Think through something with me. Imagine you and your family take a vacation to a beach hours away from your home. You travel all the way there but there is bad weather all week. On the last day, however, you are able to swim and you and your family take the entire day swimming in the ocean. Then it happens, you catch a nasty cramp and begin to drown. Luckily the lifeguard is attentive and does his job and saves you from drowning. You say thank you, and you and your family pack up and go home. This lifeguard saved you…but that is about it. I am afraid many “Christians” today treat Jesus like you treat this Lifeguard. We greatly appreciate Jesus saving us because we asked him to after VBS, an emotional youth weekend, or a powerful revival. The problem is we simply say thank you and move on with our lives. Jesus is not our lifeguard…Jesus is our Lord.
What Does Lord Mean?
Dictionary.com defines Lord as “someone or something having power, authority, or influence; a master or ruler.” How many of us truly allow Jesus to have ultimate power and authority over our lives? How many of us truly worship Jesus as Lord and Savior? It seems to me that many of us want a comfortable, convenient, and easy-belief Jesus. When Jesus becomes Lord of our lives it means we surrender as slaves to His will. It means that Galatians 2:20 is the cry of our lives because we no longer live for our own gain but rather live a life that is only Christ living through us. You see, when Jesus becomes Lord we no longer care what others may think about us if we proclaim His name, instead, our only care is how we can further proclaim His name in every walk of life. Do you allow Jesus and His Word to have the final say in all the decisions in your life? From where we are going to go to school or work, to if we are going to go tell the person at the table next to us about Jesus.
Correcting Our View
The American Church has created a false view of Jesus that allows him to be Savior and not Lord. The reality of the Bible is that Jesus cannot be Savior if he is not Lord. Romans 6:18 says that as we were set free from sin we become slaves to righteousness. Jesus is not a magic genie in a bottle that saves us from sin and gets out of our lives. Jesus is the King of Kings who was beaten to a pulp, hung naked on a cross, and placed in a grave, only to rise three days later. All of this was for the sins of man, and all he asks for is total and complete surrender…nothing less.
