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My life as lord vs. the Lord of my life
Posted by
Bill
,
29 October 2011
·
1122 views
Sometimes there is confusion in my relationship with God and the reasons that I commune with him. This confusion infuses itself into my daily living with how I talk to him and how I honor him (or don’t honor him). This skews what I expect from the relationship and what drives my motivation for sharing about him in what I say and how I treat others. As is always the case the confusion starts with the face off between my life as lord vs. the Lord of my life.
Os Chambers says “We are acceptable with God not because we have obeyed, or because we have promised to give up things, but because of the death of Christ, and in no other way.” God told Moses to tell Israel to be holy “because I the Lord your God am holy”. I love because he first loved me. These are Biblical facts that I have memorized and tried to fix as foundational. Living this out in a relationship built on who someone is and not what they can do for you, temporally, does not seem intuitive. The battle rages, as my life as lord vs. the Lord of my life continues.
Because this turmoil takes place when I am immersed in the sludge of human encounters, I tend to fall back on my own understanding. Rather than simply living out my relationship with God because of who he is, I look for advantages that will pay off. This begins the run towards my life as lord vs. the Lord of my life conflict.
The cure for this mess is to go back to the cross, back to the God who wooed me in the beginning, the God who is worthy of worship because of who he is not what I believe he can do for me. Regardless of the swirl of activity surrounding my life and how it impacts me, God is worthy of worship. How I spin his effect in my life does not alter the reality of the authority and majesty he must have as the God of heaven and earth. The spillover of Christ from my life into others’ lives can only happen when I worship him as Lord of my life with no compromise.
Os Chambers says “We are acceptable with God not because we have obeyed, or because we have promised to give up things, but because of the death of Christ, and in no other way.” God told Moses to tell Israel to be holy “because I the Lord your God am holy”. I love because he first loved me. These are Biblical facts that I have memorized and tried to fix as foundational. Living this out in a relationship built on who someone is and not what they can do for you, temporally, does not seem intuitive. The battle rages, as my life as lord vs. the Lord of my life continues.
Because this turmoil takes place when I am immersed in the sludge of human encounters, I tend to fall back on my own understanding. Rather than simply living out my relationship with God because of who he is, I look for advantages that will pay off. This begins the run towards my life as lord vs. the Lord of my life conflict.
The cure for this mess is to go back to the cross, back to the God who wooed me in the beginning, the God who is worthy of worship because of who he is not what I believe he can do for me. Regardless of the swirl of activity surrounding my life and how it impacts me, God is worthy of worship. How I spin his effect in my life does not alter the reality of the authority and majesty he must have as the God of heaven and earth. The spillover of Christ from my life into others’ lives can only happen when I worship him as Lord of my life with no compromise.
The amazing thing is that God loves us even while we are sinners (Romans 5:8). And that no matter what we do, He couldn’t love us any more or any less (1 John 4:8-10;19). Even though we were God’s enemies, He adopts us as His sons (Ephesians 1:5) once we turn from our sins and trust Jesus as our Savior. He doesn’t adopt us because of anything we can give Him, because He is completely self-sufficient and needs nothing, and because all that we have He gave us in the first place (James 1:17).
I wrote about this in a blog post, Ask Not What You Can Do For God!:
http://savedbygraceb...do-for-god.html
Without Him we are nothing and can do nothing (John 15:4-5), but if we die to self and let Him live through us and reign in us, we are truly a new creation and will bear much fruit.
May we all be willing to yield to Him as LORD, and not only as Savior.
Laurie Collett, Saved by Grace
http://savedbygraceb...y.blogspot.com/