Jesus Our King, part 4

Secondly, we have to be willing to lay gifts before the King we find. The Wise Men were from a foreign land and served another king; their citizenship was in another country and their loyalty was to another code of laws. Yet they forsook all of that to come find this new King. They knew that the King who had been born was special, better than all the earthly kings who had come before Him. So when they found Him, they gave Him precious gifts, representing their loyalty and worship. 

The Magi counted the cost and realized that if there was a new King, He was to be worshiped, so they came with precious gifts to represent their worship: incense, gold and myrrh - valuable and rare gifts. No matter that this was a foreign king, no matter that they owed Him nothing, no matter that the King was a Child. As a King fit to be worshiped, they came to worship sacrificially. 
 

It’s no different for us when we meet Jesus. When we see Him, we have to be willing to worship Him. Before we find Jesus, we worship a different king. We worship our sin, our selfish desires, and our misguided priorities. Before we find Jesus, we belong to a different king. We are subjects of the king of this world, who rules us with sin and evil. But when we find Christ, I mean truly find Him as The King of our life that He is meant to be, then, we must worship Him with precious gifts. We may not have gold, incense or myrrh, but we can give Him our devotion, our worship, our lives.

If you claim that Jesus is your King, then you are called to worship Him. That means that He gets the first fruits of our time, our wealth, and our devotion. We can place no one and no thing above Him. He is not truly our King if there is any thing or person that gets more of us than He does. 

But He will not force us to bow to Him (not at this place in time, anyway). He wants only those who come to Him willingly, desiring to lay their lives before Him in true devotion. The Advent season gives us many opportunities to worship The King. Through all of our worship services and family traditions, we have the chance to bring our gifts of love to Jesus along with our gifts of worship and devotion. 
 

Finally, we must make Jesus our only king if He is to be King at all. Jesus made it perfectly clear: you cannot serve two masters. If you claim to have a king, He must be your only king. The magi had to make a decision: would they obey the new King that they had found, or the king of the world.

After they found Jesus and had worshiped Him, they were warned in a dream to go home by another route, because King Herod planned to kill Jesus. King Herod was the ruler of the land, but they had found a new King. So, they obeyed the King Jesus and went home by another way, making it possible for Jesus to escape with His family to Egypt. Their commitment to this new King was real and complete, even if it meant disobeying the king of the world. 
 

The truth is, friends, we are called to nothing less (though there are many kings who clamor for our obedience). The Christ follower today is called to follow many kings of this world: the kings of pleasure, greed, pride, complacency, indifference, the king of pluralism. Our world says that it is foolish to claim only One Savior, when there are so many to choose from.

Continued tomorrow