Don’t Make Jesus Your “Personal” Lord and Savior!?
By: Dr. Mike
Christian author David Pratt wrote an excellent book entitled: Follow Me; and in this book, you will find a chapter labelled, “Don’t Make Jesus Your Personal Lord and Savior.”
When you first read the title of the chapter–knowing that you’ve been taught that Jesus is my personal Lord and Savior, you have to catch yourself from labeling Mr. Pratt a religious heretic.
After reading the chapter, you come to realize that he makes perfect sense, even though we love to say, “Jesus is my personal Lord and Savior.” When we say, “I made Jesus my personal Lord and Savior,” it minimizes the inherent authority of Jesus, because none of us has the authority to make Him Lord. Jesus is Lord, regardless of what you or I decide. [It’s like the old cliché: God said it! I believe! That settles it! God said it, that settles it!]
In Philippians 2:10-11, it states, “That every knee will bow in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue will confess Jesus as Lord.” Saints, when you break this passage down, what it’s saying is: The entire universe is called to worship Jesus Christ as Lord; it includes the angels in heaven, the spirits of the redeemed, obedient believers, the disobedient rebel here on earth, demons and lost humanity in hell.
The real question isn’t whether we will make Him Lord, the real question is whether we will submit to His Lordship which is what salvation is all about. Some people say, “Jesus is my Lord”, meaning they accept the salvation portion of His Lordship, but they have a problem of making Him Lord over their lives, meaning, they still enjoy worldly behaviors such as, going to the club, drinking, gambling, etc.
One pastor put it this way (and I wholeheartedly agree with him). He said, “We use the phrase ‘Jesus is my personal Lord and Savior to customize Christianity to make Jesus fit our own preferences, church traditions, and culture. We take the Jesus of the Bible and twist Him into someone with whom we are a little more comfortable. We dilute what He says about the cost of following Him; we disregard what He says about those who chose not to follow Him; we practically ignore what He says about materialism, and we functionally miss what He says about mission. We pick and choose what we like and don’t like from Jesus’ teachings. In the end, we create a nice, non-offensive, politically correct, middle-class, American Jesus who looks just like us, and thinks like us.”
Saints, Jesus isn’t the one who needs to be remolded, shaped, and changed: We are the ones being molded in the Potter’s hand. According to Romans 12:1-2, “We are to present our bodies a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is our reasonable service. We are not to be conformed to this world, but to be transformed by the renewing of our minds, that we may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect will of God.”
We are being transformed into His image, so that we can fill His mission in the earth – and that to go and proclaim Jesus as Lord and Savior to the entire world – because He is Lord of everything and everyone, and is worthy of all praise, not just the little bit I can offer Him personally.
In the manual that I wrote on Evangelism: Winning The Lost at Any Cost, I quoted statistics from The George Barna Research Group which says, “Many Christians no longer believe that God is the Supreme Creator and ruler of the universe. Over half of those who call themselves Christians don’t believe that the Holy Spirit or Satan is real, and tens of millions of them don’t believe that Jesus is the divine Son of God. Half do not believe the Bible is completely true.”
Don’t ever meet the status of being a Carnal Christian. Apostle Paul said in 2 Corinthians 13:5, “Examine yourselves, to see whether you’re in the faith. Test yourselves. Or do you not realize this about yourselves, that Jesus Christ is it you? – unless indeed you fail to meet the test.” [Note: The Apostle made this statement to the Corinthians because they called themselves Christians and were doing things that even the Gentiles would be caught doing.]
To be a true Jesus follower, you have to believe totally in Jesus – in terms of who/what the Bible says about Him. Our hearts, minds, and lives revolve entirely around His word. The Apostle John said in the Gospel of John, Chapter 14, “The spirit of truth will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you.” This is the same Holy Spirit that energized the hearts and minds of the Apostles in their ministry, that enabled them to produce the New Testament scriptures; because they had failed to understand many things about Jesus and what he taught.
In John chapter 8, Jesus said, “If you abide in My word you are truly My disciple and you will know the truth and that will set you free. This reveals true discipleship, because perseverance and obedience to scripture is the fruit or evidence of genuine faith. Saints, the word ‘abide’ means to habitually abide in Jesus’ words.
Therefore, don’t be offended when you meet people who say, “Seriously, the Bible was written over 2,000 years ago: It’s outdated; we don’t have to live by the writings of the Old Testament or the saying of Jesus, because we don’t know if what was written (then) is still true today? I’ll use one biblical statement that will bury that foolish question, then we will move on. The Old Testament writers wrote about messianic prophesies and 20 of them are found in Psalms that Jesus fulfilled all of them; and in the New Testament, the Apostle Paul said in 1 Corinthians 15: 17-19, “And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins. Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ are lost. If only for this life we have hope in Christ, we are to be pitted more than all men.” Saints, if He did rise from the dead, if He did conquer death, then we have to do more than accept what Jesus said; we must condition our lives to completely carryout every detail of what He said.
I’ve literally heard people who profess to be Christians say, “Jesus is my savior, but I control my own life.” Saints, He is Lord and God (as proclaimed by Apostle Thomas), regardless of what anyone decides or says about Him.
Best selling author and Christian apologist Josh McDowell wrote a classic defense of the faith, that does an outstanding job answering the questions challenging evangelical faith today. The masterpiece is titled “Evidence that Demands a Verdict;” and in it Dr. McDowell wrote, “Jesus is either a liar, a lunatic, or He is Lord.” Saints, think about it for a moment. If HE was deemed to be a liar, no one (as Apostle Peter stated) would leave ALL to follow Him; and if He didn’t rise from the dead, with all the historical findings that have come out about Jesus, don’t you think they would have produced His body by now? And not only that, think of the horrific deaths 10 of his original 12 Apostles had, all because they witnessed His resurrection.
Jesus sums it up best in St. John 5:22-24, “The Father judges no one, but has given all judgment to the Son, that all may honor the Son, just as they honor the Father. Whoever does not honor the Son, does not honor the Father who sent Him. Truly, Truly, I say to you, whoever hears My word and believes Him who sent Me has eternal life. He does not come into judgment, but has passed from death to life.”
The Lordship of Jesus isn’t something that can be mentally obtain. However, following Jesus is much more than trying to be a good Christian and trying to make other people good Christians. The heart of New Testament revelation…is to learn how to live by the indwelling life of Jesus Christ. For without that, we have little idea about how to follow Jesus.
The Apostle Paul said, “That I may know Him…” Serving must flow from knowing. Following Jesus means learning to live by His indwelling life…which necessitates and involves knowing Him deeply.