Let Me Ask You Something Honest
Can I be real with you for a minute?
Most of us accepted Jesus as our Savior. We prayed the prayer. We meant it. We believed it. And something real happened in that moment — something eternal, something beautiful, something that sealed our names in the Book of Life and changed our destination forever.
But somewhere between that altar moment and the Monday morning that followed, a gap opened up. And if we're being honest — truly, lovingly honest with each other — a lot of us have been living in that gap for years.
We love Jesus. We believe in Jesus. We sing about Jesus, post about Jesus, and genuinely want to please Jesus. But when the decisions come — the real ones, the costly ones, the ones that require us to say no to what we want and yes to what God is asking — something in us stalls. We consult our feelings. We ask our friends. We do the pros and cons list. We come back to God eventually, maybe, after we've already decided.
And then we wonder why the breakthrough hasn't come. Why the peace feels just out of reach. Why our faith has plateaus that no amount of church attendance seems to resolve.
Family, I want to talk to you today about the difference between having Jesus as your Savior and having Jesus as your Lord. Because they are not the same thing. And understanding the difference might be the most important shift you ever make in your walk with God.
Two Words. One Person. An Ocean of Difference.
Here's what I want you to see right from the start.
Savior and Lord are not competing titles. They are not opposites. They belong to the same Person — Jesus Christ — and a fully alive, fully fruitful Christian life requires both. But they represent two distinct dimensions of what it means to follow Him, and most of us were introduced to one without being properly discipled into the other.
When Jesus is your Savior, He rescues you. He pulls you out of the burning building. He cancels the debt you could never pay. He takes the punishment that was rightfully yours and absorbs it completely into Himself. That is the finished work of the cross — beautiful, complete, and free. You didn't earn it. You can't lose it. You receive it by faith.
"For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast."
— Ephesians 2:8–9
Grace. Gift. Free. Yes.
But then there is a second dimension — one that doesn't earn the salvation, but responds to it. One that says: Because of what You did for me, my life is no longer my own. One that goes beyond rescue me to lead me. That dimension is Lordship.
When Jesus is your Lord, He doesn't just get the emergency calls. He gets the whole calendar. He doesn't just get Sunday morning. He gets Monday's meeting, Tuesday's argument, Wednesday's financial decision, Thursday's temptation, and Friday's moment of choice. He gets the parts of your life you've kept private. He gets the dreams you've been running on your own. He gets the relationships, the money, the time, the future.
The Savior-only mindset says: Jesus, save me from hell.
The Lordship mindset says: Jesus, tell me how to live.
The Savior-only mindset says: I want You to fix my problems.
The Lordship mindset says: I want You to govern my choices.
Can I tell you something? Both of those people make it to heaven. But only one of them experiences heaven on earth.
The Gap Most Believers Are Living In
Let me describe someone to you, and I want you to notice if this feels familiar.
They go to church most Sundays. They genuinely love God — this isn't performance, this is real. They serve in ministry, pray over their food, listen to worship music in the car, and believe with their whole heart that Jesus died for them.
But when they have a big decision to make, they figure it out first and ask God to bless what they've decided. When conflict comes in a relationship, their first response is their feelings, not the Spirit. When financial pressure hits, anxiety moves in before prayer does. When something they want conflicts with something God has said, they negotiate. They rationalize. They find the interpretation that gives them the most room.
And they feel it. That quiet, nagging sense that something is off. That they keep circling the same mountains. That the breakthrough they've been praying for isn't coming, and they don't know why.
The issue is not their salvation. The issue is their submission.
They have a Savior. But they have not yet surrendered to a Lord.
"But why do you call Me 'Lord, Lord,' and not do the things which I say?"
— Luke 6:46
He wasn't angry. He was confused on our behalf. He was pointing out the contradiction in our own confession. We call Him Lord. We use the word. We sing it. We write it. But if Lord means the one with final authority, the one whose instruction governs my actions — then the life doesn't match the language.
And Jesus, who is full of grace, who is patient with our process, still loves us enough to ask the uncomfortable question.
Why do you call Me Lord and not let Me actually be Lord?
What "Lord" Actually Means
I want to take a moment with this word because it matters more than we've given it credit for.
The Greek word is Kyrios. It means master. Owner. Ruler. The one with absolute authority. The one whose word is final.
In the Roman world, when you called someone Kyrios, you were acknowledging that they had power over you. Not as an equal who gives suggestions. As the one with the governing voice.
When the early church confessed Iesous Kyrios — Jesus is Lord — in a culture where only Caesar was supposed to hold that title — that was not a casual spiritual statement. That was a declaration with consequences. It meant that Jesus, not Caesar, not culture, not personal preference, not even family tradition — Jesus had the final word on how they lived.
"If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved."
— Romans 10:9
Salvation and Lordship are in the same sentence. Not as conditions of earning grace — but as the natural, inseparable response of a heart that has truly encountered the risen Christ. You believe He conquered death and you confess that He is the one with authority over your life. Those go together.
So when we separate them — when we take the salvation and set down the submission — we've split apart something God designed to work together.
The Rich Young Ruler and the Thing We Don't Want to Talk About
There is a story in Matthew 19 that I think about often. A young man comes running to Jesus — running, which tells you this wasn't casual — and he asks: "Good Teacher, what good thing shall I do that I may have eternal life?"
He was a good man by every visible standard. Religious. Moral. Obedient to the commandments from his youth. He checked all the boxes that the culture around him said were the markers of a righteous person.
And Jesus looked at him with love — Mark's version of this story tells us that explicitly: Jesus, looking at him, loved him — and then told him the one thing standing between him and full freedom.
"If you want to be perfect, go, sell what you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow Me."
And the young man went away sorrowful. Because he had great possessions.
Here's what I want you to see: he didn't lack salvation desire. He was literally running toward Jesus. He didn't lack morality or religious sincerity. He lacked surrender in one specific, critical area.
His wealth was his lord. And Jesus — who is never cruel but always honest — put His finger right on it.
The young man wanted eternal life. He wanted the Savior benefit. But he wasn't willing to let Jesus be the Shot Caller over his finances. And because that area was off-limits, the rest of the relationship had a ceiling.
Can I ask you something?
What is your wealth equivalent? Not necessarily money — though it might be. What is the area of your life where, if Jesus put His finger on it and said "That, right there — I want that," you would feel your stomach drop? What is the thing you haven't handed over yet? The relationship. The career path. The habit. The reputation. The plan you've had for your life since you were twenty-two years old?
That thing — that specific thing — is usually where the Lordship conversation gets real.
Lordship Is Not a Punishment. It Is a Promotion.
I need to pause here because I know how this can sound. Like Lordship is about God taking things away from you. Like submission is loss. Like surrendering your will is a diminishment of who you are.
That is the enemy's version of this story. It is not God's.
"I have come that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly."
— John 10:10
Abundantly. Not a reduced life. Not a restricted life. A full one. An overflowing one.
When Jesus is Lord of your finances, you don't lose — you gain access to a wisdom about money that surpasses any financial advisor's expertise. When Jesus is Lord of your relationships, you don't get lonelier — you get freed from the exhausting cycle of relating to people out of wounds and fear. When Jesus is Lord of your time, you don't lose your days — you stop wasting them on things that were never going to satisfy.
Lordship is not Jesus taking the wheel and driving you somewhere terrible. It is Jesus taking the wheel and finally getting you where you were always supposed to go — in less time, with less damage, with more joy than you would have manufactured on your own.
The surrendered life is not a smaller life. It is a larger one. It is life under the management of an all-knowing, all-loving, all-powerful God who has no hidden agenda and who actually, genuinely wants your flourishing.
Five Areas Where Lordship Gets Practical
Let's get specific. Because Lordship that stays theoretical never changes anything.
Your Mind and Soul
Jesus as Lord of your interior world means His truth takes authority over your thoughts and feelings. 2 Corinthians 10:5 calls us to take every thought captive to the obedience of Christ. Not some thoughts. Not the ones that are already behaving. Every thought. That means when the spiral of anxiety starts, you interrupt it with Scripture. When the self-destructive narrative begins, you counter it with what God actually says. When offense wants to take root, you bring it before the Lord before it becomes a stronghold.
The Word of God becomes the manual, not just a source of inspiration. There is a significant difference between reading the Bible looking for comfort and reading it looking for instruction.
Your Body
This is the one we skip over. But 1 Corinthians 6:19–20 is pretty clear that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit and was bought at a price. Lordship over your body means the habits, the cravings, the patterns that are destroying the temple — they come under His authority too. The rest you're not getting. The things you're consuming. The intimacy you're engaging in outside the covenant He designed it for. The addictions you've been managing privately.
This isn't about condemnation. It's about wholeness. Jesus doesn't ask for your body to punish it. He asks for it because that's where He lives.
Your Finances
The rich young ruler's story is repeated constantly in modern Christian life. We are generous with what's comfortable and grip tightly what feels like security. Lordship over finances means tithing as an act of trust, not calculation. It means asking God how to spend, save, and give — not just deciding and then asking Him to bless the plan.
Proverbs 3:9 says to honor the Lord with your wealth, with the firstfruits — not the leftovers — of all your increase. The firstfruits principle is about priority. It says: You come first. I'll trust You with the rest.
Your Relationships
We often ask God to fix our relationships without asking Him to lead them. Lordship over your relationships means bringing the people in your life before Him. The friendships that are slowly pulling you away from who He called you to be. The romantic relationship you're hoping to hold together through your own effort while keeping God at a polite distance from the difficult parts. The family dynamics you've decided are just permanent fixtures rather than areas where healing and truth are possible.
Proverbs 13:20 tells us that the one who walks with the wise becomes wise. Who you walk closely with shapes you. That is not a neutral decision. Lordship says: Lord, lead me toward the people You have for me and give me the courage to release the ones You haven't.
Your Future
This might be the deepest one. The five-year plan. The dream you've been building. The vision of how your life is supposed to look. Lordship means holding even that loosely — not with passivity, but with open hands. It means pursuing the calling He's placed on your life while remaining genuinely willing to be redirected when He says turn here.
"A man's heart plans his way, but the Lord directs his steps."
— Proverbs 16:9
Planning is not the problem. Gripping the plan so tightly that you can't hear redirection — that's the problem.
When You've Been Calling Him Lord but Running the Show
I want to speak with grace and directness here, because I think a lot of people reading this are going to feel a quiet conviction, and I want to be clear that conviction is not condemnation.
If you've been saved for years but still find yourself running your own life with Jesus on call for the crises — you are not a bad Christian. You are an incomplete one. You received the gift. Now it's time to respond to the Giver.
"Not everyone who says to Me, 'Lord, Lord,' shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father in heaven."
— Matthew 7:21
The word knew there — ginosko in the Greek — is not intellectual acknowledgment. It's intimate relationship. It's the deep, lived knowing of two lives intertwined. He's not saying these people were strangers to religion. He's saying they were strangers to surrender. They used His name without living under His authority.
That is a serious word. And I want you to receive it seriously — but not fearfully. Because the answer is not to spiral into anxiety about your salvation. The answer is to move. To respond. To do today what needs to happen between you and God.
The door is open. He is not waiting for you to be perfect before He can be Lord. He is waiting for you to be willing.
What Yielding Actually Looks Like
Let me give you something practical, because I don't want to leave you with the concept without the practice.
Yielding is a decision made in the ordinary moment.
Not just on your knees at an altar — though that matters — but in the car before you respond to a text that made your blood pressure rise. In the grocery store before you make a purchase you know isn't wise. In the silence before you say the thing that would feel so satisfying to say but would cause so much damage.
Yielding is asking a simple question before you act: Lord, what do You want me to do here?
That question — asked genuinely, waited on honestly — is one of the most transformative habits a believer can develop. Paul's first words after meeting Jesus on the Damascus road were: "Lord, what do You want me to do?" (Acts 9:6). He was blinded, knocked off his horse, his entire worldview shattered — and his first instinct was to ask for instructions. That is the posture of someone who understands Lordship.
Yielding means waiting for the inner witness.
Galatians 5:25 says if we live by the Spirit, let us also walk by the Spirit. Walking by the Spirit is not the same as running ahead and hoping He follows. It is learning to sense His peace, His prompting, His gentle redirection — and honoring it even when it runs against what you want or what makes logical sense.
God often speaks through peace. A verse that surfaces in your mind at just the right moment. A gentle but clear inner nudge. Learning to recognize His voice comes from relationship — from time in Scripture, time in prayer, time in stillness — and it is a learnable skill that deepens with practice.
Yielding means obeying quickly.
James 1:22 — "Be doers of the word, and not hearers only." The gap between knowing and doing is where most of our spiritual frustration lives. Every time God shows you something and you delay, rationalize, or ignore it, you train yourself toward a softer obedience. Every time you respond quickly — even when it's uncomfortable, even when you don't fully understand — you train yourself toward a more responsive relationship with the Holy Spirit.
Pastor Nicole Reflection Questions
Sit with these. Don't rush past them.
- 1. If you made a list of every area of your life, which ones have you genuinely surrendered to Jesus' Lordship — and which ones are you still running on your own?
- 2. Is there a specific area — a relationship, a habit, a financial decision, a future plan — where you've been keeping God at a respectful distance?
- 3. When you make decisions, what is your actual process? Do you consult God first, or is prayer the last step?
- 4. What would your life look like in one year if you fully yielded the area you've been holding on to?
- 5. Are you a believer who calls Jesus Lord on Sunday and runs your own life Monday through Saturday? What would it cost you to close that gap?
- 6. The rich young ruler went away sorrowful. What is your great possession — the thing that, if Jesus asked for it, you would feel that pull to walk away?
- 7. Have you been waiting for the breakthrough while protecting the area where the breakthrough lives?
A Daily Practice of Surrender
This is not complicated. It is simple and it is daily.
Morning Surrender
Before the phone, before the news, before the list — give the first moments of your day to the Lord. "Holy Spirit, I yield today to You. Lead me. Correct me. Have Your way. I will not get ahead of You."
Before Decisions
Pause. Even for thirty seconds. Ask: "Lord, what do You want me to do here?" Then wait for the inner witness before you move.
In Conflict
When your emotions are loudest, practice the discipline of stillness. Psalm 46:10 — "Be still and know that I am God." The pause before the response is where the Spirit gets to speak.
In Scripture
Let the Word correct you, not just comfort you. Read with a posture of: "What is God asking of me here?" not just "What does this promise for me?"
In the Evening
Review your day not with guilt but with honesty. Where did you yield? Where did you take the wheel back? Offer both to God. Receive His grace. Start fresh tomorrow.
The Freedom on the Other Side of Surrender
I want to close with this because I need you to hold the full picture.
Every person I have ever known who made the journey from Savior-only to genuine Lordship describes the same thing on the other side: freedom. Not the loss they feared. Freedom.
Freedom from the exhausting weight of managing their own life. Freedom from the anxiety of trying to control outcomes that were never theirs to control. Freedom from the loneliness of navigating a complex world with only their own wisdom. Freedom from the cycle of striving and plateauing and striving again.
Because when Jesus is Lord — truly, practically, daily Lord — you stop carrying what you were never meant to carry. You stop trying to figure out everything. You stop white-knuckling the future. You live in the flow of a relationship with the One who knows the end from the beginning, who loves you perfectly, who has a plan for you that is good and not evil, to give you a future and a hope.
Jesus doesn't want to run your life to diminish it. He wants to run it because He is the only One qualified to do it well.
And here is what I know for certain: every area of your life that you hand over to Him — fully, genuinely, no strings attached — He will do more with than you ever could have done on your own.
The only question is the same one He asked the rich young ruler with love in His eyes.
Will you let Me run your life?
A Prayer of Surrender
Lord Jesus,
I come to You today not just as my Savior — though You are, and I am eternally grateful — but as my Lord. The one with authority over every area of my life.
I want to be honest with You about the places I've been holding back. The areas where I've been calling You Lord with my words but running things with my hands. I lay those down today. Not because I have it all figured out. Not because I'm not afraid. But because I trust You more than I trust myself.
Have the finances. Have the relationships. Have the future I've been gripping so tightly. Have the habits I've been managing privately. Have the dreams and the timelines and the plans. Have the parts of me I've been presenting polished and the parts I've been hiding.
Holy Spirit, lead me. Not just in the big moments — in the ordinary ones. In the moment before I respond. In the pause before the decision. In the stillness before the reaction. Speak, Lord. I am listening.
I want to be a Lordship believer — not just a Savior-only believer. I want to know what it is to walk in genuine surrender, to experience the freedom that comes from not having to carry my life alone.
Take what I've been holding. Take the wheel. I trust You.
In Jesus' name, Amen.
Declarations for the Surrendered Life
Read these out loud. Let them mark a moment.
- Jesus is not just my Savior — He is the Lord of my life.
- I surrender every area — my mind, my body, my finances, my relationships, my future — to His authority.
- I will not call Him Lord and then live like the decisions are mine alone.
- The same Spirit that raised Jesus from the dead lives in me and leads me.
- I am not losing control — I am giving control to the One who is all-knowing, all-powerful, and all-good.
- I will ask "Lord, what do You want me to do?" before I move.
- Every area I surrender, He transforms. I trust the process.
- Jesus as Savior got me to heaven. Jesus as Lord brings heaven into my daily life.
- I am not running this life anymore. I am yielding it.
- I am free — not in spite of surrender, but because of it.
You Were Never Meant to Run This Alone
Here is my final word to you today.
The Christian life was never designed to be a solo operation with occasional divine assistance. It was designed to be a daily, intimate, moment-by-moment co-mission with the Holy Spirit — with Jesus not just as your emergency contact but as the director of your every step.
You were not saved to be left to figure out your life on your own with a promise of heaven waiting at the end. You were saved into a relationship. A living, active, real relationship with a God who wants to be involved — not just in your eternity, but in your every day.
Savior is the beginning. Lord is the fullness.
And the fullness is available to you. Not when you get better, not when you finally get it right, not when the circumstances are less complicated.
Right now. Today. In this moment.
The Shot Caller is waiting. And He is very, very good at running things.
— Pastor Nicole Washington
If this teaching challenged you, share it with someone you love. And if you're ready to take the next step in your walk with Jesus, we'd love to journey with you.