Inherently, and by definition, if He is not Lord of all, then He is not Lord at all.
Now that they’re grappling with what changes God is calling them to make, they’re both finding that the execution of God’s instruction is much harder than their intellectual belief in God. And I totally get it.
Believe in your heart and confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord. But then you gotta make sure your life is saying the same thing as your mouth. That’s where it gets tricky.
One of these women – who I must say is a dear friend – confessed that her wrestling isn’t so much about knowing what God wants her to do. That’s pretty clear. Rather, her hesitancy is more in how her obedience will impact those she cares about.
Of course, my gut reaction was “You have to obey God and forget everything else!” But I didn’t say that. I paused, asked the Holy Spirit to help me, and followed His lead as I affirmed her sensitivity. When we make choices towards the things of God, and we have loved ones around us who aren’t quite at the point of prioritizing those things, we have to consider our delivery.
Believe in your heart and confess with your mouth. But then you gotta make sure your life is saying the same thing as your mouth.
Will our obedience to God draw our loved ones to the Lord, or cause resentment toward Him?
Sometimes, it’s not only about whether or not we obey, but how we obey. Like the old adage “It’s not what you said; it’s how you said it.” So I thought she displayed great wisdom in thinking about her delivery.
That said, she still has to make a bold decision to honor the lordship of Jesus in her life. If he’s not lord of all, then He’s not lord at all.
Sometimes I think of lordship like an onion, and each layer represents another layer of our sanctification. That first layer of the onion is paper thin and usually falls off the vegetable in the grocery bag before we even get it home.
Will our obedience to God draw our loved ones to the Lord, or cause resentment toward Him?
That first layer of sanctification is usually pretty easy too. Those are the things we usually already knew were wrong about lives even before Jesus came in. The moral issues we just didn’t realize were actually sin issues. It’s not a shock when Jesus comes for that first layer. And it’s not really painful because we saw it coming. We might have little pieces of onion paper to clean up, but for the most, it’s all ok.
The next layer of the onion is thin at the top, but gets a bit thicker in the middle. Still peels off pretty easily in a single layer though. But after that, things get a bit trickier. Not for Jesus. But for us.
After those first few layers come off, the onion gets harder to peel. Those inner layers don’t come off in one fell swoop. They often don’t peel away at all; more like they come off in broken chunks. And when the onion starts to break off revealing the water on the inside, that’s when our eyes start to water. It gets more painful.
So it is with our sanctification under the lordship of Jesus. There’s levels to this.
So it is with our sanctification under the lordship of Jesus. There’s levels to this.
The best thing we can do in those circumstances is just keep going. Don’t interrupt the work of God. Let Him lead. Let Him peel it all away. And be ok with the tears that come as a result.
If He’s not lord of all, then He’s not lord at all. But He IS lord of all. Lord in those tearful moments. Lord in the hard stuff. And He will be lord over the difficulty that others have with the choices you make in the name of Jesus.
How do you know if God is asking you to do something?
Peel the onion. Maybe even cry it out.
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