Welcome to today's encouragement from our daily bread. I'm James Banks, and I titled our reading today,

The Authority of Jesus. Even after Jesus had set my son Jeff free from years of substance abuse, I still had worries.

We'd been through so much together and my focus sometimes remained on his difficult past

instead of the future God had for him.

Parents of addicts often worry about relapse, and one day at a family gathering, I pulled

Jeff aside. Remember, I told him, we have an adversary, and he's powerful. I know,

dad, he responded. He has power, but he has no authority.

In that moment, I was reminded of Jesus' incomparable authority to rescue us from our sins

and transform our lives as we look to him.

Immediately, I thought of his words to the disciples in Matthew

28, shortly before he returned to his father in heaven.

All authority in heaven and on earth

has been given to me.

Therefore go. The crucified and risen Jesus has made a way for us to come

to him no matter what our past may be. He holds both our past and our future, because he's promised to be with us always, we can be assured that

he'll accomplish his purposes and that our lives are in his unfailing hands.

Jesus gives us unparalleled hope, a hope so good we can't keep it to ourselves.

The devil in the world may have some power for a little while, but all authority belongs to Jesus

forever.

Today's our daily bread devotional scripture reading is from the Gospel of Matthew

chapter 28, verses 16 through 20.

Then the 11 disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain where Jesus had told them

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