TUESDAY November 5th
Philippians 2:9-11
‘Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.’
When it comes to the purpose for which Jesus came into this world, we know from the name Jesus it was to be the one who would save his people from their sins. So, in the next devotion we will see him as Saviour. With the titles ‘Christ and Messiah’ we see Jesus as being the ONLY one who had been sent from God as the anointed one to be the Saviour, but with the title which we have today from Philippians 2, we see that as a result of his obedience in coming into this world and humbling himself to death on the cross that he was not only raised from the dead, but also ascended back to the Father and given the name which is above every other name, the name to which EVERY knee will bow and which EVERY tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.
Jesus is Lord, Jesus Christ is Lord, HE IS LORD! So, our title today is Lord. There are many other scriptures that affirm this, for example on the road to Damascus when Saul encountered Jesus he says, ‘Who are you Lord’, we see the title used in a number of ways, for example on its own in Acts 2:21, ‘everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved’. Or linked to the name Jesus Acts 8:16 ‘they had only been baptised in the name of the Lord Jesus’, and also linked with both the name Jesus and Christ, 1 Corinthians 15:57 ‘But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ’ and then as another example, we have in Acts 10:36 ‘preaching good news of peace through Jesus Christ (he is Lord of all).’
Initially it is a title that refers to Jesus as being God, for it is the Greek equivalent to the Hebrew YHWH, God, so Jesus was already Lord before our text, but here in our text, it refers to Jesus as having power and authority, he is Lord over everything.
In Matthew 28 just as Jesus is about to return to heaven, he made this statement ‘All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me’, (28:18).
But for us today we need to come to the place of allowing Jesus to be Lord in our lives. Nothing can take away from the fact that he is Lord. This can never and will never be changed, it is eternally set, and one day every knee will bow, and every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father, but as we have come to know him as Saviour (the title we will turn to in our next devotion) we need also to surrender to his Lordship in our lives.