“Behold, I give unto you power to tread on serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy: and nothing shall by any means hurt you.” (Luke 10:19)
In rush hour traffic, as cars speed down the street, policemen can often be seen directing traffic. You, as well as me, have seen them merely raise their hand and from the smallest car to the largest truck all vehicles will come to a dead stop. How can one man do this? Well, within his own self he does not have the power, the strength, or the ability, to stop one of these fast moving vehicles. However, he has been invested with authority from the city, county or state that he works for.
Authority simply means “delegated power.” The Greek word used here in the New Testament for power primarily means authority. Jesus told His disciples in the Scripture above, “Behold, I give unto you power.” Remembering that the word power here means authority, let's look at that same verse of Scripture once again. “Behold, I give unto you authority to tread on serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy: and (because of this authority) nothing shall by any means hurt you.”
Thank God that Jesus has given us both the power and authority to live victoriously in this present world. He didn't just save us and then say, “Okay. Your washed in the Blood now. Good luck making it through to the end.” No! He provided for us the authority to do great and mighty works in His Name. He gave to us the authority to have power over all the power of the enemy. Victory is ours because “greater is He that is in me than he that is in the world!”
I am persuaded to believe that the reason so many Christians today are living such wish-washy, up and down, in and out lives is simply because they do not recognize their God-given rights and privileges as children of the Most High God. If there ever has been a time that we all need to know that, it is in the wicked day that we live in now. Friend, you don't have to be defeated. You don't have to live beneath the boot heel of the enemy. You don't have to stay in bondage to the things that have kept you bound all those years. Now, right now, you can be free from those sins that have kept recycling through the years of your life. Right now you can be delivered from those filthy habits that have controlled you for so long. You have the authority in Jesus Name to overcome each and every one of them!
God's people need to know that for too long we have lived below the standards that we could have been living in. Why? Because we have, for the most part, never been taught who we are in Christ. We have not been taught about the authority we have over the world, the flesh and the devil. Do you realize that the Bible says that once you become a child of God that you are now an heir to God and a joint-heir with Jesus Christ? Our knowledge of this fact is crucial in our becoming all that we can be in Jesus. It is crucial in our understanding the authority we have been given.
When people look at me, for example, they see a man who has been washed in the precious Blood of the Lamb. They may not be able to see it in the physical realm but there is a crown of sonship on my head. When they look at me they may only see me wearing a shirt, pants and shoes, but if they could see in the spiritual realm they would see me wearing robes of righteousness! If you were to take me down to the local hospital and run a blood test on me, the results may come back that I have A+ blood, but really I have royal blood flowing through my veins because I am a child of the King. There may be a physical birth certificate showing the time and date of my physical birth here on this planet, but the truth is my name is written down in the Book of Life in Heaven! And, if you have been saved by the Blood of the Lamb, all these same things pertain to you as well.
The apostle Paul tells us in Romans 5:17, “If for by one man's offense death reigned, how much more shall they which received abundance of grace and the gifts of righteousness shall reign in life by one Jesus Christ.” It is not God's will for us to be defeated in this life – it is His will that we reign in this life! How? By the authority that has been granted to us through His Son Jesus! We have become His child, and as such, we have the ability to cry out, “Abba Father.” We have the authority to call out to the Creator of the universe and call Him Daddy! Wow! What a revelation!
You see, we need to realize this in the hour that we now live in here on planet Earth. We need to realize that we are not just some poor little nobody's just barely making it through this life. We need to know that we are somebody in God's eyes. But just knowing isn't enough. It is knowledge acted upon that brings the results. Just knowing who we are and what we are, and just knowing our rights and privileges, really isn't enough either. That policeman that I talked about earlier may have been given the authority to step out there in front of traffic and hold his hand up and stop those vehicles, but if all he does is stay in his car reading a book and eating a doughnut while cars are are crashing all around him does no good whatsoever. No, he must use that authority that has been given to him.
There are already way too many people who do not know who they are and what they have in the secular world – we sure don't need for the saints of God to be the same way. Let me illustrate this for you.
Many decades ago, in the early 1900's, there was a bum in Chicago. He was often see eating out of garbage cans and dressed in rags. He rented a small shabby room for $3.00 a week in a run-down shabby building. He would often be seen begging for food, sitting on the sidewalks, looking like a bum. Everyone knew him that passed by him every day on their way to work. After he had been missing for a couple of weeks though, with no one seeing him in his normal garbage cans, some concerned neighbors began to look for him. They found him in that rat-infested room dead laying on his bed. The authorities took him to the medical examiner for an autopsy to see what the cause of his death was, to which they discovered that he had died of malnutrition. Yet a money belt was found around his waist that contained $23,000! (Which was a lot of money back then). Here was a man that ate out of garbage cans when he could have ate in the finest restaurants in Chicago. Here was a man that lived in a rat-infested, run down room, when he could have stayed in the finest hotels. But, here was a man who died not acting upon what was rightfully his.
Shamefully, there are many Christians who are just like this man. They sit back with a passive attitude that they have to just take anything that comes along in their life. Let me ask you something – what kind of life is that? Does that sound like the life that your heavenly Father has planned for you? God wants us to reign as kings and priests in this life. God wants us to exercise the power and authority that has been invested to us in this life.
The reason so many Christians walk around in constant defeat is simple because they just don't act on what is rightfully theirs. I think that it is high time for we, as the saints of the Most High, start standing upon our rights and authority as believers. For too long we have sat back and accepted defeat as the norm in our lives, when the total opposite should be true. We somehow have developed this warped perception that if we live a sad, defeated life it somehow makes us more holy. I don't know where that kind of philosophy came from, but I'm here to tell you that you can and should live victorious in this life!
You see, the only power the devil has over you is the power you let him have over you. It shouldn't be him that has the power – it should be you that has the power and authority over him! You have the power. You have the authority. But you must act on it. You must use it. You must exercise it. This authority that I'm talking about is not just for ministers to have. It is for ever born-again believer!
The devil would have you to believe that he is too powerful for you to overcome. He would make you believe that he is more powerful that God. Well, I am here to tell you that the devil is a liar! We have God on our side, and He says in John 8:32 that we will know the truth and the truth will make us free, because He has given us authority over all the powers of the devil!
Friend, we have been given this authority and it is now time that we act on it. It is time that we put the devil to flight and run him out of our lives. It is time that we get in the Spirit and in the Name of Jesus bind the works of darkness and bring the Church back to a Holy Ghost, heaven sent, heart felt, devil chasing, revival of God's authority flowing through us once again!