Walking in Lordship

The world promises peace, but what it delivers is chaos and deception! Many religions promise peace, but there is no godly peace to be found in them. Is peace a false promise or an unattainable goal? The Holy Bible says "no." Peace, joy and unconditional love are available to anyone and everyone who is willing to give up his or her life to God through the acceptance of Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior. Christ offers an abundant life and eternal life under Lordship in exchange for the emptiness, pressure and spiritual death that we experience as we try to "do" life under our own power and in our own way.

Just as there are physical laws that govern the physical universe, so there are spiritual laws which govern our spiritual life. One of these spiritual laws is: that man was created by God to have fellowship with God. But, because of his stubborn self-will, man choses to go his own independent way. The peace and intimate fellowship that we had with God was broken until He made restoration possible through Jesus Christ's sacrificail death and resurrection. Much like the familiar square peg that doesn't fit into or fill the round hole, nothing and no one else can adequately occupy that place which was created for the Lord God in our lives.

Christ died in our place (Romans 5:8) and rose again from the dead (I Corinthians 15:3-6). He has become God's only provision for the restoration of man's fellowship with God. Only through Him can we come to know and experience God's love, peace and plan for our lives (John 16:6).

Each one of us must individually decide to believe, receive, and surrender to Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior over our lives in order to experience the new spiritual birth which He promised (John 3:3-8), II Corinthians 5:17, Ezekiel 36:26). When Christ is Lord over us, it means that He is "Master", and we are His bond-servants. As much as we cringe at the thought of being controlled, we need to throw out our preconceived notions about this arrangement with God being in any way destructive to our lives. God loves us and desires the best for us: and apart from Him the Bible says we can do nothing (John 15:5). When we finally understand and accept that Jesus Christ must "run" our lives, the fruit of the Spirit and abundant life will be ours (Romans *-6; Matthew 6:33).

Our decision to receive Christ means that we each must repent, turning away from the sin of "self-ish" life. We need to stop trusting in, protecting and providing for ourselves, and allow God to be in control. This means turning away from pride (i.e. self-esteem), living instead for Christ (Proverbs 3:5). To simply agree, intellectually, that Jesus Christ is the Son of God and that He died on the cross for our sins is not enough. Nor is it enough just to have an emotional encounter with God. We receive Jesus Christ, in faith, as an act of our will, surrendering our lives to the authority of God. As we do this, the Spirit of God begins to bring about the death of "self." This destroys the pride of life, and causes humility, sanctification, and fellowship with God to flow back into the life of the believer, bringing with it tremendous healing. See Romans 12:1.

Walking in the Spirit of Christ as a new creation requires that we walk in submission by taking every thought captive to the obedience of Jesus Christ (1 Corinthians 10:5); that we become transformed by the renewing of our minds (Romans 12:2); that we daily deny our selfish desires to use what we have in our own will and to choose our own direction in life without regard to Christ (Luke 9:23); and that we receive the mind of Christ (1 Corinthians 2:1). Only in this way will we be able to stay on course in order to fulfill God's plan for our lives.

As we stay on course with Christ and give Him control of our lives, we can begin to have an intimate relationship with Him. As we walk in this relationship with Christ, His Spirit will bring forth fruit in our lives (Galatians 5:22-23). This includes peace, joy, and unconditional love (Greek: "agape").

Walking in the fruit of the Spriit results in victorious Christian living. This is abundant life, which promises the believer this godly portion of spiritual power (Isaiah 40:29-31: 2 Timothy 1:7), and a life that prospers now and eternally with God (Psalm 1:3; Revelation 21:3-4). As long as God is in control, it will continue to be a grace-filled life.

The most powerful manifestation of the power and prosperity of God is to be experience through entering into His presence through an intimate relationship with Him. We enter into HIs presence as we walk in Holiness before Him. God can only cause us to walk in holiness as much as we are willing to completely and absolutely surrender to him as Lord and Savior.