You call Me Teacher and Lord,
and you say well, for so I am. —John 13:13
“Our Lord never insists on
having authority over us. […] He leaves us perfectly free to choose […] But
once His life has been created in me through His redemption, I instantly
recognize His right to absolute authority over me. It is a complete and
effective domination, in which I acknowledge that “You are worthy, O Lord…”
(Revelation 4:11). It is simply the unworthiness within me that refuses to bow
down or to submit to one who is worthy […] The level of my growth in grace is
revealed by the way I look at obedience. We should have a much higher view of
the word obedience, rescuing it from the mire of the world. Obedience is only
possible between people who are equals in their relationship to each other;
like the relationship between father and son, not that between master and
servant. Jesus showed this relationship by saying, “I and My Father are one”
(John 10:30). “…though He was a Son, yet He learned obedience by the things
which He suffered” (Hebrews 5:8). The Son was obedient as our Redeemer, because
He was the Son, not in order to become God’s Son.” CHAMBERS
“My life is not my own, I
have been bought with a price” (1 Corinthians 6:19-20). To understand the condition of our
salvation. To understand the underlying spiritual
truths of our salvation is to understand the motivation to live in obedience to
the Father. Our desire to live in such a
manner should not be a faint notion, but it should be very context of every minute
of every day. A constant awareness of
who we are and whose we are. We were
once independent of God, but the day we placed our faith in Jesus we laid our
independence down at the foot of the cross.
We should not endeavor to pick it back up, and yet we do, don’t we? Do
the things of this world hold an attraction to you? Are you drawn to walk in the manner in which
you formerly did? Perhaps you already
are. We are all prone to wander. Prone to leave the God we love. I am certain that you have heard the saying “If
Jesus is not Lord of all, He is not Lord at all.” We all or at least most of us have these
little bastions of independence, of going our own way, doing our own thing, in
our lives. Do not convince yourself that
it is “OK”. It’s not. It’s nothing more and nothing less than your
old nature wanting its independence back.
It’s not just knowing what the Word says about how we are to live, but actually
living that way. Such a life requires honesty .. confessing
when we sin .. and determination … keeping our eyes fixed on Jesus. It’s a
grand life that we have been called to live … but we can live it only if Jesus
is Lord. CHARLEY
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