Confessing Jesus as Lord

Therefore let all the house of Israel know assuredly that God has made this Jesus, whom you crucified, both Lord and Christ.

ACTS 2:36

Have you crowned Jesus as Lord in your personal and family life? Are you gladly, freely, and openly confessing Him as Lord? In Luke 2:10 the angel said that the announcement of Jesus’ birth was “good tidings of great joy which will be to all people.” God wants this message known around the world.

You see, the Lordship of Jesus is what separates the crowds at Christmas. Anybody can get sentimental about a little baby lying in a manger. Now make no mistake—I thank God for the “sweet little Jesus boy.” The Bible’s emphasis, however, is not on Jesus the infant, but on Jesus the Lord. Many of the same worldly people who stand around the manger this week singing Christmas carols will be drunkenly singing “Auld Lang Syne” in a few days at New Year’s Eve parties. They do not confess Jesus as Lord. 

In Bible times, to openly and boldly confess “Jesus is Lord” really meant something. For a Jew to say that Jesus was Lord meant that He was Jehovah God, the eternal, self-existing God of the Old Testament. The Jews held God’s name in such reverence that they would not even pronounce it. The scribes copying the Scriptures would pick up a new pen to write the word Lord. 

For a Jew to confess Jesus as Lord meant paying a price—being excluded from the nation of Israel. But this was the truth that Peter declared to Israel in his great message at Pentecost in Acts 2. He said, “Therefore let all the house of Israel know assuredly that God has made this Jesus . . . both Lord and Christ” (v. 36).  Gentiles also had to pay a price for that confession, because it was deemed treason against Caesar to confess anyone else as Lord. It cost many early Christians persecution, and oftentimes death, to confess Jesus as Lord and Christ. 

I wonder at this Christmas season, is Jesus your Lord in this way? Do you see Him as God? Do you confess Him as Lord no matter what the cost may be? Jesus does not want prominence in your life; He deserves and demands preeminence. He is Lord!

LWF Dr. Adrian Rogers