The Lordship of Christ

“For to this end Christ died and lived again,
that He might be Lord both of the dead and of the living.”
Romans 14:9

Jesus Christ is Lord! That’s the most basic truth that undergirds every Christian’s faith. Jesus is not only a Savior from sin, He is the Lord of life! I remember the first time this verse really took hold of me. It was when Brother Lew Miller preached at our church, Rockport Baptist, for the first time, back in the mid 1990's. Oh sure, I’d read Romans 14 several times over the years. But have you ever had the experiencing of something suddenly becoming clear to you in a way it hadn’t been before? That’s what it was like for me that day.

I’d known since the moment I'd become a Christian, that Jesus is Lord and that I must strive to obey Him in every area of my life. I knew it was impossible to be a Christian and at the same time refuse to follow Jesus. Nor could I honestly claim to belong to Him and yet continue in a lifestyle of Christ-dishooring sin (see 1 John 3). I’d even read John MacArthur’s wonderful, if somewhat controversial, book, “The Gospel According to Jesus” and found myself in full agreement with pretty much everything he said. But somehow Lew’s words came home to me that day with great power. I remember he said, “Jesus came into this world to be Lord! And what does Lord mean? It means ‘Boss’! Jesus has come to be the 'Boss' of your life, Christian! He’s the Boss Jesus Christ! He's the One you must follow and obey! And if He’s not your Boss, then He’s not your Savior either!”

Wow that really hit me! I’d shared the Gospel with a lot of people over the years, many of whom were willing to “pray the prayer”, but that’s about as far as it went! God was showing me again, that salvation does not come down to saying a prayer or going to church, it comes down to a supernatural work of God that causes us to surrender to Christ the Lord Who is mighty enough to save and worthy enough to rule all who repent and put their whole trust in Him!

Since those days I've come to see that this is the teaching of the entire New Testament. That Christ rules the lives of those He save, and that the saved love it that way. And that even when we fail to obey as we must, it always remains our desire to do so, knowing that "if we confess our sins, He is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness" (1 John 1:9)

May we continually bow our knees and joyfully confess that "Jesus Christ is Lord" to the glory of God the Father (Phil 2:10-11)

For Him,

Pastor Scott Lee