Daily Devotions
Jesus Is Lord
Reading for November 27th: Romans 9-10
if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.
Romans 10:9
It's hard for us to appreciate how significant the confession, "Jesus is Lord" truly is.
I remember in a Bible class having a discussion about the confession and our teacher impressed upon us that to those living in the first century the confession had huge implications. He said that to say "Jesus is Lord" for them was to say Caesar is not Lord. To say that at the height of the Roman Empire was to make a bold statement indeed.
We don't think of the confession in this way. We would never say, "If Jesus is Lord then the President is not." No one thinks of the President in that way. We live in a democratic society. In some ways, the President is subject to us. He is aware of his "approval rating" because if he doesn't make us happy we'll vote him out! We simply don't see him as our "lord" the way Romans viewed Caesar as "lord."
But the implications of the confession "Jesus is Lord" are just as broad and profound for us as they were for first century saints. The only difference is this: instead of dethroning Caesar, we must dethrone self. If self is the 21st century version of Caesar, then all the saints should say together...
If Jesus is Lord then I am not.
We enthrone you in our hearts as Lord, to the One who is the blessed and only Sovereign, the King of kings and Lord of lords.
