At the talk that I recently had at our church, someone asked us about easy believism. They were dealing with a church that said you could accept Christ and do whatever you want. It was producing people who were living sinful lives and doing so knowingly and just saying that they had prayed to accept Jesus as Lord and so it was no problem then.
My response was we have to be careful about such things. In a sense, easy believism is true. It is easy to be saved. You do just have to believe. You don’t work for your salvation at all. However, you must truly believe. If you truly believe, there will be some ramifications that follow. If I believe that there is a car heading towards me on the road, I will move out of the way. If I believe I am experiencing a hallucination for some reason, I won’t. The accuracy of my belief can be determined quite easily in the latter case.
My second part to this though was that we really need to consider what it means to say “Jesus is Lord.” The Greek word that is used is Kurios. it was the same title that would be applied to Caesar. In the LXX, the word is used to translate YHWH. It is an even higher title than Theos for deity which is why it comes after Theos in Hebrews 1. Hebrews 1:10-12 is actually a stronger statement of deity than Hebrews 1:8.
Consider what it would mean then to say that Jesus is Lord and not live it? I asked the questioner to put himself back in the time of the biblical writers. What would it mean to say “Caesar is my Lord, but I do not care for his commandments and I won’t follow them.” Caesar would not say to such a person, “Well, as long as you call me Lord, it’s good.” “Why do you call me Lord, Lord, and not do as I say?”
Please note a distinction. I am not saying works earn our salvation. I am saying works show that we have salvation. In fact, this is what is going on in James 2. James is talking about justification before men and not before God. Why should I believe someone has faith if they have no evidence in their life that such a faith exists? It’s more a said faith than a lived faith.
For we Christians, it’s a time though to really examine ourselves. What do we mean when we say Jesus is Lord? Jude referred to him as our only sovereign even. Our common idea of a personal relationship with Jesus Christ has often lowered him in our eyes. Jesus is said to be God incarnate to us, but is more often in practice a quaint Jewish teacher who simply overflowed with love.
We need the biblical image of Jesus. Was he a teacher? Yes. Was his life love? Yes. There’s more though. He was an intelligent thinker who silenced all the opposition. He was the judge who came and said that the people of Israel had broken the covenant. He was the one before whom the demons tremble. He was the one that said all of Scripture revolved around him. He is the one who has promised to come again and judge the world. He is said to be carrying a sword and rest assured, he is one of justice also.
We need to examine in our lives how much he really is Lord. Now there are always pockets of resistance. We are still rebels in many ways. None of us will be perfect this side of eternity. We can be thankful that our Lord is merciful because of his great love for us. When we are not faithful in our part, he is faithful in his. It is his grace that he wishes to bestow on us.
The lordship of Christ is something that needs to be recovered. Pray of course and seek to know Christ as he is, but never lose sight that he is Lord and you are not. He is God and you are not. He is sovereign and you are not. While you can boldly approach the throne of grace, you dare not think for a moment that you can take that privilege lightly.
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