Jesus is MY Lord
Luke 9:23
Message #5
Last message, we looked at the “Stand-Alone” truth that “Jesus IS Lord.” He just is, no matter how we feel about it or what we DO about it. Jesus IS Lord over heaven and earth and all that is in them. But that fact, in and of itself, doesn’t do anything for you personally. If you know Jesus as Lord, that’s good. But just acknowledging that Jesus is Lord doesn’t really impact your life.
This message, we want to talk about HOW that truth (that Jesus is Lord) can radically transform your life for eternity. The fact that Jesus is LORD is just that; it’s a fact. But if you will make him your Lord in every way and in every area of your life, he will incredibly, completely, and radically save you and transform you. He will make you a joint heir with him in all his heavenly reward. This message is about the difference between Jesus IS Lord and Jesus is MY Lord.
Jesus IS Lord. But even just acknowledging that truth (in and of itself) doesn’t SAVE you and doesn’t transform your life. It’s a great place to start, but don’t get stuck there. The New Testament makes it clear that the demons believe that truth, and it’s not doing anything for them but preparing them for judgment.
Here’s the only thing that MATTERS in your life, personally,
Here’s the only thing that TRANSFORMS your life, personally,
Here’s the only thing that SAVES you personally,
IS JESUS YOUR LORD?
Do you say, can you say, will you say – Jesus, you are MY Lord. You are my personal Lord. You are MY Lord in every way, in every area of my life. That is really the only option Jesus offers.
LORD OF ALL or not Lord at all.
There is so much that it means for us to truly make Jesus our Lord. It impacts every area of our lives. The concept of Jesus being our Lord, personally, is so big; that I can’t begin to address it in just one message. So, I can only pick a couple of crucial areas to talk about Jesus being our Lord. And then, if you go all-in with these areas, the rest will come as you walk with him as your Lord. So, turn in your Bibles to Luke Chapter 9.
Matthew, Mark, and Luke are called The Synoptic Gospels, and this text is in all three of these Gospels (which is a great study, by the way). Here’s the background. Jesus went up to Caesarea Philippi with his disciples and a crowd following. It was here Peter made his famous confession (see verse 20) that Jesus IS the Christ, the Son of the Living God, and Jesus commended him for it (in the other accounts). And then Jesus began to explain in verse 22 that he must suffer many things, be rejected, and be killed but that he would rise again on the third day. And then (in other accounts), Peter takes Jesus aside and starts to rebuke him for saying these things. And just after Jesus had commended Peter, we now read using Mark 8, verse 33.
Mark 8:33 (ESV)
33 But turning and seeing his disciples, he rebuked Peter and said, “Get behind me, Satan! For you are not setting your mind on the things of God, but on the things of man.”
And at that point, at that time, Jesus makes it clear what it takes to make Jesus Lord of our own life.
Luke 9:23 (ESV)
23 And he said to all, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me.
IF – Jesus simply says IF
IF anyone would come after me
IF anyone would join me
IF anyone would call me LORD
let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me
He says it to his own Disciples
He says it to the crowd
He says it to you and me today
IF anyone would make Jesus LORD of their life, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow Him
No big emotional plea, no fanfare, no drama. Jesus simply says, IF you desire to make me LORD of your life, here is what it takes…
SURRENDER to Jesus as your ONLY Lord
CRUCIFY your self-life, DAILY
FOLLOW Jesus in his new life for you.
Jesus gave three commands to make him LORD of our lives:
1). Surrender to Jesus as your only Lord
2). Crucify your “self” life daily
3). Follow Jesus in his new life for you.
Guys, the greatest, truest, most abundant life possible comes from truly making Jesus OUR Lord. But the path to that greatest, truest, most abundant life might not be what you think it is. Jesus says the path to the glorious and abundant life that might not be what you think it is. Jesus says the path to the glorious and abundant life that he has for you looks like THIS: SURRENDER – CRUCIFY – FOLLOW
First, Jesus says let this person deny himself. We’ll call it just that, surrender. Why is that surrender? Denying your “self.”
Because SELF is the natural lord of your life
Self is the natural little “g” god in your life
Self is naturally on the throne of your life
SELF is in CHARGE
SELF is in CONTROL
And Jesus will not share the lordship of your life with self.
SELF must be DENIED
SELF must SURRENDER
If you would truly make Jesus the Lord of your life, the first step is to deny the lordship of self in your life.
Maybe you’ve heard (if you’ve been around here), and you may even know you have to agree with it. But can I ask, HOW are you ACTUALLY doing with it? Because this is the first and the most severe requirement to making Jesus Christ truly LORD of our lives. Deny the lordship of SELF and surrender to the Lordship of CHRIST alone.
In Romans Chapter 7, the Apostle Paul makes it clear, that our battle with the lord of self is a lifelong battle. But – through faith in Christ – we have the chance to switch lords. We can deny the lord of self and surrender to the Lordship of Jesus Christ.
Let’s look at just a few verses from Romans chapter 6.
Romans 6:16–19 (NLT)
16 Don’t you realize that you become the slave of whatever you choose to obey? You can be a slave to sin, which leads to death, or you can choose to obey God, which leads to righteous living.
17 Thank God! Once you were slaves of sin, but now you wholeheartedly obey this teaching we have given you.
18 Now you are free from your slavery to sin, and you have become slaves to righteous living.
19 . . . Previously, you let yourselves be slaves to impurity and lawlessness, which led ever deeper into sin. Now you must give yourselves to be slaves to righteous living so that you will become holy.
Sounds easy, right? (At least to anyone who’s never tried it.) Listen to what Paul says, as he shares his own struggle with this first and most severe requirement of making Jesus Lord.
Romans 7:24–25 (NLT)
24 Oh, what a miserable person I am! Who will free me from this life that is dominated by sin and death?
25 Thank God! The answer is in Jesus Christ our Lord . . .
Please listen carefully.
In and of ourselves, we do not actually have the power to deny the lordship of self in our lives. This is not just “Try harder to be a better person.” That’s the last thing this is. You don’t have enough try in you to accomplish this on your own. The only answer involves death. Not the type of death that sin brings, but death to self.
And that is exactly what Jesus lays out in our key verse.
Luke 9:23 (ESV)
23 And he said to all, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself (surrender) and take up his cross daily and follow me.
First, SURRENDER, meaning deny the lordship of self and make Jesus your only Lord.
Second, CRUCIFY your self-life DAILY!
Meaning we’ve got to live as dead to the lord of self daily. There’s not enough try in you to break the lordship of self. But self can be crucified. And so immediately after Jesus tells us to deny self, he immediately tells us how.
HOW? By taking up your cross daily. And he’s not saying, “Put on your best gold necklace.” He’s saying walk in the death of self daily. The Cross that Jesus spoke of had nothing to do with a symbol of beauty or love or sentiment. The Cross meant one thing, dead people.
Listen to what A.W. TOZER says about the Cross
Men did not wear that Cross; but that Cross wore men. It stood naked until a man was pinned on it, a living man fastened like some grotesque stickpin on its breast to writhe and groan till death stilled and silenced him. That is the Cross. Nothing less. And when it is robbed of its tears and blood and pain, it is the Cross no longer
The way to the abundant life in Christ can only come through the death of self.
The abundant life in Jesus Christ is the life of:
The greatest JOY
The greatest PEACE
The greatest FULFILLMENT and
The only path to ETERNAL LIFE with God in heaven.
The problem is, the path to that abundant life comes only through the Lordship of Jesus Christ, and the Lordship of Jesus Christ comes only through death to self.
So, only in grasping what it means to walk in death to self daily can we begin to grasp the glory of following Jesus as Lord.
So what does that mean, dying to self daily? What does that look like?
In Romans 8, the Apostle Paul says it this way:
Romans 8:13 (ESV)
13 For if you live according to the flesh you will die, but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live.
Dying to self is “By the Spirit putting to death the self-nature.” I suppose we could all define what that looks like a little differently. But here’s a good synopsis. Someone once said, “When the will of God crosses the will of man, somebody has to die.”
It has to do with what you want versus what God wants. Your will versus God’s will. And it has to do with who is winning those battles.
And when you, by the power of the Holy Spirit, begin putting to death the deeds of self, you will begin to experience the glory and the peace and the abundance that comes on the other side of the Cross. The Cross does not end your life. The Cross is the beginning of your new life. When you hang the self-life on the Cross daily, then you can begin to walk in the new life with Jesus.
This is exactly what Jesus says at the end of our key verse. Again, Luke 9, verse 23.
Luke 9:23 (ESV)
23 And he said to all, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself (surrender) and take up his cross daily (crucify self) and follow me.
First, SURRENDER to Jesus as your only Lord.
Second, CRUCIFY your “self” life daily
Finally, FOLLOW Jesus in his new life for you.
In the end, Jesus simply says; Follow me as your Lord, and you will experience my new life for you.
But what prevents us from simply following Jesus is:
1) REFUSING to kick self off the throne of our lives
2) REFUSING to die daily to the self-nature
Let me just boil it down for you, as simple as I can make it.
Following Jesus is the ANSWER
Following self-nature is the PROBLEM
Following Jesus is
the most AWESOME life
the most RADICAL life
the most MEANINGFUL life
the most REWARDING life
The reason we don’t experience it more is because it involves two things we hate.
1) Deny self – which we hate
2) Living as dead to self – which we really hate.
But listen to A.W. Tozer one more time on this passage, speaking of following Jesus.
A.W. Tozer says;
Each heart can have its own dream of fair worlds and new revelations, of the [pilgrimage] of the ransomed soul in the ages to come, but whoever follows Jesus will find at last that [Jesus] has made the reality to [be far greater than] the dream
We will never fully know all the blessing and rewards of following Jesus until we finish the race and meet him at the finish line. In the meantime, this is what it means to follow Jesus.
1). DENY SELF – you cannot share the throne of your life with the lord of self and the Lord of heaven
2). Live as DEAD TO SELF DAILY – which means this battle doesn’t end until you shed this tent of flesh
3). FOLLOW JESUS in his new life for you
Paul put it this way in Philippians 3.
Philippians 3:12–14 (ESV)
12 Not that I have already obtained this or am already perfect, but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own.
13(b) . . . But one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead,
14 I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.
Paul says I haven’t obtained it, I’m not there yet, but one thing for sure, I am all in.
Forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead - I press on toward the goal - for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.
Listen, guys, we’ve got to crush our self-focused, worldly perspective and see life from God’s perspective. So, to close, let’s look at a shocking verse and then a very encouraging verse that follows.
Turn to Matthew chapter 10.
Matthew 10:38 (NLT)
38 If you refuse to take up your cross and follow me, you are not worthy of being mine.
Jesus uses shocking statements like this often because he knows how strong a hold the self-life has on us. This verse doesn’t need in-depth explanation. This verse needs in-depth meditation. Jesus says if we refuse to deny and even crucify our self-life, we are not worthy of belonging to him.
But in the very next verse is the encouragement we need after a tough verse like that.
Verse 38 is the great motivation.
Verse 39 is the great encouragement.
Matthew 10:39 (NLT)
39 If you cling to your life, you will lose it; but if you give up your life for me, you will find it.
Jesus has a plan, a great plan. And as Lord of all creation, he will bring his great plan to pass. And here it is. If you try to cling to your self-life, you will lose it. But if you give up your “self” life, deny it, and crucify it, you will find true, abundant eternal life in the Lordship of Jesus Christ.
Right now, if you will let him, God will reveal to you what this means specifically in your life. If you are ready to hear him, God will reveal to you what part of the self-life you are clinging to, and he will begin to reveal to you what he is calling you to do about it. God will speak to you if you will have the courage to ask him and listen.
Follow along, as I pray. Allow God to bring up in your mind what area he is calling you to crucify to self-life and follow him as Lord.
Lord Jesus, right now, I surrender the lordship of my life to you. Please fill me with your Holy Spirit for the power to crucify my flesh and hear from you. I want to truly follow you in my life as my only Lord. Forgetting what lies behind, I want to press forward to what lies ahead. Show me, Lord, right now, put in my mind the area of my life where you are not Lord, where self is still on the throne. Show me, Lord where you would have me deny my “self,” crucify my self-ways and truly follow you as Lord. Please, Lord, bring it up in my mind and show me.
Right now, Lord, I surrender that one thing to you. I put that thing on the Cross to be crucified completely, and daily I surrender that area of my life to your Lordship.
I choose today to follow you in that specific area, wholly and completely. Lord, please show me one thing you are calling me to do in that one area. Show me one step you are calling me to take to surrender that area to your Lordship. And Lord, I can’t do it without the full power of the Holy Spirit. So please baptize me with your power to crucify my flesh and serve you as my Lord. It’s for your glory. It’s for your sake. It’s in your name I pray, amen.
This message, we want to talk about HOW that truth (that Jesus is Lord) can radically transform your life for eternity. The fact that Jesus is LORD is just that; it’s a fact. But if you will make him your Lord in every way and in every area of your life, he will incredibly, completely, and radically save you and transform you. He will make you a joint heir with him in all his heavenly reward. This message is about the difference between Jesus IS Lord and Jesus is MY Lord.
Jesus IS Lord. But even just acknowledging that truth (in and of itself) doesn’t SAVE you and doesn’t transform your life. It’s a great place to start, but don’t get stuck there. The New Testament makes it clear that the demons believe that truth, and it’s not doing anything for them but preparing them for judgment.
Here’s the only thing that MATTERS in your life, personally,
Here’s the only thing that TRANSFORMS your life, personally,
Here’s the only thing that SAVES you personally,
IS JESUS YOUR LORD?
Do you say, can you say, will you say – Jesus, you are MY Lord. You are my personal Lord. You are MY Lord in every way, in every area of my life. That is really the only option Jesus offers.
LORD OF ALL or not Lord at all.
There is so much that it means for us to truly make Jesus our Lord. It impacts every area of our lives. The concept of Jesus being our Lord, personally, is so big; that I can’t begin to address it in just one message. So, I can only pick a couple of crucial areas to talk about Jesus being our Lord. And then, if you go all-in with these areas, the rest will come as you walk with him as your Lord. So, turn in your Bibles to Luke Chapter 9.
Matthew, Mark, and Luke are called The Synoptic Gospels, and this text is in all three of these Gospels (which is a great study, by the way). Here’s the background. Jesus went up to Caesarea Philippi with his disciples and a crowd following. It was here Peter made his famous confession (see verse 20) that Jesus IS the Christ, the Son of the Living God, and Jesus commended him for it (in the other accounts). And then Jesus began to explain in verse 22 that he must suffer many things, be rejected, and be killed but that he would rise again on the third day. And then (in other accounts), Peter takes Jesus aside and starts to rebuke him for saying these things. And just after Jesus had commended Peter, we now read using Mark 8, verse 33.
Mark 8:33 (ESV)
33 But turning and seeing his disciples, he rebuked Peter and said, “Get behind me, Satan! For you are not setting your mind on the things of God, but on the things of man.”
And at that point, at that time, Jesus makes it clear what it takes to make Jesus Lord of our own life.
Luke 9:23 (ESV)
23 And he said to all, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me.
IF – Jesus simply says IF
IF anyone would come after me
IF anyone would join me
IF anyone would call me LORD
let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me
He says it to his own Disciples
He says it to the crowd
He says it to you and me today
IF anyone would make Jesus LORD of their life, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow Him
No big emotional plea, no fanfare, no drama. Jesus simply says, IF you desire to make me LORD of your life, here is what it takes…
SURRENDER to Jesus as your ONLY Lord
CRUCIFY your self-life, DAILY
FOLLOW Jesus in his new life for you.
Jesus gave three commands to make him LORD of our lives:
1). Surrender to Jesus as your only Lord
2). Crucify your “self” life daily
3). Follow Jesus in his new life for you.
Guys, the greatest, truest, most abundant life possible comes from truly making Jesus OUR Lord. But the path to that greatest, truest, most abundant life might not be what you think it is. Jesus says the path to the glorious and abundant life that might not be what you think it is. Jesus says the path to the glorious and abundant life that he has for you looks like THIS: SURRENDER – CRUCIFY – FOLLOW
First, Jesus says let this person deny himself. We’ll call it just that, surrender. Why is that surrender? Denying your “self.”
Because SELF is the natural lord of your life
Self is the natural little “g” god in your life
Self is naturally on the throne of your life
SELF is in CHARGE
SELF is in CONTROL
And Jesus will not share the lordship of your life with self.
SELF must be DENIED
SELF must SURRENDER
If you would truly make Jesus the Lord of your life, the first step is to deny the lordship of self in your life.
Maybe you’ve heard (if you’ve been around here), and you may even know you have to agree with it. But can I ask, HOW are you ACTUALLY doing with it? Because this is the first and the most severe requirement to making Jesus Christ truly LORD of our lives. Deny the lordship of SELF and surrender to the Lordship of CHRIST alone.
In Romans Chapter 7, the Apostle Paul makes it clear, that our battle with the lord of self is a lifelong battle. But – through faith in Christ – we have the chance to switch lords. We can deny the lord of self and surrender to the Lordship of Jesus Christ.
Let’s look at just a few verses from Romans chapter 6.
Romans 6:16–19 (NLT)
16 Don’t you realize that you become the slave of whatever you choose to obey? You can be a slave to sin, which leads to death, or you can choose to obey God, which leads to righteous living.
17 Thank God! Once you were slaves of sin, but now you wholeheartedly obey this teaching we have given you.
18 Now you are free from your slavery to sin, and you have become slaves to righteous living.
19 . . . Previously, you let yourselves be slaves to impurity and lawlessness, which led ever deeper into sin. Now you must give yourselves to be slaves to righteous living so that you will become holy.
Sounds easy, right? (At least to anyone who’s never tried it.) Listen to what Paul says, as he shares his own struggle with this first and most severe requirement of making Jesus Lord.
Romans 7:24–25 (NLT)
24 Oh, what a miserable person I am! Who will free me from this life that is dominated by sin and death?
25 Thank God! The answer is in Jesus Christ our Lord . . .
Please listen carefully.
In and of ourselves, we do not actually have the power to deny the lordship of self in our lives. This is not just “Try harder to be a better person.” That’s the last thing this is. You don’t have enough try in you to accomplish this on your own. The only answer involves death. Not the type of death that sin brings, but death to self.
And that is exactly what Jesus lays out in our key verse.
Luke 9:23 (ESV)
23 And he said to all, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself (surrender) and take up his cross daily and follow me.
First, SURRENDER, meaning deny the lordship of self and make Jesus your only Lord.
Second, CRUCIFY your self-life DAILY!
Meaning we’ve got to live as dead to the lord of self daily. There’s not enough try in you to break the lordship of self. But self can be crucified. And so immediately after Jesus tells us to deny self, he immediately tells us how.
HOW? By taking up your cross daily. And he’s not saying, “Put on your best gold necklace.” He’s saying walk in the death of self daily. The Cross that Jesus spoke of had nothing to do with a symbol of beauty or love or sentiment. The Cross meant one thing, dead people.
Listen to what A.W. TOZER says about the Cross
Men did not wear that Cross; but that Cross wore men. It stood naked until a man was pinned on it, a living man fastened like some grotesque stickpin on its breast to writhe and groan till death stilled and silenced him. That is the Cross. Nothing less. And when it is robbed of its tears and blood and pain, it is the Cross no longer
The way to the abundant life in Christ can only come through the death of self.
The abundant life in Jesus Christ is the life of:
The greatest JOY
The greatest PEACE
The greatest FULFILLMENT and
The only path to ETERNAL LIFE with God in heaven.
The problem is, the path to that abundant life comes only through the Lordship of Jesus Christ, and the Lordship of Jesus Christ comes only through death to self.
So, only in grasping what it means to walk in death to self daily can we begin to grasp the glory of following Jesus as Lord.
So what does that mean, dying to self daily? What does that look like?
In Romans 8, the Apostle Paul says it this way:
Romans 8:13 (ESV)
13 For if you live according to the flesh you will die, but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live.
Dying to self is “By the Spirit putting to death the self-nature.” I suppose we could all define what that looks like a little differently. But here’s a good synopsis. Someone once said, “When the will of God crosses the will of man, somebody has to die.”
It has to do with what you want versus what God wants. Your will versus God’s will. And it has to do with who is winning those battles.
And when you, by the power of the Holy Spirit, begin putting to death the deeds of self, you will begin to experience the glory and the peace and the abundance that comes on the other side of the Cross. The Cross does not end your life. The Cross is the beginning of your new life. When you hang the self-life on the Cross daily, then you can begin to walk in the new life with Jesus.
This is exactly what Jesus says at the end of our key verse. Again, Luke 9, verse 23.
Luke 9:23 (ESV)
23 And he said to all, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself (surrender) and take up his cross daily (crucify self) and follow me.
First, SURRENDER to Jesus as your only Lord.
Second, CRUCIFY your “self” life daily
Finally, FOLLOW Jesus in his new life for you.
In the end, Jesus simply says; Follow me as your Lord, and you will experience my new life for you.
But what prevents us from simply following Jesus is:
1) REFUSING to kick self off the throne of our lives
2) REFUSING to die daily to the self-nature
Let me just boil it down for you, as simple as I can make it.
Following Jesus is the ANSWER
Following self-nature is the PROBLEM
Following Jesus is
the most AWESOME life
the most RADICAL life
the most MEANINGFUL life
the most REWARDING life
The reason we don’t experience it more is because it involves two things we hate.
1) Deny self – which we hate
2) Living as dead to self – which we really hate.
But listen to A.W. Tozer one more time on this passage, speaking of following Jesus.
A.W. Tozer says;
Each heart can have its own dream of fair worlds and new revelations, of the [pilgrimage] of the ransomed soul in the ages to come, but whoever follows Jesus will find at last that [Jesus] has made the reality to [be far greater than] the dream
We will never fully know all the blessing and rewards of following Jesus until we finish the race and meet him at the finish line. In the meantime, this is what it means to follow Jesus.
1). DENY SELF – you cannot share the throne of your life with the lord of self and the Lord of heaven
2). Live as DEAD TO SELF DAILY – which means this battle doesn’t end until you shed this tent of flesh
3). FOLLOW JESUS in his new life for you
Paul put it this way in Philippians 3.
Philippians 3:12–14 (ESV)
12 Not that I have already obtained this or am already perfect, but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own.
13(b) . . . But one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead,
14 I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.
Paul says I haven’t obtained it, I’m not there yet, but one thing for sure, I am all in.
Forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead - I press on toward the goal - for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.
Listen, guys, we’ve got to crush our self-focused, worldly perspective and see life from God’s perspective. So, to close, let’s look at a shocking verse and then a very encouraging verse that follows.
Turn to Matthew chapter 10.
Matthew 10:38 (NLT)
38 If you refuse to take up your cross and follow me, you are not worthy of being mine.
Jesus uses shocking statements like this often because he knows how strong a hold the self-life has on us. This verse doesn’t need in-depth explanation. This verse needs in-depth meditation. Jesus says if we refuse to deny and even crucify our self-life, we are not worthy of belonging to him.
But in the very next verse is the encouragement we need after a tough verse like that.
Verse 38 is the great motivation.
Verse 39 is the great encouragement.
Matthew 10:39 (NLT)
39 If you cling to your life, you will lose it; but if you give up your life for me, you will find it.
Jesus has a plan, a great plan. And as Lord of all creation, he will bring his great plan to pass. And here it is. If you try to cling to your self-life, you will lose it. But if you give up your “self” life, deny it, and crucify it, you will find true, abundant eternal life in the Lordship of Jesus Christ.
Right now, if you will let him, God will reveal to you what this means specifically in your life. If you are ready to hear him, God will reveal to you what part of the self-life you are clinging to, and he will begin to reveal to you what he is calling you to do about it. God will speak to you if you will have the courage to ask him and listen.
Follow along, as I pray. Allow God to bring up in your mind what area he is calling you to crucify to self-life and follow him as Lord.
Lord Jesus, right now, I surrender the lordship of my life to you. Please fill me with your Holy Spirit for the power to crucify my flesh and hear from you. I want to truly follow you in my life as my only Lord. Forgetting what lies behind, I want to press forward to what lies ahead. Show me, Lord, right now, put in my mind the area of my life where you are not Lord, where self is still on the throne. Show me, Lord where you would have me deny my “self,” crucify my self-ways and truly follow you as Lord. Please, Lord, bring it up in my mind and show me.
Right now, Lord, I surrender that one thing to you. I put that thing on the Cross to be crucified completely, and daily I surrender that area of my life to your Lordship.
I choose today to follow you in that specific area, wholly and completely. Lord, please show me one thing you are calling me to do in that one area. Show me one step you are calling me to take to surrender that area to your Lordship. And Lord, I can’t do it without the full power of the Holy Spirit. So please baptize me with your power to crucify my flesh and serve you as my Lord. It’s for your glory. It’s for your sake. It’s in your name I pray, amen.