Week 2 | Spiritual Authority 1&5 | Dan

Spiritual Authority | Ch.1, 5

            As I learn more about the principles of authority, I can begin to see things from the perspective of authority. For example, Satan was banished from God’s presence because his heart was in rebellion against God and he wanted to be higher than God, not because he committed certain sinful acts. There is a distinction between offenses against God’s holiness and the more serious offenses against God’s authority.

            My favorite part was when Nee bluntly tells us that, depending on how we treat authority, we’re either living according to God’s principles or Satan’s principles. He says that even when we’re serving or preaching the Gospel, we can be operating on the Satanic principle of rebellion, and God will not accept what we give him (Obedience is better than sacrifice). So we’re not to go looking around for work by our own will. Instead, we wait for God, and we obey, just as Jesus did when he went to the cross. “To serve God we are not called to choose self-denial or sacrifice, rather are we called to fulfill God’s purpose.”

            Nee repeatedly states that we must “meet” authority in order to know and obey it, as Saul did on the Damascus road. Only then was Saul able to submit not only directly to God, but also to His authority that Saul saw in a man named Ananias. “Let us not see the man but only the authority vested in him.” Then it becomes irrelevant who the man is. We’re only obeying God.

            It is so reassuring that God alone has all of the authority in our world. That means although Satan tries to exercise his power in certain areas, there is really no contest. We have access to God’s authority and the right to exercise it.

            We need to realize that Jesus first showed us how to obey God. He submitted to God’s authority and always looked to the Father for instructions. As Christians, we are to follow Jesus’s example and imitate him in his total obedience and dependence on God. “God exalts whoever humbles himself. This is a divine principle.”

            I thought it was an interesting point that what Jesus did here on Earth didn’t simply save us from going to hell, but it re-established God’s authority over man which was broken by sin. Jesus came as a man and was exalted by God as a man after he obeyed.

            Jesus learned obedience through suffering. What’s important is not how much we’ve suffered, but to what extent we’ve learned to obey through that suffering. Obedience also brings joy, richness, and abundance. Let us fight for obedience, rather than happiness itself. God saved us so that we could obey Him. If we truly encountered God’s authority, obedience should come naturally, and we should find that God’s will for our lives is simple.