Why Did Jesus Give His Followers Authority?

What did Jesus give us authority for? Why do we need power over serpents, scorpions, and over  all the power of the enemy?

The Lord certainly gave us this authority. Seems important that we must learn how to exercise it. Wouldn't you agree? 

I know believers who take authority over attacks from the enemy. And yes we do have an enemy who walks about as a roaring lion seeking whom he may devour. When an illness tries to fasten on the body, they don't say, God must be teaching me something because I have done something wrong. They don't accept disease as coming from God at all. Oops! This kind of thinking challenges many who believe everything that happens to them comes from God. Of course we know it does not. The thief comes to steal, kill, and destroy--not God. 

These believers say, I resist these lying symptoms in Jesus' Name because He came to make inoperative the works of the devil, and sickness is his work. It steals, kill, and destroys the temple (the body). I refuse to have it.

The symptoms may not leave instantly, but they do leave. I know. I've resisted and seen them go. When the Word (the seed) is rooted, grounded and established in the good soil of a believing heart, it will produce a harvest.

Some will say, I tried this and it didn't work. 

I have said that same thing myself. However, I kept coming back to the Word. 

In consistency lies the key to victory. The more seed you plant, keep it watered, pull out the weeds of doubt, the greater your harvest.

This makes perfect sense. 

The old begging kind of prayers--asking God to do it all for you--are just not compatible with the teaching of the Lord and His apostles.

They never once asked God to heal. Instead they commanded--take up your mat, rise, stretch forth your hand. Study their ministry of healing. See Christ's authority at work. Then begin to walk in it. Your victory is on the way.