Psalm 16:2: What Does It Mean that God is Your Lord?

"I say to the LORD, 'You are my Lord; I have no good apart from you.'” Psalm 16:2

We so often speak of God or Jesus being our Lord, but what does that even mean? Christian phrases like this so quickly spring from our mouths and we often have no clue what their meaning actaully intends. Let me encourage and convict you this morning that you may not be living your life as if God is your Lord, even though you say he is.

The Hebrew word for "Lord" comes from "adonai" which most literally means lord, master, or sir. In essence, when we confess that God is our "Lord" we confess full obedience and devotion to him as he is our master and we are his servants. Although the term "Lord" is another word for "God" in the Bible, it has this distinct meaning that we ought to consider.

But what does God as our Lord look like if we were to live it out? There are many passages that we could go to, but today I'd like to look at Psalm 16:2 to find an answer to this question. In Pslam 16:2, David is confessing God's lordship over his life: "I say to the Lord, 'You are my Lord.'" David knows that God is his master, and he wants to confess that to him in obedience. However, for David, this was not an empty confession. David knew that having God as the Lord of his life must change both his heart and his life. Therefore, he uttered another phrase directly proceeding his confession of God as Lord: "I have no good apart from you."

What David is essentially saying here is that because God is his Lord, there is nothing else that he needs. If God is truly the master that he claims to be, he will provide everything good for his servants and they will never need to go anywhere else for satisfaction. The King James Version translates this verse with the idea that David's goodness "extendeth not" beyond God, that is, that David had to search no where else for satisfaction and goodness that in God alone. Furthermore, if we confess God as our Lord, the same ought to be true for us.

So, when's the last time you've proclaimed God's lordship over your life? I'm not talking about the last time you said "God is my Lord," but rather the Lord time you truly found complete satisfaction in him, as he was the full source of your good. This is what it means to have God as your Lord: to trust that he is all that you need and live that reality out. Have you done that today? If not, I encourage you to do so, that the words of David in Psalm 23:1 might be true of you:

"The LORD is my shepherd; I shall not want."