Our Savior IS our Lord

One of the things I’ve heard my whole life about the Christian life is that Jesus needs to be your Savior and Lord. I understand how this phrase is helpful in explaining two different parts of what it means to follow Christ, but what I no longer get is how Christ can be your Savior without being your Lord. Sometimes people do say, “well, Christ is his Savior, but he needs to make Christ his Lord.” I just don’t think Jesus would have dug on that kind of easy faith.

Take the rich young ruler for instance (how would you like that for your nickname? Luke does say he was a ruler, but you have to imagine with this nickname the girls came flocking), he obviously put some stock in Jesus since he came to him to ask about eternal life. He followed the law and I think he figured Jesus was going to say, “You’re doing a nice job bro. Just keep keepin’ it real.” But Jesus told him to sell everything he had and give it to the poor. There was something that held a higher place in his heart than God—something he wasn’t willing to give up. He couldn’t just get eternal life without living in total devotion and obedience to God.

If we really follow Christ then he is our Savior and Lord. If he’s not both I think he would say we’re just faking it. We have weak, useless, and dead faith.