“There is not a square inch in the whole domain of our human existence over which Christ, who is sovereign over all, does not cry, ‘Mine!’” (Abraham Kuyper)

My wife and I have two children, one of which is a toddler. Over the past few months—maybe longer than that—our eldest has learned how to say what every parents dreams of hearing: “Mine!”

I’m sure you can sense my sarcasm leaking digitally through this piece. Many times, she yells, “Mine!” to something that is in fact hers, but we have to explain that doesn’t mean she can do whatever she wants with it.

For example, she has plastic golf clubs and was recently banging them against one of our windows. I quickly got up and told her to stop while trying to make sure she didn’t break anything. As soon as I reached for the clubs, she yelled, “Mine!”

Welcome to toddlerhood.

But this is not so with Jesus. When we think of Jesus, he can yell “Mine!” all he wants because, in fact, all things are his!

We tend to focus on the second verse in Matthew 28:18-19, where Jesus tells us to make disciples of the nations. But do we ever pay attention to the first verse? “All authority,” Jesus says, “in heaven and on earth has been given to me” (v. 18).

Not some authority. Not half authority. Not even most authority. But all authority. Jesus is the authority. He owns everything, as everything was made by him (Col. 1:16).

The late RC Sproul once famously said:

If there is one maverick molecule in all the universe, then God is not sovereign. And if God is not sovereign, He is not God.

There is not a single thing in this universe that is not under the authority of Jesus Christ. He has authority over everything—the creation, animals, even our bodies. Jesus owns our bodies; they are not ours (1 Cor. 6:9). Not one blade of grass, not one rain drop is outside his sovereign authority.

Consider how big, far, and wide the earth is; Jesus owns it all. Ponder the detailed intricacies of all the galaxies; Jesus has authority of them all. He created them. He sustains them. He upholds them.

Believer, I want you to understand that our Lord owns everything; but even more, I want you to truly get how big Jesus really is. He’s not interested in relinquishing authority over His creation. Jesus owns it all, as He must own it all—otherwise everything would fall apart. It is all his.

Okay, so Jesus owns everything, you may think. Why does that really matter for me?

If Jesus has authority over all things, then that in turn means he has authority over you. Which means we owe him all we have. We cannot give anything to him that he might be repaid (Romans 11:35), but we owe him our allegiance, our trust, our repentance. Because Jesus owns it all, he has the authority to command every sinner to repent (Acts 17:30).

But his all-encompassing authority also means we, as blood-bought believers, can rest assured that everything is fine in Christ’s sovereign hands. Come what may, we know beyond a shadow of a doubt that the world, with all its confusion and chaos, sits in the palm of Jesus’ hand.

May the authority that Jesus has fill our minds, and ponder how big Jesus is. And then we must remember that, though Jesus is sovereign over all things and has authority over all, he loved us so much that he willingly died for us when we least deserved it.

As the old hymn goes, “What a friend we have in Jesus.”