The Way to Follow Jesus According to the Gospel of LukeSample

Day 4 - Luke 4

Having Authority

After Jesus was baptized by John, following 30 years of living a “normal” life in Nazareth, He began his ministry and mission.

As far as we know, only once during His childhood did he show that He was uniquely different. At the age of twelve, he left his parents and was found teaching with the elders in the temple in Jerusalem. But He obediently returned home to live a quiet and unnoticed life. Until that is, he went out to the Jordan wilderness to be baptized by John.

Then the Spirit of God appeared and drove Jesus into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil for 40 days while fasting, meditating and praying.

When Jesus emerged from his desert experience, He was filled with power and went back through the villages teaching in the synagogues, healing and delivering demoniacs. The people were baffled because this was Jesus, believed to be Joseph the carpenter's son. Yet they were amazed because he taught with such authority and none of the teachers, scribes and Pharisees had taught that way.

The Greek word for authority means “to speak out of one's being or substance.” Jesus speaks about His Father and the principles of God’s kingdom from his own experience and intimacy. He knows what the Father knows and because of this He can speak with such authority.

You can't seek authority and you can't be trained on how to have it. Having authority is who you become when you have confidence and certainty in what you know to be true. Knowing and experiencing God through an intimate relationship with Jesus, allows you to speak, teach and minister with authority.

Do you have authority and how do you know? What would others say?