How do I make Jesus Lord of my life?

The better to enter into our Lord's mind, about this, our confession of His name, and the responsibility that attaches to it, let me remind you of those words of His, in Matt. 7:21; "Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven, but he that doeth the will of My Father." Often to take the name "Lord" upon our lips is nothing, but to yield ourselves in everything to be subject to His will, as revealed in His Word, this is indeed to acknowledge that He is Lord. Do we not then begin to see more clearly, why "no one can say that Jesus is the Lord but by the Holy Ghost"? By that name, we are bound in responsibility to keep His commandments. I would not use that word, as if it were bondage to obey Jesus — God forbid. Far be it from us to think so! Bondage to obey Jesus! No, no, He has revealed Himself to us as our precious Saviour, our peace, our joy, our hope, our heaven, our all, that He may win our hearts for Himself. He does not want the cold service of the apprentice or the slave. He wants the loving heart-service of His chosen friends; and so he says expressly — "Henceforth I call you not servants, but I have called you friends." Then as His friends He comes to us and makes known to us His counsels, His will; and now His own word to us is, "If ye love me, keep my commandments." And here, beloved, shall we not say, that our self-willed hearts need the warning of Luke 12:47, as well as the previous exhortation, "That servant, which knew his lord's will, and prepared not himself, neither did according to his will, shall be beaten with many stripes"? There was a time in the history of Israel, recorded for us in Judges 17:6, when "there was no king, but every man did that which was right in his own eyes." This is what the flesh would like — the self-willed flesh that is still present with each of us: Yes, we need to be on our guard, lest the natural man should rise up in revolt within us, against the authority and Lordship of Jesus, as Head of His Body, and we should be found, each one acting as seemed best to himself, instead of giving Jesus His rightful sovereignty in our hearts. Then should we let the Word act as a sharp two-edged sword, in judgment, to cut at the root of the slightest insubordination, in thought, or ways, to Him. I speak as one who has proved in some little measure the desperate insubjection and self-will of my own heart. All I say is for myself, as well as you, beloved. What I desire is — is it not what we all desire? — that henceforward Jesus shall be our Lord, not in name only, but in deed. Oh, for an eye single to Him, a heart so occupied with Him, to the exclusion of all others, that not by effort or constraint, but spontaneously, our question at every step may be — What will Jesus have me to do? Then could we be found each one following his own inclination, or guided by the world's "needs be," or walking in a brother's path, be he ever such a "good man," liable to be crooked and perverse as our own? — and not rather, so that we might say with one of old "The Lord before whom I walk," and, "He that judgeth me is the Lord."

Pursuing, however, the special line of truth through the connection, we learn from the next incident, that, if the Lord meets the need of the sinner, He claims his service when his need is met. "After these things He went forth, and saw a publican, named Levi, sitting at the receipt of custom: and He said unto him, Follow me." (v. 27.) Levi was busily occupied with his daily occupations as Jesus was passing by. But he was not his own. The One who saw him claimed all that he was and had, and expressed this claim in the words, "Follow me." Having shown Himself as the Saviour in the two preceding incidents, He now declares His authority as Lord. And as Lord, His word is supreme, demanding the instant and complete obedience of the soul. This is illustrated in the action of Levi. As soon as the Lord had uttered His command, "he left all, rose up, and followed Him." (v. 28.) This proves that it was not so much the assertion of authority, though He who spake had the right to command, as the expression of the claims of His heart. Nay, it was more; it was the presentation of Himself to the heart of Levi; and by the attractive power of His person He thus drew Levi away from everything by which He was surrounded, and after Himself in the path of discipleship. This is how disciples are ever made. Try as we will, we cannot follow Christ until He has disclosed Himself to, and won, our hearts. Then, and only then, we receive power to deny ourselves, to take up our cross, and to follow Him. But we may well challenge our souls — and this point may be especially pressed with all affection upon young believers — as to whether we have acknowledged, and whether we do habitually acknowledge, the claims of Christ over all that we are and have. There are so few disciples in this day of laxity and worldliness! What, then, let us ask, constitutes a disciple? It is not in the profession of Christianity, otherwise all around us were disciples. No; but it lies in the total setting aside of ourselves — our wills — and in the acceptance of the will of Christ, as Lord, for our daily walk and conversation. It is seen in the action of Levi. He refused himself, and everything around him, and with eyes fixed upon the One who had called him, he steadily followed in His steps. It is seen in the statement of the apostle, "I am crucified with Christ" (if so his will is gone): "nevertheless I live, yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh, I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave Himself for me." (Gal. 2:20.) It is exemplified in a remarkable way in Phil. 3. Again, therefore, we ask, Are we owning the claims of the Saviour as Lord?

At the same time the lordship of Christ covers the whole life of the believer. He is introduced to this at the very start of his Christian life. He is bidden to “believe on the LORD Jesus Christ” for salvation (Acts 16:31). When Saul of Tarsus was suddenly converted on the road to Damascus, his first response was, “Lord, what wilt Thou have me to do?” (Acts 9:6). If I am not right in my private life, my home life, my business life, in all the ordinary relationships of life, it is impossible to be right in the assembly. If we seek to be in happy, joyous subjection to the Lord, we shall find His yoke easy, and His burden light. Subjection to Him would settle many problems, where we should go, how we should use our leisure, what we should wear, how we should treat our possessions as stewards of the bounty of the Lord. Individually right with the Lord, the believer will find his true niche and service in the assembly under a lordship exercised in relation to the whole church of God.

It is the testimony of the Lord . I must stress that first of all. What does the title mean? It means His authority, His absolute rights over us; He is sovereign Lord. And we are not faithful to the colours if we are not owning that and carrying it out in practical living. “If thou shalt confess with thy mouth Jesus as Lord, and believe in thy heart that God hath raised Him from the dead, thou shalt be saved.” That means open and definite subjection to His will, and rallying to the colours. It was what Saul of Tarsus did when he cried: “Lord, what will Thou have me to do?” But who would not be subject to Him whose love for us surpasses all our knowledge and whose will and way for us is our greatest blessing?

Who then can mistake the blessed simplicity of verse 9? It is a clear statement of “the word faith” — “That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised Him from the dead, thou shalt be saved.” It is the mouth and the heart that have the important place here — not the hands and the feet. The mouth is the index of the heart, and there will be no personal confession of Jesus as Lord unless there is belief in the heart. There may be something that appears like such a confession, but there is no simple, forth-right confession of Him as personal Lord, without faith. But the two go together. If I believe, I therefore speak.

When Peter preached on the day of Pentecost, he said to the Jews, “let all the house of Israel know assuredly, that God has made that same Jesus, whom ye have crucified, both Lord and Christ” (Acts 2:36). The day is coming when every tongue will be compelled to own the rights of Christ as Lord (Phil. 2:11), but the opportunity is given now to all who hear the Gospel to submit to the claims of Christ by confessing Him as Lord (Rom. 10:9), and to do so brings God’s salvation to them.

Christ's Lordship. — We are brought into connection with the Lord Jesus not only in His character of grace, but of Lordship. What is the first mark He has stamped on your heart? This — that Jesus must be known and honoured; I belong to him; I must yield myself to Him in everything. Are you doing your own will or His? If you have large thoughts of grace, magnificent thoughts of glory to come, but have not said, "Lord, what wilt thou have me to do?" you are not on right ground. You have to come to this — "my own plans go for nothing, I now belong to another." If you have large thoughts of grace, has it taught you to yield your own will to God's? If you have large thoughts of your privileges, do you see your responsibility? If you are talking of glory, is it connected with obedience? You may have right thoughts, nicely packed together, as for a long voyage, but they are of no good to you, if there is not in you the spirit of obedience.

Another thing is comprised in her attitude. Sitting at His feet proclaimed that she had become His disciple. Thus Paul, speaking to the Jews in Jerusalem, reminds them that he had been brought up in the city "at the feet of Gamaliel," and had been "taught according to the perfect manner of the law of the fathers," etc. (Acts 22:8.) It is not all Christians, as before said, who become disciples; and, on this account, we should mark well this position of Mary. And it adds increased significance to it, if we adopt the reading, preferred by most, "at the feet of THE LORD." It is remarkable to find the Spirit of God thus calling our attention, in this narrative, to the claims of Jesus as Lord, by giving us an example of one whose whole soul acknowledged them, and who, by sitting at His feet, owned Him in this title of absolute supremacy. It is a blessed moment for any soul when that point is reached, when He is enthroned in the heart as supreme, when His will becomes the only law of our daily lives, because we understand His word, "If ye love me, keep my commandments."

The Lord however avoided the stumbling-block, and proceeded to state definitely to His disciples, and indeed to "all" (Luke 9:23), for it was a general principle, "If any man will come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow Me." See also chap. 14:27.

Can it be possible to mistake the meaning of "taking up the cross," when so closely connected as it is with self-denial, and the following of Jesus? For it is plainly manifest from the passage, that there can be no true discipleship without denying one's self, and following the Lord. But self-mortification, whipping, and other monkish habits, though they may be a species of self-denial, certainly are not the cross-bearing of the gospel. And on the other hand the cross worn by the Crusaders of old, far from being coupled with the self-denial of the text, was actually opposed to the true cross of Christ, serving only as a cloak for the indulgence of the worst and most selfish of human passions. As a matter of fact, the true character of the cross, as well as of self-denial, is sufficiently determined by the Lord's injunction, "Follow Me." For whatever interferes with consistent discipleship is to be given up in order to follow Him. And whatever burden of obloquy falls upon one faithful to Christ constitutes the cross to be taken up for His sake.

In the Gospel of Mark a case in point is given. The virtuous youth, who earnestly sought to know from our Lord how to inherit eternal life, was a most commendable example of human morality, so much so, that "Jesus, beholding him, loved him." Surely then he would make an admirable recruit for the ranks of the disciples! Not so; for though he did not lack zeal, obedience to the law, or appreciation of the Lord as a teacher, he lacked that which would make him a follower of Jesus. "Go thy way," said the Lord to test him, "sell whatsoever thou hast and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven: and come, take up the cross, and follow Me." But we are told "he was sad at that saying and went away grieved; for he had great possessions" (Mark 10:21-22). Self-denial, the first requisite of a disciple, was lacking; for at any rate he loved his riches too well to discard them at the bidding of a prophet of Nazareth. Nor is it at all necessary to suppose he was a miserly man, yet it is quite clear he did not find sufficient attraction in the person of Jesus, or sufficient authority in His words, to counter-balance his regard for his store of earthly treasure. And at this point it is important to observe that "taking up the cross" was not covered by parting with the whole of his possessions for charitable purposes. After yielding up that which men learn to love next to (if not as well as) life, he was then to take up his cross and follow Jesus. For philanthropy is in no sense, even when extended to its utmost limits as in this case, synonymous with carrying the cross of Christ. Besides foregoing his abundance and luxury, he was called to associate himself with One Who was a reproach among men, and despised of the people (Ps. 22:6), Who was a butt and a byword for those that sat in authority, as well as the song of the drunkard (Ps. 69:12). By following such a One, he would utterly lose his position of honour and esteem in the eyes of his religious patrons and teachers. Socially, politically, and religiously, he would be regarded as a leprous outcast, whose love and good works would be rewarded, like his Master's, with hatred without a cause (Ps. 109:5, Ps. 69:4). He would be reviled, persecuted, and maligned for Christ's sake (Matt. 5:11). In short, he would become the focus of general scorn and. contempt, and that simply and solely because he followed this despised and rejected Nazarene. All this and more was implied in the words: "Take up the cross and follow Me." The heart of the young man shrank from such a prospect. And who indeed could bear a cross so galling to man's nature without knowing the attractive glories of the Person Who demanded endurance of such a kind? Little wonder that he departed in sadness.

The force of "deny himself" is hardly expressed by "self-denial," which is the denying oneself of something. What the Lord speaks of is not that but the denial, or the saying of "no," to oneself. Also, "take up his cross" does not mean bearing trials and troubles merely. The man who in those days took up his cross was being led to execution. He was a man who had to accept death at the hands of the world. To say "no" to oneself is to accept death internally, on one's own spirit: to take up one's cross is to accept death externally at the hands of the world. That is what discipleship must mean, since we follow the Christ who died, rejected of the world.