Daily Devotions
If Jesus Is Lord
Reading for February 23: Deuteronomy 5-8
Weekly reading for February 18-24: Romans 6-10
Title: If Jesus Is Lord
...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.
For Christians living in the Roman Empire, to say "Jesus is Lord" 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," because no one thinks of him in that way. We live in a democracy. The President must make us happy. He must please us. He must be 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 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!"
Christ Jesus, You are Lord over us all. Help us to confess this truth with our lips and with our lives.
