Jesus Christ said in Luke 10:19(NLT), “Look, I have given you authority over all the power of the enemy, and you can walk among snakes and scorpions and crush them. Nothing will injure you.” This verse caught my attention big time the moment I read it. Anyone who knows me is aware there’s one thing that I have a particular aversion toward, and its reptiles of any kind. Imagining what it would be like to walk up on a snake, or to even be in the vicinity of one, is over the top for me. I don’t freak out easily, but this might do it in my case. So, when I read this verse in Luke that says you can walk among them and crush them, I was like “Whoa!!!”
We are living during challenging times, with trouble seemingly on every hand. God’s people are suffering, but through the Lord Jesus Christ, God has given us authority to tread upon any adversity and crush it! If you explore the definition of the word, ‘authority’, you see things like ‘power to direct’ and ‘to control someone or something’. In short, authority is the power to give orders and make decisions. You and I don’t have authority over the free-will choices of others, but we certainly have it over our lives. The problem is that too many of us are not using it.
This is exactly the opening the enemy waits to receive. In the beginning, he tricked Brother Adam and Sister Eve into giving up the authority God had given them, and he is still up to his old tricks. God has given us all the power we need to stand in victory over the enemy. We can never forget or neglect that all victory over the enemy is won through the power of Christ; it is the only way. We must be anchored in the reality that the more ground we, as sons and daughters of God, gain, the more ground the devil loses. The way to gain ground is to stay on the side of Christ and operate the way he has instructed us to.
In Acts 26:18(NLT), Jesus Christ makes our mission clear as his ambassadors to the world. It is “To open their eyes, so they may turn from darkness to light and from the power of Satan to God. Then they will receive forgiveness for their sins and be given a place among God’s people, who are set apart by faith in me.” This is the arena where our authority receives a workout, where we are strengthened in the faith. We are called to be a witness of the gospel, and we have to find a way to do this in our everyday environments. Whether it’s in our homes, work, or Christian communities, we must make sure that our example is one that leaves an impression of the love of Christ.
If we get away from our central mission, which is the call that Christ has charged us with, we’ll move away from the love that Christ wants to exercise through us. All authority has a purpose, and when you lose the purpose, you lose the authority. We will become discouraged and dejected, because we’ve lost focus on the mission.
Again, our joy and well-being can be severely compromised if we take our minds and hearts off the mission that God has called us to through Jesus Christ. Everything we go through is not to take us out, but to remind us that God is our sufficiency. In order to exercise His authority in the earth, His business and purposes must be our first priority. ■
Scripture quotations marked (NLT) are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Wheaton, Illinois 60189. All rights reserved.
“The More Ground We Gain, The More the Enemy Loses”, written by Kim Times, edited by Reverend Fran Mack for Sundie Morning Sistas ©2018. All rights reserved. All done to the glory of God through Jesus Christ, our Lord! SMS is dedicated to inspiring and encouraging Christian Women through the Word of God.