Monday, April 11, 2016

Savior... and Lord

By Niki Turner

There's a line of thought in current Christian circles that says accepting Jesus as your personal Savior is not quite enough to access all the benefits of salvation. You must also make Him the Lord of your life on this earth.

First, in my opinion, religious folk have spent the last 2000 years coming up with addenda to the requirements for salvation the way our current Congressmen spend most of their limited weeks of work adding extra details that benefit their personal agenda to every legislation they enact.

Second, I'm weird about "requirements." I like to dot my i's and cross my t's. Don't you?

We know what it means to call on Jesus as Savior (if you don't, please ask, because it's very simple and life-transforming!). But what does it mean to call on Him as LORD?

Well, what point of reference do we have for "lord"?
The Hebrew and Greek translations mean "someone who has complete ownership."

I'm OK with the idea of Jesus "owning" me. Someone needs to be responsible for me! But that puts all the responsibility on Jesus, and that doesn't work well with our modern DIY evangelical protestant perspective. What's OUR part? What are we supposed to DO? (This is, of course, AFTER we believe, after we accept, after we acknowledge our need for salvation.)

For myself, my point of reference for "Lordship" comes from medieval English history. The Lord of the manor, the Lord of the castle, the LORD was responsible for the health, the safety, the provision, the well-being of all who called on him as Lord. Some Lords were benevolent and gracious and good. Some were wicked.

Thankfully, Jesus is in the former group. He has our best interests at heart, is ever-ready to listen to our complaints, and has our best and highest good in mind. He wants what is best for us.

In my opinion, this is incredibly freeing. Our connection with God, what we believe He is doing for us, is not about what we do or how well we perform, it's about who HE is to us. He's our Lord. We can rely on Him. We can yield to Him. We can trust Him.

Have you ever considered what it means to make Jesus your Lord?
What does it mean to YOU


Niki Turner is a novelist, journalist, blogger, and the production manager for the Rio Blanco Herald Times weekly newspaper, one of the oldest continuously operating newspapers in Colorado. Her first completed manuscript earned second place in the Touched By Love 2009 contemporary category romance contest. She also blogs at www.nikiturner.net.
Niki is a Colorado native who grew up in Glenwood Springs—home of the world’s largest hot springs pool. She married her high school sweetheart 26 years ago. They have four children, four grandchildren, and two West Highland White Terriers.



In 2014, she published “Sadie’s Gift” as one of the Christmas Traditions novella collection with eight other authors.  The Skiing Suitor, one of the Love’s Sporting Chance series published by Forget-Me-Not Romances, released in August 2015. Her most recent project, “Santiago Sol,” was published by Pelican Book Group as part of the Passport to Romance novella collection. She’s currently working on a new novella for Whitefire Publishing, one for Barbour House, and four for Forget-Me-Not Romances.






 

4 comments:

  1. Jesus said that if we ask forgiveness and invite him into our hearts, we will see him in heaven.

    It stands to reason then that if he's in our hearts, he is the Lord of our body and mind and we should try out best to act in a way pleasing to him.

    I don't always succeed, but I try.

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  2. I think it's a matter of 'benefits'. I believe in grace -believing we need Him as Savior and accepting that means that part is done. I guess the other things that come up as 'requirements' often refer to how we make it through this life and it's many ways to stumble (and stumbling is no fun but it usually means we learn more as well). So in some ways, it's like whether or not we listen to mom and dad, as children. Jesus is Lord of our lives, but if we don't care to act like it's true, we have less of chance of smooth sailing. Our choices along the way determine so much of it.

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