If there are problems in your life — spiritual ones — the question for you may be: Have you taken spiritual authority? Or perhaps more completely put: do you exercise authority and power — the Power Jesus gave each one of us?
When a police officer approaches a car, he is supposed to have authority. He is at first polite (in most cases). But if the driver doesn’t respect his authority and shows a hostile attitude, an officer is trained to immediately assume an even more aggressive posture — to go to a more powerful level. In other words: take the offensive.
In spiritual warfare we are called to do the same — to cast out, mow down, clear darkness wherever it is: stand up to and above it. No darkness should be allowed in our midst. Here we come to that notion of exerting all the authority and power Christ has given us. Speak aloud — as Christ said. He told us to exercise faith (with a mountain), as well as speaking aloud. Words possess potency!
It is when we have humility, love, faith, purity, obedience, and discipline, along with force, that we have more of what? Power.
Don’t let the devil around you — or in you. Purge every imperfection that comes to mind. Hold captive all thoughts. Cleanliness energizes and propels your authority. “Greater is He Who is in you” than anything in the world — anything. If a sinful thought, a temptation, enters your mind, be pro-active. Right away, challenge it. Get rid of it. Cast it out. Cast out every negative thought as it enters and you are on the way to victory. “Evil thought, I command you out in the Name of Jesus! Get thee hence!” That’s taking authority.
There’s a story of a farmer who came upon an eagle egg and placed it in his chicken coop, where the fledgling bird that soon hatched — not knowing what he actually was — took on the characteristics of the animals around him. The eagle believed he was a chick, and so acted like one. He scratched and pecked and flew only short distances — never soared, like the raptor he was designed by God to be.
“Many believers are living the same way—trapped in a chicken mentality,” notes a preacher. “They have received salvation, but stop short of living life abundantly, as God intended. They want to live in prosperity, health, protection and peace, but they stop short of achieving victory in those areas for one reason—they don’t know how to use their authority.”
Use your authority too for physical protection. Claim safety (in Jesus’ Name). Proclaim protection over your finances.
In the Name of Jesus, I plead the blood of Jesus over my car. Bumper to bumper, side to side, top to bottom, every part working and nonworking, no one and nothing will bump this car, and it will bump no one and nothing. We’ll get to wherever we’re going without incident. Spoken words of authority.
Use the authority Christ gave you to drive out illness.
“Body, I command you to get in line. I rebuke every symptom in my body right now, in Jesus’ Name. Be healed and made whole from the top of my head to the soles of my feet. I take my healing! I am healed.” (Doesn’t Psalm 91:10 say, “No evil will conquer you; no plague will come near your home”?) Put your hand on the part of your body that is afflicted and take authority over that entire area.
Can you even take authority over a storm? With enough faith, anything is possible. (A video below, for your discernment). Do you realize a third of all Jesus’ miracles involved casting out darkness with His Power and Authority, which He confers to us?
“Demonic activity isn’t something you’ll hear preached about on many Sunday mornings, but it exists, and there is a simple way to deal with it—by taking your authority,” says a commentator. “Use the Name of Jesus. Plead the blood of Jesus. Drive demons and any demonic activity out of your home, your body, your life, your neighborhood, buildings, cars and anything else they try to occupy. Never be afraid of them—YOU have the authority. And they know it.”
[Michael Brown retreat, New Mexico]