The Authority Of Jesus

Let’s face it, the demons were afraid of Him. They were shaking in their boots. They couldn’t even speak when Jesus told them to be quiet.

Jesus is the ultimate power in the universe and can more than deal with them. I encourage you, if you think you know of demon activity in or surrounding your life, to come to me or another of our church leaders and get help in dealing with it. Prayer works as much today as it did when Jesus walked the earth.

It does not matter what spiritual forces are pitted against you, Jesus has the spiritual authority to deal with them.

He has authority over people too

When Jesus displays His power and His authoritative Scriptural wisdom people cannot help but notice. The people of His day were amazed at his spiritual authority.

The more they saw His spiritual authority the more his fame increased. This is a part of what it means to worship the living Christ. He is attractive in every way. In His power and in the wisdom of His word, He can dazzle the darkest mind and heart. In this case, His fame spread throughout the furthest reaches of His home district.

Part of reaching people for Jesus is simply making sure they know who He is. This is one of the simpler things in sharing the gospel. We sometimes get wrapped up in sin and forgiveness and heaven and hell and grace and works. All these things are part of the salvation story, but a great part of it is summed up in two questions:

Who do people say that He is?

Who do you say He is?

What many people think of Jesus and claim about Him is based on misinformation, partial knowledge and bias. If we take the time to speak into their lives, not just about what Jesus has done for us and what He can do in another person’s life, but simply about who He is, much of the work is being done.

The authority of Jesus must be real in our own lives

I believe that the disciples were in on this event for a very personal reason. Jesus was going to send them out into the world to spread the news of the kingdom and when they went they would have to know the extent of the authority of the King they represented.

• He had authority over the word of God

• He had authority over the spiritual realm

• He had authority over the people of the land

And when they went, convinced of that authority, because they had seen it in action, they had confidence in its truth. That is the meaning of conviction. It is stepping out in confidence because you are convinced of something.

As a disciple of Jesus, what can you do to make His authority more obvious to you?

Read the Gospel more carefully

When you are reading through a gospel, also use cross references you may have in your Bible. Many of you have center column or margin references in your Bible ... use them. In a Bible study time, when you read a gospel passage, go ahead and look up all the cross reference verses listed in your study helps. You will find that the Bible folds back on itself and comments on itself in many wonderful ways.

Here is an example from today’s passage. Many cross references in my Bible direct me to another gospel, which is important in its own way, but to demonstrate Jesus’ authority over all Scripture, let’s cross reference outside the Gospel just to see how it works.