Is Jesus Your Lord or Only Your Savior?
"Everyone knows that God is good. Very few know that God is God."
Today's message is called Prabhutv, which means lordship.
Maybe you have seen this in a film or in real life. Someone dies in a home, and one family member cannot accept it. He sits beside the body and says, "Don't disturb him. He is sleeping. Bring him some water. It is almost time for his walk." The family tries to tell him, and he will not hear it. Finally someone shakes him and says, "He is gone." And he goes quiet, because now he has accepted the fact he was refusing.
Many believers live like that. They come to the Lord in the middle of their troubles. The trouble does not change, but somewhere in the middle of it, they change. They go quiet. That silence is a sign that they have finally accepted what they were fighting.
God Is Good, but God Is God
"Declaring the end from the beginning, and from ancient times the things that are not yet done, saying, My counsel shall stand, and I will do all my pleasure" (Isaiah 46:10).
Many believers are not struggling with the devil. They are not even struggling with their circumstances. Their struggle is with God.
We all know God is good. But God is God. He says, "My counsel shall stand." His plans are fixed. He will do what He has declared.
When a believer understands the lordship of God, great peace can come into his heart in the very same situation. The way he prays changes. What he prays for changes. The way he lives changes. And he begins to grow right where he is.
Many people fight God, and that is why they become depressed, bitter and backslidden. Their lives stay fruitless. They heard a gospel that said, "Come to Jesus, and He will make you, He will do it for you, you will go forward." But read your Bible carefully. The people God took hold of found the God who is God, and under His lordship they found their life.
What I Learned in the Furnace
The year I came to know the Lord personally, by the next year I was serving. My brothers and friends came to the Lord, and our services began. The people we ministered to were increasing in their work and overflowing with blessing. And I felt like someone had put me into a furnace of trouble. Insults came from everywhere. I was left alone.
I asked, "Lord, what is the difference? The people I minister to are moving forward. Why is my situation like this?"
In 2007 a pastor I did not even know sent me a prophecy. The Lord said, "I have kept him like my own son. I allowed his family to be separated from him. I have a plan, and I will use him in the nation."
They were growing in money. I was growing in the Spirit. In that same situation I was growing in God's presence and in His glory. Today, years later, I look back and I understand. Some things God will not let happen, because He has His own plan.
Stop Looking at Other People's Lives
If you want to move forward in the kingdom of God, stop looking at other people's lives. Half of the believers who are troubled are troubled by what they see in someone else's life. Turn it off. Network with God.
"Nay but, O man, who art thou that repliest against God? Shall the thing formed say to him that formed it, Why hast thou made me thus?" (Romans 9:20).
God's Will Is a Location
God told Abraham to leave his home. Abraham could have argued, "Why should I leave my property?" But he went. "For he looked for a city which hath foundations, whose builder and maker is God" (Hebrews 11:10). He spent his life in tents looking for that city.
God's will is a location. People would say, "Abraham, you don't even have a house. Where is your stability?" And Abraham would say, "This is part of my calling."
Faith is not forcing your words on God. Faith is giving yourself to His Word and to His will. Faith is coming to God the way He wants us to come. Faith is not black magic, where you make something happen because you want it. Faith rests on what God has willed, what He has spoken and what He has promised.
The Highest Throne
That location is the highest throne. The One who sits there runs all of creation. When a man understands the way God works, he begins to see God's hand even in his troubles. He stops fighting God and starts cooperating with Him.
If all our foolish prayers had been answered, we would not even be believers today.
God Is Not Only Love
If all you know is God's love, you don't know much about God. If God only loves, why is there a hell? Why did Ananias and Sapphira die (Acts 5:1-10)? Why does the Bible record God's judgment on Amalek (1 Samuel 15:2-3)?
God is law in Himself. He does not follow a law. He makes it. He does not do good things. What He does is good. When Israel left Egypt, "they spoiled the Egyptians" (Exodus 12:36). It was right because God told them to do it. Where else will our knowledge of right and wrong come from?
"But our God is in the heavens: he hath done whatsoever he hath pleased" (Psalm 115:3).
Not Everything Is God, and Not Everything Is the Devil
I have explained many times that God is not doing everything. But the devil is not doing everything either. The one who learns the difference will fulfill his destiny. Ask yourself, "Who am I fighting in this situation? The devil, or God?"
I heard a testimony about a minister through whom people have been raised from the dead. When someone dies, he first asks, "Lord, did You take this person, or did the enemy?" Some of us, if we heard the Lord's voice, would rebuke it in Jesus' name, because we would not like what He said.
Stumble while walking toward God's will, and He is very patient with you. Stumble while fighting Him, and you pay the price.
Woe to Him That Strives With His Maker
"Woe unto him that striveth with his Maker! Let the potsherd strive with the potsherds of the earth. Shall the clay say to him that fashioneth it, What makest thou?" (Isaiah 45:9).
Stubborn people die in the wilderness. If you cannot bow before His will, struggle will be your portion.
The believing life is a discovery. You do not bring your gift. You receive it. The one who finds himself in God's will finds his gift, his calling, his place and his purpose. However rough life is outside, inside it becomes smooth.
When everything was taken from Job, he said, "the LORD gave, and the LORD hath taken away; blessed be the name of the LORD" (Job 1:21). God is God even then. And Paul learned, "when I am weak, then am I strong" (2 Corinthians 12:10).
Stiffnecked People Lose the Presence
God told Moses He would send an angel before Israel, "for I will not go up in the midst of thee; for thou art a stiffnecked people: lest I consume thee in the way" (Exodus 33:2-3). That is why many lives have no presence of God, no vision, no holy ambition. Stubbornness says, "I will do it my way."
Paul Was Fighting God
When Paul met Jesus, he was not fighting the devil. He was fighting God. "It is hard for thee to kick against the pricks" (Acts 9:5).
When the disciples asked who sinned, the man or his parents, that he was born blind, Jesus answered, "Neither hath this man sinned, nor his parents: but that the works of God should be made manifest in him" (John 9:3). When Lazarus died, Jesus let him die and be buried before He raised him (John 11). We say, "Lord, I don't like Your process." But God can use failures, frustrations, setbacks and losses. The devil cannot create anything good.
Surrender Is the Best Place
Surrender is the place where no one can touch you. Surrender is the place where you come under God's will.
Maybe you have wasted many years. Maybe you have gone very far and everything is a mess. In the middle of your biggest mess, the best place is surrender. Just as the Spirit of the Lord carried Philip from one place to another (Acts 8:39-40), surrender carries you spiritually, in one moment, into the place where God's protection is activated and His plan begins to be fulfilled again.
In the wrong place you will not find rest, even if you have millions. Sometimes God takes away our peace for a while, so that we sit at His feet and ask, "Lord, where did I go wrong?"
Your Responsibility Is to Live Under His Lordship
God is not influenced by anyone. However well you pray, however much you plead or sulk, He does what He has purposed. That is His sovereignty, His lordship.
So what is my responsibility? To live under His lordship, and to press into what He wants from my life. Adam could eat from every tree because God said so: "Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat" (Genesis 2:16). What God says is the law. What God wants is right. The direction He is taking you is right.
The Lordship Series
This is Part 1 of a 4-part teaching on the lordship of God, first preached in Hindi as Prabhutv. Here is the full series in order:
Part 1: Is Jesus Your Lord or Only Your Savior? (you are here)
Part 2: How God Breaks Every Bondage
More Teaching Series
The Mystery of Open and Closed Doors: Start with Part 1: The Stealer of Joy
The Decision Series: Start with Part 1: Why Decisions Matter
Marriage in the Lord Series: Start with Part 1: Marry Only in the Lord
Declarations
God is good, and God is God.
I stop fighting God, and I begin to cooperate with Him.
His counsel shall stand in my life.
I find my gift, my calling and my place in His will.
I surrender, and I come under His protection.
I live under the lordship of Jesus Christ.
Stay Connected & Grow Deeper
Watch the full message: Part 1 of the Lordship (Prabhutv) series on YouTube. Please note that the message is preached in Hindi.
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