Transcription
One of the most famous quotes in sports history came from Hall of Fame announcer Al Michaels. He was covering an Olympic hockey game between the United States and Russia in Lake Placid, New York, in the winter of 1980. And I happened to be watching that hockey game.
The USA had just wrapped up an incredible victory over a heavily favored Russian team when Michaels uttered the famous blast, "Do you believe in miracles?"
That was also the same year I was called into the ministry. And you could use, "Do you believe in miracles?" to describe that transition in my life. That's when God had to take a look at me. And God looked past all of my faults and character flaws and called me into the ministry anyway. That was really a miracle.
My ministry today has been largely shaped by what I experienced in those early years. I've been incredibly blessed to be part of three different moves of God. We're talking signs, wonders, mass salvations, and prophetic ministry at incredible levels. The power of the Lord entered into a room, and the entire room struck under the power of the Holy Spirit would fall during these times. One of our favorite sayings was, "More power, Lord, more power!" And it would happen. More of God's power would somehow arrive.
This was all amazing, and I wouldn't trade those experiences for anything. But I did learn something very important during all these power encounters. I saw power come, and I saw power go. I saw people touched by the power of God fall to the floor, and the next day, or even a month later, I would see them, and their life would really be unchanged.
I see the same principle played out in scripture. The 70 elders of Israel were at the base of the mountain that Moses had ascended to meet with God. In essence, they were seeing the river flowing out from the throne of God. In fact, the Bible says they saw God. Then, just a few days later, they helped build a golden calf. They had a power encounter with God himself, yet they still built a golden calf, with that, with that memory of God still in their head.
So how do you explain that? I can only explain it this way: Power from God is a gift. We don't do anything to deserve it. We don't do anything to earn it. We don't do it through good works or righteousness. It's a gift delivered by sovereign God using his Holy Spirit to do it. It's also the manifestation of God's love for us that suddenly appears from the invisible realm and comes into the visible realm.
Power is temporary. It's like a fleeting vapor that appears for a moment, it lingers, and then is gone without a trace. It's a wonderful gift, and the kingdom of God cannot function without it. But there is another force, an incredible force, that often gets confused for power. That force is called authority. And in the Bible, this force called authority is often translated as power. But power and authority are not the same, in life or in the Bible.
In the New Testament, power and authority are two very different Greek words, but they frequently get translated as if they were the same. You may have already had a sense of what power is, but what is authority? If they're not the same thing, then watch the difference between the two. That's what we're here to find out in the mystery of power and [Music] authority. This is Dreams and Mysteries with John Paul Jackson.
I remember the first time it hit me that there were two different types of power or anointing from God. I'd been with a group of people, and one of them had this incredible gift of miracles. I'd watched as he prayed for people, and they, like, one man had the tip of his finger grow back. I mean, literally pop right back out. Another person had an eye that had been blinded in an industrial accident miraculously regenerated. He could see perfectly out of it where you couldn't see at all before.
While this was happening, for some reason, I noticed a woman who was watching everything that was going on. She was just sitting and just watching. The next day, another minister had come to the conference, and this person moved in deliverance ministry. The lady from the evening before was there again. But the moment this man walked by, this guy who had this deliverance anointing, the minute he got near her, boom! She shrieked, threw herself on the floor, writhing. Incredible.
What was going on? This woman clearly had a demonic oppression in her life. But why didn't she shriek the day before when she was near the person with the gift of miracles? Well, this stretched me because it went against what I thought was true about the power of God. How could power be present for the miraculous but not be present to deliver somebody from demonic oppression?
I surmised that day that the anointing for miracles and the anointing for deliverance were somehow different, but I didn't quite see the whole picture at that time. I rationalized that healing and deliverance were simply two different gifts. One was a gift of healing, the other was a gift of deliverance, and I was content with that explanation for a number of years.
But as I continued to study scripture, I ran into a passage that challenged me greatly. In Luke chapter 4, the people marveled at two things: one, the authority of Jesus, and two, the power of Jesus. And in that passage, there was deliverance, and there were miracles. I began to think, what if miracles and deliverance aren't just two types of gift? What if they are actually two different substances or forces? What if there was a distinction between the two that the people saw? They saw miracles on one hand, they saw authority on another hand. And so, what, what did they do? They marveled at both.
That's when I began to search the scripture. When I saw that Luke 4 passage, I began to look for those words, power and authority. What was the Greek word used for each, and in what context were they used? This is what I call contrasting. Why did God use this word and not that word? Why did God do it this way and not that way?
The two words in the Greek are dunamis for power, and exousia for authority. Again, dunamis is power. It's the root word we get dynamite from. It's the creative and explosive presence of God. The second Greek word is exousia, or authority, and it's something entirely different. Its presence commands submission to carry out an order or implement kingdom logistics. Whoa.
I discovered those two words are very different in how they play themselves out in life settings. But then I discovered that many times the Bible translated exousia as power when it should have been translated as authority, and even translated dunamis as authority when it should have been translated as power. And to make matters a little more difficult, there were times when both were mistranslated in the same verse. So yes, I know there are versions that translate them accurately, but there are versions that don't too. So nonetheless, the clues of this mystery of power and authority were beginning to unravel in my understanding.
Dunamis, the explosive power to change physical reality, versus exousia, the highest governmental or judicial authority possible that can exert rule of law and dominance. Jesus had both. For me, that's reason enough to investigate these, these two mysterious forces a little more [Music] closely.
During Jesus's three and a half years of ministry on Earth, he modeled the kingdom. The Bible calls him the King of Kings. In fact, we in Western society really don't have a clear picture of what a king is or what a king really does. But when you look at scripture and the culture of ancient kings, you find this truth: Kings conquered through power, but they ruled through authority. In fact, the scepter that the ancient king held in his left hand was a symbol of that authority, and his right hand was used for matters of power.
We see the same principle modeled for us in scripture. Psalm 23, the very famous Psalm that you know, and it says, "Your rod and your staff, they comfort me." So what's the writer of Psalm saying? First of all, let's picture the rod. The rod is power. What shepherds used to beat off wolves, lions, and bears that tried to attack the flock. But the staff was authority. It was the shepherd who used to study his walk. He used the, the staff to do that. The rod and the staff, power and authority. The writer of this Psalm is speaking from the perspective of sheep. It's comforting to know that in the hands of God, both power and authority are there to help you.
How does power play out in the scripture? Power turns water into wine. Power is what produces miracles. Power is what causes loaves and fishes to multiply. Power opens deaf ears and blind eyes, or grows a finger out, or replaces an organ that didn't exist. Power impacts the visible world.
Authority is the force that removes stuff. You see, authority removes infirmities, afflictions, it even removes demons from a person. Authority is what causes evil spirits to start squirming when you have that, that authority approach. It's not power doing that, it's authority. Remember the woman I saw who did nothing when power for miracles was present, but thrashed on the floor when authority was present? Authority impacts both the visible and invisible worlds.
Often these two forces work in tandem. What do I mean by that? Imagine you're praying for somebody who's really, really sick. Let's just say they have liver cancer, and it's causing a host of other problems. The cancer could have been caused by a demonic force, and over time, the liver began to deteriorate. Through authority, you can cast the demonic presence out, and the cancer is removed. See, it removes something. Authority removes stuff: illnesses, infirmities, afflictions, cancer, diseases, etc. So you remove that, that dark force that's causing the cancer problem. But the, the liver may return back to, or the functioning may return back to normal, but the liver is still damaged. This is where you need the power of a miracle. You see, you need the regeneration of the liver, or a new liver entirely, and God can recreate that liver. So power repairs what was done, or replaces what was broken down. But authority removes the affliction. That's how I see these two forces portrayed in scripture. This is why I believe that power affects the visible realm, and authority impacts the visible and invisible realm.
When Jesus cast out demons, it was by his authority that he did it. Remember how the Bible defines authority? Exousia. It was a governmental right over one's subject, or the ability to judicially declare a sentencing. But now think back when Jesus cast out demons, what did the demons say to Jesus? In Matthew 8:29, for example, they said, "Have you come to judge us before our appointed time?" The word judge points to this very issue of authority. Jesus had incredible authority, and he used it to cast out the demon.
Let's look at another passage in scripture where either exousia or dunamis is used. This time, I want you to take a moment and guess which word, which Greek word, was being translated as power in this passage. In Acts 1:8, Jesus tells his disciples to go to Jerusalem and to wait there, and the Holy Spirit will come, and they will receive power. Power. Okay, is that dunamis power, or is that mistranslated, and is it really exousia, authority? Think about what happened when the Holy Spirit came. How did it come? It was like an explosive burst, wasn't it? It was tongues of fire, it was a mighty or a violent wind, it was men and women speaking in different languages. It was creative, to say the least. If you guessed dunamis, you're right. Dunamis is creative, and it affects the visible realm. When the Holy Spirit came, it came with dunamis.
What about before the Holy Spirit? When Jesus sent out the 70 to heal the sick and cast out demons in Luke 10:19. In that passage, Jesus said this: "I give you power to trample on serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy, and nothing shall by any means hurt you." One small problem, though. Many translations mistranslate the word here. It is the word exousia that Jesus gave them. When it says power, it was exousia. It should have been translated authority. It's authority that Jesus gave over all the power of the enemy.
And this leads me to my next point. Many of us ask for more of God's power, but very few of us ask for his authority. Luke 10:19 shows us why we're really missing this issue. When we leave out the point of authority, it is authority that trumps this issue of darkness. What does this verse tell you? It tells me that exousia is greater than dunamis. Authority then trumps power. The authority that Jesus gave the disciples was able to trample the power of the enemy. You see, the enemy rules by power, not by authority. That doesn't mean you stop asking for power, you just want to seek after authority as [Music] well.
I had a dream. I was at work, and I needed to make a copy. When I retrieved the copy, it was in another language. At that moment, an Asian woman stood next to me. I couldn't understand what she was saying, but I could tell by the tone in her voice that she was saying something important, and I needed to understand it. You know, one of the great things about dreams is that they tell you the truth, especially dreams from God. Sometimes it requires us to be brutally honest in our assessment or our interpretation of a dream, and this is one of those times.
You see, the dream is talking about a person trying to copy something. What is that person trying to copy? Well, in the dream, she thinks she knows what she's trying to copy. She put a certain thing in, she thinks she knows what that says, but out of the copy machine comes a whole different language to her. And a person comes up to her and is trying to explain to her what it means. Now, the basic interpretation of the dream is this: You can't copy Christianity because Christianity is a relationship-based religion. It's, it's, and it's not even a religion as such. It's not a religion of men, but it's really a belief system in God, and that belief system only happens through relationship. You can't copy it. You can't nice your way into heaven. You can't be so nice that you, that God doesn't dare not put you in. You can't say, "Well, I don't cheat on my taxes, so I want to get in," or "I don't rob my employer, so I'm going to get in," or "I don't cheat on my wife, so I'm going to get in." Or, in other words, you can't copy Christianity. You can't nice your way in. There's only one way to get in, and that is you have to know Jesus. The only way you know Jesus is through wanting a relationship with him and recognizing who he is. And that's what the person was trying to tell them. It was like Chinese to the, to the person making the copy. But that's what happens when you, when you try to imitate something and not go into the relational side of it. It's all like Japanese, or all like Chinese, or all like any other different type of, of language that you, you don't have a grid for.
So what God is doing, he gave you a dream in order to let you know that he wants relationship with you. And when you have it, when you come into relationship with him, you'll know the language. You'll be able to communicate because that is what God wants for you. He longs to communicate with you. But you can't copy him, you have to have a relationship with him.
Over the last 30 years, John Paul Jackson has studied how God speaks metaphorically through dreams, parables, and proverbs in the Bible. God wants all believers to understand their dreams, and that includes you. For your gift of $60 or more, we'd like to send you the Season 2 Dream Bundle: a two-CD set teaching the basics of dreams and visions, John Paul's advanced six-CD set, Understanding Dreams and Visions, and a three-CD set on the biblical model of dream interpretation. Also included: the Moments with God Dream Journal, plus four dream cards to help you understand your dreams. Order your Season 2 Dream Bundle today. Visit dreamsandmysteries.com or call 1-800-538-5285.
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When you say, "Your kingdom come, your will be done," what you're actually saying is, "Let your exousia come, and let the aftermath of that exousia be done on Earth as it is in heaven." It's all about his authority on Earth as it is in heaven. Advancement in God's kingdom takes power and authority. So don't get me wrong, power seems to get all the attention. Though it's bold, brash, but authority actually is the greater force. When someone has authority, you know it. You don't have to yell to make a demon come out of somebody. That doesn't mean you can't be passionate about it, it just means that yelling is not the visible, physical force doing all the work. Authority is the issue. Volume and emotion doesn't cast out a demon. It's your relationship with God, who has all authority in heaven and Earth, that counts.
And this is where we get into the how of the matter. First, I'd like to address the issue of salvation. Though salvation is a gift, salvation is actually an incredible byproduct of power. Salvation is the miracle of becoming a new creation that every believer has experienced, even if they don't see it as such. Salvation is a sudden, miraculous impregnation of your dormant spirit with the very spirit of God. The result: you become a new creation. Remember, the dunamis of salvation affects the visible realm, namely you. Salvation is a gift, and with that gift, you receive a measure of positional authority as a spiritual son of God. You have the authority to come to the Father because of your acceptance of his Son, Jesus. But you don't receive the full measure of authority required to cast out every demon that you come in contact with. And how do I know that? First, because even the disciples experienced this. When in Matthew 17, they couldn't cast out the demon from the child brought to them. They cast out other demons, but this level, they couldn't cast out. And this level of authority could only come from prayer and fasting, or building a relationship with the Father. Second, because we're not seeing that many demons shrieking when we walk by, yet we really are Christians.
I'm going to make a startling assertion here. I'm absolutely convinced that people can walk into a whole lot of churches today being completely demonized and leave without anything being changed in their life. Why? Because we've sought after power, but we've neglected authority. I believe God wants his people to operate in both, in a blend of power and a blend of authority, to see the miraculous happen, and authority to sever the demonic activity that's around us.
I'll give you another example in scripture. When Jesus rebuked the winds and the waves in Mark chapter 4, the disciples remarked, "Who is this guy that even the winds and waves obey him?" Notice they said the winds and waves, or technically, I think they actually said the winds and the sea obey him. You see, obedience is an issue of authority. You, you obey authority. Jesus didn't use power to calm the sea, he used his authority. That's kind of amazing in light of what most of us have been taught. So what does that tell you about the source of the storm that day? It tells us this: Demonic forces around the Sea of Galilee wanted to drown Jesus and all the disciples with him. How does that apply to you? How does that apply to me? It tells us that some storms around us are caused by powers of demonic forces. But remember, the authority of Jesus trumps the power of evil. Exousia defeats the dunamis of darkness.
I hope I've established the biblical of power and authority as being two distinct spiritual forces. We spent, really since the turn of the 19th century, the better part of a hundred years asking God for more power, and we've seen temporary displays of that power. But authority, who, authority, unlike power, has longevity. It lasts because it's relationally built. Authority is something you carry even without asking for it. You see, authority is a byproduct of relationship, relationship with He who has all authority in heaven and Earth, Jesus. And the deeper that relationship, the greater your authority.
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God longs to give you the desires of your heart, and he's waiting for you to step into all that he's created you to be. Even the ground under your feet is groaning for you to exercise your authority on Earth. And that authority can only come through a relationship with Jesus. The relationship with our Creator is not so different than our relationship with each other. At its root, it is only as good as the time we invest into it. It's only as strong as the trust we build through trials and tests. Relationship is not only for in times of joy and splendor, but in times of adversity and trouble. This is why the kingdom of heaven must suffer violence. This is why the violent take it by force. This is also why the Holy Spirit is called the Comforter. This is why to follow Jesus is to carry our cross, which means to crucify our selfish desires daily.
What does that mean to you? What does your cross look like? What are you willing to lose to carry the level of authority that causes demons to shriek and run for cover? What in your life would you change just to have that kind of authority that could tell a tornado approaching your family's home to be still and see it immediately disappear into the clouds? Because that's what Jesus did, and he said, "Greater things than these we would do."
I want you to know this: these are the last days. And if the times of Jesus recalled the last days as well, then these, these may indeed be the last hours of the last days. God has saved the very best of every bloodline to be alive right now. That's why God chose you. That's why you're alive today. He didn't choose you for this time to hide and wait for his return. He chose you to do the work of the Father until he returned. That means up to the very moment he returns, he wants to find you advancing his kingdom. And the best way to do that is by utilizing and using and implementing his authority.
You may think you're insignificant, and you may think God can never use anyone like you. But God will move heaven and Earth to get you where he wants you to be if you're obedient to him. In fact, he will send his angels to intervene in your life if that's what it takes. Many call this divine intervention. It's an interruption in the normal affairs of man that can't be explained through normal human logic. It's like the very hand of God comes out of the clouds and plucks you from sudden death. Would God really do something like that? He would. How do I know? Because that's exactly what happened to me. Divine intervention. Well, that's a mystery for another [Music] time.