Today's Scripture
John 13:13, 16; Matthew 23:1-17
“You call Me Teacher and Lord, and you say well, for so I am… I say to you, a servant is not greater than his master.” John 13:13, 16
To have a master and teacher is not the same thing as being mastered and taught. Having a master and teacher means that there is someone who knows me better than I know myself, who is closer than a friend, and who understands the remotest depths of my heart and can satisfy them fully. It means having someone who has given me the confidence to know that he has addressed and resolved all the doubts, uncertainties, and problems in my mind. To have a master and teacher is this and nothing less – “for One is your teacher, the Christ” (Matthew 23:8).
Our Lord never takes measures to make me do what He wants. Sometimes I wish God would master and control me to make me do what He wants, but He will not. And at other times, I wish He would leave me alone, and He does not.
“You call Me Teacher and Lord,” _ but is He? Teacher, Master, and Lord have little place in our vocabulary. We prefer the words Savior, Sanctifier, and Healer. The only word that truly describes the experience of being mastered is love, and we know little about love as God reveals it in His Word. The way we use the word obey is proof of this. In the Bible, obedience is based on a relationship between equals; for example, that of
His Son. “Though He was a Son, yet He learned obedience…” (Hebrews 5:8). If we are consciously aware that we are being mastered, that idea itself is proof that we have no master. If that is our attitude toward Jesus, we are far away from having the relationship He wants with us. He wants us in a relationship where He is so easily our Master and Teacher that we have no conscious awareness of it—a relationship where all we know is that we are His to obey.
Today's Prayer
Lord, help us to receive Your love, so that we know that we are Yours to obey. We pray that You have the relationship with us that You want. The kind of relationship where You are our Master and Teacher, and we aren’t consciously aware of it, the impact of Your love has captivated us so much that we can’t help but be Yours to obey.