The Believer's Authority

My Senior Pastor, Rev Dr Kong Hee, commended “The Believer’s Authority” by Kenneth E. Hagin in a recent sermon. That got me interested and so I purchased a copy of it from Mount Zion Christian Books & Gifts Centre Pte Ltd.

In this 76-pages book, Pastor Hagin shared on how he started on a study back in the 1940s to answer this gnawing question, “Do we have authority that we don’t know about – that we haven’t discovered – that we’re not using?”

According to him, “The authority of the believer is unveiled more fully in the Book of Ephesians than any other epistle written to the churches.” In particular, he personalized Paul’s prayers in Ephesians 1:16-20 and Ephesians 3:14-19 by saying “my” or “me” wherever Paul said “you”.

For example, he would pray Ephesians 1:17 as follows: That the God of my Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give unto me the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Him.

Having personalized and prayed these prayers more than a thousand times over a period of about six months, the spirit of revelation began to function and he started seeing things in the Bible he had never seen before!

For example, in Luke 10:19 (KJV), Jesus said, “Behold, I give unto you power to tread on serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy; and nothing shall by any means hurt you.”

However, an accurate translation from the Greek words for “power” and “authority’ would read thus, “I have given you AUTHORITY to tread on serpents and scorpions, and over all the POWER of the enemy …” All the power belong to God (e.g., Revelation 5:13).

AUTHORITY IS DELEGATED POWER. Just like how a traffic policeman directs traffic with power from the government he represents and serves. Pastor Hagin also share this prophesy: The Holy Spirit says, “Power on earth invested in the name of Jesus Christ and obtained by Him through His overcoming the enemy belongeth unto the Church. Therefore, exercise that authority, for it belongs to you on the earth, and in this life ye shall reign by Christ Jesus.”

Now, this ought to revolutionize our prayer life. Instead of begging God to answer our prayer when the devil mess with us and reasoning that God’s reply might be a “Yes”, “No” or “Not now”, it’s about time we get this revelation of the believer’s authority and start exercising it.

For example, in John 14:13-14, Jesus said, “And whatsoever ye shall ask in My name, that will I do…. If ye shall ask any thing in my name, I will do it”. The Greek word here is “demand,” not “ask.”

Flowing from this, we can do something about the attacks of the enemy and we pray from a position of delegated authority with boldness in the knowledge of who and whose we are. Our prayers would no longer be wimpy and sound more like these:

“In the Name of Jesus, I break the power of the devil over my brother’s life, and I claim his salvation!” (No problem here; it’s fully in accord with God’s Word and His will.)

“Come out, thou unclean devil, in the Name of Jesus!” (Amen, to this.)

The aforesaid treasury of revelation is gleaned from Chapter 1 to 4. Invest in a copy of “The Believer’s Authority” today and revolutionize your prayer life.

It’s well worth it as we live out the Word of God shown to us by the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Christ.

The Key to the Man of God’s Strength

“My heart says of you, ‘Seek his face!’ Your face, Lord, I will seek.” Psalm 27:8 (NIV)

“The key to David’s strength, to his victories and successes can be found in the Psalms he wrote. All the time, he was saying, ‘O God, I seek Your face; I want to be in Your presence.’ Pleasing God was not a boring duty to David but the longing of a lover for his beloved.”  (Source: page 68, Prayer Changes Nations by Ulf Ekman)

Consider the longing of David’s heart in the following 2 verses:

“One thing I have desired of the Lord, That will I seek: That I may dwell in the house of the Lord All the days of my life, To behold the beauty of the Lord, And to inquire in His temple.” Psalm 27:4 (NKJV)

“I would have lost heart, unless I had believed that I would see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living. Wait on the Lord; be of good courage, and He shall strengthen your heart; wait, I say, on the Lord!” Psalm 27:13-14 (NKJV)

God is the Strength of our life. As Paul has said by the revelation of Jesus Christ:

 ^“I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.” Philippians 4:13 (NKJV)

“I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me.” Galatians 2:20 (NKJV)

We need to come to our secret place and fellowship with God so that He will reveal to us the hidden truths contain in His Word and obey what He says. Jesus says, “If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word; and My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make Our home with him. He who does not love Me does not keep My words; and the word which you hear is not Mine but the Father’s who sent Me.” John 14:23b – 24 (NKJV)

Let’s stir up our faith by hearing the word of God constantly and take up the passion of Christ to please our Heavenly Father.

Before the Foundation of the World

God is eternal. He lives in a realm where time, as we know it, does not exist. Thus, God is the same yesterday, today and forever.  He is the beginning and the end; the Alpha and Omega. To God, today is the day of our salvation.

With God, our healing is a reality; by the stripes on Jesus’ body we are healed. There is no time lag between truth and reality. The word of God doesn’t say “going to be healed”. In the presence of God, His word reaches the fullness of time (kairos moment) and become a living word for us (rhema). Verily, verily, God words do not return to Him void.

If God is very happening, then what we need is revelation by the Spirit of God to take hold of God’s truth and translate them into a present reality.

Hear now the word of God concerning what He has already done for us before the foundation of the world:

“He (Jesus) indeed was foreordained before the foundation of the world, but was manifest in these last times for you” 1 Peter 1:20 (NKJV)

“just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love,” Ephesians 1:4 (NKJV)

If the aforesaid truths are too overwhelming for you, then you may find the following more manageable:

“Before I formed you in the womb I knew you; Before you were born I sanctified you; I ordained you a prophet to the nations.” Jeremiah 1:5 (NKJV)

“For You formed my inward parts;

You covered me in my mother’s womb.
I will praise You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made;
Marvelous are Your works,
And that my soul knows very well.
My frame was not hidden from You,
When I was made in secret,
And skillfully wrought in the lowest parts of the earth.
Your eyes saw my substance, being yet unformed.
And in Your book they all were written,
The days fashioned for me,
When as yet there were none of them.” Psalms 139:13-16 (NKJV)

Hey, God knows us from way back. What makes us think He doesn’t know about our present circumstances or our future, for that matter?

The truth of God’s word reflects God’s integrity:

“God is not a man, that He should lie, Nor a son of man, that He should repent. Has He said, and will He not do? Or has He spoken, and will He not make it good? Numbers 23:19 (NKJV)

“So shall My word be that goes forth from My mouth; It shall not return to Me void, But it shall accomplish what I please, And it shall prosper in the thing for which I sent it.” Isaiah 55:11 (NKJV)

The carnal mind which is trained by worldly system of thinking cannot comprehend the truths of God. We need to have revelation so that the hidden truths could be revealed to us. Here then is Paul pray for the believers in Ephesus:

“that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give to you the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Him, the eyes of your understanding being enlightened; that you may know what is the hope of His calling, what are the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints,” Ephesians 1:17-18 (NKJV)

Let’s pray the aforesaid prayer over ourselves so that we can grow in the grace as well as the knowledge of Christ – having the mind of Christ, knowing what He knows concerning spiritual truths and moving in the power of the Holy Spirit. All glory be to God!