Lois:
I constantly cry, Lord, you started this thing, and You said You would perform it to the end. Lord, I submit my life to You. I bow to You. I tell You, I love You with everything in me. Now, Lord, You finish the work. I have to trust You. I just let my weight down on that. You're going to finish what You started.
Ken:
If you want to walk with God, “you must take up your cross daily and follow Me.” So there's a dying out to self that's required in your coming into the Lordship of Jesus Christ. Without the dying on one level, you're never going to live on the new level.
Ron:
Humanity has a real hard time with this, because Christ, the Father, the Holy Spirit- they're all invisible. On a human level, it just seems ridiculous. I think another key to the Lordship of Jesus Christ, the beginning of it anyway, is revelation. You must have a revelation of the Lord. No one can talk you into it, and no one can talk you out of it. And you can't go forward until you get it. You have to believe that He is; and not mentally. And I think that's a big pitfall for many people out there, many Christians. Mentally, they accept the things, but it's not been an experience to them. “Lordship of Jesus Christ” is not an experience in their lives. And that is huge. They can't attain it, but they can ask for it. And it's really that simple.
Yes. You've asked for it, and you continue to ask for it until you have the experience of it. It's not a one time thing like all the things of God. It's not a one time thing. The Lordship of Jesus Christ is not a one time experience. It's a beginning. You'll have a beginning experience. But we're still, those of us have walked with the Lord for 40, 50 years - that experience deepens or should be deepening in what it means.
Dale:
Paul wrote to the churches, Colossians – Corinthians - that whole bunch of crew was all about trying to get across the idea that Jesus Christ, He was Lord over the church in every phase of the church. That is a developing revelation . As we grow in Him, He reveals more of Himself to us that becomes an experience. You might even say it's almost daily. It goes from experience to experience where we realize just how deep Christ being our Lord really is.
Ken:
I think we must get the idea and understand that every experience in God is expandable. So if salvation is expandable, you can have a relationship with God to a degree with the salvation experience.
But after a while, you find out that to really come into that relationship with God through the Holy Spirit, you have to give your life into this relationship with God.
You have to go into the first and second commandments. Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and your neighbor as yourself by revelation.
Ron:
That's step one.
Ken:
It is.
Ron:
You don't even get started without getting into that. It's a realm that you don't believe until you experience it. When you experience it, then the Scriptures open up.
Debbie:
I was raised in a Christian home. I was raised under the Word of God. I was raised to worship the Lord, to honor the Lord.
And I thought I knew the Lord. I accepted the Lord when I was six years old. When the time came when I was by myself and had a lot of time alone, I was reading in the Word and I read in the Word, pressing on to know the Lord. And I said, okay, I understand what pressing on means. You go after everything and you cry out for it.
Yeah, I know you, Lord. Do you really know Me? You know about Me. You've been told about Me. You've accepted Me at salvation level, but you have not come into a relationship with Me. I don't know you. We don't know each other. You have to come into a relationship with Me, and I found myself crying out, Lord, just reveal yourself to me.
Let me know You. Let me know You. It doesn't matter what happens to me from this point on, but I want to know You. The Holy Spirit helped me, enabled me to come into a relationship with You. And every day since then, it's been step by step by step by step. He's requiring of it, of me more. And I think He's requiring it quicker now because the days are getting shorter.
The time of the Lordship of Jesus Christ is coming to the full. The iniquity is coming to the full. And the Lordship of Jesus Christ will be there to inhabit those that cry out to Him. I'm having to step up, become the Word of God to others, become an answer and a release to help them come to know who the Lord is, and want to desire to know Him. It's a daily thing. You have to just really reach into it.
Ron:
As you were talking, Deb, you were saying how you cried out to the Lord that you wanted to know Him. There's a flip side of that coin, because He wants to know you. A lot of our time that we spend before the Lord, He wants you to open up to Him, to talk to Him.
What's in your heart? What's in your mind? What are you thinking? What's in your heart? What's your desires? All those things are part of a relationship. Even in human relationships, you don't get to know one another unless you open up to one another and talk about what's in your heart, what's your, what do you want in life. And I think the Lord's the same. I think it's the same thing.
Ken:
Here's a good illustration of that. Back in Genesis, did God just teach Adam and Eve, or did He communicate and relate? He walked and He talked with them. He loved them.
It was a relationship with a living God, the God that created them. And that's what He wants with us.
