“Jesus … taught
them as someone authorised to do so.”
—
Matthew 7:29 (USC)
AUTHORITY is
something that Jesus had as divinely appropriated. But it’s also something he
had to learn as a human being.
We aren’t told in
the Bible how Jesus was discipled or who his Rabbi was, but we can be assured
that the humanity of Jesus meant he had to learn almost everything — even
how to assume authority.
And this applies to
us, too. We have to learn how to assume authority. But this is a
chicken-or-the-egg scenario.
Jesus teaches us
that holding a presence for authority is about having a call to duty — the infusion
of a burden for responsibility — that is accepted.
We cannot do anything with authority if we don’t believe in it in our deepest
being. It’s not something we can do.
So believing we are
placed and fitted to do something as burdensome as to teach God’s Word and will
is something only God can grace us with, in his time. God will sift us out if
we are not ready.
When we are ready,
however, the opportunities he will give us will surprise us. And, if we have an
anointing for authority as a seal over our lives, pride won’t rob us away. We
won’t be won to enthusiasms for ‘achievement’ — our service for God will leave
us feeling emotively neutral, perhaps with a quiet thankfulness for his
faithfulness that he gave us what we have needed to do his work; that we weren’t
left alone.
Jesus models this in
his own life. It took him thirty years. He was an adult for at least half that
time. God was building into him all through his formative years — only a few
from his last. But that’s all the time the Father needed in order to accomplish
what he had for Jesus to do. And God can achieve much through us in a short
time. Time is not the only relevance.
Jesus was ready when he began his teaching
ministry. We must always ask, are we ready? If we aren’t, we are fools to
proceed. We should only open those doors the Spirit is opening. Let us be
patient. Let us keep coming back to the eternal nature of this type of work.
Let us consider ministry a kind of sacrament. All its work is sacred.
We can do nothing substantive
without the Spirit’s authority over our lives.
***
We can do nothing without anointing,
In the Kingdom of the Lord,
Only where the Spirit is outpoured,
Is God’s authority
there appointing.
***
QUESTIONS in REVIEW:
1. Consider over your life, what God
has appointed you to do — for all have authority over some things. What of
these things do you thank him for? What of these things are you still resentful
for? What can be done for the latter?
2. Impatience is something we all
must wrestle with — almost all. What is your present impatience? Or, what have
you been impatient for, yet are no longer? What is God saying to you in all
this?
© 2015 S. J. Wickham.
Note: USC version is Under the Southern Cross, The New Testament in Australian English
(2014). This translation was painstakingly developed by Dr Richard Moore, a NT
Greek scholar, over nearly thirty years.
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