Category Archives: John

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A Frivolous Miracle Or An Extravagant God?

Being With Jesus:
John 2:11

This miracle at Cana in Galilee —turning water into wine at a wedding—was Jesus’ first public demonstration of his heaven-sent power. And his disciples believed that he really was the Messiah.

Turning water into wine! Really? For your first miracle, you choose to keep the party guests happy by miraculously making sure there is a free flow of adult beverages. Wouldn’t it have been more impressive in announcing to the world that you, the Messiah, have arrived by raising a dead person back to life or by performing some other more worthy miracle—like supplying a starving family with food or creating money for a destitute widow or by healing a young child dying with leukemia?

Doesn’t running out of wine at a wedding seem like a first-world problem? And doesn’t God stooping to supply the new, improved wine for a wedding reception seem a bit frivolous? So why this frivolous miracle as his inaugural miracle?

Well, only God knows the answer to that question, but here’s what I think: what might seem like a frivolous miracle is really the introduction of an extravagant God.

You see, many of us have been conditioned to believe that God doesn’t intervene in relatively unimportant human affairs when more pressing concerns are on his plate, like war, global warming, human trafficking or widespread injustice. We have trouble believing that the Almighty intervenes in our ordinary, unimportant, trivial affairs.

But does he? Well, sometimes! Can I expect that of him? Does he care about my wedding reception or my favorite sports teaming winning the big game or my missing iPhone? Should I really be bothering him with my ordinary, unimportant stuff?

I don’t mean to be irreverent, but it doesn’t hurt to ask! Jesus helped his mom, who was likely coordinating this wedding, out of a jam by changing ceremonial water, which theologically, may represent the limits of human fallenness, into party wine, which represents the liberality of divine grace. Jesus didn’t have to. It wasn’t on his agenda. He wasn’t responding to a life and death need. But he did it anyway.

A Miracle of Extravagance What that shows us is something pretty cool: The extravagant nature of this God revealed in a miracle you and I probably wouldn’t have dared to ask for.

That’s the God I want and need every day of my life. And that’s the God we’re offered in Jesus!

This “frivolous” miracle brings a distant, unreachable God out of the heavenly realms and right into our humble realities. It’s significant in the Gospel of John’s account that verse 11 says the very first place Jesus chose to “reveal his glory” was somewhere very ordinary. He chose a home for his first miracle. He went public at a wedding—a common human event, in the small village of Cana—a wide spot in the road.

So what does that tell us? Simply this: Jesus desires to be real—and to reveal God—in your daily ordinariness, too. He wants to reveal glory—that is, God’s manifest presence—in the nitty-gritty reality of your life: your marriage, family, work, school and private world. It also means that he cares about what you do in your ordinary days—your marriage, job, school, private times—your life outside the sacredness of church. God doesn’t want to just show up for you at church on Sunday mornings. He wants to be real, and powerful and close, even in your unexciting, uneventful moment-by-moment world.

Nothing about your life is too insignificant to qualify for God’s extravagant grace—apparently not even the beverages on the menu at your party!

That’s the God you and I want and need every day of our lives. And that’s the God we’re offered in Jesus!

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“Consider God’s generosity toward you rather than your own unworthiness in his sight, and live in his strength, rather than in the thoughts of your own weakness. (St. Vincent De Paul)

 

Getting To Know Jesus: Make a list of your wants—not your needs—and take them before God in your prayer time. As you do, reflect on this verse: “You can ask him for anything, using my name, and I will do it, for this will bring praise to the Father because of what I, the Son, will do for you. Yes, ask anything, using my name, and I will do it!” (John 14:13-14)

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Under New Ownership

Being With Jesus:
John 1:1-5 (NLT)

“Before anything else existed, there was Christ, with God. He has always been alive and is himself God. He created everything there is—nothing exists that he didn’t make. Eternal life is in him, and this life gives light to all mankind. His life is the light that shines through the darkness—and the darkness can never extinguish it.”

Think for a moment about the significance of John’s words in verse 3:

“Jesus created everything there is—nothing exists that he didn’t make.”

Now if you hold the Bible to be true—that it is God’s authentic, inspired, authoritative Word—then there is no more significant chapter in the Bible than John 1. And there are no greater words that bear upon your life than what you find in verse 3.

If nothing exists that Jesus didn’t make, including you, then what does that mean for you? Simply, yet most profoundly, this: You are not your own; rather, you are owned. God created you, and as your Creator, he has a right to rule over you. You are not the god of your life. You are not the king of you. You have no rights of godship, no authority to sit on the throne of your kingdom, no grounds for demanding your way, getting what you want, fulfilling your wishes, achieving your dreams or tickling your fancy.

Jesus has moved in and your life is under new ownership. Therefore, self must be dethroned; it must actually be obliterated!

Since God created you, along with everything else that you see and don’t see, he therefore owns everything. And since he designed everything in the universe, then everything exists for his pleasure and his purpose. And by the way, John 1 tells us, since Jesus was with God from the beginning, and actually is God, and in fact was the agent of creation, then it is actually Jesus who holds the deed of ownership over you—ownership that is only honored through his Lordship over your life. Abraham Kuyper said it well:

“There is not an inch of any sphere of life of which
Jesus Christ the Lord does not say, ‘Mine.’”

And by the way, that is a very good thing! You see, the good news is that his ownership is not grievous or burdensome. God is no tyrant, even though he has every right to be. In fact, it is just the opposite with God. It is an ownership that is loving, generous and gracious. John says this is clearly demonstrated in the life of Jesus, who came to earth in human form to reveal in living color the God who is full of glory, grace and truth (John 1:14). Furthermore, to all who surrender and reorder their lives to God’s rightful ownership, God himself invites them into a personal relationship  in the same way that Jesus lived in relationship with God: as child with Father (John 1:12).

Yes, you are under new ownership. And as self is dethroned, even obliterated, ownership becomes relationship. Then, through relationship, you will witness his glory, you will discover his truth and you will experience his grace. You will now be living in the loving care of the eternal Father as his dearly loved child.

05_40_4Iamthelightoftheworld_web1Abraham Kuyper was right: “There is not an inch of any sphere of life of which Jesus Christ the Lord does not say, ‘Mine.’” If you claim Jesus as Lord of your life, then he holds the deed of ownership over you. But this is no grievous ownership. Rather, as you take the step to dethrone self and enthrone Jesus as your sole owner, you will personally and powerfully experience this beautiful reality declared throughout the Gospel of John: the light of life; a light that can never be extinguished—the abundant life now and eternal life forever.

Following Christ you must dethrone self in order to enthrone him as Lord of your life. But his ownership is not grievous. Rather, ownership becomes relationship through which you are empowered to witness his glory, discover his truth and experience his grace. When Jesus takes sole ownership of you, you are privileged to now live in the loving care of the eternal Father as his dearly loved child.

With that in mind, it is imperative that you realign everything about your life—words, relationships, thoughts, wishes, plans, actions, patterns—to the fact that Jesus is Lord of you. Everything else must become a distant second to that. Truly, since he created you, anything that doesn’t fall under his absolute Lordship over your life doesn’t deserve to exist at all. As William Barclay said,

“The essence of Christianity is not the enthronement
but the obliteration of self.”

Now obviously, you will need the help of the Holy Spirit to achieve complete surrender to his utter ownership—which is a subject that much of the rest of Scripture fleshes out. But as you take the step to dethrone self and enthrone Jesus as the owner of you, you will experience this beautiful reality of John’s Gospel: a light that can never be extinguished—the abundant life now (John 10:10) and eternal life forever (John 3:16).

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“In order for any to have Christ as their Saviour they must first have received Him as their “Lord”, as their King to rule over them, for God saves none in their rebellion against Him. We must cease our rebellion against Him and His authority and give Him the throne of our hearts as our ruler or He is not our Saviour no matter what our profession.” (I.C. Herendeen)

Getting To Know Jesus: Perhaps you may want to join me in offering this heartfelt prayer, “Jesus, you are the rightful ruler of me. I surrender everything I am and trying to become to your Lordship. Take me over, clean me up, set me on a course that will only and always bring glory to you and demonstrate your ownership of me to the world. I cannot do this on my own—obviously—so thank you for making this a reality by the same power that created me. In Jesus name, amen!”

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A Limitless Pursuit Of The Manifest Knowledge Of Jesus Christ

Being With Jesus:
John 21:25 (NLT)

Jesus also did many other things. If they were all written down, I suppose the whole world could not contain the books that would be written.

The Apostle John ends his gospel account of the life, ministry, death and resurrection of Jesus with this remarkable commentary: “What I’ve written here about Jesus, well you don’t know the half of it! In fact, since I’ve been with him night and day for three and a half years, I’ve gotta tell you, this is just the tip of the iceberg!”

Wow! As you read through the four Gospels, it is hard to imagine that much more could be added to what Jesus did and said. I suppose the Holy Spirit limited the inspired thoughts and pens of these men in order to present to us only what our finite minds could absorb.

Even then, we have trouble getting our brains around Jesus, don’t we! I mean, how do you top the incarnation, the virgin birth, and the miracle at Bethlehem? Then there is his sinless life—what do you do after that? What more can be added to the Sermon on the Mount? Can anyone illustrate Christianity better than Jesus did with his parables? What about his miracles—how could you improve upon the feeding of the 5,000, walking on the Sea of Galilee, calming the raging storm, the deliverance of the Gadarene demoniac, the healing of the blind man, or the raising of Lazarus? Is there any “wow factor” left after the crucifixion—and the empty tomb?

Even though we would love to know more, mercifully, we have been given Jesus in bite-sized chunks. And just with that, we will spend a lifetime in wonder, awe and gratitude for the life, love, death and resurrection of this marvelous Savior and Lord. Even if all we ever had of Jesus was John 3:16, you and I would have enough to keep us undone with love for all eternity—and then some.

So what do you do for an encore with Jesus? Only one thing remains, which John alluded to back in John 14:3,

“When everything is ready, I will come and get you, so that you will always be with me where I am.”

It is probably a good thing that we didn’t get any more details than that, because there is only so much the redeemed mind can absorb this side of heaven! But once we get to eternity—of my goodness! We will spending unending days in limitless pursuit of the manifest knowledge of our Lord and Savior, Jesus the Son of God.

Lord, come and get us soon! We want more!

“Only Christ could have conceived Christ.” (Joseph Parker)

Getting To Know Jesus: S.D. Gordon wrote, “Jesus is God spelling Himself out in language that men can understand.” To as much as our finite minds can handle, the incomprehensible God has made himself comprehensible in Jesus. Get to know Jesus and you will get to know God. Spend some time meditating on John 3:16 today—I think you will appreciate God a whole lot more.

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Great Advice For Saving Wasted Energy

Being With Jesus:
John 21:22 (NLT)

Jesus replied, “If I want him to remain alive until I return, what is that to you? As for you, follow me.”

What is that to you? In other words, mind your own business! You worry about what you need to do, and I will take care of what I need to do. That’s the gist of what Jesus was saying to Peter.

Jesus had been drilling down to some issues that needed to be resolved in this rough fisherman-turned disciple. It was a difficult conversation that needed to happen before Peter could become the rock-solid apostle Jesus had in mind, and Peter did what so many of us do: When the spotlight got focused on him a little too brightly, he tried to deflect that light to some of John’s flaws.

Jesus kept the focus right where it needed to be: “Peter, quit worrying about what will happen to John and just focus on what I’ve called you to do. If I allow him stay alive until I return, that is none of your business. You’ve got enough to worry about just taking care of your own junk let alone John’s. Just take care of you and you’ll be fine!”

Not bad advice! Wouldn’t we save ourselves a whole lot of wasted energy by just minding our own spiritual business? I know that’s true for me. The time and emotional drain I spend worrying whether someone else is walking with Jesus the way I think they should takes away from the spiritual energy that could be focused on growing me up in Christ.

Now that is not to say that we should never express loving concern for another believer’s spiritual progress. Sometimes the people we care deeply about frankly need to step it up in their growth as a disciple of Jesus—and we need to call them out on that. However, since spiritual formation is an ongoing process that will not conclude until the day we die and reach heaven, you and I need to remember that we, too, need to step it up!

So the next time you have an urge to voice a “concern” about what another sister has said or how another brother is living or what another local shepherd is doing or the kind of theology a prominent Tele-evangelist is espousing, just remember what Jesus said to Peter: “What is that to you? Just worry about you and make sure you are following me!”

You see, those people you are worried about will have to answer to God for their lives one day, but so will you. And since it is highly unlikely that you will be able to change them one bit by all the energy you spend worrying about their spiritual condition anyway, try devoting that same energy to your own obedience. Besides, if you really want to see them change, the better focus of your efforts would be to pray for them. Spend at least as much time bringing them before the Father in prayer as you do thinking and talking about how upsetting they are to you.

Do that and change will happen all right—but it will be you that changes! So mind our own business today—it is not such a bad thing to do!

“Everything that irritates us about others can lead us to an understanding of ourselves.” (Carl Gustav Jung)

 

Getting To Know Jesus: Think about the top five things you find irritating in the people you live, work or worship with. What does your irritation over those things reveal about you? Ask the Holy Spirit for discernment as you process this, and then surrender what is revealed about you to God.

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A Resurrected Lord For My Real Life

Being With Jesus:
John 21:1

Afterward Jesus appeared again to his disciples, by the Sea of Galilee.

John 21 is a rather strange chapter. In a sense, it almost seems unnecessary. John 20 could have easily been the conclusion of this amazing Gospel, for it more than adequately tells the resurrection story (John 20:1-10), more than adequately offers proof that Jesus was alive (he visibly appears four times to his disciples in John 20:11-29), and more than adequately summarizes the purpose of John’s account along with the core of salvation (John 20:30-31).  The End!

But then, like a man who wears both belts and suspenders, as if we really needed any more, here comes chapter 21, and John feels as if he needs to offer even more stories that Jesus is alive indeed. Yet these stories are a bit strange in that they are not so much on the level of the grand appearances of the Resurrected Lord in all his empty tomb splendor, a la chapter 20, they are more of the garden variety insertions of Jesus into the common moments of his disciples’ everyday life :

  • Jesus shows up at work during the graveyard shift to offer some helpful advice: “Hey fellas, try throwing your nets on the other side of the boat. I betcha there’s a bunch of fish over there!” (John 21:6)
  • After work, he has breakfast with his team: “Hey guys, I got a fire going, so bring some of those fish you just caught. Let’s eat before you head home.” (John 21:9-14)
  • Before they leave, he offers some challenging but encouraging professional direction to Peter, discouraged from failing the Lord in his moment of need: “Hey Peter, I know you denied knowing me at my trial, and you probably think that’s a deal breaker for me using you as team leader to this band of disciples, but chin up, I’ve got a big job for you.” (John 21:15-23)

This story has a very common, average, everyday feel to it that is easy to miss.  You see, much has been made in this chapter about the disciples going back to what they previously knew—the fishing business—as if they were giving up on their call to ministry. But I say that is highly unlikely. After the grand appearances of the Resurrected Lord in chapter 20, certainly these guys weren’t giving up on Jesus—they were more than convinced he was alive, and therefore Lord over death and Author of life. No, they were simply doing what good men did in those days—work. They were bi-vocational pastors, so perhaps they were just being responsible.

Likewise, much has been made about the miraculous haul of fish—153 large ones, to be exact. But was it a really a miracle, or was it simply the result of Jesus seeing from the shore what the disciples a hundred yards into the water couldn’t—a school of fish on the opposite side from where they were looking.  In commentary on John, William Barclay offers this interesting insight into this incident, quoting H.V. Morton, a well-known nineteenth century travel writer who extensively wrote on the Holy Land,

“‘It happens very often that the man with the hand-net must rely on the advice of someone on shore, who tells him to cast either to the left or the right, because in the clear water he can often see a shoal of fish invisible to the man in the water.’ Jesus was acting as guide to his fishermen friends, just as people still do today.”

Furthermore, much has been made about Jesus’ interaction with Peter—a difficult conversation where the Lord presses him on the depth and strength of this disciple’s love. Many preachers have highlighted the different Greek words for love used by Jesus (agape) and Peter (philos), as if there were some veiled secondary conversation going on between the two. But perhaps this was nothing more than the Lord showing a struggling disciple, embarrassed and discouraged that he had failed the Lord, feeling unworthy of even being around Jesus, that there were indeed  big plans for a future of ministry impact.

For certain, John 20 is about the spectacular, undeniable miracle of the Resurrected Lord walking out of an empty tomb, but chapter 21 brings to us the spectacular, undeniable miracle of a Resurrected Lord waking into our ordinary moments. As I ponder the purpose of this addendum to the resurrection, it seems to me that more than anything, this chapter is simply yet thankfully showing us how Jesus goes out of his way to come to us in our mundane moments—the difficult slog of our daily work, the banal details of our daily breakfast, the harsh reality of redirecting our failure into building blocks of a future usefulness in service to him. John 21 is the ongoing miracle of the Lord in the details of our dull dailyness.

Thank God John included this postscript of a Risen Savior who goes out of his way be the Resurrected Lord for my real life!

“The whole life of a Christian should be nothing but praises and thanks to God; we should neither eat nor sleep, but eat to God and sleep to God and work to God and talk to God, do all to His glory and praise.” (Richard Sibbes)

Getting To Know Jesus: Write down three ordinary moments of the day that is ahead of you—a stop for coffee on the way to work, a trip to the post office, taking out the trash when you come home, etc. Now, thank God in advance that Jesus will be with you in those moments, and anticipate how he will help, encourage and direct you as you go about your ordinary day.

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What Christ’s Resurrection Does For You

Being With Jesus:
John 20:19-23 (NLT)

The disciples were meeting behind locked doors because they were afraid of the Jewish leaders. Suddenly, Jesus was standing there among them! “Peace be with you,” he said. As he spoke, he showed them the wounds in his hands and his side. They were filled with joy when they saw the Lord! Again he said, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I am sending you.” Then he breathed on them and said, “Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive anyone’s sins, they are forgiven. If you do not forgive them, they are not forgiven.”

It was the evening of resurrection Sunday, and the disciples were abuzz with the resurrection. A few of them had encountered the living Lord but others of them had only heard rumors of resurrection. They were about to get the surprise of their lives—and this would be a game-changer.

No man had ever risen from the dead, and if this were indeed true, it would prove beyond all reasonable doubt that Jesus was who he said he was—God come in the flesh. And if he was who he claimed to be—the living Lord of life and Savior of the word—he therefore had it within his authority and power to do what he said he would do: forgive sin, heal the sick, set those in bondage free, provide his subjects with a real experience of the Kingdom life and in fact, grant them eternal life.

This was truly the Good News!

Yet for all their anticipation of a resurrected Jesus—and all that it implied—these disciples were still huddled in fear behind closed doors. They were still intimidated by the religious leaders who ruled the day with an iron fist and the religious system that had sent their Lord to the cross in the first place. There was still a major disconnect between what they intellectually accepted and their emotional reality. Fear and concern dominated their better judgment.

Now before we get too far down the road on this, perhaps we ought to admit that fear and concern often dominate our emotions, our behavior, our thinking as well. We accept that Jesus is risen, that he is Lord over all, yet we easily get intimidated by circumstances, get set back on our heels by the system, whatever that might be for us, and give into fear in our emotions. We are really no different than the disciples—their story is our story.

But thank God for Jesus! While he suddenly appeared among those first disciples—one of the benefits of having a resurrected body—he no longer needs to do that with us. Why? He doesn’t have to; he is already among us. In fact, his promise is that he will never leave us nor forsake us. (Hebrews 13:5) Moreover he shows himself to us, not necessarily by opening his wounded hands, but by holding our hands all along the way. (Isaiah 46:3) It’s true, that as we look back over the course of our journey with Jesus, our testimony has to be, “the Lord has led us all along the way.” (Deuteronomy 8:2) Then to neutralize our concerns and fears, he grants us his peace—the peace of Christ that rules ours hearts. (Colossians 3:15, Philippians 4:7) And he makes all of this not only possible, but sustainable by placing the Father’s gift within us—the precious Holy Spirit, who infuses us with both the authority and power of God Almighty to do his will and work.

So rather than living our lives huddled in fear and paralyzed by worry, like the disciples, as we act in faith upon what Jesus has done, we can live in inner confidence and spiritual power—we, too, like those first disciples, can change the world. At the very least, our corner of the world can—and should—look radically different now that the resurrection has rocked our world.

This truly is and always will be the Good News!

“If Jesus rose from the dead, then you have to accept all that he said; if he didn’t rise from the dead, then why worry about any of what he said? The issue on which everything hangs is not whether or not you like his teaching but whether or not he rose from the dead.” (Timothy Keller)

Getting To Know Jesus: Take a moment to invite the Holy Spirit to remind you of the full power and real authority that is now within you to live in the reality of Christ’s resurrection.

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Letting Go Of Immature Views Of Jesus

Being With Jesus:
John 20:17 (NLT)

“Don’t cling to me,” Jesus said, “for I haven’t yet ascended to the Father. But go find my brothers and tell them, ‘I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.’”

Imagine Mary’s surprise—and joy—at hearing that familiar voice tenderly whisper her name as she stood before the tomb of Jesus: “Mary!” (John 20:16) She turned to see what she had never expected to find when she left early that morning to care for the Lord’s crucified body. Jesus was alive! And Mary was overcome with a thousand different emotions all at one time that she grabbed onto Jesus like she would never let go again. She had lost him once; she was not about to let that happen twice!

If you are a parent and have ever lost your child in a department store, you will understand that scene: After minutes that seem like hours of panicked searching, you find that child, and while you feel like giving them the mother of all spankings, instead you hug them so tightly they almost suffocate.

That is exactly what Mary did, but in grabbing on to Jesus, she becomes a timeless picture of our tendency to cling to yesterday in order to feel good about today. We do that in a variety of ways:

We fiercely cling to a “spiritual high” from yesterday, wanting it replicated today.

We fiercely cling to wounds from disappointment, failure and hurt, and as a result, fear, guilt, and un-forgiveness now controls, if not defines our lives.

We fiercely cling to the attention we get by being needy.

We fiercely cling to immature views developed in our spiritual adolescence of a God who winks at sin and really doesn’t punish our wrongs, or who must not care about us because he let bad things happen, or who is nothing more than a celestial “sugar daddy” who gives everything we want.

Mary was a spiritual clinger; she was guilty of all those incomplete and immature views. Jesus, however, refused to let her stay in that frame of mind, so he said to her, “Don’t hold onto me!” (John 20:17) The word “hold” is hapto in the Greek text, and it means, “to cling, to desperately grasp onto!”

Grammatically, in the negative it means to stop doing what you always do—and are now doing again. Jesus is really saying, “Quit hanging on to your warm, fuzzy memories of past experience of me. That limits your view of who really I am. Raise your expectations!” Then in the rest of verse 17, he says to Mary, “I am returning to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God!”

Jesus is pointing to a whole new order. He is more than just the crucified Savior who can forgive your past. He is more than just a rabbi (John 20:16) who gives you guidance and stability in the present. He is the risen Lord, who by virtue of his own transformation from death back to life, has the authority to transform your life today—and every day from here to eternity. And now he is going to the place of authority from where he will be your constant advocate, constant empowerer, and constant companion—in other words, he is your living Lord. Jesus is more than Savior—he is also Lord.

Finally, the light dawned for Mary. She got it! Mary went and found the disciples in John 20:18 and said to them, “I have seen” … not “the teacher” … not “the Savior” …but, “I have seen the Lord!”

I hope you will get it too! Stop clinging to your immature and incomplete views of Jesus. He is not only your Savior—the one who forgives you of your sins, he wants also to be your Lord—the one who will rule over your moment-by-moment life.

 

“There is not an inch of any sphere of life of which Jesus Christ the Lord does not say, ‘Mine.’” (Abraham Kuyper)

Getting To Know Jesus: Is there any area of your life that does not belong to Jesus? Your thought life? Language? Use of money? Friendships? Sex life? Attitude? Treatment of others? If he is not Lord over any one of these areas, he is not Lord at all. So hit your knees and surrender to his Lordship—and never turn back. You will not regret it!