If you’ve spent any time at all in a church anywhere in America (especially at the end when the music is playing and the emotions are flowing), then you’ve heard somebody tell you that you need to make Jesus the Lord of your life. Heck, forget church. If any of the following apply to you, you’ve probably heard it, too:
- You spend time flipping through religious cable programming early in the morning or late at night, or
- You attend festivals with large crowds where people hold signs and hand out religious pamphlets like they’re giving away candy, or
- You have a church-going Grandma.
And while I’m not knocking any of those situations (especially church-going Grandmas), I do want to tell you the 1 obvious reason why you and I can’t make Jesus Lord. My guess is that it’s so simple, you’ve missed it. The reason?
He already is.
That may surprise you, and before you go running down the road ahead of me warning everyone who may read this that I’m guilty of heresy, allow me to walk you through a couple of mental gymnastics and then share with you why I think this is so critical.
It’s always good to start with the Bible
As I’ve been researching this idea, I’ve realized something. Nowhere in the Bible are people told to make Jesus Lord. But there are plenty of places in the Bible where people are told that Jesus is Lord. A few that come to mind are:
Then Jesus said to them, “The Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath.” (Luke 6:5 – emphasis added)
They will wage war against the Lamb, but the Lamb will triumph over them because He is Lord of lords and King of kings–and with Him will be His called, chosen and faithful followers. (Revelation 17:14 – emphasis added)
On His robe and on His thigh He has this name written: King of kings and Lord of lords. (Revelation 19:16 – emphasis added)
Here’s one last passage that really drives this home:
Therefore God exalted Him to the highest place and gave Him the name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. (Philippians 2:9-11 – emphasis added)
What is clear from these verses is that Jesus isn’t waiting around for you or me to make Him Lord of anything because God has already made Him Lord of everything. Is Jesus any less Lord if you or I don’t say He is? Of course not, any more than I would cease to be my children’s dad even if they stopped telling people I was.
Wait, so you’re saying we all go to heaven?
Absolutely not. What I am saying is that I’m not sure we fully understand the absoluteness of Jesus’ Lordship. Towards the end of the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus shocked His listeners when He told them that not everyone who said “Lord, Lord” would actually be saved (Matthew 7:21-23). But He did tell them who would be saved: “he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven.”
So what is God’s will? What can we do that will give us 100% certainty that we won’t be kicked out of heaven at the last-minute like the poor dudes in Jesus’ sermon?
Therefore they said to Him, “What shall we do, so that we may work the works of God?” Jesus answered and said to them, “This is the work (think, will) of God, that you believe in Him whom He has sent.” (John 6:28-29)
Basically, these men asked Jesus the same thing we are: what’s the one thing I can do that will guarantee me salvation? Jesus’ answer wasn’t “make me your Lord.” It was “believe in Me.” Now, to us, believing in Jesus is the same as “give Him an hour on Sunday and if you really love Him, maybe even Wednesday.” But in the Bible, believing was the same as “accepting and acknowledging in such a way that actions would change to match” whatever was being believed.
I can believe a chair exists, but I don’t believe in that chair until I sit in it. Believing biblically assumes action. A lot of people “make Jesus Lord” in the same way. They believe He lived and died for their sins. They even believe that He rose again. But their lives don’t reflect that He IS Lord because they’re still doing whatever THEY want.
If everything hinges on you and me “making” Jesus Lord, then that might change some things. But if Jesus already IS Lord, well, that changes everything, and that might be the biggest reason why we bristle at it.
The unseen danger of pride
If you’ve stayed with me this far, your head is probably spinning. It would be so easy to simply say that this is all just semantics and not waste another minute on whether we should make Jesus Lord or accept that He already is. But let me try to clarify this in such a way that allows us to see the insidious nature of pride and how it can blind us to our real need of Jesus.
Consider this quote from A. W. Tozer:
Christianity today is man-centered, not God-centered. God is made to wait patiently, even respectfully, on the whims of men. The image of God currently popular is that of a distracted Father, struggling in heartbroken desperation to get people to accept a Savior of whom they feel no need and in whom they have very little interest. To persuade these self-sufficient souls to respond to His generous offers God will do almost anything, even using salesmanship methods and talking down to them in the chummiest way imaginable.
This view of things is, of course, a kind of religious romanticism which, while it often uses flattering and sometimes embarrassing terms in praise of God, manages nevertheless to make man the star of the show. (from Man: The Dwelling Place of God, p. 27 – emphasis added)
In an irony to beat all ironies, our sudden decision to “make Jesus Lord” still leaves room for us to take pride in having the wisdom to make that decision. We call our friends and tell them that we just walked the aisle at church and that we made Jesus Lord. But if we choose to make Him Lord today, then couldn’t we just as easily choose to make ourselves lord tomorrow?
“Many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord…”
But what if salvation had less to do with you and me making Jesus anything and had more to do with you and me accepting who Jesus already is? What if instead of us coming to Jesus, it was more about Jesus coming to us? Then, wouldn’t salvation be so much more about God’s faithfulness instead of our brilliance in picking Jesus? And wouldn’t that make the foundation of our hope more secure when our feelings about that choice change the next day, or hour, or even second? Of course it would.
This could easily leave all of us wondering what hope any of us have for being saved? Our hope comes from the simple fact that God has been seeking us even when we weren’t seeking Him (Psalm 14:2), that He didn’t stop seeking us even when it meant sending His own Son on a deadly rescue mission (Luke 19:10), and that He is committed to bringing everyone who believes in that Son into life with Him (John 3:16). What do we bring to the table? Nothing. Just a heart full of sin that acknowledges His lordship, and a life full of trust that acknowledges that biblically believing in Him means obediently walking with him (see Romans 10:9; John 15:5; Acts 16:31).
JESUS IS LORD.
Those 3 words change everything, and every one who has ever lived, is living, or ever will live will do so in repentance or rebellion because of them.
But none of us will ever have the ability to make Him anything less.
