Making Jesus Lord

Laying down your rights. It’s a simple concept, yet so many people make it complex. Granted, it takes a great amount of faith and self-discipline, but it is possible.

Laying down your rights is a concept that is all but lost. We live in such a fast-paced, everything’s convenient society where the focus is our life, our possessions, our families, etc. The focus is on what matters to us. Yet, the Bible says that everything on the earth belongs to God. All of our possessions—“your” house, “your” money, “your” car—all belong to God. He’s blessed us with the use of it.

Jesus said, “If anyone wants to be my follower, you must turn from your selfish ways, take up your cross and follow me” (Matt. 16:24NLT). “Turn from your selfish ways.” The phrase is more than simply a group of words thrown together to form a sentence; they’re words to form a lifestyle.

The main focus of Making Jesus Lord was to inspire in our hearts this concept of laying down our rights. There are many different areas in the lives of the people, as this book pointed out, in which we all need to lay down.

One area that grabbed my attention was in the area of people. A major example used repeatedly in the book was the author’s wife. He had to lay down his personal feelings, human emotions, etc. about his wife in order for God’s will in their life to be completed. It signified that he was following God 100% and that he was literally giving up everything to follow the Lord.

I, personally, find that to be amazing. Anyone can say that they’d give up things for Christ; lay things down at His feet, but how many people would honestly give up their right to love their spouse or kids or, in the case of the single, friends, siblings, etc.?

“Sometimes we need to do more than relinquish our rights—we need to understand what the enemy is trying to do in our lives and combat it in the opposite spirit” (118). I love that quote because it establishes that there is more to this laying down our rights thing; it brings in spiritual warfare—an area of which I am all too familiar with. Sometimes, we have to realize that in order for us to win certain battles; we have to lay down our rights to fight the battle.

In the Old Testament, time and time again, when the soldiers would go out to fight in wars or battles, they’d send the praise band out first and God would fight and win the battles for His people. It’s the same in the spiritual realm. Yes, we must fight, but sometimes the smart move—the strategic move—is to simply give it to God and then “collect the spoils.”

When we lay down our rights, we truly become humbled before God. When we’ve given Him our all, then God can use us for His glory in ways that we can’t even imagine.