I've been thinking alot lately about those two titles that are given to Jesus Christ. Chris Goldman, about a month ago, said, "There are many who are willing to accept Jesus as their Savior. The number of people who are willing to accept Him as Lord is far fewer."
So, what does that mean?
I began by thinking about those words and what they mean to me. For someone to "save" me means a couple of things. First, before the act of saving, I was lost and incapable of rescuing myself. Second, it means that there is nothing I did to earn it. This is true of any type of salvation, be it my soul from eternal damnation or a child from a burning building. Using the child analogy, you can sense the helplessness in that situation, but it's harder to sense the fact that the child didn't earn his or her salvation from the fire. We place value on human life, and I don't think it's wrong to do so. In fact, I think we don't place enough value (more on that another time). But, in the end, if you are the savior of that child, how has that child earned the price you are willing to pay to provide rescue? After all, you would be risking your own life (and may lose it in the process), which also has value. So, while the child's life may have value, he or she has not directly "earned" salvation. So, if you picture yourself trapped in that fire, how hard would it be to reach out to the one risking everything to rescue you? You wouldn't even have to think about it.
The correlation to Christ as Savior is a bit tougher, though. First, in order to accept His brand of salvation, you have to categorize yourself as "un-saved." This is harder than you think. We have alot of things that get in the way of this, including our pride and sense of our own abilities. Also, it calls us to look at our lives as they currently are, which for a typical American really is pretty great by the world's standards, and then say, "This isn't enough. I am lost in all of this." It's because of this relative comfort that religiosity in general, and Christianity in particular, is shrinking in the US (there are other factors, I know. I'm being very general on purpose). For me, I have no problem working out that I need Christ to save me. It isn't hard for me to look around and see what sin has done in peoples lives, what pain and suffering those choices have caused. I have felt it first-hand.
Still even though it's more difficult to allow yourself to be saved by Christ, there are still truckloads of people who proclaim their salvation through Him.
But Lord? That really is a different matter altogether. You see, a lord is someone who has the rule, who enacts a system of acceptance into his kingdom and who expects certain things from those who would call themselves citizens. If you identify yourself as an American, then you are going to accept the lordship of the US governing body. This accords you all sorts of privileges, like freedom of speech and the right to vote. It also means that you are bound by its rules, which means you have to pay taxes and you can't drive 160 mph on the freeway, among other things.
So, to accept Christ as Lord is to say, "Since you risked so much for me, even to death by crucifixion, I acknowledge that there is a pattern after which you want me to live, and will strive my very best to do so." THIS is where the rubber meets the road. You see, it isn't enough to say, "Jesus Christ is God Incarnate, Messiah, and Savior." That doesn't make you a Christian. What makes you a Christian is you implementation of His pattern in your life. In other words, we have accepted citizenship into His kingdom, now we have to follow the rules and pay our taxes, as it were.
So, what does that entail? Well, theologists and preachers have been going on about this for centuries. I'm not going to start the argument again here...what I will do is say this: By accepting Christ as Lord, you are accepting His complete authority in your life. In doing so, you are relinquishing your specific "rights," and esteeming others higher than yourself. You are also accepting that He gave His authority to a certain group of guys, the apostles, and being the good Jewish boys that they were, they ensured we would have the pattern of His kingdom to follow in the things that they wrote. It is one thing to tell someone how to do something, it's another thing entirely to write it down. So, since we have this written record passed to us through the centuries, those of us who accept Christ as Lord would do well to listen.
I didn't say interpret. I said listen.
That's the crux of it...when I interpret something, I am running it through filters of my own in order to consume it in a manner of my liking. when I listen, truly listen, I am turning those filters off and not letting my predeterminations tell me what's important and what isn't. Just because an apostle may have written something only once doesn't mean it carries less weight than something he had written down dozens of times. Both of those things stem from the authority that I am choosing to recognize, and both of those things are parts of the pattern that Christ established.
He is my Savior, and He is my Lord. I am trying my best to listen.
