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Authors: Myles Munroe
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Creator says, “My people are destroyed from lack of knowledge” (Hosea 4:6). Therefore, let us move forward to discover how to recapture the true nature of authority for ourselves and our world.
Chapter Four
The Betrayal and Restoration of Authority
An Imitation Life Is Costlier than the Designer’s Life
Our authority is found in what the Creator planned and designed for us to do, but most of us are not living according to our personal authority. To recapture our true authority, we need to discover how humanity’s confusion about authority began and why it persists. We have to start again at the beginning.
God said, “Let us make man in our image, in our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.” So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.(Genesis 1:26–27)
When human beings were made in the image and likeness of the Creator, they were designed to be like Him, act like Him, and function like Him. Just as He rules, humans were to rule the earth—under His ultimate authority, His established principles for the earth. This authority did not belong to human beings; it was entrusted to them by the Creator. A shared authority was delegated to them.
You can never “take” true authority. It is always delegated and therefore can only be received with gratitude and acted upon. You can seize power, but authority has to be given to you. Moreover, if you transfer some of the authority that you have received to someone else, then he, too, can only receive it. He can’t take your authority from you.
The Betrayal of Authority
We noted in the last chapter that true authority corresponds to the principles and laws the Creator has established concerning humanity. If we fail to follow these principles and laws, we will find ourselves outside of the protection of His authority, and therefore we will be at risk. Whatever is not authorized by the Creator can’t be guaranteed to function as designed.
Unfortunately, the first human beings went outside of the parameters of the authority that the Creator God had given to them and did exactly what He had told them not to do. Why? Because they desired power more than authority.
God has an enemy, Satan (meaning “accuser” or “adversary”), also called the devil, who tempted them to do this. Satan is a created angelic being who rebelled against God’s authority himself. His goal is to cause human beings to lose their true selves by forfeiting the precious life and authority that God has given to them. He tempted the first human beings by asking them, in effect, “Wouldn’t you like to be like God?” Yet Adam and Eve were already like God; they were created in His image and reflected His nature. They had His delegated authority. But Satan wanted them to doubt who they inherently were and to become something else, something unnatural. And this is exactly how he has been tempting human beings ever since.
This is how the initial temptation transpired:
The Lord God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it. And the Lord God commanded the man, “You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat of it you will surely die.”…Now the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild animals the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God really say, ‘You must not eat from any tree in the garden’?” The woman said to the serpent, “We may eat fruit from the trees in the garden, but God did say, ‘You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will die.’” “You will not surely die,” the serpent said to the woman. “For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will
Chapter Four
The Betrayal and Restoration of Authority
An Imitation Life Is Costlier than the Designer’s Life
Our authority is found in what the Creator planned and designed for us to do, but most of us are not living according to our personal authority. To recapture our true authority, we need to discover how humanity’s confusion about authority began and why it persists. We have to start again at the beginning.
God said, “Let us make man in our image, in our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.” So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.(Genesis 1:26–27)
When human beings were made in the image and likeness of the Creator, they were designed to be like Him, act like Him, and function like Him. Just as He rules, humans were to rule the earth—under His ultimate authority, His established principles for the earth. This authority did not belong to human beings; it was entrusted to them by the Creator. A shared authority was delegated to them.
You can never “take” true authority. It is always delegated and therefore can only be received with gratitude and acted upon. You can seize power, but authority has to be given to you. Moreover, if you transfer some of the authority that you have received to someone else, then he, too, can only receive it. He can’t take your authority from you.
The Betrayal of Authority
We noted in the last chapter that true authority corresponds to the principles and laws the Creator has established concerning humanity. If we fail to follow these principles and laws, we will find ourselves outside of the protection of His authority, and therefore we will be at risk. Whatever is not authorized by the Creator can’t be guaranteed to function as designed.
Unfortunately, the first human beings went outside of the parameters of the authority that the Creator God had given to them and did exactly what He had told them not to do. Why? Because they desired power more than authority.
God has an enemy, Satan (meaning “accuser” or “adversary”), also called the devil, who tempted them to do this. Satan is a created angelic being who rebelled against God’s authority himself. His goal is to cause human beings to lose their true selves by forfeiting the precious life and authority that God has given to them. He tempted the first human beings by asking them, in effect, “Wouldn’t you like to be like God?” Yet Adam and Eve were already like God; they were created in His image and reflected His nature. They had His delegated authority. But Satan wanted them to doubt who they inherently were and to become something else, something unnatural. And this is exactly how he has been tempting human beings ever since.
This is how the initial temptation transpired:
The Lord God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it. And the Lord God commanded the man, “You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat of it you will surely die.”…Now the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild animals the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God really say, ‘You must not eat from any tree in the garden’?” The woman said to the serpent, “We may eat fruit from the trees in the garden, but God did say, ‘You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will die.’” “You will not surely die,” the serpent said to the woman. “For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will
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