In our culture, there’s a dangerous pattern many young Christians fall in to. After that incredible moment of asking Christ to save them from their sins, many Christians go sit in a pew for decades and see no real growth. In time, God brings them under deep conviction to do more than simply coast along. Christ becomes more to them than just their salvation, but He becomes central to their lives. They go to their pastor in joyful tears, sharing that they’ve finally made Christ “Lord of their life.”
A familiar situation
This is casual Christianity in a nutshell, and it’s a story many are living out right now. It comes from the idea that salvation is the end of our commitment to Christ. We’ve surrendered by asking Him to save us, so now we keep living our lives like everyone else, except now we have God to help us when we need Him.
Likewise, many continue to find themselves at the end of the story, realizing that they’ve spent years existing for themselves, letting Christ only have a small part of their life while insisting they control the majority. And of course, few even realized they were living selfishly because they looked like everyone else, whether saved or unsaved. But now, at last, they’re ready to let Christ be Lord.
But there’s a problem.
Coming to terms
We hold the idea that after salvation, we’ll do things in our own time. When we’re ready we’ll get baptized, read our Bibles more, attend a small group, and become an active member of the church. And, some day, we’ll let Christ be Lord of our lives. But we’re not ready. Not yet.
But we don’t spontaneously make Christ our Lord. He’s already taken care of that. At salvation, we kneel before Him in surrender and ask Him to save us. In saving us from our sins, He is our Lord.
Thomas answered and said to Him, “My Lord and my God!” (John 20:28)
“Lord” is a term whose meaning has been lost. Christ’s name seems almost synonymous with it throughout the Bible, yet we tend to breeze past it without giving it another thought. We don’t understand the weight of the word, and with that, we not only lose sight of who Christ truly is but who we are as former enemies of God who have been redeemed.
James, a bond-servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ… (James 1:1a)
Lord is an old term that means “master.” It is a title reserved for someone who owns another. It’s not a leader, a boss, or someone with a higher authority than us. It’s literally what you would call the person who owns you. Now given the unsavory baggage that has become attached to that term throughout history, it’s understandable why it’s not often translated that way. However, we cannot get past the fact that the ancient followers of Christ spoke of Him as their master.
Who we really are
Paul, a bond-servant of Christ Jesus, called as an apostle, set apart for the gospel of God (Romans 1:1)
Likewise, “servant” and “bondservant” are words we don’t fully understand. We see these words as job titles. A servant is paid to do a certain job for a certain time every day. When they’re off the clock, their life is their own. And if they aren’t happy with certain tasks, they are free to say “no.”
But if Christ is the master, it should be no surprise that the Greek word for “servant” is more accurately translated as “slave.” And again, it’s understandable why this term isn’t used. But when we divorce the gross abuse and dehumanization brought about by slavery from what the Bible actually means in using those terms, we get a more accurate picture of our relationship to Christ.
Consider the differences between a life lived as a servant and slave. A servant follows orders as long as they’re comfortable with them while a slave obeys absolutely. A servant agrees to give a certain part of the day to his employer while a slave’s life is entwined with his master’s. A servant holds their position as long as both parties are happy, but a slave is one for life.
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? (Romans 6:16)
And indeed, we’ve always been slaves. We are never truly free, because we will always be obeying something. We are made to worship, it’s just a matter of who we worship. Who is our true master?
Which lord do we follow?
The problem with casual Christianity is that it makes us our own gods. When we think in terms of “I’m thinking about making Christ the Lord of my life,” we must necessarily also make this claim: “I’m currently the lord of my own life, but I’m thinking about giving that position to someone else.”
But now having been freed from sin and enslaved to God, you derive your benefit, resulting in sanctification, and the outcome, eternal life. For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. (Romans 6:22-23)
Before Christ, we spent our lives in service and devotion to a master. Us. We pursued our sinful desires with every ounce of our strength, every moment of every day. Even those things that brought us pain were done in an attempt to find happiness, no matter how twisted our thinking had to be to believe we’d find it.
Christ set us free from the very thinking that casual Christianity wants to embrace. If we are truly saved, it’s not that we aren’t making Christ the Lord of our life. He already is. Instead, all we are doing is trying to overthrow the King and set ourselves on the throne of our lives. We don’t want to share authority; we want to dictate what areas our Lord Jesus Christ can, and cannot, touch.
We can’t serve two masters. When it comes to obedience, we can either follow a tyrant that won’t stop until we’re dead, or we can follow a Good Shepherd who only wants to bring us the joy-filled life of holiness we so desperately need. There is no middle ground because there are only two masters: us, or Jesus Christ.
For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain. (Philippians 1:21)
We all have areas where we’re fighting Christ. We all have something, likely many things, that we are trying to hold back from our good and loving Master. We’re afraid to let them go because we’re convinced they’ll bring us satisfaction. We fear a life without them.
Surrendering those things to Christ won’t bring suffering, but peace. We will find freedom in living the lives we were meant to live, completely devoted to our Savior. Let the rest of the world kneel in obedience to their false gods that are filled with empty promises and broken lives. As followers of Christ, let us do what no one else can: follow the God who offers true joy and satisfaction, whose goodness and mercy make Him worth following.
If it is disagreeable in your sight to serve the Lord, choose for yourselves today whom you will serve: whether the gods which your fathers served which were beyond the River, or the gods of the Amorites in whose land you are living; but as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.” (Joshua 24:15)
