King Me? Or King He?

On his robe and on his thigh he has this name written: KING OF KINGS AND LORD OF LORDS. (Revelation 19:16)

In the game of checkers, the statement “King me” refers to the point when a player moves a piece to the last row on the opponent’s side of the board and is able to elevate the rank of his piece to “King” by stacking another piece on top of it. In the game of life, the statement “King me” refers to the times when we remove Jesus from the throne of our lives so that we can presume to perch there ourselves.

When we evict Jesus from the throne of our lives and arrogate ourselves to His rightful place, we make everything in our lives all about us. Rather than love for Jesus ruling our hearts and shaping our lives, love for self takes over. We become a demanding king who expects to be served and satisfied by everyone and everything. We are essentially declaring to the world, “King me!” At this level of living, we are looking to get from others only what God can give us. This inevitably leads to frustration and disappointment in our relationships, because no one will ever measure up to these absurd expectations.

But when, by God’s grace, we acknowledge the rightful reign of “King He,” we shift our focus away from the self and put it on our Savior, allowing Jesus to rule our lives. His rule and reign is not always what we expect or want, to be sure, but He always provides what we need exactly when we need it. When we look back over the years, we can see that when Jesus did not meet our expectations, it was because He exceeded them. Jesus is always working all things in our lives together for our ultimate, eternal good (Romans 8:28) . . . and that even includes all those things we don’t like.

Our sin often causes us to question the goodness of God, because we can only see a tiny portion of our lives. But God sees it all from beginning to end–all the days ordained for us were written in His book before one of them came to be (Psalm 139:16)–and we we can always trust that He is guiding us through all our imperfections into His perfect plan and purpose for our lives.

How is it with you today? Is it “King me” or “King He”? How you answer that question makes all the difference in the world in whether you will experience the abundant, victorious life Jesus has promised to all those who keep Him on the throne of their lives.

This is the Gospel. This is grace for your race. NEVER FORGET THAT . . . AMEN!