When Power Makes You Forget Who Gave It to You

It always starts the same way.
Someone gets power… and forgets where it came from.

You’ve seen it before.
In politics. In business. In music. In the pulpit.
A person goes from being called by God… to acting like they are God.

We just started watching House of David in our men’s group.
Episode one hit hard.

Saul was chosen. Handpicked by God. Anointed by the prophet.
But the moment he got a win under his belt, he started rewriting orders and building statues of himself.
He stopped waiting on God. He stopped obeying.
He forgot the source.

That same spirit? Jesus confronted it head-on the week He died.

Jesus, Holy Week, and the Parables of Reckoning

Approximately five days before the cross, Jesus rode into Jerusalem on a donkey.
Crowds were yelling “Hosanna!” like it was a parade.
But Jesus knew what was coming.

Between that moment and His crucifixion, He told at least 10 parables.
And most of them weren’t warm stories—they were warnings.

Not to the lost, but to the leaders.
To the ones who had been entrusted with much… and were squandering it.

One of those parables?
The Wicked Vinedressers (Matthew 21:33–46).
It’s not about grapes. It’s about spiritual arrogance.
It’s about the danger of forgetting where your authority comes from.

The Parable of the Wicked Vinedressers

A wealthy landowner plants a vineyard and leases it to some tenants.

Harvest time comes. He sends a servant to collect fruit.
They beat him.
He sends another. They kill him.
Another. They stone him.

He sends more. Same result.

Finally, he sends his son.
Surely they’ll respect him.

But the tenants see him and say,

Jesus ends the story with a dagger of a question:

The Root Issue: Ownership Without Obedience

These men were tenants.
But they started acting like owners.
They wanted the fruit… without the responsibility.

Jesus wasn’t being cryptic.
He was talking directly to the religious leaders of His day—the ones questioning His authority (Matthew 21:23).
They were supposed to shepherd God’s people.
Instead, they used their roles for status, influence, and comfort.

So when Truth showed up, they didn’t welcome it.
They eliminated it.

Sounds familiar?

Saul did the same.
God gave him a throne.
And one battle later, he was rewriting divine instructions, sparing what God told him to destroy (1 Samuel 15).

When confronted, Saul said,

But God said:

God’s Patience Is Not Permission

The vineyard owner in the parable was patient—but not passive.
He sent servant after servant.
God had done the same through generations—prophet after prophet.

But patience doesn’t mean permission.

Exodus 34:6 calls Him “slow to anger”—but not absent of it.
Psalm 86:15 says He’s full of compassion—but He still responds.

Judgment may not come right away…
But it comes.

We Do This Too

God gives us an idea.
A business.
A calling.
A platform.
A family.
A ministry.

And somewhere along the way… we forget the Source.

It starts small:

• “I built this.”

• “They need me.”

• “I made it happen.”

We even love this term ‘Self-made Millionaire’

But what if everything we think we own… is just being loaned?

You Can’t Steward What You Think You Own

Jesus said it plain:

This isn’t about holding on tighter.
It’s about remembering Who it came from in the first place.

Because the moment you start acting like the Source…
You risk losing the stewardship.

That’s it for today

keep JOY, stay Disciplined