“Finding ultimate refuge in God means you become so immersed in his presence, so convinced of his goodness, so devoted to his lordship…” – John Ortberg
7 minute read time – part 1 of 4
“For years, I felt completely stranded in my faith, searching for a way to bridge the distance between my heart and the heart of Jesus. I longed for an assurance that my faith was genuine, yet I kept looking within myself for the evidence that would finally put my doubts to rest.
Instead, I found myself falling short of my own expectations, caught in a spiritual life that felt governed by complex rules and harsh demands rather than rooted in the security of belonging to Him. The churches I attended offered structured frameworks for understanding lordship, yet the rigid doctrinal boundaries I encountered often left me feeling conflicted and confined.
Then, in a season of deep spiritual darkness, something began to change. I started looking beyond my own flawed reasoning and failing performance, learning instead to rest in surrender and turn my attention back to Jesus, the source and foundation of my faith. As I stepped outside those rigid boxes and ventured into unfamiliar territory, my soul began to find its footing.“
Learning about Lordship
I clearly remember a phone call with one of my sisters over ten years ago, when I asked a probing question about her faith and the theology behind it.
At the time, my personal walk with Jesus was shallow at best, and I wasn’t even sure what theological foundation underpinned my beliefs. I admired my sister and brother-in-law’s faith and assumed they embraced a traditional understanding of Lordship that I, too, could build upon.
I wanted to strip away what I believed to be false thinking, start from the beginning, and discover what Scripture truly revealed about living under the Lordship of Jesus. More than anything, I longed to understand how His authority and a genuine relationship with Him fit together—a relationship grounded in the love of a perfect Father and the transforming work of His Spirit in a child.
As I searched, I struggled to reconcile some of the more rigid understandings of Lordship I’d encountered with what I was discovering about the heart of God in Scripture. Something deep within me kept drawing me toward a different starting point: the love of a perfect Father, the security of being His child, and a relationship grounded in His grace.
At the time, I didn’t know whether any theological framework could fully capture the harmony I was searching for. Still, I was sure my sister would have the answer. Her response to my direct question wasn’t at all what I expected.
“Well, Joseph, we’re really somewhere in between.”
Her answer caught me completely off guard. Yet, in God’s perfect wisdom, those simple words would become the catalyst for a gradual, daily transformation. My sister’s unexpected answer would permanently alter the direction of my walk with Jesus, my Savior and Lord.
Somewhere in Between
Though my life was in a desperate place at the time, I spent hours exploring that open space—immersing myself in Scripture, quiet reflection, and prayer. I began to recognize that while church traditions can offer helpful guardrails, the frameworks built around them can sometimes hinder, or even stifle, the very spiritual transformation they’re meant to cultivate.
Well-meaning statements of faith often capture beautiful pieces of the truth woven throughout Scripture, yet even the most carefully constructed theological frameworks can never fully encompass the richness of God’s revelation. They can offer us valuable perspectives, but they remain only glimpses of a much greater, divinely woven tapestry.
A persistent thought began taking root in my soul: God’s truth is far greater than any human system of theology can fully express. That conviction awakened a new hope in me that a deeper understanding of Scripture in its fullness might lie beyond the traditional boundaries I’d always known.
Could it be that the very place where our rigid frameworks fall short is where we begin to see the beauty of a relationship that transcends them? Could surrendering to the Lordship of Jesus be far more beautiful and life-changing than I’d ever imagined? Could the answer be found somewhere in between?
Abba Father
This awakening launched me into a years-long pursuit of deeper spiritual insight. As long as I remained anchored in the Word, exploring beyond the boundaries of traditional theological frameworks felt both liberating and right. Along the way, God began opening my eyes to something of His profound nature that would become central to my understanding of biblical Lordship.
He revealed Himself to me not as a demanding taskmaster reflected in some formalized systems, but as the perfect Father—the voice of absolute grace, with a strong hand to guide His children into maturity, meaning, and purpose. I began to understand that His authority wasn’t something to fear or escape. It was part of His love, expressed through a desire to draw me closer, shape my heart, and lead me into the life He created me to live.
The arms of Christ are always open wide, longing to embrace broken people and welcome prodigals like me who’ve strayed far from home—or those who’ve never truly known Him at all. The Father longs to adopt as many as will draw near, just as they are, into His forever family. And as we begin to understand who He is and who we are in Him, surrender starts to look less like a burden to carry and more like an invitation to experience the fullness of life with Jesus.
This was the beginning of a deeper assurance and a more personal discovery of His grace. For the first time, I began to see the possibility of a life of genuine freedom with Jesus—not by escaping His Lordship, but by discovering its beauty beyond the boxes of human doctrine. The pieces of my faith that had once seemed difficult to reconcile were beginning to find their place within a much greater picture of God’s love, truth, and transforming grace.
Each of us has the freedom and opportunity to discover, by His Spirit and through the scriptures, the beauty of this adoptive lordship in a deeply personal way. As we draw near to Abba Father, we begin to see that His Lordship isn’t merely a system of rules to enforce or a set of doctrines to defend. It’s the loving authority of the Father who invites us into a covenant relationship with Him—a relationship in which His grace welcomes us, His truth guides us, and His Spirit transforms us from the inside out.
“Looking back at the years I spent feeling completely stranded, I now see that the distance between my heart and the heart of Jesus began to close when I stopped trying to find assurance in rigid systems and learned instead to rest in His embrace. Somewhere in between, in that open space where human definitions fall short of the fullness of God’s truth, my soul didn’t find a cold set of rules—it found a home. Secure in the love of Abba Father, the heavy burden of performance has gradually given way to the quiet confidence of a son.“
To continue… The journey does not end here; in the next post, I’ll share how this security in Abba Father will shape our faith into a radical, everyday walk with Christ as both Savior and Lord.
