Contributor: Leye Olayiwola

INTRODUCTION

In our last lesson, we studied how we can stand for baby Christians. The baby Christian stage is the first stage after a believer gives his or her life to Christ. Truth is that every born again Child of God has gone through this phase at one stage of our growth. It therefore follows that we will always have believers who are at this stage, on a regular bases, as more and more people come to the knowledge of Christ. Also in this category are believers, who "By this time ought to be teachers, yet still need someone to sit down with them and go over the basics of God again........" according to the words of Paul in his letter to the Hebrew Christians. We also considered the need for believers to move away from this stage considering the many disadvantages associated with the baby stage. We will be looking at the Believers Authority on Earth.         

THE MANDATE (Genesis 1:27-28)
Can we go on a journey, through our imagination, for a second? Imagine the event in the garden of Eden. What if Adam and Eve did not eat the forbidden fruit? What would you and I be doing right now? Would our Christian experience be different from what it is now? Sure you can add to this list of imaginations. A particular moment during creation in Genesis 1 stands out;

"So God created man in His own image, in the image and likeness of God He created him; male and female He created them. And God blessed them [granting them certain authority] and said to them, “Be fruitful, multiply, and fill the earth, and subjugate it [putting it under your power]; and rule over (dominate) the fish of the sea, the birds of the air, and every living thing that moves upon the earth.” Emphasis Mine [Genesis 1:27-28 AMP]

Man was given authority right from creation. Why? because God, in His infinite wisdom, knows Man will need it to be able to fulfil  the mandate of fruitfulness, multiplication, replenishment and dominance over other creations. The fall in the garden of Eden became irrelevant as soon as Jesus declared in Matthew 28:18;

"Jesus came up and said to them, “All authority (all power of absolute rule) in heaven and on earth has been given to Me". (Matthew 28:18 AMP)

The same Authority was restored back to us. To carry out the same mandate given to Adam in Genesis chapter 1, here on Earth!

THE DEVIL IS NO MATCH (Luke 10:19)
"Listen carefully: I have given you authority [that you now possess] to tread on serpents and scorpions, and [the ability to exercise authority] over all the power of the enemy (Satan); and nothing will [in any way] harm you." [Luke 10:19 AMP]

A major challenge facing the endtime church is in rationalising God's word instead of believeing and accepting it. This is the reason why Jesus, in commending little children, said in Luke 18;
"But Jesus called them to Himself, saying [to the apostles], “Allow the children to come to Me, and do not forbid them, for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these. I assure you and most solemnly say to you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God [with faith and humility] like a child will not enter it at all.” Emphasis Mine [Luke 18:16-17 AMP]

• One unique attribute of children is in their willingness and ease at believing whatever they are told even if it seems outrageous. This is how Jesus wants us to receive spiritual things - with faith and humility. Jesus said in Luke 10:19; ".......I have given you authority [that you now possess]...."

• Imagine for once how a child will take this and interprete it? Simple. The child believes and acts like he has possess it! That's exactly how God wants us to believe and act.

• We can sometimes complicate things when we put too much analysis into it. Jesus is simply saying He has delegated His authority over the power of the devil on earth to us (believers).

• It also means the devil has no power or influence over any circumstances in our lives than the one we have given him. We simply give him this power when we do nothing!

EXERCISING THIS AUTHORITY (Ephesians 1:19-23)
"and [so that you will begin to know] what the immeasurable and unlimited and surpassing greatness of His [active, spiritual] power is in us who believe. These are in accordance with the working of His mighty strength which He produced in Christ when He raised Him from the dead and seated Him at His own right hand in the heavenly places, far above all rule and authority and power and dominion [whether angelic or human], and [far above] every name that is named [above every title that can be conferred], not only in this age and world but also in the one to come. And He put all things [in every realm] in subjection under Christ’s feet, and appointed Him as [supreme and authoritative] head over all things in the church, which is His body, the fullness of Him who fills and completes all things in all [believers]." [Eph.1:19-23 AMP]

• We have been taught that the value or effectiveness of any Authority is in the Power behind the Authority. This scripture qualifies the Power that is behind the authority we have in Christ. Couldn't have been described or qualified in a better way than with the words immeasurable, unlimited and surpassing greatness. In simple words, this power is LIMITLESS!

• Verse 22,23 goes on to say, "And He put all things in subjection under Christ's feet and appointed Him as head over all things in the church,..". The feet are members of the body. John A. MacMillan pointed out, how wonderful to know that the least members of the Body of Christ—those who are the very soles of the feet, the little toenail, or the little toe—are far above the mighty forces we have been considering

• We need to arm ourselves with this knowledge and wake up. This will require us to change our ways of praying (if required). We have been given authority to do this. We are sitting (symbol of authority) with Christ at the right hand of power, which relative to where principalities and powers are located, is very FAR. If we are far above them, it therefore follows that we have AUTHORITY over them.

• If you'd listen to the average Christian talk or hear some preachers preach, you'd get the impression that the devil is bigger than everybody and that he's running everything. Yes, he is the god of this world, so he's running the world system. But we're in this world, not of this world, the Bible says, so he's not running us. The devil has been walking on us too long. Time to swap function, taking authority over every contrary situation, delivering every captive (howbeit lawful) of the devil and his hosts.

• The extent to which we exercise our Authority in Christ is to the extent of the knowledge of His revealed Word in us. Christ shows us an example of how to exercise authority in Matthew 4. He addressed the Devil with the Word of God - "It is written!!!". We can't afford to be negligent in the study of the Word of God and expect to just exercise Authority when we are faced with contrary situations. That will just be like Samson getting up to fight the Philistine hosts after the Holy Spirit has departed from him!
 
CONCLUSION
We have no business running from the devil. As a matter of fact, we should be on the look out for challenging situations where the devil has been in charge and put him on the run. Jesus Christ has given us Authority which we now possess, over all the powers and the undue influences of the devil. We should also take this a step further by making desciples of nations (people) by bringing them into the kingdom and teaching them how to exercise this authority over every situations and circumstances contrary to God's word.

Part of this study was culled from The Believers' Authority by Kenneth E. Hagin.