Authority

“to the only God our Savior, through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory, majesty, dominion and authority before all time and now and forever. Amen.” Jude 25

Authority – What is authority?  It’s not the same as power.  I may use power to force you to act in a certain way, but that does not mean I had the authority to make you act that way.  Authority is really about relationships.  Authority can only be exercised over those who accept a relationship that either requires their submission or invites their submission.  Authority is a two-way street.

God has authority over everything.  Why?  The first reason is that God is the Creator and therefore, by creative right, He exercises authority over what He creates.  God also has the power over all His creation.  But for now, He operates on the basis of authority, not power.  He could simply clean up the whole creation.  He could wipe out sin and sinful men (He did it once before) through the exercise of His power.  He has the right to do that.  But notice that the Biblical message is quite different.  Instead of forcing His will on creation, God exercises His authority by inviting voluntary submission to His claim.

Jesus goes even further.  Jesus deliberately sets aside His power and control to voluntarily express the authority of the Father.  Jesus accepts the standard of God’s right to rule and he acts in accordance with God’s right to rule.  He doesn’t try to make things happen on his own but only under the instructions and standard of the Father.  Jesus acts as the representative of someone else’s authority.

Is that how you act?  Do you respond to the world as one under another’s authority?  Or do you operate on the basis of power?  Want to know a really quick way to tell the difference?  Power is all about control.  Authority is all about submission.  When I step into God’s worldview, I stop trying to control my environment.  I look for the places where God has given me authority, not where I have the power to act on my own.  And when I discover that authority is a gift, I realize that my authority depends entirely on what the giver allows.  I stay within the bounds of my given authority because I am only a representative of the Ruler, not the Ruler.  The Greek word is exousia.  It’s about ability.  But the question is “Whose ability?”  In the Bible, exousia is first and foremost about God.

When I forget that ability is about God’s authority, I get caught in control.  Control can’t ever let go.  Control is about me.  But authority is about someone else.  Authority requires relationship to the Ruler.

How much of your life is caught up in control?