Power and Authority in Christ: The Confidence You Don’t Have to Earn

In this episode, we step into one of the most misunderstood parts of faith: power. Not the kind the world chases — control, image, dominance — but holy power. The kind that restores a woman’s mind, steadies her heart, and anchors her identity.

We explore why so many capable women quietly live as if they are powerless… either shrinking back in self-doubt or exhausting themselves trying to control everything. The root isn’t competence. It’s identity. When identity is unclear, fear speaks louder than truth.

Scripture reveals something startling: God does not merely comfort His daughters — He commissions them. Through Christ, we are given a spirit of power, love, and a sound mind, and authority over the lies, accusations, and internal narratives that try to define us. The real battle is not against people, criticism, or circumstances. It is a battle over belief — what you agree with in your thoughts, your words, and your heart.

We talk about spiritual authority, the armor of God, the power of spoken truth, and how self-condemnation quietly partners with the enemy while truth restores clarity. When a woman understands whose she is, she stops fighting for worth and starts living from it. Her calling becomes clear. Her confidence becomes steady. Her life begins to align with purpose: to glorify God in the exact place she’s been assigned.

This conversation is an invitation to stop surviving, stop striving, and start standing — not in self-confidence, but in Christ-confidence.

You don’t have to walk this out alone. If this message stirred something in you and you’re ready to step into clarity, calling, and steady confidence, I’d love to walk with you. You can connect with me through my website or message me directly on LinkedIn or Instagram — I personally read every note and would be honored to hear your story.

https://www.jenportercoach.com/

Creators and Guests

Host

Jen Porter

Jen Porter is a faith-centered coach and podcast host who empowers women to live boldly from their identity in Christ, rooted in truth, courage, and holy confidence.

What is Lioness Women: Rooted in Christ?

Welcome to Lioness Women, a space for faith-fueled women to connect with their purpose and amplify their voices. These Lioness Conversations highlight purpose-driven women who share how their faith in Christ shapes their leadership, courage, and calling. 🦁

Hosted by Jen Porter, leadership and empowerment coach, this podcast shines a light on women who are leading with wisdom, strength, and grace — in boardrooms, businesses, ministries, and movements around the world.

Through raw, inspiring conversations, we explore how women of faith are building legacies, overcoming fear, and transforming their industries with bold vision and unshakable belief. If you’re ready to rise higher, lead with purpose, and stay rooted in Christ — this is your community.

Faith-Based Leadership | Christian Women | Women of Faith | Christian Podcast for Women | Kingdom Leadership | Spiritual Growth | Eternal Impact

Jen Porter (00:00)
Hey friends, welcome back to an episode of Lioness Women Rooted in Christ. I'm your host, Jen Porter, leadership and empowerment coach for ambitious and heart-centered women who are ready to change the world and put God at the center of everything that we do. We are right in the middle of the series, Identity in Christ. I began this series at the beginning of the year because I have just come to understand that

If we do not know who we are, we will be led astray. We will lose sense of self. We will have self doubt. We will follow the expectations of the world. We will not fulfill our purpose in this world if we don't understand our true identity. And our identity is not something that we create. It's not like a persona. It's not a personal brand. Although I do personal branding work.

for women so that they can show up powerfully in their careers. But the truth is at the foundation, of underneath all of that surface stuff is our identity in Christ. We can't choose what our identity is. It just is. It's like when there's a king in the world and that king has children.

those children are heirs of that king. Everything that that king has that those, prince and the princesses are based on what that king is. In the same way, our king has already declared who we are. And it's not because of our own effort. It's not because we've done anything good other than to say, we acknowledge that we are his children. We acknowledge that we are born.

of God and we live for God and we point our hearts toward Him in our lives. So we look to the scripture to tell us who we are. And in the series we've walked through week by week who we are in Christ. We started with beloved. We talked about how we are blessed. We are chosen. We are courageous. We are redeemed.

All of those, go back and listen if you haven't listened because they're incredible insights from scripture about who we are so that we don't get lost. We don't fall prey to self-doubt and that imposter syndrome. We have every right to claim the space that we've been given in this world because of whose we are. This week we're talking about power and authority. If you didn't catch the episode with

Dr. Tamara Turner, I highly encourage you to go back and listen because it was a powerful testimony of her life, her work, her calling into leadership. And we talked about the difference between power that can corrupt and holy power, holy power that comes from God Himself and the Holy Spirit.

And so it was, it was just a beautiful conversation. I'm so thankful for her. She is a dear friend. We've been friends since, since elementary school and we were besties growing up. We've had so many conversations over the years and it's just amazing to see all that's transpired over the decades that we have been friends. Power and authority. Here's something that I've noticed when I've, when I've been doing my coaching work.

We have way more power than we realize. A lot of us are operating as if we are victims of our circumstances. I am guilty of this. Okay, I can fall into the trap of feeling like I am powerless. And I've come to realize it's one of the worst feelings in the world in the human spirit is to feel powerless. And so it makes sense that we're either

you know, a lot of us will either fall prey to that victimhood mentality or we'll kind of do the opposite and we will fight and claw for control and power. It's just in our being to do that. If you think about kids, children that didn't have a sense of safety and security when they were young, maybe they were abused, maybe they were manipulated, they just weren't.

treasured in the ways that children should be. And there is a sense of needing to control and that comes out of trauma. And we're all looking for control in our lives. And if we're honest with ourselves, it is a part of us. And we have to be honest and be willing to look at ourselves clearly to see where that has taken.

over and where that shows up in our relationships and our work in the habits that we have. I mean, it's real. Okay. It is real. When it comes to power, there is a healthy kind of power and there is an unhealthy kind of power. Whenever I talk about me being an empowerment coach, it's always in reference to the healthiest kind of power that you can imagine.

So it is not about manipulation, control, greed, you know, taking advantage of other people. I'm talking about being empowered to live the lives that we were created for. Because when we don't understand our power, we will remain in a passive place. We will allow other people to walk over us. We will allow ourselves to be defined by others in ways that are absolutely not healthy.

and not true. And so this whole, you know, the thing that is warring against us all the time, you know, where it's, you know, we're, we're sort of moving in and out of this self doubt, this imposter syndrome, this feeling inadequate, not enough, this comparison game that nobody ever wins. All of that is so unproductive and it

Those are signs for us to pay attention to that we are not grounded in who we are.

I really encourage us, know, I encourage women and I encourage myself to remember the power that we have. So let's look at 2 Timothy. 2 Timothy 1, 7, chapter 1, verse 7 says, for God did not give us a spirit of fear, but a spirit of power, love, and a sound mind.

If you think about that, God has given us everything that we need for this life. He has given us a spirit of power, of love, and a sound mind. Those things do not come from us, they come from Him. And often when I am struggling, let's say in my mind, or even like fear of dementia. Dementia has been in my family, my mom has dementia. is a wretched, wretched disease. And whenever those

fears for myself come up, I always remember this, that God has given me a sound mind. And so I trust in that. I lean into that and know that it's His desire to give me wisdom, clarity, a clear mind. He's also given us a spirit of power. That power only comes from Him. If we are connected to the vine, that is Christ Himself and the Holy Spirit, that

power we have access to again, not because of us, not because of our own strength or because we're good or we've arrived or accomplished something. It's simply because of who he is and who we are in him. We have a spirit of power. We have power and authority. I'm going to give you another scripture. Okay, now this is getting into definitely the spiritual realm and the battle that is taking place around us all the time.

Whether or not you're aware of it, it is happening and we need to be awake to it. We need to be in tune. We need to be on guard against it because this is a real battle for our souls and for our minds. This comes from Luke 10, 19. This is Luke chapter 10, verse 19. Behold, I have given authority to tread on serpents and scorpions.

and over all the power of the enemy and nothing shall hurt you." Listen to that, behold I have given authority to tread on enemies, okay? I have given authority for you to tread on enemies. And how do we do that? We do that through the Word, through speaking the Word of God.

When we wield our power, it's about wielding the power that God has given us. And we do that through prayer. We do it through speaking out. You know, there's so much power in the tongue and whether we're speaking life or we're speaking death. Okay. You know, when these are small things that creep in, but I'll often hear a woman speaking and she's speaking a

about herself in a way that is demeaning. It might even be in jest, like making fun of herself, or it could just be straight up condemning herself in the words that she is using. And if I'm in a coaching session, I'll ask permission and I'll ask if I can challenge that thinking and challenge those words because the words are powerful. We know that. And why would we

Why would we condemn ourselves? Why would we do that? That is like cooperating with the enemy of our souls. My belief is that it's super important for us to speak life. And it takes practice to do that. It's a discipline in using our words to build up, to uplift, to encourage, to exhort, to speak truth, even if our feelings don't match.

My emotion may be that I'm feeling really hurt and downtrodden. am feeling beat up a little bit. I'm feeling like I've just been pummeled by someone's feedback, for example. And so that all of those are feelings and emotions that we are attributing to a particular circumstance. Speaking truth in...

helps us stay afloat, helps us stay in our identity and not getting overtaken by the wave of adversity. So example would be, let's say someone says, you don't know what you're talking about. You you're stupid. You don't have what it takes to do this. Then I could take that as a dagger and an attack against my...

who I am and I might start to internalize that. I'll tell you, I spent a lot of my life internalizing what other people said. I just, that was my default. If someone said it, it must've been true and I need to do some self-reflection to figure out, wow, what is wrong with me? I am wrong. Like there, all of these things, these characteristics, it is me. I am the problem. And I didn't know how to fight against that. And it's not

Those things are not true. It's not true that I'm stupid. It's not true that I don't have what it takes to do what God has called me to do. And a way to fight against that, to reclaim my identity, is to read the scripture and say, God didn't give me a spirit of fear. He gave me a spirit of power, love, and a sound mind. He's given me the belt of truth to buckle around my waist. He's given me the breastplate of righteousness.

with which I can extinguish all the flaming arrows that come from the evil one. And let's be clear, those arrows come in all kinds of forms, right? It may look like this is human to human combat by words, but let's be clear, this is a spiritual battle that's taking place all around us. So we have to understand the source of where these things are coming from. And if it's condemnation, it's not of God.

The Lord will convict us to change us and to point us into the right path. But that is a gentle conviction. That is something that God does with us personally. Condemnation leaves us feeling like we are the problem. We are terrible people. And yes, we're sinful. But if we are pursuing God, there will be attacks that come against us. And so being able to use scripture.

to remind us who we are. I am beloved no matter what I do, no matter what I say, no matter the mistakes that I made, no matter how much I may have fallen short. God loves me deeply and ridiculously. He loves me fully, eternally, forever. There's nothing that can separate me from Him because I have declared I am His and He has declared that I am His.

You know, often when I'm journaling, he'll just say that as an affirmation, like, I am yours and you are mine. I am yours and you are mine. Because he knows that I need that reminder of whose I am to remember who I am. So he's given us his word. You what you heard me just speak earlier, those were scriptures from Ephesians, the armor of God. I recommend this.

I recommend memorizing this for anybody. The armor of God is scripture in Ephesians. I think it's Ephesians 6, but I can't remember. That's where it says, we don't fight against flesh and blood. You we often make other humans the enemy, but the actual battle that's happening is at a spiritual level. These are principalities. These are spirits of darkness.

And you know, this might sound heavy, but I'm just telling you the truth of there is a spiritual battle that's been happening way before we were born, and it will be happening until Christ returns and reclaims the world and takes his seat back on the throne and the new heavens and the new earth. Okay, this is just this is what's happening is the spiritual battle. We're caught in the middle of it. So we have to be keenly aware of what's happening.

That armor of God reminds us that we're not fighting against other people. You know, this is not a place to be divided in any way. This is a place to fight against the enemy that would love to take our souls. And so the armor of God is where God is giving us equipment to be able to live this life and fight the battle, the spiritual battle with the things that He has given us.

the armor. Okay, so he's given us the belt of truth. So we are girded with truth. That's what we have to gird ourselves with in order to face the world, to face what can come against us. The helmet of salvation, the helmet that we can metaphorically put on to remind ourselves, no, we are

saved. We are chosen. We are loved and we are protected by God Himself. We have the breastplate of righteousness. That breastplate is designed to protect our most vulnerable organs, our heart. mean, it's protecting our hearts because that is the battle. It's the battle for the heart. Where is our heart turning? And it is important for us to declare whose side we're on.

and I'm on the side of God and my heart is postured and positioned toward Him. The shield, you know, if you think about a warrior, they have a shield and that shield is large. It's very large and it's designed to prevent those arrows that are being thrown by the enemy to pierce our bodies. And so God has given us that armor and He says that it actually

can shield us from the flaming arrows of the evil one. Okay, so we have to metaphorically hold up that shield of faith, faith in God that he is with us and he is who he says he is. And then our feet fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace, it says in Ephesians. So that means that we're always aware and we're running, we're moving through our lives with the essence of the gospel.

as our feet, right? Our footwear is the gospel of Christ. And then the last part of it is that he gives us the word, that is the scripture in the Bible, the word of God. And that is, he compares that to being a sword. And if you think about that armor, it's the only offensive, it's the only offensive piece of equipment that God gives us.

to arm ourselves against the enemy and that is the, he calls it the sword, the sword of the spirit which is the word of God. And it says to pray on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests. In other words, be completely dependent on God and his word and his power and his truth. We actually, think about that imagery, armor of God, warriors, being part of the Lord's army. Do you see that?

the metaphor of this battle that we're in and that for some reason God knew we would need equipment. know, some of us, you know, if we haven't woken up, we move through life in a just very surface level. You know, we think life is about doing well in school, getting those degrees,

pursuing a career, making a certain amount of money, building a family, saving for retirement, having friendships, being a good person, decent person, being kind to our neighbors. But it's really about the self living for ourselves. And when we wake up to this greater story that we're playing a part in, we realize that is so not the point.

The point is, I'm going to get into purpose. I shared this in a recent workshop, and I was defining the difference between purpose and calling. And I was asking, know, do you know what your purpose is? What's your purpose? And to put things very, very simply, every one of us has the same purpose, and it's found in Scripture. Our purpose is simply to glorify God, to trust Him, to follow Him, to obey Him.

to worship Him. It is to glorify God. That is our purpose. Now our calling is how we carry that out. What is the path in which God gives us to carry out this work of glorifying Him and sharing about Him with others? How do we reflect the light of Christ through what we're doing? That is our calling. You know, my calling is to empower other women, other women who

want to put God first and helping them helping to embolden you, helping to embolden you to live out your calling. You may be in the medical field. You may be a mom. You may be in the technology sphere. You may be in government, in politics. You may be a teacher. There's so many different ways that we could carry out the calling, what it is that we're made for.

But ultimately, we're all called to glorify God. That is the purpose. It is not about building our own wealth. It is not about, it's not even about our health or how we look. It's none of those things. None of those things truly matter. Those are all fleeting. It really is about glorifying God. So it's...

I want to emphasize how important it is for us to understand the holy power and authority that God has given us. And if you are somebody who is struggling with believing that you're worthy of this life, maybe you're questioning whether or not your life even has value. Maybe you've made so many mistakes and you haven't been following God's path for you that you're feeling

really defeated. Maybe you feel like the enemy is just working overtime to try to take you out and take out those around you. could be some just wounds that you've experienced from others. Maybe it's the wounded, the woundedness that can come from our workplaces. My goodness. It is, there are some very intense environments that make it very difficult.

to stay in a place of just operating in our strengths and believing that we are worthy because we're in a performance culture. sometimes we are just, how would I say it? There can be abusive situations that happen in organizations. Believe me, I've been through them. I talk with women every week who have been through them.

and they're real daggers to our confidence. And the work that I do is not about building confidence in ourselves. It's not about puffing up and putting on airs of confidence and competence and accomplishment and intelligence, all these things. It's not it. It's about the holy confidence that comes when we truly deep down in our gut understand who we are.

So I encourage you to get into the scriptures, to study the Word and find out for yourself what the Word says about who you are, how you do have power and authority, how you are the beloved of God. You are chosen by Him. You are so deeply loved. You are redeemed because of what Christ did on the cross. He did that for you. He loves you.

We have to understand this in order to be effective in this world. And don't we all want to be effective? Don't we all want to be fulfilled because we're doing what God called us to do? Do you know the deep meaning that comes from that? The meaningfulness, the fulfillment that comes when we really understand that we are God's and that we are cooperating with Him. We are in alignment with who He called us to be. Amazing things happen when we're walking with God.

As we wrap up this episode, thank you for being with me. Thank you for listening and reflecting on your own life. Share this with other women and girls who need to be encouraged and understand who they are. Maybe they've lost their way. Maybe they've never known these words of what God says about us. I want to bless you. May you walk boldly in the authority of Christ, knowing His Spirit empowers you.

His love secures you and His presence goes before you in every step. I'm gonna say it again. Just let these words sink in. Maybe close your eyes if you're not driving, if you have space to do that, but really let this penetrate your heart. May you walk boldly in the authority of Christ, knowing His Spirit empowers you. His love secures you and His presence goes before you in every step.

You have power and authority in Christ. Walk in it. Until the next episode, the lioness in me sees the lioness in you.