MASTERY OVER THE BELIEVER
Ye call Me Master and Lord: and ye say well; for so I am. – John 13:13Our Lord never insists on having authority; He never says – Thou
shalt. He leaves us perfectly free – so free that we can spit in His
face, as men did; so free that we can put Him to death, as men did;
and He will never say a word. But when His life has been created in
me by His Redemption I instantly recognize His right to absolute
authority over me. It is a moral domination – “Thou art worthy . . .”
It is only the unworthy in me that refuses to bow down to the worthy.
If when I meet a man who is more holy than myself, I do not recognize
his worthiness and obey what comes through him, it is a revelation of
the unworthy in me. God educates us by means of people who are a
little better than we are, not intellectually but “holily,” until we
get under the domination of the Lord Himself, and then the whole
attitude of the life is one of obedience to Him.If Our Lord insisted upon obedience He would become a taskmaster, and
He would cease to have any authority. He never insists on obedience,
but when we do see Him we obey Him instantly, He is easily Lord, and
we live in adoration of Him from morning till night. The revelation
of my growth in grace is the way in which I look upon obedience. We
have to rescue the word “obedience” from the mire. Obedience is only
possible between equals; it is the relationship between father and
son, not between master and servant. “I and My Father are one.”
“Though He were a Son, yet learned He obedience by the things which
He suffered.” The Son’s obedience was as Redeemer, because He was
Son, not in order to be Son.