When followers of Christ share stories of how they became Christians, they often say something along the lines of, “I decided to make Jesus my personal Lord and Savior.” Initially and ultimately, of course, it’s wonderful to hear brothers and sisters recount the moment when their hearts were opened to the incomprehensibly passionate love of God—a love that now captivates them in an intimately personal relationship with Jesus. At the same time, when I reflect on that particular statement—“I decided to make Jesus my personal Lord and Savior”. I can’t help but wonder how much this idea represents some subtly yet significantly dangerous trends in contemporary Christianity.
Jesus is not Customizable
On one level, this statement minimizes the inherent authority of Jesus because Jesus is not customizable. We as Christians need to submit to Jesus. Surely none of us can decide to make him Lord. Jesus is Lord regardless of what you or I decide. The Bible is clear that one day “every knee [will] bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue [will] confess that Jesus Christ is Lord” (Philippians 2:10). The question is not whether we will make Jesus Lord. The real question is whether you or I will submit to Jesus and this is the essence of conversion.
Yet on an even deeper level, I’m afraid that we use this phrase all too often to foster a customized Christianity that revolves around a personal Christ that we create for ourselves. Almost unknowingly, we all have a tendency to redefine Christianity according to our own tastes, preferences, church traditions, and cultural norms. Slowly, we take the Jesus and twist him into someone with whom we are a little more comfortable.
Submission to Jesus and his Word
We dilute what he says about the cost of following him, we disregard what he says about those who choose not to follow him, we practically ignore what he says about materialism, and we functionally miss what he says about the mission. We pick and choose what we like and don’t like from Jesus’ teachings. In the end, we create a nice, non-offensive, politically correct, middle-class, American Jesus, who looks just like us and thinks just like us. However, we must remember that Jesus is not customizable and we as Christians must Submission to Jesus.
But Jesus is not customizable. He has not left himself open to interpretation, adaptation, innovation, or alteration. He has spoken clearly through his Word, and we have no right to personalize him. Instead, he revolutionizes us. He transforms our minds through his truth. As we follow Jesus, we believe Jesus, even when his Word confronts (and often contradicts) the deeply held assumptions, beliefs, and convictions of our lives, our families, our friends, and our culture. His word can sometimes even confront our churches. And as we take Jesus at his Word, we proclaim Jesus to the world, for we realize that he is not merely a personal Lord and Savior. He is worthy of our individual approval. Ultimately, Jesus is the cosmic Lord and Savior who is worthy of everyone’s eternal praise and we must submit to Jesus.
The excerpt above was taken from Follow Me, pp. 75–77.
David Platt serves as a pastor in metro Washington, D.C. He is the founder of Radical.
David received his Ph.D. from New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary and is the author of Don’t Hold Back, Radical, Follow Me, Counter Culture, Something Needs to Change, Before You Vote, as well as the multiple volumes of the Christ-Centered Exposition Commentary series.
Along with his wife and children, he lives in the Washington, D.C. metro area.
