Lord.

A few weeks ago when I was at camp the speaker mentioned something I hadn’t put together in my mind before. He was talking about giving your life to Jesus and letting him have Lordship in it. Now, I have in fact thought about that before and am a firm believer in it.

But the speaker told us that the word “Lord,” by definition, means “The One You Say ‘Yes’ To.”
Isn’t that interesting?!
And maybe a little convicting?

If you are anything like me, sometimes I think I am the one I say ‘yes’ to. ‘Yes’ to whatever I think, ‘yes’ to whatever I want, ‘yes’ to my plans and ideas and goals.

And as I have pondered this, the giving of your life to the Lord and HIM then being the one we say ‘yes’ to, I thought about what it means to give your life to him in the first place. Clearly the first step is handing over the idea that we think we can get ourselves to heaven, or that we think we can be good enough to get there. It’s saying, “Actually, it’s you. Not me and my “power.” You and your sinless life and death on a cross and resurrection from the dead. You are the only one with the keys to eternity.” But what about after that? What about after the initial salvation, after you have accepted him as Savior, what does accepting him as LORD look like?

I just said that giving your life to Jesus as Savior involves changing your thoughts about how salvation is attained. It’s taking on his thoughts, his TRUTH (for Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life, and no one gets to the Father except through him {John 14:6}) and making it yours.

Is him becoming Lord in our lives not done the same way? In a changing of thought?

You know, I, along with almost everybody, thought that I had figured out how my life was going to go. There were patterns I saw in other people’s lives that I just figured I would follow in suit. Why wouldn’t I? I was brought up in similar fashion to those people, I had similar values and we held most of the same truths to be self-evident. Surely that was how it was going to go.

But my life really hasn’t gone that way. God had other plans for me.
And I have ended up looking different and living different than all of the people I had always watched.
We still have the same values and truths, our lives just took different patterns. We have been shaped by different experiences.

So what do I do then? When the patterns my life has followed are not the ones I thought they would? And what do I do about all of the goals I originally intended to reach? What do I do about all of the dreams I had?

What about all of those thoughts I had before I became a Christian about how I thought the world worked and was formed and moved along?
Don’t I, just like when I traded in my views about how salvation was attained, have to do the same thing for him to be Lord?

Give him those thoughts too.

I know this is elementary, but it really just occurred to me.
Having Jesus as Lord means, yes, giving him all of those thoughts and plans and dreams, too. I decided to give him my life, I don’t get to keep my thoughts. My plans. Because thoughts and plans are included in the package of life I gave up.
Simple, I know.
And in return, in return to saying “Yes” to him and continuing to do so, he now gives me HIS plans. His thoughts, his patterns. My job now is just to say over and over to whatever he gives me, “I accept—again” and let go of whatever I thought was truth, or what lifestyle I thought was unavoidable, before.

Why else would he tell us that transformation comes from renewing our minds (Romans 12:2)? Because the patterns of this world, the thoughts and dreams and plans of this world, do not say conform to him. They tell me to confirm all that I feel, to follow my heart, to do what is best for me, all the time, no matter who or what gets in the way. But everything with Jesus is opposite of what we think it should be. He doesn’t tell me to follow my heart; he tells me to lead it. He doesn’t tell me to do what is best for me, he says to seek him and his righteousness and then, and only then, will things be added to me.

Being a Christian can be difficult sometimes; it goes against what we naturally think and are inclined to do. It’s the constant giving up of what I thought was right and truth. But being in right relationship to him is better than having my thoughts be aligned with myself, because a Lord who has the power to save is clearly a Lord who is worthy of saying “Yes” to.