Year 5, Day 255: John 7

Theological Commentary: Click Here

Discipleship Focus: Authority

• Authority: Our calling.  This comes from God as king.  Because He calls us as His representatives, He gives us authority to go and do His will.

Authority is one of the main themes that runs through the book of John, so it is clear that I will be writing about authority as much as I write about challenge.  This chapter of the Gospel of John is all about the authority of Jesus in comparison to the authority of the religious elite in Jerusalem.  In the end, we can say this much: they seek to kill Him, but they cannot arrest Him because they don’t have authority over Him.  His time has not yet come; they could not arrest Him.  That is a demonstration of their authority.

However, Jesus gives us a very powerful statement about why He can do the things that He is able to do.  The one who has access to God’s authority is also the one who seeks to do God’s will.  In other words, if we desire to be able to act with the authority of God, then we need to submit to Him and pursue His glory.  If we pursue His glory, then it makes sense that He will share His authority with us.

This is exactly the tension of the Gospel of John.  Jesus can do what He does because He is obedient to the Father, following His will and seeking His glory.  The religious elite cannot do what they desire until God allows it to happen because they are pursuing their own will and seeking their own glory.

In the end, we have a simple choice.  Do we want our own glory with limited authority?  Or would we rather seek the will of God and live in whatever portion of His unlimited authority that He desires to share with us?

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