“Is Lordship just an ‘option’ for those who profess that Jesus is their ‘personal Savior’?”

In other words, is it really possible to claim Jesus as your ‘Savior’ (meaning your eternal destiny in heaven is a done deal)...without fully surrendering your heart to His Lordship?

If you don’t pause and find yourself struggling with this question, regardless of how you are inclined to answer it...then you might want to take an even longer pause and examine your heart to see if you are even ‘in the faith’...and ‘if Christ Jesus is in you’? (2 Cor. 13:5)

That really is a tough question we all need to be asking ourselves. It’s not like we are purchasing a new appliance to take home and call our own, but opt out of buying the ‘extended warranty protection plan’, given how pricey it can be.

If you were quick to affirm that Jesus is your ‘Savior’ and that your ‘place in heaven is secure’, but you view surrendering to His lordship over your life as some ‘holy option’ or perhaps some worthwhile goal to strive for but not necessary, I then have to ask why do you believe that, and who told you that is the case?

You do realize the ‘red letters’ in your Bible have Jesus stating: “Many will say to Me in that day, ‘Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Your name, cast out demons in Your name, and done many wonders in Your name?” (Matt. 7:22)....”and then...I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness (sin).”(23)

“I never knew you.” Wow...take a moment with that one, if you would. How could such a frightening scenario take place? Now I’m open to the possibility that we might have ‘once been known’...like those ‘many disciples’ we read about in John 6:60-66, but we also learn in that passage that ‘many’ of them went back and walked with Him no more.”(66). Are they just going to magically appear at the great wedding banquet we read about in scripture because they ‘started out’ with Him? (Matt. 24:13)

So who are the ones that Jesus ‘knows’? You’ll find some more ‘red letters’ in John 10:27 where He gives us a ‘hint’ by making this statement: “My sheep hear My voice....and I know them...and they follow Me.”

Can you underline that phrase, ‘they follow Me’? Notice He did not infer that they ‘believe’ in Him, or have ‘accepted Him in their hearts’. He said: “They follow Me!”

We read in Luke 6:46 where Jesus posed this question to a large group of people: “Why do you call Me ‘Lord, Lord,’ and not do the things which I say?” He then goes on to share a vivid illustration that can be lost on us at times, given the message it is conveying. Look at it with me:

“Whoever comes to Me, and hears My sayings and does them, I will show you whom he is like: He is like a man building a house, who dug deep and laid the foundation on the rock. And when the flood arose, the stream beat vehemently against that house, and could not shake it, for it was founded on the rock. But he who heard and did nothing is like a man who built a house on the earth without a foundation, against which the stream beat vehemently; and immediately it fell. And the ruin of that house was great.” (Luke 6:47-49).

If you read this same account in Matt. 7:24-27, Jesus identifies these two builders as one being ‘wise’ and the other is ‘foolish’. So the next time you read the parable of the ‘Ten Virgins’ and how five of them were wise and five were foolish, you might have a better understanding as to why the ‘wise’ virgins went in to the wedding banquet before the ‘door was closed’, and the ‘foolish’ virgins were left on the outside knocking (Matt. 25:1-12). And we hear those same words being uttered again...”I DO NOT KNOW YOU!” (12).

And what was the underlying difference between the two builders? They both ‘heard’ the sayings of Jesus, but it was the ‘wise’ ones who ‘does them’.

I realize if we’ve have had it engrained in us most of our spiritual life that God is all loving and merciful and just loves everybody... and we’re all going to be one big happy family someday, then many of these verses make little sense, and don’t ‘fit’ the narrative we’ve been fed. So consider this – why do we see strong emphasis placed on that first generation of people God delivered from Egypt as recorded in the book of Exodus, but then cited in both 1 Cor. 10 and Hebrews 3 where God was ‘not pleased with most of them’.

Do you know why...God dealt with them in the manner that He did? They refused to ‘believe’ Him, as in ‘do’ what He asked them to do. Paul even spells it out for us there how these things happened to them as examples and warnings to ‘us....upon whom the end of the ages has come’ (1 Cor. 10:6-11). And if you read Heb. 3:14-19, once again, the finger of God is pointed at this same group, reminding us that God ‘swore they would not enter His rest’ simply due to ‘unbelief’ (18-19)... evident by...their lack of obedience.

But it’s the next statement in 4:1 that should have us sitting up and taking notice: “Therefore, since a promise remains of entering His rest, let us fear lest any of you seem to have come short of it.” Why such the heavy warning here? Is God as serious about all this ‘following Him and obeying stuff’...as He sounds?

Well....is He?

Did Jesus not make it known in Matt. 7:21- “Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father in heaven.” Which leads us to another important question to ask....and we will look at that tomorrow, Lord willing.