One Life To Give
Dr Terry Jones, January 6, 2010
Prayer for the Church
Father God, give us today a revelation of the great privilege we have to be part of the Kingdom of God. By the grace of God, bind us together as one body, let us make a difference and build the Kingdom of God. As the Revolutionary soldier Nathan Hale* said, just before the British hanged him, “I regret that I have only one life to give for my country.” Indeed, there is no reincarnation. We will not reappear as a better person. We are not coming back as a cow, a dog, a donkey. We have only so many years, so many months, so many days, hours. We must not use that in meaningless activities. Father let the older people see how many or how few years they have left. The younger people, give them a burden. Let them not waste their lives as the world does, let them not play it safe, go with the flow, flow with the crowd.
Let us stand up, let us do something different, let us proclaim the Gospel, the ways of God. Let it be proclaimed as we go out, let it be proclaimed in the schools, let it be proclaimed through the Company, through the Lisa Jones House. Let it be proclaimed inside the church, outside the church. Let us do as the church fathers did of the past. Let us do as Wesley did, William Booth, Finney, Moody. Let us move out. Let us bring the Gospel into the world.
Let us not be afraid to be rejected, to offend. Let us not seek popularity within the schools, with our playmates, with our friends. But, Father God, let us seek approval by God for the preaching of the Gospel, that we regret that we have but one life to give. Let us not waste that life. That is how the nation was founded, Father, by people that regretted that they could only die one time. Father, let us have that for the Kingdom. If we can have that for a nation, not matter how great or how small it is, how much more should we have that for the Kingdom of God with the eternal Gospel.
Every nation rises and falls, has times of greatness and times of lesser greatness, but the Kingdom of God is eternal. Father God, let it be grabbed a hold of by those of us that have years left, and especially by the young people that are just getting started. Help them not to sell out, not to give in to a spirit of fear, a spirit of compromise, of conformity. We are not here to conform. We are here to transform.
* Nathan Hale (June 6, 1755 – September 22, 1776) was a soldier for the Continental Army during the American Revolutionary War. Widely considered America's first spy, he volunteered for an intelligence-gathering mission, but was captured by the British. He is best remembered for his speech before being hanged following the Battle of Long Island, in which he said, "I only regret that I have but one life to give my country."
