My Easter Prayer

As a prisoner for the Lord, then, I urge you to live a life worthy of the calling you have received. Ephesians 4:1 (NIV)

I am having trouble getting past the first six words of this passage in Ephesians. "As a prisoner for the Lord"... Have I EVER thought of myself this way? As a prisoner for the Lord? Not so much, I think.

A follower: Yes.
A disciple of the Lord: Yes
Sometimes even a servant of the Lord.

But a PRISONER... I retain much too much of my own self-will and self-determination to remotely begin to envision I am imprisoned in death to self and alive to life in Jesus.

That's too bad because being a prisoner for the Lord is probably the most liberating possible stance a person can make. Maybe that will be my Easter prayer, "Take me captive. Please, even if I resist!"

Speaking of Easter Prayers: I was thinking today how many Christians spend the forty days before Easter, the season of Lent, in prayer, fasting and supplication. This is a time of preparation for Easter... to willingly enter into suffering, deprivation, the cross. All of which makes Easter all the more triumphant in conrast... Easter with resurrection, LIFE, triumph over death.

Easter: Besides a day to worship in a beautiful church service, hunt for eggs, eat ham, enjoy coffee (or chocolate or all those other things we gave up for Lent), I want to make Easter something more this year.

I want to look upon it as New Year's Day. The day I sit back and take stock of my life. How am I doing in living up to the sacrifice Christ made for me? How am I doing in living a life of radical faith and radical obedience? Who am I serving? How am I growing (or receeding) in perfection? What goals would Jesus have me set for myself this year?

By asking those questions, and drafting goals, that seems like the real way I need to worship Jesus tomorrow on Easter. My songs of praise and prayers are nice, but I think he really wants my life. Maybe this year, I'll surrender more of that to my King who surrendered all for me.