Lord of all

…telling the good news of peace through Jesus Christ, who is Lord of all.   (Acts 10:36)

 

Lord of All

 

The term most commonly used to refer to Jesus in the book of Acts is Lord. It may be that Dr. Luke, who wrote the book of Acts, felt that using the name Jesus to refer to our Lord was too familiar. Perhaps He thought Christ seemed too formal.

At any rate, Jesus is Lord of all, whether we acknowledge Him in that way or not. A lord is someone who has dominion over another. St. Paul says that the day will come when “at the name of Jesus every knee will bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father” (Phil. 2:10–11).

Elmer Towns points out that when we bow our heads in prayer, we symbolically recognize Jesus as Lord because that is the traditional way a person would approach a monarch or ruler. To acknowledge the lordship of Jesus simply means to put Him in first place in every aspect of our lives. one man, upon hearing a sermon on the lordship of Christ, was deeply touched and decided to commit himself to God. He said, “Use me, Lord. Use me!” Later, he felt God’s call to do something specific and began to hedge. He prayed, “I did say, ‘Use me, Lord,’ but I only meant it in an advisory capacity.”

By contrast, when someone asked William Booth, founder of the Salvation Army, why he was able to accomplish so much in his life, Booth answered, “God had all of me that there is. There have been others with greater plans, greater opportunities, and greater potential than I. But from the day that I had a vision of what God wanted me to do in my life, I made up my mind that God would have all of William Booth that there was.”

Booth gave God complete control of his life and thus submitted to the lordship of Jesus Christ. You and I have the privilege of doing that each day of our lives.

—Ron McClung