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.