Authority:

the power or right to give orders, make decisions, and enforce obedience.
“he had absolute authority over his subordinates”

Oxford English Dictionary

Authority is an interesting idea. It has two levels. The first and most immediate is the power that it gives to the person bearing it. Behind this power, however, is another level. All authority is bestowed. It is delegated to the person who has it by a higher source. And that higher source is the true center of power. The higher power must be legitimate. It must be true. Any authority that we encounter in our lives, ultimately, is a reflection of this higher source of power. Unless you are this legitimate, true higher power, you cannot create your own authority.

The truth about authority:

Authority must be given to you.

Authority must originate from a true, legitimate source of power. This higher power may be many steps removed, but all authority passes down through a chain of command.

There can be only one true, legitimate, ultimate source of authority. Anyone who claims authority is either acting on behalf of the legitimate higher power………or is an imposter who has created his own authority………or is acting on behalf of an imposter who has created his own authority.

Real authority is permanent.

Real authority never changes.

We all exercise some degree of authority. You may have authority over an army of millions. Your authority may be limited to your Labrador retriever. In either event, if you are honest, you need to know where your authority ultimately comes from. More to the point……you need to know if the source of your authority is legitimate.

For the Christian, this is simple. The ultimate and only legitimate source of authority is the God of the Bible……the God who teaches us to love him and to love one another.

For the secular humanist it is far more problematic. In practice, the secular humanist relies on multiple sources of authority. They are often in conflict. They change frequently. The authority that was preeminent when you were a child is no longer on your radar. The authority that told us that the earth is flat and is the center of the universe has been replaced by NASA. There is a darker side too. We are very good at choosing an authority that endorses the things that we want to do…….. the things that satisfy our current appetites.

Possible sources of secular authority:

Science
Our political party
Fox news
CNN
Donald Trump
Nancy Pelosi
Our appetites

So…….my challenge for this week is this:

Make an honest search for the source…..or sources……of your authority.

Then ask the fundamental question…….is the source of my authority legitimate…….is it true?

Because, in the end, this will determine if your authority, if your life, is legitimate.

When Jesus had entered Capernaum, a centurion came to him, asking for help. “Lord,” he said, “my servant lies at home paralyzed, suffering terribly.”

Jesus said to him, “Shall I come and heal him?”

The centurion replied, “Lord, I do not deserve to have you come under my roof. But just say the word, and my servant will be healed. For I myself am a man under authority, with soldiers under me. I tell this one, ‘Go,’ and he goes; and that one, ‘Come,’ and he comes. I say to my servant, ‘Do this,’ and he does it.”

When Jesus heard this, he was amazed and said to those following him, “Truly I tell you, I have not found anyone in Israel with such great faith.

Mathew, NIV

“All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.

Jesus, NIV

You don’t hear much about humility in our modern culture. When was the last time you heard somebody recommend that we should be more humble?

Name one media personality, one leader, one captain of industry who is truly, comprehensively humble.

And yet the Bible repeatedly mentions being humble as a key trait of the mature Christian.

Humility is a growth goal that I have struggled with for my entire life.

So what is humility?

First of all, humility has very little to do with your strengths and weaknesses. We all have strengthens. We all have weaknesses. We all have a pretty good idea of what they are. Humility is not about saying that you are not smart when you are. It is not about saying that you are weak when you are strong.

At its core, humility is about recognizing your place in the hierarchy of the universe.

As a group, secular humanists see mankind as the top of the pyramid. For the secular humanist, there is no being above man. The secular humanists, as a whole, answer to no one. They are the final arbiter of right and wrong. They are the final arbiter of truth. The secular humanist can be wrong; but, only by violating the rules and principles that they themselves have created.

The creationist sees man as a being on a plane that is not the top plane. The creationist concedes that there is a cosmic plane that is completely superior to our world in every way. The creationist allows that there is a being who is completely superior to us in every way. This being, the creator, is the only arbiter of right and wrong……..the only arbiter of truth. A creationist, if he or she is being honest………and an great many Christians are not, must use the creator’s definition of right, wrong and truth. So a creationist, must seek out, study, and follow the moral code of the creator. This is very hard.

It is not hard because we can’t find the code……..it is there in plain sight…… Love the creator…… Love your neighbor. It is hard because we resist the idea of not being in charge. We hate the idea that someone else gets to make the rules. We hate the idea that someone else tells us what we can and cannot do.

And there is the great irony.

In our hearts, Christians really want to be secular humanists. In fact, many…….perhaps most…….Christians are functional secular humanists.

The great challenge for Christians is to be humble. Humble enough to submit to the leadership of our creator.

The bad news is that we just are not very good at humility.

The good news is that humility is connected to one of God’s great promises……..a promise that we desperately need in America today:

“if my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and I will forgive their sin and will heal their land.”

God, NIV

One line from my daily prayer.

Let me start out by saying that I have been blessed. God has opened many doors for me.

I believe in God…….a God who loves me, who has promised that he will take care of me, who has me in his hand.

Please don’t get me wrong…….I’m not looking for sympathy.

But……..God has also closed a lot of doors in my life……..more than my share, it seems.

Some of the time, this has sent me in a new direction that turned out well.

But, a lot of the time, even after waiting for decades, I just can’t see the silver lining.

For the life of me, I cannot see the upside of the illness, injury, and death that has stalked my family.

What to do?

Deny God? I could say that if God really cared about me, he would never have allowed this. So….either he doesn’t care…….or he doesn’t exist.

Hate God? I could accept his existence, but lash out at him for the closed doors……the bad things that he has done…….or at best has allowed to happen.

Suffer in silence? I could box God up in a corner and never go there…….isolate my pain from my creator. Blame it all on fallen man…….or Satan.

Scream at God:, “What in the world were you thinking?”, “Why did you throw my family under the bus?”, “Why aren’t you on my side?”

Or I could open up a conversation. Pray……..read the owners manual. I could try to see the big picture. I could try to look at this from God’s side.

And I would learn a few things about God……my father……..Abba.

He loves me.

Abba loves ME.

He has plans……..for me…….for my well-being.

He has prepared a place for me, an open place…….when he is finished with me…….in this place.

He also has plans for you……..and for several billion other people that neither of us has ever met…….or even imagined.

God, Abba, is weaving a giant tapestry of billions of lives…….and I can only see a few threads of it. Perhaps the black thread that runs through my family is there to support and contrast a golden thread nearby. Maybe my pain…….is helping somebody else.

So……..I will trust God.

I will trust in his love.

I will trust in his promises.

If my thread today is black……….I will trust God…….
I will serve my place in God’s design.

The key to successful living in hard times is to understand and accept that we are not at the center of the universe…….we are a tiny part of something much bigger……..that a creator who loves us is building something that we can neither see nor comprehend.

But God can see it all………and he loves you and me…….and he has promised that he will take care of everything……..in the end.

the Lord was my support.
He brought me out into a spacious place;
he rescued me because he delighted in me.

David, NIV

“Do not let your hearts be troubled. You believe in God; believe also in me. My Father’s house has many rooms; if that were not so, would I have told you that I am going there to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am.

Jesus, NIV

There is a lot of bad teaching going on out there.

I’m not talking about the toxic preacher raining hell and brimstone down on “some other guy”. I’m talking about teachers……in our schools telling our children stuff that is just wrong. I’m talking about bad ideas being sold by the media and by our popular culture.

I have grand-daughters. One of them came home from her public school. She was talking about some LGBT issues and it was clear that she was being taught that this is normal and OK.

I need to make 2 things clear from the start:

First …….as Christians we are required to love our fellow man. This is not a recommendation. This is not optional. It is REQUIRED. This includes the loving the LGBT community.

Second……..school is a place for our children to learn facts and ideas that they will need to function in society. It is not a place to conduct social engineering. It is not a place for “educators” to sell their political views…….their opinions on sex.

This leads me to the point for this week. Our culture is constantly teaching us things that contradict the teaching of the Bible.

For example:

A gun is a good problem solving tool.
Sex outside of marriage is good clean fun.
A well crafted lie can get you out of trouble or solve a problem.
Lying to your parents is normal….they are not too bright anyway.
Christianity is narrow minded.
Christians are hypocrites.
Abortion is a civil right.
An unborn child of not a real human being.
Rules are for saps…….they limit your style.

How should you and I react when society teaches us something that contradicts the teaching of the Bible?

I believe that the Bible is often the direct words of my creator, God. The rest is at the very least inspired by God. There are parts of it that are clearly symbolic. But, there are parts that lay down very clear rules. Taken as a whole, the Bible, gives us extremely clear guidance on what is right and what is wrong…….on how we should live our lives. And, more and more, the teaching of the Bible is at is odds with what our culture is teaching.

When the Bible speaks directly, we need to pay attention and to follow its instructions. When the Bible says something……and our culture, our political party, our friends, or our teachers tell us something different, we must choose between the Bible and the popular culture.

I believe that the Bible trumps our culture. I believe that “Love God…..Love your neighbor” is a far better credo than the ideas being peddled by our culture today.

The culture says, “it is your right to kill your unborn child”.
The Bible says, “before you were formed in the womb, I knew you”.

The culture says, “any form of sex between consenting adults of OK.”
The Bible says that sex is for one man and one woman within the confines of marriage .

The culture says that it is OK to lie to accomplish something important.
The Bible says, “do not lie”.

The culture says it’s OK to lie to your parents.
The Bible says, “honor your parents”.

The culture says, “hate the other political party”.
The Bible says, “love your neighbor”.

Clearly, this means nothing to you…….if you think the Bible is just an old collection of stories………a popular mythology.

But, if you are a Christian…….then it’s time to start paying attention. You cannot discard a part of the Bible because you……or your political party, or the popular culture, or your friends, or your teacher…….don’t like it. Neither you nor I are smart enough……wise enough……..righteous enough…….to make that distinction.

You are either a Christian first……….or a Republican first…….or a Democrat first………or a teacher or media syncophant first.

Life is not a buffet. The Bible is not a buffet either.

You don’t get to pick out the ideas that you like.

You don’t get to discard parts of God’s teaching because you don’t like them…….because Donald Trump doesn’t like them…….because Nancy Pelosi doesn’t like them.

Because you are not God.

You are not in charge here.

If there is a part of the Bible that you reject……..because some talking head disagrees with it……. If there is a part of the Bible that you reject because you favorite politician rejects it………please reconsider……..because, in the final analysis, you will not answer to Sean Hannity or Jim Acosta or Donald Trump or Nancy Pelosi.

Take all that you can of this book upon reason, and the balance on faith, and you will live and die a happier man. (When a skeptic expressed surprise to see him reading a Bible)

Abraham Lincoln

Obey me, and I will be your God and you will be my people. Walk in obedience to all I command you, that it may go well with you.

God, NIV

Very truly I tell you, whoever obeys my word will never see death.”

Jesus, NIV

“Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven.

Jesus, NIV