Prayer Focus

2 Corinthians 4:5. “For we do not preach ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord, and ourselves as your servants for Jesus’ sake.”

Christ our Lord is the touchstone of the faith, the central truth of the church. Christ our Lord affects mission and method. Misunderstanding here can mean missing the great blessings the Lord has for us.

Yet the church seems to be filled with members that want little more than a ticket to heaven. Jesus did not come to save sinners only, but to make saints of them. To this end he calls to complete submission.

In the early church the initial confession was Jesus as Lord, Romans 10:9. To the Jew that meant believing Jesus is God. To the Gentile that meant that Caesar was no god. To both it meant a clean break from the world.

To this day Jesus as Lord is the authentic confession of the Christian. This confession is of the Holy Spirit. Doubting Thomas understood it. It was the confession of the jailer, Acts 16. It is the only option open to a seeking sinner. After he submits all options end. He is not his own but the Lord’s.

Jesus as the Lord is the ultimate confession of all creation, Philippians 2:9-11. Whether we confess is not the question. Only the when is left to us, now, or later when the day of salvation has passed. Confessing and following him now means not bondage but great liberty; liberty to do all that is right and good in our relationship to God and our relationship to others. “Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty.”

Christ is already Lord. He lovingly bids us to live our lives in recognition of the stupendous, glorious reality. Let us see that we do.