(From my phone memo reflections...)
Making Jesus the LORD of every aspect of your life.
We always talk about how Jesus is Lord. How Jesus is my Lord, my King. But do we know what we’re actually saying? And what does that mean for our everyday life?
I have been dwelling on this for a few days now and it really struck me that I need to think deeply about this and then act quickly and wisely. For not only is He Lord of my life, He is the Omniscient God so I can’t hide anything from Him anyway.
Hmm how can we compare it to something we can humanly understand?
We have a Queen. She reigns, she has a kingdom. But we don’t really have her very words with us, or know what she says all the time. But if we did, and if she asked us to do something, we would have to do it, we would have to obey it. She’s the queen, we’re her subjects. She’s the one with power who is supposed to take care of us.
(Perhaps not the most fitting example for our times but…)
Okay, but how about police? They have authority. They enforce the law of our land. When they flash their lights behind us, we pull over. When a policeman steps out onto the road with his hand out to say STOP, we stop. We obey.
And think about our own situation - even our classrooms can help us understand this idea of lordship somewhat. As teachers, we, in a sense, rule the classroom. We have the power to say stop and expect the students to obey, to follow these directions. We have the final word as is part of our role.
So ultimately, having Jesus as your Lord, your King, means we need to obey Him. He has the final word - it is part of His role and part of who He is in making God known. And He will have the final word when He returns to judge the living and the dead. Jesus Himself says, “If you love me, keep my commandments.” John 14:15. Where do we find His commandments? God has been so good to give us His very words: Jesus’ spoken words on earth as scribed in the Gospels, but also we have the whole Bible being the divinely inspired word of God Almighty! So in here we can find all that we need for “life and godliness through the true knowledge of Him who called us by His own glory and excellence” 2 Peter 1:3b. It’s not just about being a good citizen, or doing good only in the eyes of others. Because the Lord Jesus Christ is the all-seeing, all-powerful Creator and Sustainer of the universe, seeing down to the quarks in atoms and all the galaxies undiscovered and everything in between. It’s definitely not like the Queen, or the police, or even us teachers, we see a lot but we miss a lot that happens too. Not with God. Not with Jesus. No, it’s about surrendering every. aspect. in. our. life. to the Lordship of Jesus Christ. Everything, no hidden rooms. No getting away with just Sunday best and doing good things in the light.
“The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.” Proverbs 1:1. Amen! It’s this right kind of sure fear and awe and wonder at one true living God that we desperately need in our busy or mundane or destructively self-reliant and self-centred days.
But hey if we start to think it’s all about guilt-tripping ourselves into living lives pleasing to God, there’s also something tremendously wrong going on! For the Holy Spirit is living in us, transforming us to be more like Christ from the inside out, and more and more we ought to see godliness as an immense privilege, a beautiful gift, a radical step toward glory in a broken world. Our desires are being changed to want to serve Jesus and honour Him in all we do. And yes there’s a terrible struggle with the flesh but we can fight temptation and we can win by Christ’s power and by the power of His blood. For what are we now that we are saved from utter darkness? We are Jesus Christ’s loyal servants and subjects in His eternal kingdom, and believe me He is a far better and wiser and kinder King than any monarch who has ever graced or disgraced the earth. And the best part is we can have a real relationship with Him, the King of kings! Not like our relationship (or lack thereof) with the Queen. There’s no dialogue, no real knowledge of the other. But oh with Jesus! We can know and talk to Jesus whenever, wherever, forever, for we know that God’s Word says nothing can separate us from His love (Romans 8:38).
