Our Place of Authority
Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ . . . In love he predestined us to be adopted as his sons through Jesus Christ . . . in [whom] we have redemption through his blood . . . (Eph. 1:3–7, NIV)
Wouldn’t you think the Bible would say, “God will someday bless us with every spiritual blessing” once we reach a certain level of spiritual maturity or once we have resurrected bodies? But God says He has already given us every spiritual blessing in Christ. “He has blessed us.” It is past tense. Believe it. This verse is as true for the one who was born again in Christ two days ago as it is for the one who has been walking faithfully with the Lord for fifty years.
In Ephesians 1:3–14, Paul describes our spiritual inheritance in God. Before He made the world, the Father saw us and chose us in Christ. We were loved and desired as sons and daughters before He hung the stars in place. Christ paid for us to stand faultless before the Father when He poured out His lifeblood for us. Upon believing this, we received the Holy Spirit—God living on the inside, think of it—who continually bears witness to the day when we will be glorified in God’s presence as coheirs with Christ.
“And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus” (Eph. 2:6, NIV). I don’t claim to know the fullness of what it means to be blessed “in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ” (Eph. 1:3), but I am quite sure of this: it’s a lot more than we currently realize and live out! It’s as though we’ve been given a billion dollars, but we’re living on ten cents a day. We tend to approach God as beggars, while He sees us as beloved kings (Rev. 1:5–6)! We often live in a mindset that God will someday exercise His authority to heal or deliver us, when we could walk in His authority today! Both are certainly true—the kingdom of God is now (in part) and not yet (in fullness)—but I think we’d be surprised at how much He’s waiting for us take the authority He has given us.
Although I don’t believe we can necessarily “name and claim” the fullness of the effects of God’s kingdom now (for example, we are not immune from suffering, disease, or death until the resurrection), we should always be reaching! We should be always seeking and praying for it to be “on earth as it is in heaven” (Mt. 6:10, NIV). Do we always pray for healing? Good, but there’s more. God yearns for us to arise in partnership with Him.
I like the gospels’ account of Jesus multiplying food for a hungry multitude (Mt. 14:13–21; Mk. 6:30–44; Lk. 9:10–17). The disciples told Jesus to send the thousands away to go find something to eat. He replied, “You give them something to eat.” It’s humorous because He fully knew their faith wasn’t there yet. He put their calling right before them nonetheless, as if to say, “You’re not called to just watch me do all the miracles; I actually want you to do them with me!” Similarly, He didn’t say, “You shall ask me to move the mountain, and I will do it,” but, “You can say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there’ and it will move” (Mt. 17:20, NIV). And, “In my name they will drive out demons” (Mk. 16:17, NIV), not “They will ask me to cast out demons.” Of course, asking is part of the partnership between Jesus and His people (Mt. 7:7), but it’s not the only part. Sometimes He waits for us to act upon His Word and take the authority He has given us.
So, I have been “practicing” taking that authority because I believe that authority over darkness doesn’t grow out of nowhere. Admittedly, it feels a little awkward at first. Sometimes, for example, when I verbally take authority over sickness in my child’s body and command the body to be healed in Jesus’ name, I feel as though I’m a little bird trying to bark at a dog. But such an inward image just reveals my little faith. A more accurate picture might be of a little bird that has a mighty lion standing behind it, and when the bird speaks in the lion’s name, the lion’s roar puts that scrawny canine to flight! The more I step out, the more my faith grows. God is patient, and, frankly, I think He’s just excited when we start trying to walk in His authority—like the joy my husband and I felt when our babies first started to walk. We saw their courage! They fell a lot as they stepped out on muscles that had hardly been used. But they kept getting up and stepping out, and we celebrated them all along the way. It takes time, and regular use, to build muscles. God knows this. He is rejoicing over us as we grow.
A word of warning: walking in power is no license for sin. And it doesn’t replace intimacy with God. Spiritual authority is supposed to flow out of relationship with God; it is not a thing given to exalt its bearer but to equip him to serve and go low for others’ sake. It’s possible to spend your life doing works that add up to nothing when you stand before Christ, because they didn’t flow from relationship with Him (1 Cor. 3:11–15). It’s even possible for someone to perform miracles in Jesus’ name but be so spiritually hollow on the inside that Christ will say, “I never knew you. Depart from me, you who practice lawlessness” (Mt. 7:21–23, NKJV). But this will not happen if our focus is walking with God.
As for me, I am not letting another year of my life go by without learning more about Ephesians 1:3 and “every spiritual blessing in Christ.” I want to walk in His authority, not just so that my comfort level increases, but so that He finds in me a heart that believes His words and impacts others with His presence. May He find us as ones who believe what He said: “I tell you the truth, anyone who has faith in me will do what I have been doing. He will do even greater things than these, because I am going to the Father” (Jn. 14:12, NKJV).
Oh, may the eyes of our hearts be enlightened to know what is the greatness of His power towards us who believe (Eph. 1:18–19)!
