Who's The Boss?

A nobleman…called ten servants and divided among them ten pounds of silver, saying: “Invest this for me while I am gone.” But his people hated him and said, “We do not want him to be our king.”  Luke 19:12-15

“You’re not the boss of me!” an angry three-year-old shouts when parents give unpleasant instruction. “You’re not the boss of me!” we whisper to God as we dig in our heels and choose sin anyway. Like the people in Jesus’ parable, we do not want Him to be our king—but we do want His blessings. So we invent a new “Jesus” who won’t disagree with us. This “Jesus” doesn’t try to be the boss of us. With this “Jesus” we can enjoy mushy worship songs, repost inspirational tweets, and pep ourselves up with Bible verses carefully selected to support our opinions. This fake “Jesus” does not require us to give an account of our lives; He is merely a cheerleader on the sidelines telling us we’re awesome while we do exactly what we want to do. This idea is not very original, but since it works so well, Satan keeps using it. That’s his voice hissing: “God’s not the boss of you.”

Jesus being the “boss of us” is the whole point. That’s what salvation is all about. When we stand before Him, we will be judged by how well we let Him be the boss. When temptation beat on our door, was He the boss? When prosperity arrived and it was easier to enjoy ourselves than deny ourselves, was He the boss? (Luke 9:23) When inferiority threatened, when laziness beckoned, when suffering increased…was He the boss? We often want what Jesus offers but we don’t want Jesus. We don’t want a king to rule over us. We want to be king. But when we give an account, God will ask: “Who was the boss of you?”

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