Authority vs Power. Which Would you Choose? Part 1

.AUTHORITY, noun [Latin auctoritas.]

1. Legal power, or a right to command or to act; as the authority of a prince over subjects, and of parents over children. Power; rule; sway. (Noah Webster 1812 Dictionary of English Language).

Authority is the right to act on behalf of an individual or entity. Authority, when compared to power, on face value may be undervalued by many people.

[pullquote]We have been given the authority to act in the name of Jesus with the expectation of the Power of God to flow through us to do exploits in His name. [/pullquote]

I love watching Marvel movies. What compels me to hit the theaters when a new Marvel movie comes out is the power that some of my favorite characters possess.

Even as a child, in my neighborhood there was always an ongoing debate with my brother, Jimmy Dorsey, Ronald Perry, and the rest of the neighborhood boys about which superpower was the best. But the funny thing is, I don’t ever remember any of us fighting over authority versus power….

Authority Must Be Granted

Going through the Sheriff’s academy was one of the toughest things I’ve ever done (class 259 RAH!). And at the rate that recruits were dropping out of my academy class, it seems that I wasn’t the only one who felt this way. We started out with 125 recruits in my class and we finished with 85.

Authority Yields Transformation

Jennifer was the top female recruit in my class. She was a shy, quiet girl from Orange County CA. Jennifer was someone you might not ever notice in the crowd. Although she was extremely smart, nothing physically stood out about her.

We graduated in the spring of 1989. I remember the last day of class well. I remember the instructors calling our names from a list and telling us where we were to report for duty the following day.

Every time an instructor called out a name from the list followed by MCJ, there was a sigh of misery that reverberated throughout the classroom. No one wanted to be assigned to Men’s Central Jail. And without going into detail, I will say that the place is a hell hole in every sense of the word.

I was shipped off to work as a bailiff at a courthouse in LA while Jennifer’s first assignment was Men’s Central Jail.

2 years later I was transferred to a medium-security facility in East LA called Biscailuz Center. And on my first day, I was partnered up with Jennifer, the same girl from my academy class. Or was it? I found out that she had transferred to BC about a year prior to my arrival.

Jennifer looked like the same girl. She had the same name. But this Jennifer was completely different than the shy, unassuming girl I knew in the academy.

This Jennifer had “swag”. She was in control. This Jennifer commanded respect not only from inmates but from her fellow Deputies.

I was privileged to work with Jennifer for 2 years. After Biscailuz Center, we parted ways and worked in different areas of the County only to find ourselves working at neighboring patrol stations a few years later.

The Right to Command

Jen exuded authority. One year we worked the Rose Parade together. I remember watching this 5’5” 120lb woman walk out into the middle of Colorado Blvd. She raised her hand and big rigs came to a complete stop at her command.

Did Jen, or any of us for that matter, have the physical ability to stop a big rig doing 40 mph heading straight for us? Absolutely not. But Jen knew that she had something that far exceeded her lack of physical power. She had authority.

You see, back in the spring of 1989 when we graduated from the academy, the Sheriff of LA County gave us his authority. He deputized the members of class #259. He gave us the authority to enforce the civil and penal codes of the County of Los Angeles.

From that day on we, as LA County Sheriff’s Deputies had the authority to act on behalf of LA County with the expectation that the power of Los Angeles County would enforce the authority that we had been given.

Spiritual Authority

Laws govern what takes place in two realms. Laws govern the realm of the physical and laws govern the realm of the spirit. There are consequences for breaking laws in both realms.

Just as Jen had been given the authority to carry her firearm, wear a badge and enforce the laws of Los Angeles County, we as Christians have been given the authority to enforce spiritual law in our lives.

A resurrected Jesus “deputized us” in Luke 10:19. He said, “Behold, I give you the authority to trample on serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy, and nothing shall by any means hurt you”.

Now with that being said, I’m going to make a statement here that may be a little controversial in the church…

When those of us in class #259 were deputized, from that point forward we were expected to use our authority to act in the name of LA County to enforce the law. For a Deputy to witness a violation, then grab his or her phone to call the Sheriff and expect HIM to do something about it would be ridiculous. No, quite the contrary. Back in 1989 the Sheriff deputized me to act on his behalf. Not the other way around.

Likewise, we have been given the authority to act in the name of Jesus with the expectation of the Power of God to flow through us to do exploits in His name. And if we don’t exercise our authority, we’ll end up trampled under foot by the devil and go away thinking that “it wasn’t God’s will” that we overcome in that particular situation when nothing could be farther from the truth!

So, now that you’ve been given authority to use the name of Jesus, what are you going to do with it? Expect more on this in part 2 of this series.