DeanSweetman.com » Self-Leading

Faith & Vision

Dean — Sun, 15 Jan 2012 19:57:37 +0000

Our church will begin fasting and praying on February 1st for 21 days. This is an opportunity to go to the next level for real this year, to overcome challenges and bring about lasting change. If you fast AND pray, change WILL happen! We look to the New Testament church for examples of how to work together, how to mature in Christ, how to be a “marketplace apostle”. One of the first men to rise up to a new level was Barnabas, a tradesman who, during a time of famine, sold a field he owned and gave all the proceeds to the apostles in Jerusalem to help other believers. Others followed his lead, and the whole church banded together, sharing and selling so that no one would go without. What they owned was not their own. The people made sacrifices for each other, and this was the first example of charity in any culture of that day. Let’s be sure our things aren’t getting in the way of where God wants to take us.

After the famine in Acts 4, a very zealous Jew named Saul was at the stoning of the first Christian martyr, Stephen, a man killed for speaking the truth about the Resurrected Christ. The Christians went into hiding because of the persecution now upon the Church, and in Acts 9 Saul goes to Damascus to kill Christians there who are sharing the Gospel. He actually thinks he is doing God’s will! On the way, the Lord blinds him and he comes to faith in Jesus himself, not eating or drinking for three days afterward. A Christian in the area named Ananias is asked by God to go to Saul, lay hands on him, and let God heal him – however, Ananias has heard Saul will arrest any Christians in the area! After arguing with God, he summons up his courage, lays hands on Saul, and goes so far as to call him “Brother” as he obeys the Big Ask that God had given him. Saul becomes Paul, the greatest apostle to ever live, the one who wrote most of the books of the New Testament, and from whose life we can learn so much about perservering and following the leading of the Holy Spirit! The thing is, he was not even accepted by the local church and the apostles who had been with Jesus until Barnabas, whose name means Son of Encouragement, befriended Paul and vouched for him to the church leaders in Jerusalem. You can’t fulfill your destiny until someone believes in you. It took the courage of Ananias & Barnabas to bring the killer of Christians into the family of the church. People then and now are looking for someone to care for them. We need lots of people to reach out to new folks at C3 this year, and our leadership classes are going to help us get confident as we step out and mature even more.

When God asks us to do something big, something scary, something well and truly out of our comfort zone like He asked of Ananias, we know that by prayer and fasting we can accomplish anything that God has laid before us! He is going to ask us this year to do what we have never done before, therefore it makes sense to prepare ourselves for this year of challenge. You don’t have to be a pastor to bring love and care to people in your world. We have to come out of our immaturity and the mindset that says, “Oh, that’s someone else’s job” and begin to really grow in our faith. This means that the people around us who need help will have someone there to encourage, to mentor, to pray for them – you! When the religious Jews threw Peter in jail for healing a crippled man on the Sabbath in Acts 12, the church was praying for him fervently, but when an angel opened up the jail and got Peter to safety, no one praying at the house believed it was really him knocking on the door! These people had seen the house shake with the power of prayer, but had forgotten that God really does work miracles! Don’t pass your miracle off as coincidence, believe that God meant for your prayers to be answered.

We are all currently afraid of something God is asking us to do, some challenge we’ve come up against. God will give us the means to conquer the fear and win the challenge, but we have to step out in 2012 and do what frightens us. This church will go to another place in Christ if we all step out, fast, pray and believe that God wants to do miracles in us, for us and through us. We’re not going to waste 2012, even when unseen tests come at us from left field, like the pain I have been having in my neck all last year. We do not give up, we find a way to make it through the maze of life because God believes in us!

Verses Used:
* Acts 4:31-37
* Acts 9
* Acts 12

The Vine – Part 1

Dean — Sun, 06 Nov 2011 19:47:47 +0000

Jesus is speaking to His disciples after they have shared there last Passover together and are walking toward the Mt. of Olives, where unbeknownst to them, Jesus will be taken away to be crucified. It is close to midnight, and as they pass a vineyard, He explains to them the vital importance of staying close to Him and in God’s Word as people that will bear great fruit for His coming Kingdom. This is not a parable or a passage for the unsaved, but for His disciples, 11 chosen ones who must now endure great testing and hardship in the days ahead. He begins by saying “I am the true vine, and My Father is the grafter of branches.” This would indicate to the Jewish disciples that Israel as a nation is no longer the vine (they had a golden vine on the Temple doors and understood their relationship to God was unlike any other) because their leaders chose to reject the Messiah whom God had sent. The vine was not spoken into existence in the Garden of Eden, God planted it, and waters it, and now Christ has taken on that role. Jesus is the Vine, so as nutrients come from the ground thru the main vine and the branches are fed only thru the vine; we are fed thru the Word of Christ and living with Him day by day. (see vs. 4)

There is only a 1/2 inch difference between cutting off a useless branch that is producing nothing, and pruning back a healthy, fruit-laden branch that just needs to bear more fruit next season. When things are removed from our life it hurts but there is greater good to come! God will prune us to teach us to grow even larger in our capacity, giftings, and fruitfulness. This makes us turn to the nurtrients of Jesus to grow, multiply, become stronger & healthier! When we make poor choices continually, sometimes we get cut off – however, unlike the churches who want to frighten us by saying “that’s it, once you are cut off you are gonna burn!”, the Father who grafts seemingly useless branches will carefully cut into Christ, the Vine, and attach us to the main, life-giving artery. This is when God gets us to where we must trust in Jesus, when we are grafted in and bound to the vine – literally, the vinedresser tapes the branches so they stay put. We don’t have to give up, God will graciously make a way to reconnect us to Him! Choose to contribute to your church, to get involved when you don’t feel like it, that is called “trying again”. God’s NOT trying to kill us!!

God wants fruitfulness and He will do whatever it takes to get fruit from the ones He owns – “You are Mine, I bought you with a price and I require something of you!” There is a calling on our lives to produce something good for God! He will always pick us up and graft us back in – choose to stay in Jesus and in the Word “for apart from Me you can do nothing.” (vs 5) It may seem unjust to the fruitful but God is always going to prune us to cause an area of our life to grow. It’s the only way to get to the next level! The branch (us) grows again and bears even more fruit – and it’s not hard because He has prepared us for the next season. When the harvest comes and the grapes are put into the winepress – which is the Church – that new wine is the Holy Spirit, pouring out the wine of revival into all the people. The move of the Spirit in the last days will come from the fruit of the saints who are willing to be cut back in order to grow the church. This new wine means miracles, power, outpouring, and a flowing of the Holy Spirit in the body of Christ.! “I have poured out My Spirit upon you”, Jesus said. We have to allow ourselves to be pruned and grafted or else the church will die. Look to Europe as an example, all the beautiful cathedrals and churches built hundreds of years ago are boarded up or have only elderly people attending – no fruit. In England, some Arab nations are buying up old churches and turning them into mosques, which then can only be used for that purpose according to Islamic laws and can never revert back to what they were intended to be – places where GOD shows up! This has happened because the church there decided to lay on the ground, wither and die. In Cambodia, they killed all pastors and Christians in the Khmer Rouge regime of the 70’s and now that nation is in desperate poverty. Even here in America, where we believe nothing bad can happen to us, we need to see that we are content to be a rich nation and have to open our eyes to the truth – we have to stay in Christ to survive!

Don’t run when you feel God’s hand pruning, we must ABIDE in Christ no matter what, that is the key. If we allow bitterness to fester in our minds during the times when we don’t understand what the Gardener is doing, it will wither us and we will die – but it will have been our choice. Instead, rejoice when you feel God is pruning you, cutting off something that you probably don’t need anyway, wanting to take you to the next level of joy and revelation He has for you! He is always getting the wine out of His fruitful ones, then asking us to grow more good grapes. Everything from Jesus feeds us and fuels us to start again. When things are really going terribly, you are probably getting cut – so get off the ground. Your attitude determines whether God regrafts you or not. Do not give in to the temptation to lay there, moan and groan about how sorry your life is and how mean God is – He always wants to give you a second, third, tenth, hundredth chance! He is patient with us and will always take us back again as we choose to put aside our pride and allow Him to heal us, to bind us to Christ and intertwine again with the other branches. Let the healthy ones around you help you grow.

Disciples, it’s time to GROW! Be fruitful, God wants your fruit to press out new wine for the church to stay alive and strong. Our focus now is on the 2020 mission to go into ALL the world and make disciples. A strong church keeps the Spirit moving and life flowing.

Verses Used:
*John 15: 1-6

The Four Rivers – The Euphrates

Dean — Sun, 30 Oct 2011 19:12:02 +0000

The Euphrates River–the final river in the Four Rivers series–is the river that means to “break forth into fruitfulness.” It is the simplest of the rivers to grasp: God wants us to be fruitful. That is it! So simple! God loves simple things. Humans make things too complicated; God makes it simple. He wants you to be fruitful, and the way to fruitfulness is obedience. Obey God. See? Simple.

Matthew 25 tells the tale of three servants entrusted with their master’s money while he is away on a long journey. It is an accepted fact that the man on the journey is Jesus. He is leaving for a time, and He entrusts His servants with His property. Jesus came to earth to save us and to establish the Kingdom. He got the work started through His death and resurrection. Then, He said, “The rest is up to you.” He gave us the Holy Spirit to help us in our charge to change the world. He trusted us with His resources (money,abilities, etc…) like the man in the parable entrusted his servants.

What happens next is the real gem. The man gives to his servants according to their abilities. Wait a second. That’s not very fair. Why don’t all the servants get an equal share? That’s because “fairness” is no Biblical. God wants us to have more then other people. He wants us to prosper and be fruitful. There is no ceiling or cap to that. It is ongoing. Those who cry over how unfair it is are the ones trapped in the small-mindedness of the world. Very simple. Two servants prospered because they used their resources; one did not. When the master returned, he rewarded those who increased and cursed the one who did not.

So use what God has given you! Sow it! Invest it! And watch the blessing of increase come into your world.

Verses Used:
*Matthew 25: 14-30
*Psalms 1

The Four Rivers – The River of Anointing part 2

Dean — Sun, 02 Oct 2011 19:01:35 +0000

The concept of the Rivers and the Garden continues to unfold the further we go into this series. The garden of the heart is filled with seeds that grow and produce fruit, providing even more seed. But what do we do with this new seed? Do we store it in barns, afraid that we won’t have enough seed in the future? Or do we give the seed to God and let Him scatter it? God can do more with the little seed that we have then we could ever hope to dream of if we keep it stored away. God has promised time and again that whatever we give to Him, He will give back to us. And He has also shown that whatever we hold in our hands, refusing to let go for fear of loss, will be lost through the decay of time and death. No man on his death bed is happy that he clung to all his riches. No, he wishes more than anything that he had done something with that which he had obtained.

The River Gihon, as stated last week, is the River of the Anointing. It means “to burst forth.” When something bursts up, it flows out. God began with the River Pishon (increase) and the moved on to Gihon (anointing or flow). You first receive increase and then you let it go somewhere. There is no use having seed if it is not going to go anywhere. You can have it all–fame, fortune, the praise and accord of others–but it means nothing without the anointing that flows out into the world.

John 9 tells the tale of Jesus healing a blind man by placing mud on his eyes and telling him to “Go wash yourself in the pool of Siloam.” Siloam means “sent.” Siloam is also the spring of the River Gihon. Jesus sent the blind man on a mission to receive his healing. The blind man had to grope about, asking for help to find the spring of the sent. And it was there that he was healed. Gihon and Siloam are the River of the sent: those who are sent out on missions; those who are a part of other people’s miracles. Do you want to be a apart of someone’s miracle? Then GO! You don’t have to (and we strongly advise against this) put mud in people’s eyes. But speak well of them. Tell those in authority that their employees are the best! Help with your words and actions! And through that, people will receive their miracle.

Verses Used:
*Genesis 2: 13
*John 9:6 & 7
*I Kings 1: 32-35

The Four Rivers – River of Increase

Dean — Sun, 18 Sep 2011 18:49:04 +0000

In Genesis 2, we get our first view of the garden God planted as the dwelling place for man. He called it “Eden,” meaning “paradise” or “place of delight.” Verse 10 tells us that the garden was watered by a river that flowed through and out of the garden, then dividing into four branches. Those four rivers were named Pishon, Gihon, Tigris, and Euphrates.

While we believe that Eden was a real place, it is also representative of the human heart. Each of us has the responsibility to tend the garden of our heart – the garden of who we are. The four rivers represent principles that God has given to help us cultivate good fruit in the garden of our lives. The first river, Pishon, represents increase and expansion, a principal that Jesus taught repeatedly. To experience increase in our own lives we must believe that God is our source of all things, learn how to get into God’s flow, and avoid the things that cause us to get out of the flow.

Today we live in a society filled with self-help gurus. As a result, we often think we can will ourselves to success if we just find the right book to read. But the river comes from God and we can’t will or self-help ourselves into the life He brings. If we try to make it in our own strength, there will come a point when our human strength will fail us. When difficulties come, when we can’t take one more step, we must look to the God of the River of Increase to be the source of whatever it is we need. Whether it’s strength, peace, joy, forgiveness, grace, patience, wisdom….whatever it is you think you’re out of, God has it and wants to give it to you. We only need to plant our lives by His river and let Him be our source.

We all know that water is an incredibly powerful thing. Rowing against a strong current will quickly tire you out and make it virtually impossible to reach your destination. But, as humans, we often seem bent on rowing against God’s flow – trying to get to our destiny under our own power. The Holy Spirit is God’s river. He flows into our hearts and wants to branch out into every area of our lives and spill over onto others. But we have to get into the flow.

You don’t need to look hard to find examples of people who have fought their way to the top but have not found happiness. Rowing against the river of God will never get you to a place of contentment. We each must decide to turn our boat and stop fighting God’s flow. The river may take us to places we don’t understand, but we will find ourselves in a place of unending increase that will spill over and grow the Kingdom of God. So come on and jump in, the water’s fine.

My Cup – The Cup of Greed 1st

Dean — Sun, 14 Aug 2011 20:40:37 +0000

Luke 11 introduces us to the next cup in the series: The Cup of Greed. This cup is introduced when Jesus is invited to dine with a Pharisee. The Pharisee gets edgy when Jesus does not wash his hands before the meal. You see, hand washing was one of the possible 1500 additions the Pharisees added to the law. It was a ritual meant for show, and Jesus knew this. The Pharisees meant well by adding to the law. Doesn’t that sound familiar? I meant well in adding all these additional rules and regulations to my worship and service to God. I really did! And yet, Jesus scolds them for adding to what was already perfect. You can’t make what God said better.

What is so wrong with washing your hands? Nothing, but that is not what made Jesus so angry. Jesus criticized the Pharisees for being so careful to clean the outside of the cup, while the inside was full of wickedness. God made the outside and the inside of the cup. He told them not to try to be holier than God. How can someone desiring to be so right, be so filled with wickedness? The Pharisees’ cup was full of greed. The cup of greed feeds itself with self-centered wickedness. Wanting to add to the law comes from figuring that it can’t be this easy to be righteous. There are man-made traditions that disguise themselves as part of the Light. Jesus is talking about religious deception. Religion hates freedom. The spirit of religion is exclusive, and Jesus called it wicked. God set out to destroy religious hierarchy. He replaced the law with a better covenant, the original covenant with God.

The cup of greed contrasts greatly to the cup of life. God wants to fill our lives. Our senses are a gateway to our inner self or to our cup. Jesus says the eye allows light into body. When you are filling the eye with good, then you are filling your cup with good. In John, Jesus says He is the light. When our vision is clear and good, the vision from the world tries to darken it. What we think on, touch, or see, fills our cup. As we allow little things, small deceptions, to creep into our consciousness and thinking, it can begin to fill us with the wrong stuff. When your principles are good, you are full of light. The problem with allowing non-biblical principles into our lives is that they are easy to justify. As soon as we justify our ungodly behavior, we are filling our cup with the wrong stuff.

In John 17, Jesus is praying to His Father, knowing that He is about to leave. He knows He will no longer be visible to the world. He is leaving Himself in us and sending us into the world in His place. If He didn’t send us, He couldn’t get into the world. As the Father is in Him, He is in us. Jesus did not come for the ones that already knew Him but for the ones that don’t have a clue. In Luke 15, Jesus tells three parables. One is about the lost sheep, one is about the lost coin, and one is about the prodigal son. You can be lost in the world like the sheep; you can be lost in the house like the coin; you can leave the House and become entangled in the world liked the prodigal; or you can stay in the House with a religious attitude like the brother. How do we go into the world and not succumb to the world? When we have the choice to judge others, default to love. There is only one qualification for living a life full of God. The only way to distinguish us is by our fruit, and the fruit is love.

Our cup can be full of religious mess. We wall ourselves up with religion to protect ourselves from the world. Religion blinds us to the needs around us, in the same way the men walked by the beaten man in the parable of the Samaritan. The Pharisees could not distinguish between following rules and serving God. Our cups have to be filled with something. If we don’t allow God to fill our vessels, we are choosing to fill them with the world. Allowing other things to fill our vessels will not allow us to lead others to God. The only way to get the life of God into our vessels is to walk with Jesus and do what He says. We want to fill our cup, repent, and put everything else aside. Every other relationship is secondary to our connection to God. God wants to get that old stuff out and fill us with Him.

Verses Used:
Luke 11:33-39
John 17:11
Matthew 7:20
John 14:6

The Holy Spirit

Dean — Fri, 01 Jul 2011 18:06:24 +0000

There are 59 scriptures featuring the Holy Spirit in Acts. Acts chapter 4 tells of believers being filled with the Holy Spirit and how the believers then grew in numbers. In Acts chapter 8, the Holy Spirit empowers different members of the gathering. When God gets into everyday people, miracles happen. The Holy Spirit is how God accomplishes these miracles.

Up until this time in Acts, Peter and John had only been water baptised. Water baptism is only one step in the process. The second and continual experience is being filled with the Holy Spirit. Everytime the leaders got together, they were again filled with the Holy Spirit. After they were filled, they then laid hands on others for them to receive the Holy Spirit. Believers in Jerusalem were growing in number and meeting daily until the believers scattered due to increasing persecution–culminating in the stoning of Stephen.

Philip, a deacon in the church, went to Samaria, and there, he began preaching about Jesus. A revival started as a result! Soon, John and Peter came to see all that God was doing and to help. Now, some people today claim that miracles could only be from apostles, but here was Philip, a deacon, performing miracles! He started as a servant, giving food to the widows, until God promoted him. Peter and John served as overseers over the movement, including Samaria. Philip could have gone back with Peter and John to Jerusalem, but God lead him to the desert. God is into accountability. There is freedom in oversight; Peter and John told him to follow God’s leading. God wants to release people within boundaries and structure. It is how the church works.

Philip does not flinch at God’s leading. He sees a caravan in desert as he is walking. The second in command in Ethiopia was a Proselyte Jew returning from pilgrimage to Jerusalem. By now, Jerusalem was in turmoil, the 25 thousand believers meeting daily only to suddenly stop following the stoning of Stephen. The Ethiopian man came there during that time. The man did not know anything about Jesus. He did not know the “people of the way.” The Holy Spirit told Philip to go up and talk to him. He invites Philip into the chariot. The man was reading Isaiah, and Philip shows Jesus to him in the scriptures. The Ethiopian asks to be water baptized. There are Ethiopians today who can trace there lineage and faith back to this scene, all because of Philip heeding the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit told Philip to do things he did not know how to do. We are a church of the Holy Spirit. When we heed the Holy Spirit, we never know what God will do through it.

Biblical Freedom

Dean — Sat, 25 Jun 2011 21:51:04 +0000

There has been some confusion over what it means to live as the Christians did in the New Testament—when the Holy Spirit came to earth—and Old Testament—when laws and rules were overruled. The Galatian church began in freedom but, after false teaching was introduced, was going back into bondage to the law. The laws of Moses were revered and adhered to by the Jews because they were readable and understandable, but they just weren’t doable! It was a comfort to know what God wanted, but the Israelites continually deviated from the law, becoming influenced by the numerous pagan cultures of lands they conquered. King David established Jerusalem under Jewish laws in a godly state of mind, but Solomon, his son, married pagan women & turned the people to those gods. By the time Jesus came, only a few “religious sects” like the Pharisees and Sadducees were following God, and they had added to the burden and bondage that the law brings upon those who try to follow it without grace.

Jesus sets us free from SIN, which is the slave-master of humanity. Sin slowly degrades and eats away at the conscience of a human being. We cover up, trying to cope with living under the world’s system. Then along comes Christ to shield, block, and destroy the power of sin. As we believe, at that moment we are released from bondage. Where the Spirit is, the truth is also! Galatians 5:16-18 says, “My counsel is this: Live freely, animated and motivated by God’s Spirit. Then you won’t feed the compulsions of selfishness. For there is a root of sinful self-interest in us that is at odds with a free spirit, just as the free spirit is incompatible with selfishness. These two ways of life are antithetical, so that you cannot live at times one way and at times another way according to how you feel on any given day. Why don’t you choose to be led by the Spirit and so escape the erratic compulsions of a law-dominated existence?” These 2 natures that we grapple with—sin and Spirit— are bound by the world and bound by Christ.

Galations 5:19-21 continues the results of living in sin. We are led into bondage by not choosing the Holy Spirit to guide our lives to freedom. “It is obvious what kind of life develops out of trying to get your own way all the time: repetitive, loveless, cheap sex; a stinking accumulation of mental and emotional garbage; frenzied and joyless grabs for happiness; trinket gods; magic-show religion; paranoid loneliness; cutthroat competition; all-consuming-yet-never-satisfied wants; a brutal temper; an impotence to love or be loved; divided homes and divided lives; small-minded and lopsided pursuits; the vicious habit of depersonalizing everyone into a rival; uncontrolled and uncontrollable addictions; ugly parodies of community. I could go on.” BUT as we look on to the next verses, we are told what it looks like to live & be led by the Spirit, “The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, goodness, kindness, gentleness, faithfulness & self-control” – the last one is the most important!! Respond in worship and prayer to convictions. When we’re worn down after allowing sin to rule us, prayer and worship lead us to strength to repent and become stronger.

When we give the Holy Spirit the opportunity to move freely, He will break the rules!! We struggle to stay free –even the apostle Peter got called out by Paul when he chose to stop fellowshipping with Gentiles once other important Jews came to the town they were both in at the time. Religion may make us FEEL spiritual, but it’s a counterfeit and does NOT set us free! Sin has no power over us when we’re led by the Spirit. The law exposes sin, but we can never get to God thru obeying the law—only thru Jesus and the Holy Spirit and not by the works we do. There is a constant fight within all humanity between the flesh and the Spirit to do the right thing or the thing we WANT to do. Only the life-giving, freedom-loving Holy Spirit, who can’t be contained, brings pure, real, total freedom! He obliterates what we think God should or should not be doing. We know we are being led by the Spirit when His fruits show up in our lives (while the fruit of religion is hypocrisy -the thing that set Jesus off the most!)

This week we are going to be led into a new level of freedom during the Encounter conference. There is a response to the conviction of the Spirit, to repentance and letting go—let it flow through you!

What we Say, Our Name, & The Holy Spirt

Dean — Tue, 31 May 2011 13:39:46 +0000

When we submit to Christ, we have the power and authority to transform our lives and those of others by what we say. What comes out of our mouth is a release of what comes from heaven into our world. “Whatever we bind on earth is bound in heaven, whatever we loose on earth is loosed in heaven.” – Matthew 18. Growing our faith gives us the ability to function in the spiritual dimension. In the world, we would get tossed around by all the negativity that swirls there constantly, but when we are heavenly-minded and living for Christ, we don’t have to be part of the negative forces around us. We can create change by what we say and proclaim! Speaking connects us with the supernatural – it’s good to be positive, but that is not enough. We were created to be like God so when we speak His words we align ourselves with Him, creating peace in our lives. How we were raised & what was spoken over us can cause us to struggle with this, as the mouth is a powerful force for good or evil. It is always possible to create the changes we seek in our worlds!

Next, it’s important to realize that our souls are birthed at conception, and the being which is created at that point never dies. Our conceived beings are eternal, as we are made in the image of God, and He is eternal! So when the horrible happens and a child, born or unborn, dies, we can take comfort in knowing that God receives them and that their names are written in the Book of Life, burning brightly as innocents. As we age, when we turn to the Lord, again our names are bright lights in that book as we become more like Christ and want to make His name higher than ours. Those who continue to turn away from the Holy Spirit’s promptings will find their names fade from that book, if they choose not to reach out to what God is offering them. Our name is a vital component of who we are, and, in Proverbs, we find out that “a good name is better than great wealth” – Prov. 22. Your name is your calling card, for good or bad, and for all eternity.

The Holy Spirit is God on the earth today, and it is HIS job, not ours, to convict all men of sin, to comfort, and to bring understanding as we continue to search out what God is saying to us individually. In the Old Testament, God the Father spoke to the men of that time, and the Holy Spirit instructed the prophets what to say to the people of Israel & Judah. Then, for 33 years, Jesus was God the Son on the earth, showing us what God looks, acts, and sounds like. He had to die, not only for the sins of man, but to release the Holy Spirit to empower men, women, and children to have the authority we are talking about. Our authority comes from living in Christ and being filled with the Spirit! Remember how important that is! Even our impossible situations can be fixed up and made BETTER by God’s miracle-working power when we know who we are and what we have. In 1906, people were for revival in the country of Wales, UK, and in the city of Los Angeles; now, as a result of their prayers, over 1 billion Pentecostals filled with the Spirit are in the world today! We must look up to heaven, position ourselves in alignment with God’s Word, and realize that in every situation, God is bigger, more powerful, more abundant, and “able to do exceedingly more than we ask or think” – Ephesians 3.

Authority in Christ

Dean — Tue, 17 May 2011 17:08:08 +0000

Some people interpret the Bible literally. I believe in taking the Word of God and interpreting it in the context of our society. I am a contextualist rather than a literalist. This simply means taking the Bible and making it apply in the context of our lives. The important thing is to live the meaning of the scriptures, to apply the teaching. We need to think about what God says and live out our faith. Apply the principles of the Bible to our lives.

We have been exploring the topic of who we are in Christ. We have authority in Christ. We have authority to do greater works in Jesus than He himself did. We have authority to cast out demons and heal the sick. We have authority to speak God’s word into existence. We have authority to teach all the nations.

Authority is powerful. It is something given to you – given from a source over or above you. When you are at work, your boss gives authority; he gives you access. When you start operating in that authority, you become so integral to the work, that you end up having more power over that process than the boss who gave you that authority. Jesus said to his disciples, “I’m leaving, but I am leaving you the Holy Spirit.” God has given us access to His power. He has given it, or delegated it to us. We need to step into that position and move within that power. He had all authority and He gave it to us. He said we could do greater things then He did, IF we live and walk in that authority.

Matthew 18:18-20: “Truly I tell you, whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven. “Again, truly I tell you that if two of you on earth agree about anything they ask for, it will be done for them by my Father in heaven. For where two or three gather in my name, there am I with them.” We have been given the authority to open and close things, to bind or loose them, and to unlock or shut them in the context of prayer. We use this authority for when a breakthrough is needed. We are loosing the will of God on earth. The Kingdom of God is bigger than us. God’s will is bigger and more powerful then the world’s will. Jesus was talking about prayer and faith, about standing on the Word of God in authority. It can change the course of human life. Words are powerful. In authority, words can change the course of human life; they become potent. It is like having a nuclear device in the world of the Spirit.

Mark 16: 17: And these signs will accompany those who believe: In my name they will drive out demons; they will speak in new tongues. These miraculous signs will follow those who believe: healing and casting out demons. You have the POWER of the Holy Spirit in you! Don’t live in first gear when you have a V8 engine inside! In authority, we can bridge the natural and supernatural! Jesus spent so much time in prayer, He knew the heart of the Father. All the perfection of heaven can heal the broken. In those times that you need to stir the faith and soul again, go back to a time in your life when the will of heaven and the will of earth collided, and in God – everything aligned. See that time, visualize it, and find the confidence and authority in Christ.