“All mine!”
As little kids asked to share candy with a covetous sibling, we may have been blurted out, “Nope! It’s all mine!” Then came the loving correction and lesson from Mom or Dad – or teacher – on the virtue of sharing and not being selfish. But as children of God we can legitimately, proudly, boldly proclaim, “The Lord is ALL Mine!”; because all that the Lord Jesus Christ is and has is indeed mine, it’s yours, it’s ours! Of course, the difference between the two mindsets is that with the latter I am compelled by His Love to share Him and all that He’s given me with others; whereas with the former I would most likely consume all that I’d received on “me, myself, and I”! Furthermore, in the latter case, the “my” easily transitions into “our”, as we see in Paul’s writings.
This post is going to be like a “rehearsing” of all that He is to me, and of course to every other child of God. But “my” precedes every noun because this is how the following phrases are presented in the Word of God, specifically in David’s writings. It is so important that we take these “exceeding great and precious promises” personally, or we risk presenting to others a God, a Savior, a Shepherd, an unfailing Friend as being less personal than He truly is. David, I believe, more than anyone else in the Old Testament, understood the Lord’s ownership of him as well as his possession of all the Lord is and has.
“My” occurs more times in Psalms than in any other book of the Bible.
Following is a sampling of what the Lord is to each of us, and there are many other references for most of the examples:
“My God” (Psalm 63:1 and many more times in the Word of God!)
“My Refuge” (Psalm 46:1; Psalm 91:2)
“My Strength” (Psalm 46:1; 18:2,1; 28:7; Exodus 15:2; Habakkuk 3:19)
“My Portion” (Psalm 16:5; 73:26; 119:57; Lam.3:24)
“My Defense” (Psalm 62:2,6)
“My Rock” (Psalm 62:2,6)
“My Salvation” (Psalm 62:2,6; 27:1)
“My Song” (Exodus 15:2; Psalm 118:14)
“My Redeemer” (Job 19:25; Psalm 19:14)
“My [“our”] Righteousness” (Jeremiah 23:6; 33:16)
“My Glory” (Psalm 3:3)
“My King” (Psalm 5:2; 44:4)
“My Lord” (Psalm 16:2 – “I say to the Lord, You are my Lord …”)
“My Fortress” (Psalm 18:2; 40:17; 70:5)
“My Shield” (Psalm 18:2; 28:7)
“My High Tower” (Psalm 18:2)
“My Stay and Support” (Psalm 18:18, Ampl)
“My Personal Bravery” (Habakkuk 3:19, Ampl)
“My Invincible Army” (Habakkuk 3:19, Ampl)
“My Help” (Psalm 22:19; 40:17; 42:5; 70:5; 94:17)
“My Shepherd” (Psalm 23:1)
“My Light” (Psalm 27:1)
“My Stronghold” (Psalm 31:4, Ampl; 43:2)
“My Ally” (Psalm 54:4)
“My Protector” (Psalm 59:9, Ampl)
“My Hope” (Psalm 71:5, Ampl)
“My Trust” (Psalm 71:5, Ampl)
“My Benefactor” (Psalm 71:5, Ampl)
“My Father” (Psalm 89:26)
“My Hiding Place” (Psalm 119:114)
“My Keen and Firm Strength” (Psalm 144:1)
“My Steadfast Love” (Psalm 144:2)
This is by no means an exhaustive list!
Your(s)
Many of us remember Pastor Stevens often declaring in his messages or Bible college classes to own what the Lord has given us, to make it ours, to own the promises that He gives us personally. Yet he emphasized that ultimately it’s the Promiser we want to know, embrace, and “own”. The Shulamite understood this in Song of Solomon: “My Beloved is mine, and I am His …” (2:16), and “I am my Beloved’s and He is mine …” (6:3a). Do we grasp this, that this “Beloved” is God Almighty, Who Himself proclaimed: “I AM God, your God!” (Psalm 50:7b, emphasis mine). The Apostle Paul as well amplified this in I Corinthians 3:21-23, saying, ” … all things are yours, whether Paul or Apollos or Cephas, or the world or life or death, or things present or things to come – all are yours. And you are Christ’s and Christ is God’s. It’s really unfathomable what has already been given to us by God, what is rightfully ours to claim.
Our(s)
In the New Testament we see a shift from “my” to “our” before the nouns that declare what, in Christ, belongs to us. This is beautiful, because it’s indicative of the Church Age – or, we could say, “The Body of Christ Age”, after the Lord’s resurrection and ascension. Yes, we are “members in particular”, individual believer-priests, each with a specific call and gifts and each with a free volition to choose to make the Lord Jesus Christ and all that He is and has “mine”. That being said, I haven’t yet found in Paul’s writings the phrase “my Lord Jesus Christ”, although we know that Paul could only have had the scope of ministry he had by first knowing “He’s mine”. For example, “He is our Peace …” (Ephesians 2:14); ” … Christ Who is our life …” (Colossians 3:4; Philippians 1:21); ” … our Lord …” (Romans 4:24)
The Lord Jesus, of course, perfectly chose which possessive adjective to use, “my” or “our”, often saying “My God”, “My Father”, but also “our Father” (Matthew 6:9). In John 20:17 he lovingly says to Mary, “Go to My brethren and say to them, I am ascending to My Father and your Father, and to My God and your God.” – i.e., He is our Father. We indeed share all with our Savior. “He Who did not withhold or spare His own Son but gave Him up for us all, how will He not also with Him, freely and graciously give us all [other] things?” (Romans 8:32)
“The Lord our Righteousness”
I don’t want to close this post without mentioning one of the truths of the Word of God that turned me upside down when I began to grasp and own it. Jeremiah says it twice, in Jeremiah 23:6 and 33:16) – “The Lord our Righteousness”. The Lord doesn’t just give us His Righteousness; He is our Righteousness! He has, in fact, made us to be “the Righteousness of God in Christ” (II Corinthians 5:21b)! That’s one major reason why we never have to esteem ourselves – or others – less than, lower than, how he sees us and knows us to be. How we need to encourage each other with truth like this and be like a herd of spiritual elephants, where when one is weak or struggling the others circle around, nudging the failing one, encouraging him or her to go forward, finish the trek, thus strengthening that one to live and not give up. The world needs to see this in us, the Body of Christ: “By this all will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another.” (John 13:35)
“God, our [own] God shall bless us. God shall bless us, and all the ends of the earth shall fear Him.” (Psalm 61:6b,7)
- “Bring him to Me.” - May 10, 2023
- With JOY Draw Water from the Wells! - April 11, 2023
- Who is our Beloved? - March 4, 2023
