Who’s in Charge?

 Who’s in Charge?

 

Jesus came and told his disciples, “I have been given all authority in heaven and on earth.”

MATTHEW 28.18

The Father . . . has given the Son absolute authority to judge.

JOHN 5.22

This is the plan: At the right time he will bring everything together under the authority of Christ — everything in heaven and on earth.

EPHESIANS 1.10

 

Have your parents or your teachers ever left you in charge of things at your house or in your classroom? “You’re in charge,” they say as they walk out the door. Authority means power and privilege. When people have authority, that means they’ve been trusted to lead other people. They have been given more responsibility than others have. They are able to determine and decide things, to make judgments, and to oversee certain rights and privileges.

Jesus said that God gave him “all authority in heaven and on earth.” Jesus is in charge of this world and everything in it, as well as everything beyond it! There is nothing Jesus doesn’t have authority over — nothing he doesn’t have the right and the power to do with as he pleases.

Jesus showed this when he walked the earth. He had authority over disease, healing the sick. He had authority over nature, telling the storm to be still. He had authority over demons, commanding them to leave a man and enter into a herd of pigs. He had authority to forgive sin. He had authority over his own life, giving it up on the cross when it was the right time, and taking it up again three days later when he rose from the dead.

Many people in this world don’t recognise the authority of Jesus. They think they’re in charge of their own lives. But that is just an illusion. The day is coming when “at the name of Jesus every knee [will] bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord” (Phil 2.10-11). On that day, no one will question who’s in charge.