Devotional Word for Friday, November 27, 2020
Thus far in our discussions about the Lord Jesus we have seen how He has been described as Savior, Christ, and only-begotten Son. Today we are going to look at the wonderful reality that Jesus is our LORD. Question 34 asks why He is our Lord. Listen to the answer; it says, “Because, not with gold or silver but at the cost of His blood, He has redeemed us body and soul from sin and all the dominion of the devil, and has bought us for His very own.”
Consider with me Romans 6:16. It says, “Do you not know that when you present yourselves to someone as slaves for obedience, you are slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin resulting in death, or of obedience resulting in righteousness?” Paul is describing here the ramifications of our conduct. Either we sin and are enslaved to sin or we do what is right and are slaves to righteousness. In the context of question and answer 34 we would say that we are either enslaved to sin under the domain of the devil or we are freed from sin and the domain of the devil because we have been freed by Jesus Christ. If that is the case, He is our Lord because we are not His servants. He is our Lord.
The difficulty for people in this regard is Romans 3 tells us that all have sinned. In fact, Ephesians 2 describes us as being dead in that sin. In verse 2 of chapter two it goes on to describe the authority in the life of those who are dead. Together it says, “And you were dead in your trespasses and sins, in which you formerly walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, of the spirit that is now working in the sons of disobedience.” The description here of the prince of the power of the air is a description of the devil. Not only are people described as being under the dominion of the devil they are described as being dead in their sin.
Dead people cannot do anything. I do not mean to be overly simplistic, but sometimes weird notions run through our minds about our ability to please God. Apart from Christ we are all dead in our sins, and as dead people, we can do nothing for ourselves to please God. We are firmly in the control of death, sin, and the devil. I take time to emphasize this because if we do not realize that we are dead and unable to do anything to please God, then we will not understand our great the lordship of Christ is.
Jesus at the cost of his blood redeemed us from sin and the dominion of the devil. He made us who were dead in our sin alive. This is not on the basis of anything we have done (remember that we were dead). He has accomplished it all. This gives us every comfort in times of distress or times of sin. When I sin, I do not say, “Well, it doesn’t really matter because Jesus is the one who accomplishes everything.” Instead I say, “Heavenly Father, I praise you that my salvation is not on the basis of my actions because I would be lost for sure. Thank you for the gracious and perfect work of Christ Your Son and my Lord. Help me to follow Him all the days of my life.” To that we can all say, “Amen.”