A Place of Power and Authority

There is a paradox in the teachings of Jesus that is this:

Anyone who wants to be first must be the very last, whoever wants to become great must be a servant, and whoever humbles himself shall be exalted. 

All the gospels reference this precept, Matthew 20:26; Matthew 23:10, 11; Mark 9:35; Mark 10:43; Luke 22:26; John 13:14, 15.

The point is that your greatest power and authority are achieved by accepting the place that God has for you with a servant's heart.  In the case of KatieLyn, the runaway bride, her godly place of power and authority is that of wife.  By following God's plan, she would be promoted from her childhood position to live as a spiritual co-equal with her husband.

Today's lesson is a relatively short one, but it lays an important foundation for a future lesson on idolatry. That lesson will not make sense as long as there is deceptive thinking about true submission and false humility. The point of your greatest power and authority is found in the place that God has for you when you enter that place with a servant's heart.  

When she was a child, God placed His destiny for KatieLyn in her heart. She wanted to be a wife, mother, and homemaker. When she was 28, God told her who He had picked out for her partner in that. At 29 years old, KatieLyn has chosen to remain in a house under the spiritual authority of her parents. She cooks in her parents' house. She cleans in her parents' house. She pays rent to her parents for her bedroom. She is doing the labor of maintaining a household in a place where she does not have much spiritual authority. Furthermore, KatieLyn has helped out at her mother's job cleaning offices and classrooms, but her mother got the entire paycheck for that work.  

God wanted to promote KatieLyn to queen of her own household, but she chose to remain as a scrubwoman in her childhood home. This is a perversion of the servanthood teaching from scripture in two ways.

1.    The commandment about honoring one's parents is not about being a willing slave for them. The best way to honor one's parents is to release the apron strings and become a remarkable adult.

2.    The only way to be a true servant of the Lord is to honor Him by going to where He has told you to be.

KatieLyn chose to be in submission to her mother's neurotic fears and misgivings rather than to launch out and follow what God had shown her. It was the wrong decision, and here is how such deception works:

§ The devil conceals the deep yearnings of the spirit with a situational peace whereby peace of mind is achieved, but where an inner restlessness arises in any honest surrender to the Lord. The mistake here is to rely upon a lack of stress as an indicator of truth.

§ A substitution of temporary pleasures and cheerfulness are used to replace the joy of inner satisfaction that comes with being fully in God's will. The mistake here is to think that God uses happiness to validate your choices.

§ Walls and blinders are constructed. Wherever reality is painful, it is shut out and ignored. There is a willingness to believe comfortable lies rather than face painful truth. The mistake here is that ostriches are heartless. (See Lamentations 4:3)

The Lesson

One can never take the place of power and authority that God wants for you as long as you shut people out and stick your head in the sand.