Jesus the Lord
If we are to invite Jesus into our stories, He must come in as Saviour, but He must also come in as Lord.
The angels, in their announcement, said: "Today in the town of David a Saviour has been born to you; He is the Messiah, the Lord." (Luke 2:11)
And earlier when the angel was telling Mary about what was to happen, some lofty language is also used to describe Jesus: "He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give Him the throne of His father David, and He will reign over Jacob's descendants for ever; His kingdom will never end." (Luke 1:32-33)
If Jesus is to come into our stories, friends, He must come in not just as Saviour, but as Lord of our lives. As King of our lives. As the one we follow and obey and live for.
Faith Without Obedience
Many of us don't get that far. We believe that God forgives us, and saves us. But we never really begin to live for Him.
We miss the fact that His offer is to be LORD of our lives, to give us a new quality of life here and now as we commit to living for Him.
Richard Watson, a key Methodist theologian who wrote extensively on the relationship between faith and obedience, wrote this: "Faith, without submission to the laws of Christ, is dead; and such a faith will not justify, because it does not bring the soul under the dominion of the Saviour."
In other words: if Jesus does not come into your story as Lord whom you obey and follow, He probably never came in as Saviour to begin with.
Back in 2004 a man in Cape Town arrived home to find nine men walking out of his residence with his stuff in bags. They all scattered, but he managed to grab two of them and throw them into his pool. One of them got out of the pool and ran off, but the other started to drown. The homeowner writes "I stood there looking at the man and thought that I could not let him die, so I dived into the pool and rescued him." But once they were both out of the pool, the robber called his friends to come back to the house, and pulled out a knife and began threatening the one who rescued him. So the man threw him back in, and then saved him just in time for the police to arrive and arrest him.
Honouring Our Rescuer
It's not a perfect metaphor, but sometimes, I think we do this to our Saviour! He rescues us, and then instead of thanking and loving Him, and living for Him, we do things that hurt Him. We go back to our old ways that we promised Him we'd give up. We treat Him as our Saviour, but not as our Lord.
Friends, the Jesus who came at Christmas offers to transform our stories. He offers us salvation from sin - forgiveness, and mercy, and a clean slate, but He offers us more than forgiveness. He offers us transformation, if we will turn from our selfish lives and live for Him, if we will call Him LORD and live in a way that honours Him.
Don't write Jesus into your story as simply Saviour, without committing to Him as Lord.
Freedom and peace and fullness and joy only comes when you turn from the things that hurt and dishonour Him and embrace His Lordship.
Jesus came not only to save but to reign as Lord over our lives. Is He more than your Saviour? Is He your Lord?