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Moses had a passion to know God. He knew that his innermost longings would only be satisfied in an abiding friendship with the Lord. Nowhere was that longing more eloquently expressed when Moses, alone on Mt. Sinai cried out, “O Lord show me Your Glory!”

What brought Moses to this place of this spiritual hunger? What was it that launched him on this journey to the glory of God? To discover that we must go back a bit.

For forty days, Moses had been alone with God, excitedly watching as God laid out a blueprint of which a whole nation could enjoy divine blessing. These were not the dry dictations of a distant god who wanted his creatures to obey his every whim, or the passionless mandates of a judge communicating laws. Here was a loving Father, designing a spiritual environment in which His children could thrive and be happy. And during this tender time, the Israelites were far away at the foot of Sinai, building their golden calf. We are stunned by people who have seen God’s hand of deliverance and were afraid of His presence on Sinai – yet so quickly forgot all this, pooled their golden earrings to make an idol and declared that idol responsible for bringing them out of Egypt.

The shock to the heart of God must be something like what parents feel when a child adult of obstinate fury, or what we feel when we are betrayed by a trusted friend of whom we’ve confided our most intimate feelings. Brokenhearted, God said to Moses, “Go down because your people whom you brought up out of Egypt have become corrupt.”

At that moment Moses, too, must have felt the sting of disappointment. Moses had anticipated Pharaoh’s attack, had prepared himself for the rigors of leading the people across a barren dessert, had steeled himself against the opposition of the devil. But this was so unexpected – this outright rejection of the God who had so graciously displayed His power on their behalf!

Sometimes we are stunned by unexpected disappointments. Disappointment can come like a thief in the night, puncturing our expectations when they are at their highest. This can be devastating. Moses must have felt a sickening blow to the gut when he saw God’s people creating an idol for themselves. And yet this unexpected disappointment led Moses to the crest of divine encounter.
It is encouraging to see that from the staggering disappointment, God led Moses on a journey that ended in a glimpse of His glory. It is encouraging to realize that sometimes the unexpected disappointments in life actually are God’s call to us to a deeper more intimate relationship with Him.

Perhaps we have let past disappointments affect us. Perhaps we have unknowingly buried things causing us to react to people in unhealthy ways… or perhaps we have unconsciously developed negatively attitudes because of hurts we have never come to term with. If we have allowed our hearts to grow hard, or lowered our expectations so as not to get hurt again, our withdrawn from someone simply because they’ve disappointed us… we can take solace in the reality that if we let the Holy Spirit do His work in us we too – like Moses – can be brought face to face with glory!

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But this book is really about relationships. It’s about seeing authority not as a synonym for ‘control’, but rather as God’s pattern of ensuring life. Many of us have a love/hate relationship with authority, but I think that this book will help you to discover that ‘authority’ is really another word for ‘love’ – if it’s rightly understood.

By understanding submission and authority, you will

1. Grasp your spiritual authority over the powers of the enemy
2. Improve the quality of your relationships
3. Manage conflict well
4. Know God’s design of order in marriage
5. Relate to authority figures with greater ease
6. Understand God’s design for leadership

This book is especially helpful for members of ministry teams, because the principles I talk about will, if applied, spare both leaders and team members alike a lot of unnecessary pain.

Book Excerpt from Authority — Another Word for Love

A few years ago, speaking at a family retreat, I was teamed with a young leader who was there to minister to the youth, while I addressed the adults. During our short time together, he told me a fascinating story from his own ministry that underscores the truth that real authority is about real love… and real boundaries is about real freedom. He told me that in his hometown he sponsors events designed to reach teenagers. One weekend he had planned a big party, he said, and had committed to picking up a junior high girl from her home and driving her to the event. He asked one of her friends to accompany him. When they drove into the driveway, they noticed her father watering his garden. Soon the young girl came bounding out of the door. She was provocatively dressed, this sprite of a thirteen year-old girl, looking more like a streetwalker than a junior high student. As she approached the car, she passed her dad who was fussing over his roses. “Bye, dad,” she said. He looked up at her and simply responded, “Bye, honey. Have a good time!” When she climbed into the car, she seemed distant and glum.

When they got to the gymnasium where the event was being held, she excused herself to use the restroom. She showed up a few minutes later transformed. The short shorts and plunging neckline were gone. Now she was the picture of modesty, dressed in a nice pair of jeans with a top that was much less revealing.

As he continued telling me the story, he recounted that he was completely thrown by this. Was this not the little vixen dressed to kill that he had picked up just a half hour earlier? He was puzzled so he went to her friend and asked her why the sudden transformation. She quickly responded by saying, “Oh, I know exactly what’s going on. Her father doesn’t love her.” She went on to say that her peers tested their parents all the time in ways like this, just to see if they provided boundaries. She explained that what this other girl was doing was seeing if her dad would love her enough to tell her to change her clothes. “Obviously,” she concluded, “Her father doesn’t care enough to focus on her.”

For these girls, boundaries were a significant part of the language of love. And that is what the Lord wants us to see. He wants to so radically change our thinking about authority that when we hear the word ‘boundaries’, we actually hear the word ‘love.’

I am a writer of songs and books. I have original manuscripts of songs I wrote when I was fourteen, and have taken pains to preserve them through several moves. I have put them in specially marked boxes, and have been careful not to lend the manuscripts out. I also have a number of cassette tapes on which I have recorded original melodies and songs, and which I have carefully preserved. My kids – all who play the piano – know not to tamper with my tapes, lest they inadvertently damage or record over one of them.

Why have I been so precise about these ‘boundaries’? Because I have authored something that I feel is so valuable as to be irreplaceable. I am not motivated to set these boundaries because I enjoy power, or want to control those around me. I am motivated because I keenly desire to preserve what I’ve authored.

God has ‘authored’ you and me. His love is so intense that He sets laws in place, and establishes consequences when those laws are violated. Why? Just as I don’t want my recordings to be erased and recorded over, so God doesn’t want you and me to be destroyed. So ‘authority’ is not about controlling, but preserving what has been created. So, even when God says
‘No’ it really is His ‘Yes.’

Nobody likes to be told “No.” Even though we may know that it’s for our best, it stings a little when someone legitimately blocks our desires. Especially if the one doing the telling is an authority figure. People who tell other people ‘no’ can candy-wrap it in five or five hundred love languages and it still will not go down easy. As a teenager, I would sit there and listen to my parents tell me why the boundaries (read that ‘screws’) they were putting on me was all because they loved me. Sounded like a lot of spin-doctoring to me. Like they just enjoyed the therapy they derived from bossing a helpless youth around. “Son, it hurts us more to say ‘no’, here, than it is for you to have to hear it.” Who were they kidding?

It’s hard for us to see this sometimes. But this is how God works with us. He has given us boundaries in His Word. He has delegated His authority in varying degrees to other people and institutions – like civil governments – and expects us to align to those authorities. To us this might smack of control and seem to threaten our freedom. But if we understand – and, yes, even submit to – the authorities God has ordained, then we will experience an inner confidence that we have never known before.

As you embrace the biblical concept of legitimate authority, you will align yourself with God–and reap the blessings of true freedom.

Grace and Peace,

Steve Fry