Prayer for Male Sexuality

From John Eldredge’s prayer in the Men Talking About Women CD set, disk 3, segments 4 and 5.

Three steps:

1. Consecration – I give myself fully to Christ
2. Repentance and Renouncing – I repent and renounce ways I’ve misused my sexuality
3. Healing – I ask Christ to come to broken places and heal

Prelude

Pray and allow Christ to come into whatever area in your life he wants to come to. You may know exactly what you need to bring to Christ right now. Allow Christ to come, speak and minister to that core part of you, your male nature, your sexuality. (Read Isaiah 61:1-3.)

Consecration

Jesus, I come to you now. I consecrate myself to you. “We have been bought with a price, we are not our own.” I have been purchased with the blood of Christ. And therefore, I surrender myself back to you now, Christ. I consecrate my life to you, Jesus. I give you my sexuality. I give you that masculine core within me; I give you the male longings I feel so often.

Jesus, I give you my strength and my weakness. I give you my body, my heart, with all its brokenness, my mind, my spirit. I give myself to you, God. My will, my intellect, I surrender to you completely, Jesus. And I declare your authority over my life. There is no one else that has a legitimate claim to my heart; only you have that claim.

Jesus, you are my ransom. You are my sovereign, and I give myself to you completely and unreservedly that I might be healed, cleansed, delivered and restored.

Jesus, I ask for your healing presence to come fill this room and to surround me. Surround me, Lord: my spirit and my mind. Silence every other voice. I command, in the name of Jesus, that only Christ may speak.

Jesus, I ask you to come and shine your light into my heart. Come into those deep places, Jesus: places of bondage, places of captivity, into my brokenness, cynicism, anger or resignation. Come into my addictions and my compulsions and my fear. Come to those places that feel so young. I give myself to you fully, Jesus, and to your work in my life.

Repenting and Renouncing

I ask for your forgiveness for the ways I have misused my sexuality. Jesus, you created it, you ordained it to be something of great glory and rich sensuality, without shame.

Jesus, would you come here to the sexual regions of my heart and would you forgive me for the way I have misused my sexuality. I renounce it: every act, work, look and relationship. I bring my sexuality under the lordship of Jesus Christ, under his redemption and his claim and under his promise to heal and deliver.

I allow you to bring to my mind right now things that I need to confess. I invite you to come, Jesus. What is it you are asking me to yield, to confess, to renounce?

And as he brings those things to mind, lay them before him, confess them, renounce them: the relationships, the abuse of your sexuality, fear, and withdrawal.

I renounce the way I have given the enemy claim in my life. Jesus, forgive me for making agreements with him. Forgive me for the agreements with sensuality, seduction, comforts, and false love. Forgive me for making agreements with fear, regret, remorse, and lack of forgiveness toward myself. Forgive me for saying things like: “I can never forgive myself for that.” I renounce those agreements, every way I have ever aligned my sexuality with human strength, with the lies of the enemy, with giving him claim and access to me.

Jesus, search me and show me the places where the deep agreements were made. For I would renounce them and yield my brokenness back to you. Jesus, forgive me for the mishandling of my sexuality. I ask for your blood to come now and cleanse me of my sins.

Also, Jesus, come to cleanse me of the sins that were done against me. I acknowledge the wounds done against me and the devastating results of those wounds. Join me in my pain, Jesus, as I remember. Heal me, now, of those sings, those wounds. Cleanse me of the sins done against me.

Cleanse with your blood those very places, the memories, emotions, and secrets. Cleanse in the places of my sexual arousal. Cleanse me in my imagination, in my eyes, and in my ears. Cleanse my hands, my body. Cleanse me with your blood, Christ. I return myself to you. I renounce every way that I’ve misused my sexuality. I’ve not rescued the beauty; I’ve not given my strength to help her in a true way.

Forgive me. I ask you to come heal the broken places within me. Come to the young and not so young places that are broken within me. And speak to me, Jesus.

Now quietly receive the forgiveness of Jesus. Receive his cleansing and healing. Let him restore your brokenness.

Healing

I ask you to destroy my captors, Jesus. I ask you to take your sword out against he enemy and the way he has turned wounds and agreements into places of bondage and captivity. Break the chains, Jesus. Cut them off.  Break the bondage, open the doors. Come for the heart the enemy has buried and held captive. Come to the place where I feel shame. Destroy the work of the enemy.

Jesus, you came to heal the broken hearted, to set the captive free. Bring my sexuality out of darkness and into the fields of freedom and light. Bring cleansing and righteousness as your gift to me. Restore me as a man.

Come, Lord Jesus, for my broken shattered places. Gather them together in your arms. Gather the young place into your arms; gather the older places. Gather them to you, Jesus, and heal me. I give you utter and total claim to me. I welcome my sexuality back as something holy, good and healthy. I choose to be restored and free. Cleanse me and restore me in Christ. Heal me, Jesus.

Right now he’s asking you to walk with him, to come with him out of the bondage. Rest quietly and let him heal, forgive, restore. Allow yourself to lay down all shame for the past and rest in his cleansing. Let him lead you to a new beginning of healthy sexuality.

I pray that your cleansing, healing light would fill my heart, Christ. I ask that the light of God in the face of Christ would shine in my heart and bring me healing and restoration. I give myself back to you, in every way. Mend my sexuality. Mend my strength. Mend the essence within me. I ask that you imbue me now with your masculine strength. Restore the essence, the deep, deep places within me, in my masculine core.

Help me to straighten up and look at you. Help me turn my eyes to you and fill me with your strength. Restore the essence of my masculinity. Christ, fill me with your grace, with your love, and with your strength. I welcome you into the shattered places of my heart: into my sexuality, into my darkness. I welcome you now, Christ, to restore me.

Let yourself listen to the voice of Jesus now. He wants to tell you that this is all true; that he is healing and restoring your sexuality, your masculine core. He wants you to let go of your cynicism, your guilt and shame; those things you use as a kind of comfort, a kind of friend. They are not your friends. Listen to Jesus. He wants you to know he created you to be a man, his man. And you are.

Christ, bring your deep validation to my heart. Speak to those core places now. What do you think of me as a man?

Listen again to Jesus and his answer to the question of what he thinks of you as a man.

Jesus, you have my permission to keep coming and to keep working here as long as you want to. Work on every place you need to reach and restore me to wholeness and holiness. Cleanse and deliver and heal.

In your name that is both powerful and holy, Amen.