Greetings,
Authority is a process. Within that process there is a birthright, training, and a testimony of becoming the substance of a specific measure of authority. Authority doesn’t come merely from birthright. There must be a receiving of that birthright and then a training process to become what that birthright proclaims one to be. Authority requires an appointment from God and that appointment comes in the timing of God. There is an age of authority. It is not a set age in the natural, but it is a moment of appointment for authority. Authority requires a time of appointment. There is an anointing in authority, but that anointing is only proven to be legitimate when there is a God-ordained appointment for that anointing to function. I believe that authority is a measure of inheritance from God. That inheritance is given to bring life to the world. When Jesus was thirty years old He received the first measure of His authority for His heavenly inheritance as Lord and Christ.
Matthew 3:17 And suddenly a voice came from heaven, saying, “This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.”
Jesus proved that His inheritance was not just natural, but also Spirit. After He received His appointment of authority the Spirit led Him into the wilderness. It was there that He manifested the full authority to defeat the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes and the pride life for mankind. He defeated the power of the devil by walking in the authority of the Spirit. He opened the door of the Kingdom of God for the spirits, the souls, and the bodies of all humanity. Jesus could only defeat the devil because of birthright and years of training. He re-established the truth that man lives, moves, and has their being in God. He was a living testimony of a man who loved God with all His heart (spirit), soul, and life (body). He was a walking demonstration of authority that comes by faith. As a man, Jesus lived by faith, walked by faith, and His full being in God by faith. He could walk in the kingdom business of His heavenly Father, because He had become a testimony of a manifested Son. Let’s look at His first temptation.
Matthew 4:1-4 Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. And when He had fasted forty days and forty nights, afterward He was hungry. Now when the tempter came to Him, he said, “If You are the Son of God, command that these stones become bread.” But He answered and said, “It is written, ‘Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.’ ”
I don’t believe that Jesus was quoting Scripture to the devil. He wasn’t quoting Deuteronomy. Deuteronomy was quoting Him. Jesus said that the Scriptures were a testimony of Him (Jn. 5:39). The Old Covenant was a shadow of that which was to come (Heb. 10:1); it was not a testimony to be copied to bring to pass that, which was to come. Jesus was a living testimony that the word was written in His heart and in His mind. The devil thought He was quoting a book, but Jesus was simply confessing the testimony that was within Him that gave Him discernment as to the voice of God. He knew that the voice promising bread was not the voice of His heavenly Father. The devil probably didn’t announce who he was. He is a deceiver and his voice was no doubt a deceiving voice of temptation to Jesus. Jesus discerned that the Spirit of the words spoken were not the substance of His Father’s voice. Jesus was walking in His God-given authority as the Son of Man.
Jesus had come through the process of training to become that He was in the authority of life. He had the sound of God in His character, nature, way, power, and authority. The sound of God had come into Jesus’ name through a process of training. It wasn’t just an anointing given to Him at the pouring out of the Holy Spirit and the baptism of John.
What was the process that brought to Jesus this place of authority? Was Jesus ever chastised? We tend to think of chastisement as a punishment for being wrong. We do this because we filter things through a paradigm of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Chastisement is not a punishment; it is a part of our training process in life. Jesus leaned things like patience, endurance, long suffering, mercy, and grace. All of those things are testimonies made manifest through chastising events. The chastisement of our peace was upon Him. In the flesh He was chastised because of the sin of man. In the Spirit He was chastised by the Father of Spirits that He would have life. Chastisement is an expression of love. It is in the disciplines of life that we manifest for who we really are. It is pressure that reveals a diamond and irritation that reveals a pearl.
Hebrews 12:3-14 for consider Him who endured such hostility from sinners against Himself, lest you become weary and discouraged in your souls. 4 You have not yet resisted to bloodshed, striving against sin. And you have forgotten the exhortation which speaks to you as to sons: “My son, do not despise the chastening of the Lord, nor be discouraged when you are rebuked by Him; For whom the Lord loves He chastens, and scourges every son whom He receives.” If you endure chastening, God deals with you as with sons; for what son is there whom a father does not chasten? But if you are without chastening, of which all have become partakers, then you are illegitimate and not sons. Furthermore, we have had human fathers who corrected us, and we paid them respect. Shall we not much more readily be in subjection to the Father of spirits and live? For they indeed for a few days chastened us as seemed best to them, but He for our profit, that we may be partakers of His holiness. Now no chastening seems to be joyful for the present, but grievous; nevertheless, afterward it yields the peaceable fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it. Therefore strengthen the hands which hang down, and the feeble knees, and make straight paths for your feet, so that what is lame may not be dislocated, but rather be healed. Pursue peace with all men, and holiness, without which no one will see the Lord…
Jesus learned obedience by the things that He suffered. Do you suppose He ever hit His hand with a hammer in the carpenter shop? Do you think He may have been misunderstood and wrongly disciplined by His natural father Joseph? He knew how to be led by the voice of His heavenly Father even in everyday life. He knew that it was the instruction of the Spirit that strengthens hands and the word of God that strengthens knees (Job. 4:3,4). He knew how to walk in a practical world in a spiritual reality. This is how He could defeat the devil in life.
Food For Thought,
Ted J. Hanson
