You Have Authority

Two well known, mighty men of God had only been to Nebraska one time. So when they felt led by the Lord to come speak again, Mom told my girlfriends and me right away. One of my friends and I made a quick decision. We both instantly felt we HAD to attend. As soon as that decision was made, a severe cold entered my head that took my voice for the next five days. All other plans for the trip fell perfectly into place.

On the morning of the conference, when my friend and I were planning on leaving, my ears were still full of pressure. She needed to attend a court hearing beginning at 11 am and by 11:30, the necessary people still had not shown up! So I sent her a text rebuking the spirit of delay, and commanding the Lord’s authority to take over our schedules, and help us get traveling. She typed back a response in agreement to my text prayer. As soon as she touched “send” the court door opened, and the person they were waiting on walked through the door! We were able to leave town on time! There was little, if any, traffic and no cops…not that we were speeding! The day after hearing the men speak, the pressure was released from my ears and my cold was gone!

The book of John 10:10, says our enemy comes to steal, kill, and destroy. The verse doesn’t limit what he tries to steal, kill, and destroy, yet we know from the Bible that Satan will do anything to stop people from following God. The devil will do anything to discourage or disrupt anything God tries to do and if that doesn’t work, he will try to mimic what our Lord does in order to deceive people. If our heavenly Father loves us so much to send his son to die for us, though, do we really think he will leave us helpless against these attacks? (Hint: He does not.)

Jesus sent his disciples out to do the work he was doing (Luke 9:1-2). I don’t know if I mentioned this before or not, but a disciple is just a student or follower of a doctrine. So in essence, if we have accepted Jesus as our Lord and we obey him, we too, are his disciples. Still, our Lord didn’t send them out helpless. He gave them authority, knowing they would need to fight spiritual battles and prove the truth of the Gospel. In the same way, when we become followers of Jesus we receive his authority. I honestly think we’d be shocked speechless if we knew how many good and evil spirits are around us each day and the busyness of the spiritual world we cannot see. When my friend and I prayed against our delay and against my cold, we used our God given authority in Jesus’ name, and the evil spirits had to obey the name of Jesus.

DISCLAIMER: There is an instance in Scripture where several brothers commanded demons out in Jesus’ name and it didn’t work. Instead, they were attacked by the evil spirits and ran out of the house naked and bleeding (Acts 19:13-17). Our God is a holy God. He says, “…be holy because I am holy” (Leviticus 11:44). We must practice what we preach. If we claim to be followers of Jesus, we must obey the whole of his word to us, not just part of it. If we follow him and we obey him, we have his authority, and that means we have victory!

When Jesus had called the Twelve together, he gave them power and authority to drive out all demons and to cure diseases, and he sent them out to proclaim the kingdom of God and to heal the sick. Luke 9:1-2