This truth is very precious but often not understood and mostly missed out on. The choice we make to accept God as our Lord or to have God merely as God is up to our individual choice. But the implications of our choice matter much, yet few discern the differences!
If we merely know God as God, our thinking is similar to that of Satan, who also thinks that way.
James 2:19 NKJV You believe that God is one. Good for you! Even the demons believe that–and shudder.
Yes, the Bible clearly says that Satan knows God as God.
But to a few people :
who believe in God and obey His commandments,
those who love Him & surrender their lives to God,
God is their Lord.
He is the Lord God to those people.
Such a person lives in God’s will.
He lives being conscience of God’s Kingdom realm.
He or she experiences God’s Kingdom here when they live on earth.
When we accept God as our Lord God,
We choose to live in obedience to God’s will,
We accept God as our Lord God.
We love Him with all of our lives, all of our strength, and all of our hearts.
Our trust and confidence are in Him.
His will is what we choose instead of fear of man.
His Kingdom is more real than the surroundings and circumstances we face.
We know about the three young boys, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, probably in their mid-twenties or so. These men decided against obeying the mighty King Nebuchadnezzar. They decided not to bow to the golden image. They did not mind the consequence of being thrown into the fiery furnace. They were willing to pay for the consequence of not obeying the king. Rather, their decision was only to worship and bow down to their God, who was Lord over their lives.
Although the king said, “But if you do not worship, you shall immediately be cast into a burning fiery furnace. And who is the god who will deliver you out of my hands?”
16 Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego answered and said to the king, “O Nebuchadnezzar, we have no need to answer you in this matter. 17 If this be so, our God, whom we serve, is able to deliver us from the burning fiery furnace, and he will deliver us out of your hand, O king. 18 But if not, be it known to you, O king, that we will not serve your gods or worship the golden image that you have set up.” (Daniel 3:15 b-18)
Yes, when God is Lord, nothing can deter us from obeying God. Fear of man has no place in our lives.
For I, the Lord your God, will hold your right hand,
Saying to you, ‘Fear not, I will help you.’ (Isaiah 41:13)
Neither temptation nor any addiction like drugs, alcohol, or porn, any state of mind or body including anxiety, hunger, anger, poverty, bitterness, offense, busyness, greed, hurry, or any other matter would be able to stop us from obeying God our Lord and loving Him with our heart, strength, and love.
When Jesus was asked which was the great commandment, Jesus mentioned that one has to love the Lord our God with all of our being. Note the mention, Lord our God.
36 “Teacher, which is the great commandment in the law?”
37 Jesus said to him, “‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ 38 This is the first and great commandment. 39 And the second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ 40 On these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets.” (Matthew 22:36-40)
When God is Lord, thus having Lordship, we can love God with all of our being. Our default will be to obey Him.
For this is the love of God, that we keep His commandments. And His commandments are not burdensome. (1 John 5:3)
Even in the book of Genesis, we see how the serpent, the devil, was more subtle and cunning than all other animals. We can see he does not refer to God as Lord God but merely as God.
Now the serpent was more cunning than any beast of the field that the LORD God had made. And he said to the woman, “Has God indeed said, ‘You shall not eat of every tree of the garden’?” (Genesis 3:1)
The devil’s intention was clear: to subtly get men and women to refer to God as merely God rather than Lord God, without Lordship. This route was used to start the very argument to confuse Adam and Eve about what the Lord God had told them.
When man was created in the image and likeness of God, God desired a relationship wherein man looked to God as Lord God.
And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and man became a living being. (Genesis 2:7)
And the one commandment, one instruction, was not to eat of the one tree, the tree from which the serpent, the devil, cheated Adam and Eve.
Then the Lord God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to tend and keep it. And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, “Of every tree of the garden you may freely eat; but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for on the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.” (Genesis 2:15-17)
Knowing God’s Word, reading and meditating on it daily, is important so that neither by cunningness nor any evil scheme of the devil do we fall into sin.
