Manna Monday- Is Jesus Your King?

Good Manna Monday morning friends! After some much needed rain around here, we are enjoying some sunshine this second day of the week. Taking a break from blogging this weekend proved to afford me some rest, but I am glad to be back with you all this morning.

The question we're going to explore in today's post is, "Is Jesus your King?" What does it mean? What does it look like? Since many of us don't live under a government kingship we fail to understand the true meaning of having Jesus as our king. So let's get on to exploring our question.

Here's some facts and background about kings to help us get started:

• The bible shows us two images of kings- God as king and human as kings. The Hebrew meaning for the word king (melek) occurs almost 2700 times in the OT. In the NT the word for king (basileus) occurs more than 125 times. That's a lot of talk about kingship. Clearly, there is a biblical message woven through the fabric of the bible about kingship. There are good human kings in the bible like David, Hezekiah and Josiah and bad kings in the bible such as Jeroboam, Ahab and Manasseh and others.
• Kings were anointed into office. They wore royal robes, had a scepter, a crown and had an ornate throne. They had massive wealth and a personal army of troops.
• Israelite and Judahite kings were to be a contrast to the foreign nations that surrounded them.
• Abraham was promised that kings were to come from his line (Gen. 17:6, 16; 35:11).

Israelite kings had a few criteria to meet as established by God Himself. They were to:

1. Be chosen by God (Deut. 17:14-20)
2. Not be a foreigner
3. Never accumulate horses (meaning to build up a military might and place trust in military)
4. Not have many wives (for they would turn his heart aside)
5. Not try to obtain wealth for himself
6. Write a copy of the law for his use
7. Read and obey the law

Israelite kings were not to be under the authority of their own law, but to be subject to God's law. They were to be accountable to God and the prophets were to confront kings about their sin. They were to serve as an example of a humble servant of God that would lead the people to keep God's law. When it came to security (which was always a continual threat to Israel) they were to rely on God, their Divine Warrior. So when Israel asked for a king like the nations surrounding them in 1 Samuel 8:5, 20, what they were really saying was they didn't what God as their warrior.

Now, when it came to the nations surrounding Israel, they had a whole different belief about kingship. Nations like Egypt believed the pharaohs were gods themselves. They were always against God's people and God's plan in the OT and NT.

The bible connects Jesus to King David's line:

Romans 1:3 says,"regarding his Son, who as to his earthly life was a descendant of David, ..."

Matthew 1:1 says, "This is the genealogy of Jesus the Messiah the son of David, the son of Abraham: ..."

The meaning for the English word "Messiah" originates from the Hebrew word (masiah) which means "anointed one." These terms in the Greek translate to the word messias which translates as christos. Jesus the Christ is the anointed king from the line of David.

In Mark 14:62, Jesus acknowledges his kingship saying, “I am,” said Jesus. “And you will see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of the Mighty One and coming on the clouds of heaven.”

No other passage asserts the kingship  of Jesus as does Revelation 19:16 when He is mentioned as the "King of Kings and Lord of lords."Jesus is above all nations, all kings, and all rule today and forever.

Brother Matthew favored the term, "kingdom of heaven" a lot. Its synonym was "kingdom of God. When Jesus talks about the "kingdom of God" in Luke 17:21 he actually is saying, "entos hymin" which means "within your grasp." God's kingdom is within our grasp through Jesus. It is within our reach each and every day. He is our king, the one we bow down to each day. The one whom everything we have belongs.

Kings owned everything. Their people were subject to the king's law, word, and rule.

So when we answer the question "Is Jesus my King?" we are asking ourselves "Do I rule my life (like bad human kings did in the OT) or do I let King Jesus rule my life, my day? Do I follow my own word, or follow the word and law of King Jesus? Do I consider everything I have to be 'my own' or that everything I have belongs to King Jesus? Do I obey myself and my fleshly desires or do I obey King Jesus and place myself daily under the subject of His authority. Do I trust Him as my Divine Warrior and let Him take care of all my security needs or do I trust in myself and try to work it out on my own?

We can sum up this post in one word- AUTHORITY. (Kings were the ultimate authority in the bible.) Does Jesus have authority over your daily life? Do you let Him have authority? Does His word have authority over your choices/decisions in life? Do you let His word rule your marriage, parenting, friendships, relationships, work, etc.... Is God's word just for Sunday mornings or does it govern your life throughout the week?

I pray this post encourages your heart, challenges you like it did me. I pray it gets you thinking about the kingship of Jesus in a way you haven't thought about before. One day, not too far off, we will forever be living under the King of kings and Lord of lords in heaven. But for now, on earth, let's turn our hearts away from ourselves toward our King Jesus.

I am praying for you today. Write to me about this post. I want to hear from you.