You have sometimes heard it said that we must “make” the Lord Jesus the center of our lives. We are advised to “put” the Lord Jesus on the throne of our hearts, so to speak, and so make him our personal Sovereign. The language reflects a pious and respectable tradition, I am sure. Yet it is not exactly appropriate.
The King of kings and Lord of lords is not, exactly, “put.” He is not “made.” The creature does not “place” the Creator in any imaginable way at all.
It is God the Father who makes God the Son the center of his design for the universe. God the Father puts God the Son on the throne. The “putting” is not our prerogative. The response of faith is simply surrender.
Over the past few months, we have re-introduced our Mission Handbook, substantially edited earlier in the year. This month we arrive at the document’s concluding paragraphs. They are titled, simply, “Surrendered to [Christ’s] Person and Cause” (¶222-225).
“Surrender” is a dynamic word. The English terminology is based on a pair of Old French roots: sur-, signifying “over,” and rendre, meaning “give back.” To surrender is to “give oneself back” to one’s owner or master – or maybe to one’s conqueror.
Another owns us, you see: surrender acknowledges that we are owned. Another rightfully commands us: surrender acknowledges that we are under authority. Surrender does not “put” Christ on the throne, exactly. It does not “make” him Proprietor of the world or the Owner of our hearts. Surrender acknowledges the facts already on the ground: we have a Redeemer in our Lord Jesus Christ, a Monarch full of authority and limitless in grace. We are his.
“Surrender” is a comprehensive word, too. Surrender to the Person of Jesus Christ is surrender always to his Cause. We cannot have one without the other: this Person comes wrapped forever in Heaven’s Cause. The Father is sending the Son (John 3:16-17, Romans 8:3, 1 John 4:14, etc.). The Light is shining into the darkness (John 1:5). The Word speaks, always and everywhere (John 1:3, 12:49-50, etc.). You cannot have it any other way – light without its shining, word without its speaking – or the Son of God without his mission in the world.
Here, sometimes, Christians will get things wrong. We may suppose that salvation, because it is utterly free, is missionally neutral. We may think that it has no specific content. But it does! The content of salvation is the Person of Jesus Christ. Jesus is the entrance to the life of faith – and also the Way (cf. John 14:6).
Christian faith is not simply a doctrine, you see – even a fine confessional statement, polished through the centuries. Christian faith is not simply a lifestyle or activity, either – even a fine and pious sort of lifestyle, full of prayer and good works. Christian faith touches everything – heads and hearts, hands and feet, time and energies, our past, present and future. It is Life. It is, in fact, the Life of Jesus Christ, present and living within us.
St. Paul summarizes his own faith experience this way: “It is Christ who lives in me” (Galatians 2:20). Paul’s life is a continuation of Christ’s life, somehow – and so is ours. “Christ lives within you” (Romans 8:10, NLT). “You are the body of Christ and individually members of it” (1 Corinthians 12:27).
This is a life, our Handbook explains, “that aspires to ‘have the mind of Christ’ in everything.” The Handbook reminds us that Jesus came “not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many,” making reference to Mark 10:45 (¶225). The Handbook recalls that “the Savior poured out his soul as an offering for sin.” If this is the One who lives in us, we will be poured out, too (¶222). “This is the kind of life you’ve been invited into,” St. Peter said, “the kind of life Christ lived” (1 Peter 2:21, The Message).
The concluding paragraphs of our Mission Handbook call this life “The Way of the Cross.” To know Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord is inevitably to surrender. We acknowledge by faith the facts already on the ground: he has redeemed us; we are his.
And then to surrender is to enter upon the Way. It is his way. It is his footsteps that we follow, his Cause that guides our path. It is our Lord himself who lives in us, after all. We are called in turn to live for him (2 Corinthians 5:15).