Contributor: Alex Alajiki

INTRODUCTION:

The purpose of our studies this year is to build up every believer with the word of God until we are filled with the fullness of God in every area of our lives. We shall accomplish this by focusing on the reality of who we are and what we have in Christ. And how to properly enforce the defeat of the kingdom of darkness so as to advance the kingdom of God on earth.
We shall be using “The Believers' Authority” and “The Triumphant Church”, both books by |Kenneth E. Hagin, among other materials, along with our Bible, to gain knowledge and revelation.

We must deliberately give ourselves to diligent studies if we must gain mastery in things of the Kingdom of God. Ignorance of this subject matter may be very devastating for end time Christians, who are in constant conflict with a defeated, but furious and strategic enemy.
     
1) The Prayers of Paul; Eph.1:16-20; 3:14-19

“do not cease to give thanks for you, making mention of you in my prayers:17 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, 18 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, 19 and what is the exceeding greatness of His power toward us who believe, according to the working of His mighty power 20 which He worked in Christ when He raised Him from the dead and seated Him at His right hand in the heavenly places.”

“ For this reason I bow my knees to the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, 15 from whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named, 16 that He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with might through His Spirit in the inner man, 17 that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; that you, being rooted and grounded in love, 18 may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the width and length and depth and height— 19 to know the love of Christ which passes knowledge; that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.”

We are encouraged to read, meditatively, the first three chapters of the book of Ephesians, several times, to fully grasp the revelations on the authority of the believer in this book.

• We are encouraged to pray for “the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of God.” And for “the eyes of our understanding being enlightened”.  Just like Jesus told Peter in (Matt.16:17 “Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jonah, for flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but My Father who is in heaven.”), we all need supernatural insights.
• We are also encouraged to pray “to be strengthened with might through His Spirit in the inner man”. According to 1 Sam.2:9 “He will guard the feet of His saints, but the wicked shall be silent in darkness. For by strength no man shall prevail.”
• We are also encouraged to pray “that Christ may dwell in our hearts through faith; that we, being rooted and grounded in love may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the width and length and depth and height and to know the love of Christ which passes knowledge; that we may be filled with all the fullness of God. Without being grounded and rooted in the love of God, we can never be filled with all the fullness of God. John 13:32-33

“No one has seen God at any time. If we love one another, God abides in us, and His love has been perfected in us. 13 By this we know that we abide in Him, and He in us, because He has given us of His Spirit.” 1 John.4:12-13

“I spent about six months praying this prayers during the winter of 1947-48. Then the first thing I was praying for started to happen. I had been praying for "the spirit of wisdom and revelation" (Eph. 1:17), and the spirit of revelation began to function! I began to see things in the Bible I had never seen before. It just began to open up to me. I advanced more in spiritual growth and knowledge of the Word in those six months than I had in 14 years as a minister and in more than 16 years as a Christian. That was one of the greatest spiritual discoveries I ever made.” – Kenneth Hagin.

2) Dominion over Principalities, Powers, Rulers of Darkness & Spiritual wickedness in Heavenly Places; Eph.6:12,

“ For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places.”

We need to realize that we have authority through Christ over all levels of the kingdom of darkness. Our combat with the devil always should be with the consciousness that we have authority over him because he is a defeated foe The Lord Jesus Christ defeated him for us according to Col.2:15 “Having disarmed principalities and powers, He made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them in it.”

Our wrestling (Struggle), combat or battle is not with human beings, nor against our own corrupt natures, but with evil spiritual forces. We must not shy away from the reality of organised kingdom of darkness that are influencing human affairs on earth. They have strategically corrupted the systems of this world by influencing man against God. They battle to diminish our power and influence on earth and labour to deface the heavenly image in our hearts by making us to focus and be preoccupied with earthly things all day long ( Matt.6:19-21, 25-33). The only opposing forces against them are the true Christians and the forces of the kingdom of God.

Those who live in Christ have been given every spiritual gift and are made alive and enthroned with Christ in the heavenly reality (Eph.1:3; 2:6). His own enthronement in the heavenly reality includes the subjection of every power (Eph.1:20). The evil forces may rule darkness and evil, but we as Christians no longer live there (Eph 5:8,16). Believers have the task in this unseen reality to make God’s wisdom known to the evil spiritual powers (Eph.3:10) and to stand against them (Eph. 6:10–13). Our enthronement with Christ above the evil powers determines how we live on earth. We must realise that our struggle against these evil forces is a struggle against subjected powers.

3) The Authority of the Believer; Luk.10:19-20
“Behold, I give you the authority to trample on serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy, and nothing shall by any means hurt you. 20 Nevertheless do not rejoice in this, that the spirits are subject to you, but rather rejoice because your names are written in heaven.”

We receive this authority when we are born again. As we are made new creatures in Christ Jesus, we inherit the Name and authority of the Lord Jesus Christ, and we can use it in prayer against the enemy.

Salvation belong to the sinner through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. The poor sinner, not knowing this, will have to go to hell even though all of his debts are cancelled according to 2 Cor.5:19.
The sinner doesn't know what belongs to him, so it won't do him any good. By the same token, if Christians don't know the things that belong to them, they won't do them any good. They need to find out about what belongs to them. That's why God put teachers in the Church. That's why God gave us His Word: to tell us what is ours.

We need to know what belongs to us. Jesus said, "And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free" (John 8:32). In Hosea God says, "My people [not sinners, not the world] are destroyed for lack of knowledge...." (Hosea 4:6). People are actually suffering or destroyed despite the fact that they got everything to prevent them from such fate in life.

Conclusion.
A few of us have barely gotten to the edge of this believer’s authority, but before Jesus comes again, there's going to be a whole company of believers who will rise up with the authority that is theirs. They will know what is theirs, and they will do the work that God intended they should do.

                  Part of this study is from the first chapter of The Believers’ Authority by Kenneth E. Hagin..