LORD or SAVIOR?

What good is having someone who can walk on water if you don't follow in his footsteps? *Author Unknown

The men who followed Him were unique in their generation. They turned the world upside down because their hearts had been turned right side up. The world has never been the same. *Billy Graham

Lord - refers to God as master.

Savior - A name for Jesus that means he saves people from sin.

It seems to me that many of us can fully accept Jesus Christ as our Savior. We have come to understand and believe that we are sinful and in need of someone to rescue us from that sin. That person is Jesus.
On the other hand it seems that there should be a sharp contrast in what our lives look like when we accept Jesus as our Lord. When we accept his Lordship over lives. When we live life viewed through the lense of Jesus Christ. When he is our Master we are willing to surrender ourselves to him because of the trust that we have that his plan is better than our plan. "His ways are higher than our ways and his thoughts higher than our thoughts."

When I think about the 2nd quote above I think this is exactly what the disciples did. They decided that they believed in Jesus Christ enough that it shaped how they lived, breathed, walked and talked. Jesus reigned supreme in their lives. Their lives were patterned after what they had heard and seen in Jesus in the years they spent with him before his death.

All of this, to me, gives perspective to the 1st quote above. The answer is that it does no good at all. We proclaim that Jesus is the Savior of our sins, but it doesn't stop there. People don't just need a Savior, they also need a Lord to reign over their lives. They need a King who is Master and Commander of all they are. I know this is the case for me. It seems to me that the power in Jesus walking on water is that we have access to the same power in our lives today.

If Jesus is Lord it changes everything. Many of us have received the blessing that comes from being saved. But to commit our lives to Jesus as Lord means that we, like disciples before us, pattern all that we do after "The Way, The Truth, and The Life." In a sense it seems that accepting Jesus as Lord is a proclamation that we have accepted him as Savior. In other words, when we live out our belief that he is Lord and this is reflected in us it is as though we are professing our belief that our sins are forgiven. Jesus is more than just Savior, and we need to live this belief by stepping out of the boat and following his footsteps onto the water.

May God grant us the ability to embrace surrender and fully accept his Lordship in our lives.

dp