On my first day as a newly licensed attorney, I walked into my new office and my new secretary told me my new Texas Bar Number, which she had located online. She knew it before I did. Within an hour, the boss suggested I sign a motion for him. From that day on, my name was on all the motions and briefs and I was signing them as fast as I could draft them.
But without membership in the state bar, I could not have signed motions. Only attorneys admitted to the bar and listed as “attorneys of record” in a case can sign pleadings and motions.
As an attorney, I possessed LIMITED AUTHORITY to file papers with the Court.
Soon I began to travel a great deal for work, sometimes spending as much as five days out of town at a time. One day I received a prescription on a Friday afternoon, and was leaving town that night. My symptoms had flared up and I needed the refill before leaving, but my doctor had neglected to add the dosage. It was a medication I had taken “as needed” for decades, and I told the pharmacist the dosage, but she refused to fill it.
“I have to hear it from your doctor.”
I was running out of patience. “But the doctor’s office is closed now—and if I were to reach him, you know what he would say? He would ask me: ‘What dosage do you need?’”
“Either way, I’ve got to hear it from him.”
I knew the pharmacist was simply doing her job. But we had gone round and round and I was frustrated—my doctor’s failure to add dosing instructions was about to ruin my week. But my brother is a doctor—and he had an active Texas license at the time.
“You know what I’m going to do? I’m gonna go home and call my brother who is a doctor—and he actually takes the same medication. You can expect to hear from him, and then I’ll be back.” And that’s exactly what happened.
As a doctor, my brother possessed LIMITED AUTHORITY to prescribe medicine.
The exercise of lawyer authority and doctor authority is strictly limited. We all possess limited authority—over our property, our pets, our children, our decisions.
Jesus possesses unlimited authority.
Jesus taught with authority: “The crowds were astonished at His teaching, because He taught as one who had AUTHORITY, not as one of their scribes” Matthew 7:28-29.
Jesus possesses the authority to stand before God the Judge as our attorney. He is “our Advocate with the Father” 1 John 2:1.
He has the authority to forgive sins, Matthew 9:6.
He has the authority to heal diseases with a word, Matthew 9:6.
He has authority over weather: “the wind and sea OBEY Him” Matthew 8:27.
He has authority over spirits. The demons recognize His authority, asking “What have you to do with us, Jesus? Have you come to destroy us before the appointed time?” Matthew 8:29.
He has authority over death, John 11:38-44.
Is there anything over which Jesus does NOT have authority? No.
Jesus said, “ALL AUTHORITY IN HEAVEN AND ON EARTH HAS BEEN GIVEN UNTO ME” Matthew 28:18.
God, help us understand YOUR authority, as we live in this world of bosses and employees, teachers and students, parents and children, and hierarchies and organizational charts of all kinds. Give us insight into Your divine authority as each of us lives “as a man under authority, with others under me” Matthew 8:8.
ΑΩ
*Pictured is the Norman Rockwell painting THE PHARMACIST, a 1955 advertisement for Upjohn Pharmaceuticals.
Household Words: 