AT ONE WITH GOD THROUGH JESUS CHRIST

he Words of Jesus Christ in John 10:10(NKJV) are both transformative and informative to the lives of believers. He tells us, “The thief does not come except to steal, and to kill, and to destroy. I have come that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly.” Jesus makes it clear what he came to earth to make available to us, and he also reveals that we have opposition. This opposition is the thief, the devil, and he is in the earth to steal, kill, and destroy. This shouldn’t cause fear in us, because 1John 4:4(NKJV) declares, “You are of God, little children, and have overcome them, because He who is in you is greater than he who is in the world.” Jesus Christ is in us, and the power and authority God has made available to us through Christ is greater than the evil that is in the world.

God said in Hosea 4:6 that His people are destroyed because they lack knowledge about Him. When we don’t realize what God has given us, the devil uses our lack of knowledge to deceive and steal from us. In the lives of believers, marriages collapse, sickness and disease prevail, and lack and loneliness paralyze us emotionally. These and more can keep us feeling sad and defeated, and our circumstances and condition begin to mirror this externally. This is not the Will of God for us. Through Christ, He has made us more than overcomers.

1John 5:4(ESV) tells us, “For everyone who has been born of God overcomes the world. And this is the victory that has overcome the world— our faith.” You and I have a responsibility to God to get to a point where we are fully persuaded and sold out on the reality of who God has made us in Christ. We must trust God’s empowerment! We must believe that yes, through the power of God in Christ, marriages are restored, sickness and disease are healed, new and fulfilling relationships are received, finances are replenished and lack is reversed, and loneliness is a thing of the past. 1Corinthians

4:20(NLT) declares, “For the Kingdom of God is not just a lot of talk; it is living by God's power.” You must have faith in God’s miraculous power, and you must trust that His power is in you through the Holy Spirit. God requires your faith in His love and power, because your faith is the foundation of your relationship with Him.

Like A Marriage

Whether it’s marriage or a relationship that’s not quite there yet, our significant relationships can teach us a lot about the kind of relationship that our Heavenly Father desires with us. In our personal lives, when we find the person that God has ordained to walk with us through life, it’s exciting and fulfilling. It makes our souls feel good because not only do we like this person, but we want to spend time with them. We love being in their presence and look forward to the relationship deepening through communication, affection, respect and honor. We’re created by God to respond to each other in this way, and we need to think deeply about that. Our Heavenly Father is an ‘on-purpose’ God. He doesn’t do anything randomly. Because of this, we can have confidence that He wants us to learn about the intimacy He desires with us through the intimacy we desire in all our relationships with other people.

Just as we understand the importance and benefits of what marrying the right person will do for our lives, we must understand, even more so, the benefits of what having an intimate relationship with God will do for us. It literally makes us! Without a relationship with God, we cannot live through His power and authority. He doesn’t want anyone to live that kind of existence. 1Timothy 2:4 tells us that He wants everyone to be saved. God wants us to live a powerful Christian life, and through it, He wants us to demonstrate His love and power to others.

God has a Will, and His Will is His Word. If we ever want to know the plans that God has for us, we need only look in His Word. 2Peter 1:3 tells us that God, the One that created and called us to His own glory and excellence, has given us extreme and unfathomable treasure. This treasure was given to us through His divine power and here’s what it is: it is everything (All, without exception) that is related to life and Godliness. The treasure is wrapped up and delivered to us by access to the knowledge of Him through His Word. In other words, God has provided us beyond overwhelming access to the knowledge of God’s Will, and this knowledge of Him and His Will is everything (All, without exception) that you and I need to live a more than abundant, Godly life. God didn’t leave not one thing out. The knowledge of Him and His Word fills us to overflowing with His goodness, and it is all that we need in life. Jesus Christ said in Matthew 4:4 (ESV), “It is written, “‘Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.'” God’s Word feeds us deep down in a place that is at the core of our very existence. All of us are aware of this place deep down, and we are all aware that it needs to be fed. Jesus Christ makes it clear that we must be fed by the Source, which is the One True Living God. Our problem is that most people don’t do this. They don’t go to the Source through Jesus Christ, but look to people, relationships, materialism, substances, and other things that are disconnected from God. They seek these and try to make them their source. We will always run on empty when we do this.

As human beings, we long for connection. God built us that way. Many people haven’t learned about our Heavenly Father and His love. They don’t know that He created us to be His children so that we can be in close relationship with Him. They don’t know that what they’re really longing for in life is an intimate connection with their Creator because He is the Source of all power, love, peace, joy, and strength. This longing for God is in us, and it responds to His longing for us.

Jesus Christ said in Luke 15:10(ESV), “Just so, I tell you, there is joy before the angels of God over one sinner who repents.” He then went on to elaborate on this in his parable of the prodigal son. The parable begins with a father who had two sons. It was common for a father to leave an inheritance to his son(s) after his death, because it was unlawful for him to leave it to a daughter. So, both his sons understood that they would inherit their father’s wealth. The youngest of the two brothers was impatient and did not want to wait until his father died but wanted all the loot right then and there. Luke 15:12 tells us, “And the younger of them said to his father, ‘Father, give me the share of property that is coming to me.’ And he divided his property between them.” Most of us can relate to the younger son, because this is how WE are. We’re an “on the double” society and we don’t want to wait. Some of us will go to God with this same impatient attitude in our prayers, and then God will teach us how fruitless it is to try to rush His perfect timing. The young son learned this lesson the hard way. He squandered his money, and it just so happened that a famine hit the land. He was in quite the fix, no money, no family, and no one willing to help him. He got hired by a country farmer to feed his pigs, but he said to himself, “the pigs eat better than me.” He remembered that his father’s servants also ate very well. He then hatched a plan to humble himself and return home to his father’s house.

One would think that his father would be angry with his son, but instead, his father rejoiced when he saw him and threw a great feast to welcome him home. This wonderful parable that Christ taught paints a beautiful portrait of our Heavenly Father’s love. God delights in us, and He wants us to delight in Him. He accepts us completely and wants us to know that only He can fill our cups.

When two people marry, God tells us that they become one person. That’s how He sees them. Jesus Christ taught us this in Mark 10:6-9(NLT), “6 But 'God made them male and female' from the beginning of creation. 7 'This explains why a man leaves his father and mother and is joined to his wife, 8 and the two are united into one.' Since they are no longer two but one, 9 let no one split apart what God has joined together." This very special marital union teaches us the reverence and blessing of our union with God through Jesus Christ. It’s out of our union with God that the love, unity, and strength of Christ truly ministers to the heart of another.

God placed all these yummies of yearning, desire, love, respect, honor, and trust in us to learn to live in relationship first with Him. When this is our reality, when God is in the number one spot of our lives, all of His goodness flows from us to others. We just keep growing in more of His grace and love, and this is what we’re here on this earth to do.

God wants to spend time with us. He wants us to read about Him in His Word, and to communicate with Him all the time. This is what we desire from the people we love, and this is what God desires from us. He created relationships for His good pleasure, and everything that pleases God will please us. Jesus Christ prayed to God for the disciples in John 17:21(NLT), “I pray that they will all be one, just as you and I are one—as you are in me, Father, and I am in you. And may they be in us so that the world will believe you sent me.” Through Christ, we are one with our Heavenly Father. Let’s be as attentive to our relationship with Him as we possibly can, because the more we live in Him, the better our lives will be.

Standing In The Authority Of Jesus Christ

It’s clear that we can stand on the authority and power of Christ because of our commitment to God and the quality of our relationship with Him. When we know who we are in Christ—who God has made us in him, we will not allow people and situations to break us. Even though someone may disappoint us or cause us heartbreak, we will not fall apart because of it. We won’t allow our emotions to dictate our lives, but instead, we will recognize that our faith in God and His love for us is our sure and

What Is Authority

The Word of God is the record of the power and authority of Jesus Christ. Through it, we have a witness of how Jesus Christ lived his life with God’s mandate to save the entire world. There was no equal to the power and authority of Christ in the earth, and he used it perfectly, with compassion and reverence for God, as he mightily blessed and healed the lives of others. He showed us how to walk in this and did the same for the disciples. He told them in Luke 9:1-2(KJV), "1 Then he called his twelve disciples together, and gave them power and authority over all devils, and to cure diseases. 2 And he sent them to preach the kingdom of God, and to heal the sick.” Their commission was to go out and preach the Gospel and to confirm it by miracles. They were to enforce the light of Christ and spread it. This same call is upon us, but many of us haven’t understood it. We’ve tried to use the authority and power of Christ in our lives, yet we’ve shown no interest in his mission, and that isn’t going to work.

The authority of Jesus Christ is the unchallenged right to share the Gospel and to serve others through his love, strength, and power. It is an authority to cast out demons and with them the oppression of sickness and disease. The authority of Christ is the route to exercise control and rule according to the Will of God, and this control and rule is gained and enforced through our motivation to please Him and obey His Word. Without the components of the Gospel, service, and the motivation to please God, we cannot walk in the authority of the Lord Jesus Christ.

We have often tried to use the power of Christ where we had no authority to do so, and this can be a costly mistake. We are born anew in the resurrection of our Lord and Savior, and the authority he has given us is to bring about and spread a lifestyle of faith. This is the part of our foundation in Christ that allows us to exercise his authority. Believers often think of the authority of Christ as their own to build and exercise, but none of us have any authority to call our own. It all belongs to Christ, and we can only use it as we walk and live in him and love through him.

Romans 1:5(NLT) sheds more light on the authority that we have received as children of God. The Apostle Paul declared, “Through Christ, God has given us the privilege and authority as apostles to tell Gentiles everywhere what God has done for them, so that they will believe and obey him, bringing glory to his name.” Here we see the purpose of exercising the authority of Jesus Christ. It is to do the work of Christ so that we bring glory to God, and not to ourselves.

Power And Authority Belong To God

We are given the authority of Christ for purposes in the Plan and Will of God, and we are not to attempt to exercise it outside God’s purpose. It is to do God’s Will, not our own will. This is a mindset that welcomes God’s power and positions us to walk in it. We are conduits of God’s power and authority, and we must be committed to use them His way. Our humility to God’s Word and our obedience to be led by His Holy Spirit will always keep us in the victory of Christ.

We can’t outsmart the devil with carnal or physical weapons, because he is a spiritual enemy and only spiritual weapons can outsmart a spiritual enemy. This is why God commands us in Ephesians

6:11(NLT), “Put on all of God's armor so that you will be able to stand firm against all strategies of the devil.” Standing firm requires us to stand in the authority and power of Christ and to be unmovable in faith. Spiritual attacks are when satan sends troublesome people and situations to separate us from our relationship with God. We can overcome them by putting on God’s armor and understanding that we are not defeated, because Christ has already won the victory for us.

There are times when we do have to let people know who we are in an authoritative manner, but we also must be careful to appropriately let go and let God. His grace covers us. He is a redeeming God, and what the enemy meant for bad, God will work it out toward our good if we patiently and faithfully endure.

We are not called to address every meanspirited attack. There are plenty of them in life, and if we expend our energy worrying about how to respond to them, we are bringing ourselves equal to those the enemy uses. The best use of our resources is to give it to God, to wait on Him, and to only move according to His leadership and guidance. This is how we move in the authority and power of Christ, by being motivated only by what pleases God and ultimately yields glory to His name.