live with you in the Kingdom of God. I can’t live this way in the kingdom of self anymore. Please Jesus, show me your Kingdom. I am desperate. I place all of who I am in Your Hands. I give you all of my life as I turn away from the life of self. Take it and make me into the person who will best serve your purposes. I only ask Jesus that You will show me the way to live this life out in the world around me. I have no idea what to do or how to do it. I am completely and utterly yours. I trust that it is not too late. Jesus, have mercy on me today.
I pray this expectantly, in Jesus’ name.
Amen