A New Year's Resolution: The Wesley Covenant Prayer
Praying in the New Year
Yesterday in worship we shared in the Wesley Covenant Prayer, which is actually part of a larger covenant service that’s in our new hymnal, Our Great Redeemer’s Praise. The Wesley Covenant Service has traditionally been used by those in the Wesleyan world on the first Sunday of a new year as a way to recommit ourselves to spiritual disciplines, godly living, and the work of the Kingdom in response to God’s grace given to us in Jesus Christ.
All of that is bound up in the Covenant Prayer, which is actually a prayer of surrender to God and God’s purposes for us. At the beginning of the year, we commit ourselves wholly to God and give God permission to use us or lay us aside as he wills. As such, it’s a prayer that requires some deep thought, resolve, and faith. We offer it to God knowing that we can’t keep our end of the covenant without the power of the Holy Spirit working in us to shape us into the people God made us to be. God is faithful even when we are not, and though we may stumble, God is always ready to renew us and to faithfully move us back on the path to holiness, discipleship, and peace.
I invite you to pray this Covenant Prayer on this first day of 2024 and consider how God might be using you in the new year, and how God might use us together as Aldersgate Church to work out his purpose for his glory:
“I am no longer my own, but yours. Put me to what you will, rank me with whom you will. Put me to doing, put me to suffering. Let me be employed by you or laid aside for you, exalted for you or brought low for you. Let me be full, let me be empty. Let me have all things, let me have nothing. I freely and heartily yield all things to your pleasure and disposal. And now, O glorious and blessed God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, you are mine, and I am yours. So be it. And the covenant which I have made on earth, let it be ratified in heaven. Amen.”
We’ll be emphasizing the discipline of prayer in our next sermon series, which begins on January 14. The School of Prayer will explore the nature and purpose of prayer, how to pray, and how prayer shapes us as the people of God. As we begin the new year, one of my personal priorities is to be more diligent and disciplined in my prayer life. I hope that might one of your priorities, too!
Meanwhile, if you’re interested in learning more about the Wesley Covenant Service and the Wesley Covenant Prayer, you might want to listen to this episode of my Wednesdays with Wesley podcast in which I take a deep dive into this unique Wesleyan tradition.
Happy New Year!