2Peter 1:2 (Amplified) says, "May grace (God's favor) and peace (which is perfect well-being, all necessary good, all spiritual prosperity and freedom from fears and agitating passions and moral conflicts) be multiplied to you (in the full, personal, precise and correct) knowledge of God and Jesus our Lord."
This greeting holds with it a place for the believer to walk that few have ever entered into. Peter declared that the grace and peace of God can be multiplied in the life of God's children. He (God) has already given us all of His grace and peace through Jesus at His resurrection. The multiplying of this grace and peace comes from learning more about the Lordship of Jesus. The more we know about His Lordship in our lives, the more grace and peace we can receive. It's already been given, but we have no knowledge about what it is or what it's for.
Over 700 times in the New Testament, the title of "Lord" is given to and used in reference to Jesus. He holds the Highest title and position in the entire universe. The greatest and most blessed truth of all is that Jesus has become the personal Lord of man. Most of us have known Jesus as the Man of Galilee. Some have identified with Him on the cross or risen from the tomb. Few have ever identified with Him now, as His position as Lord. We proclaim Him as the Lord of our lives, but have little knowledge about what that means to the believer. Since we can only receive Him and His Lordship by faith in the Word, it becomes more difficult to receive this truth in our lives. We largely walk with Him in the sense realm in our lives today. We can identify with the Man in the scriptures and we can see Him on the cross and we can identify with the grave. These are all things that our senses can identify with. After the resurrection, we can even receive Him as He cam back from the dead and talked with the disciples.
Once Jesus ascended to the Father and sat down at His right hand, we have no way of understanding His work and Lordship other than by faith. The work that Jesus is doing now is somewhat veiled to us because our senses can no longer identify with Him.
The more we understand what this Lordship means in our lives, the more we can walk in the fullness of grace and peace with Him and the Father. The Word reveals to us that satan is the lord of the natural man. Jesus showed He recognized this when He referred to satan as "the prince of this world. In John 14:30, we read, "For the prince of this world cometh, and he has nothing in Me." In the revelation Paul received, satan is called the god of this world. 2Corinthians 4 says that, "The god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelieving, that the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ Who is the Image of God, should not dawn upon them."
Satan and his cohorts are called the spiritual rulers of this world in Ephesians 6:12(Amplified) which says, "For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against the world rulers of this darkness, against the spiritual host of wickedness in the heavenly places." The natural man walks in accordance to their rule and laws. Ephesians 2:2 says that, "Wherein ye once walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the powers of the air, of the Spirit that now works in the sons of disobedience."
In the beginning, satan didn't have this place of authority over the human race. Man was the original lord because God gave man the dominion and authority over the works of His creation and made him His under ruler. In Genesis 1:26-31 God says, "Let us make man in Our Image, after Our Likeness; and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the air, over the cattle and over all the earth, and over every creeping thin upon the earth."
Even yet, in his fallen state, man still shows the signs of dominion by being able to turn deserts into gardens, by his knowledge in science and space exploration and by the technological exploits he uses. All of this knowledge and wisdom is the residue of the mind of Christ that was in man from the beginning. Most of the great inventions come from Christian people who would fellowship with the mind of God and seek His wisdom.
This one man (Adam), that God crowned with wisdom and glory, obeyed the voice of satan and committed high treason and became satan's subject. Satan desired to rule this world and have the position that man now held. He gained it by becoming man's ruler. He became man's ruler by imparting his very nature into man and becoming to man what God was supposed to be. Through the impartation of spiritual death and its reigh over humanity, satan ruled as lord.
All of the death, sickness, crime, heartache and calamity that has happened over all these years, has come because of a demonic lord over all of humanity. Even creation itself, is now groaning under the burden of this satanic lordship and curse, according to Romans 8:20-24. God, as creator, was not content to leave His man in this fallen state. In the very presence of Adam's transgression, He gave the promise of One Who would legally break this lordship of satan and restore man back into his original place with God in Genesis 3:15-18.
The present day ministry of Jesus Christ as Lord is of vital importance in the lives of those who want to walk free.
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