Greetings,
I have presented that power and authority are two different things. Power will be connected to authority, but authority is not always connected to power. When we grasp to be someone we are not we may end up with power, but we will not have true authority. True authority is seen with a testimony of the fruit of inheritance. Authority produces life in others. Authority elevates others to their fullest existence, while mere power will rob from others to elevate a person beyond their measure of life-giving influence. This was the flaw of Lucifer and it is his plan in his fallen state as Satan or the Devil to influence others in a way that deceives them to venture on a quest for power and relinquish their true authority in life. He seeks to tempt people to enter a quest for power and relinquish the truth of who they are meant to be. This is what Satan did with Adam in the beginning. Adam fell for this temptation and his quest for the power of the knowledge of good and evil caused him to forfeit his birthright to the Tree of Life. Jesus was born as a human being to buy that birthright back for all of mankind.
When we grasp for a position that is not ours we may obtain power, but because we have no basis for authority in that position our end will be destruction. Lucifer became something he was not created to be because he grasped for power beyond his measure of life-giving influence. He retained power, but lost his true authority. He is still gifted, but his gifting is now manifested through a self-seeking power of death. Rather than elevate others to their true identity in life he seeks to steel, kill, and destroy them so their life-giving authority cannot reign in life.
We don’t want to just do good things in life. We want to do God things. I heard a story years ago by a great teacher and man of God. He has become a great influence of life in Russia and a great teacher to the body of Christ. He told a story of his early days in ministry. He was the pastor of a church at the time. There was a season where he would see crowns on the heads of people. One day a lady in his church came to him and in the spirit he could see a crown on top of her head. She began to express to him how much she had been praying for him as her pastor. As she professed her diligence to pray for him, the pastor thanked her and he immediately saw the crown vanish from the top of her head. He inquired of God as to why the crown disappeared and God told him that the lady had exchanged her crown in heaven for the earthly affirmation of her pastor. She had exchanged one reward for another. Several situations like this happened in the pastor’s life as God was revealing to him the crowns in people’s lives. The pastor became curious about his own crown and he prayed that he might look in a mirror and see it. When he looked in the mirror he saw nothing and he inquired why God wasn’t showing him his own crown. God responded by saying he hadn’t gotten one yet. The pastor began to think of how he had been laboring in the church and how his efforts as the pastor had caused him much work and effort. He asked God about his crown for pasturing the church and God responded by telling him, “I didn’t ask you to pastor this church”. It was a humbling experience for the pastor but a lessoned learned that it is best to be who God has called you to be rather than simply following the form of others and seek to do good things for God. Doing good things in the name of God can seem harmless, but it is at least missing the greater testimony of living in the full authority of who we are in Christ that lifts others to their fullest testimony of life.
Let’s look at the fall of Lucifer. Ezekiel’s lamentation for the king of Tyre is not just a call to the natural king of a nation, but also a prophetic declaration to the root of a kingdom’s fall. It is a prophetic declaration in the realm of the spirit to the fall of the star of the morning that the Latin refers to as Lucifer. Although the word “Lucifer” is not actually in the Hebrew texts of the Scripture, I believe that the Latin Vulgate’s use of the name “Lucifer” is an accurate description of his original creation. The name “Lucifer” means, “to refract or reflect light”. This is a true testimony of the original creation of this star of the morning.
Ezekiel 28:12-19 “Son of man, take up a lamentation for the king of Tyre, and say to him, ‘Thus says the Lord God: “You were the seal of perfection, full of wisdom and perfect in beauty. You were in Eden, the garden of God; every precious stone was your covering: the sardius, topaz, and diamond, beryl, onyx, and jasper, sapphire, turquoise, and emerald with gold. The workmanship of your timbrels and pipes was prepared for you on the day you were created. “You were the anointed cherub who covers; I established you; you were on the holy mountain of God; you walked back and forth in the midst of fiery stones. You were perfect in your ways from the day you were created, till iniquity was found in you. “By the abundance of your trading you became filled with violence within, and you sinned; therefore I cast you as a profane thing out of the mountain of God; and I destroyed you, O covering cherub, from the midst of the fiery stones. “Your heart was lifted up because of your beauty; you corrupted your wisdom for the sake of your splendor; I cast you to the ground, I laid you before kings, that they might gaze at you. “You defiled your sanctuaries by the multitude of your iniquities, by the iniquity of your trading; therefore I brought fire from your midst; it devoured you, and I turned you to ashes upon the earth in the sight of all who saw you. All who knew you among the peoples are astonished at you; you have become a horror, and shall be no more forever.”
The portal of being is the heart. Discovering and being true to who you really are is found through intimacy with God through your heart. Who you are represents who God is. Abandoning the portal of your heart will make you a doer. This is what happened to Lucifer in his fall. He lifted up his heart and looked through the eyes of self to believe that he was his own source of existance. He became a self-seeker in his motivation and ventured on a quest for power by trading his true identity for something he was not created to be.
This created being was comprised of precious stones, pipes, and timbrels. He didn’t just use these things as his possessions; they were part of the make up of his being. He reflected light in many facets, amplified sound in many notes, and reverberated with rhythm in many vibrations. Visible light, audible sound, and vibration of rhythm are all expressions of light at various frequencies. God is Light and I believe that this created being was a covering cherub to the word (expression) of God in heaven. He was a refractor and a reflector of the word of God in heaven. He was a wonderful creation with an awesome authority. He was perfect in his ways and a close look at the stones in his covering reveals qualities that testify of the attributes shadowed in the tribes and testimony of Israel. Things like praise, knowing, judgment, etc were magnified through the refractions of his covering. The stones of the tribe of Manasseh (forgetfulness), Ephraim (double fruitful) and Benjamin (son of the right hand) were not among the nine stones that Lucifer walked among, however. Those stones reveal aspects of relationship found through intimacy with God. Things like forgiveness, restoration, and inheritance. Things that cannot merely be refracted or reflected but can only be known by sons of God. Things that can only be known through stars (sons) that burn with the light of Christ. Relationship with God made known through mercy and grace was not something that he understood. It wasn’t in his creation to reflect the qualities of the end of oneself, fruitfulness, and being a son of the right hand. He had authority to be who he was, but he desired to be more than what he was created to be.
Lucifer wasn’t content with who he was. He traded his authority for a quest of power. His iniquity was that he didn’t honor who he was. He lost his authority. He didn’t lose power. He is still full of wisdom because of gifting. Because of his creation, he is full of music. He is full of all that he was created to be, but he has lost the authority to be it. He is left with destructive power. His gifting is now used to justify the existence of himself and his selfish agendas. He is now a devil. A devil strikes the souls of others to destroy their personalities and identities. He seeks to crack the souls of men to tempt them to trade the truth of who they are for the personality of his perversion. A devil of fear strikes the human soul with his personality of fear to tempt them to trade their understanding of love for a lie of fear in their own identity. They trade their trust of love for a personality of fear and they become fearful. Satan lacks the heart of his source of authority and he has lost the life flow of his created destiny of authority and he seeks to cause others to do the same. He dishonored who he was created to be. He still has all the attributes of his magnificence, but it is all perverted. He still has power and gifting. He is still full of wisdom because of gifting, but his wisdom is perverted because he is disconnected from the life source of wisdom. His wisdom is not self-preserving and self-exalting in its focus (Jam. 3:23-28).
Let’s look at another example of his failure. This is found in the words of Isaiah to the king of Babylon. The words are to a natural king but they deal prophetically with the root of that king’s flaw. They deal with the fall of the star of the morning (Lucifer). Again, the word “Lucifer” is not in the original Hebrew text, but I believe that the Latin Vulgate’s inclusion of this word is accurate to the understanding of this created being.
Isaiah 14:12-19 “How you are fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning! How you are cut down to the ground, you who weakened the nations! For you have said in your heart: ‘I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God; (grasped for what was not his) I will also sit on the mount of the congregation on the farthest sides of the north; I will ascend above the heights of the clouds, I will be like the Most High.’ (grasped for what was not his) Yet you shall be brought down to Sheol, to the lowest depths of the Pit. “Those who see you will gaze at you, and consider you, saying: ‘Is this the man who made the earth tremble, who shook kingdoms, who made the world as a wilderness and destroyed its cities, who did not open the house of his prisoners?’ “All the kings of the nations, all of them, sleep in glory, everyone in his own house; but you are cast out of your grave like an abominable branch, Like the garment of those who are slain, thrust through with a sword, who go down to the stones of the pit, like a corpse trodden under foot.
Authority is never about you. It is always about someone else. Authority magnifies whom you represent and elevates those who are under you to their highest potential of identity and purpose. True authority brings dominion and that dominion is a testimony of truth. Lucifer had authority but he lost the authority that he had. Lucifer became a devil. In his perception of wisdom he became Satan. Wisdom is a sense of things for the future, but Lucifer had nothing in his created makeup that gave him knowledge or understanding of what that future meant. He was not full of knowledge or understanding, thus he twisted his understanding of wisdom through a grasp for knowledge and understanding. He became a lie and thus he became the father of lies. His plan was to take what belonged to man and to God. He was left with weapons of the soul and lost the weapons of the Spirit. His quest was one of power and thus he forfeited his true authority.
Authority comes from authority it doesn’t initiate in oneself. Authority is always about someone else. Lucifer lifted up his heart and moved into a realm that was beyond his source of authority. The entrance of authority in your life is your heart and not your head. When you have authority you are not the source of authority, but rather the vessel that contains and manifests authority. You are responsible for something and to someone. Lucifer was able to be responsible as a morning star, but not as a satan or a devil. When he grasped for power beyond his measure of rule he became a lie, a perversion of his original creation. He tried to be someone he was not meant to be. The trap of Satan is to get men to seek to become what they are not. Lucifer ended up with what he grasped for and he was not created to handle it. The result was perversion of truth. Turmoil, fear, intimidation and the like are characteristics not found in what he was created to be. They are the consequences of his failure. These things are now his because he didn’t have the basis to be what he grasped to become. Authority brings life to others, but a quest for power will end up producing and influence of death in your world.
Food For Thought,
Ted J. Hanson
