Out and About 21 Jesus---Savior, Lord and Redeemer

[HKHaugan]

The importance of Jesus is not that He is Savior (which He is), not that He is Lord (which He is), not that He is Redeemer (which He is), but that He is a Person, THE Person, God the Son.  It is not the adjectives that describe Him that make Him important. It’s who He is.  HE is God the Son.  HE is the Person of Persons, THE Individual of individuals. 

 

Jesus is the definition, essence and meaning of ‘person.’  His is the Mind, the Heart and the Spirit Personified.  Of course Scripture says it best, “The Son is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of his being, sustaining all things by his powerful word (Heb.1:3).”  When He thinks, speaks and acts He thinks, speaks and acts the way a person, an image of God, is meant to think, speak and act. 

 

It’s WHO Jesus is that takes center court. In the arena of all existence both visible and invisible He is the central star, the sun, the very being that gives shape, form and substance to everything.  All existence is an extension of Him.  He is the all-inclusive conclusion to what the mind, the heart and the spirit are in us.  He is substance of the structure and movement of the entire universe.  He is the meaning and purpose behind all existence.  His words say it plainly, “I am the Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end (Rev.21:6).”  As we grope for some way to respond, our hearts find the Psalmist’s words carrying us into His presence, “The eyes of all wait upon Thee O Lord…(Ps.145:15).” 

 

Because of who He is as a Person, His titles---Savior, Lord and Redeemer---follow naturally.  These three titles have a purpose.  They are more than descriptions.  They are His active qualities personally extended to each of us, as we are willing to receive them.

 

As I yield to Him as Savior He saves my mind from its schemes and gives me His living mind (1Cor.2:16).  He saves my heart from its deception (Jer.17:9).  He saves my spirit from its fear (1Jn.4:18).  He lifts me up to the Father through the Cross (Mt.27:51).

 

As Lord He is the Creator and Master of the mind, the Master-Mind.  As I yield to Him as Lord His Word is the truth that restores my intellect with its ability to reason.  Where I once relied on my imperfect reason due to a self-centered mind I accept His mind as the superior mind, His reasoning as superior reasoning and His intellect as the perfect Mind at work.   

 

As I yield to Him as Lord He restores my heart with His forgiveness through repentance, simply by saying I’m sorry and yielding to His Holy Spirit for the strength to correct where I have let my heart follow the spirit of deception.  He brings balance to my emotion with His peace. 

 

As I yield to Him as Lord He brings His presence in the Holy Spirit to quench the spirit of fear.  He brings the power of the Holy Spirit to discern and drive away the spirits and demons that attack and to rebuke the devil at every point of weakness.  Where I was once alone the Holy Spirit makes me one with the Lord.

 

As Redeemer He takes the broken parts into His spiritual repair shop and retools them to be His instruments of service for Him and others.  HE is the Master-Mechanic who takes the bent fenders, the clogged fuel injector, the corroded battery, the broken drive shaft, the virused internal computer system, the smashed windshield and restores them all.  As I am being restored they become my witness, my testimony and my ministry.  He gives me spiritual gifts to serve the Body of Christ and be a change agent in the world.

 

How He accomplishes these in us is through His Word by the power of the Spirit using His Word in us.  Whenever Jesus refers to Himself as “I” that immediately brings self-conscious identity into play.  There is no more direct passage that embraces His self-conscious self-declaration than John 14:6, “I am the way, the truth and the life.”   So when the word “I” arises in my mind the first corrective is to remember Jesus is the “I AM” who is restoring the “I” in me.  As Savior, Lord and Redeemer of the “I” in me Jesus is the rebirth of a new horizon for thought, emotion and spirit.  There is a new hope for every next moment.  There is a rewriting of personal history awaiting its fulfillment in eternity.