And I fell at his feet to worship him. But he said to me, “See that you do not do that! I am your fellow servant, and of your brethren who have the testimony of Jesus. Worship God! For the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy.” Revelation 19:10 NKJV
We have all been called accordingly through God. His purpose for us started before time began in a book. Through accepting Jesus at salvation, our restoration back to the Father begins. He knew us before we were in the womb, and He has great plans for us.
The resurrection of Jesus is a testimony, but is also where our authority lies as believers. This authority can only be found by receiving spiritual revelation. God is spirit and He wants to reveal more of who He is to us. God wants to show us the One true way. His nature is truth and when we come to Him through the Son, we are sanctified and made right before Him. God’s true nature in us is what sets us apart from the world and sets us free. Jesus positions us to receive all that God has for us as we walk in the wilderness of the world. Just as the Israelites’ identity was revealed in the wilderness, our identity is revealed today in life when we choose Jesus. Without this insight we too will continue to walk in the wilderness of life. God had a reality for us that He wants us not only to see but to live out in the remaining days of our lives. This reality is starkly different from what our natural eyes can see. Jesus calls us out of the wilderness by delivering us from the evil ways of the enemy.
The wilderness does not always have to be portrayed as a place of hindrance. It can also be a time for growth and acceleration in the Lord. It can be a place of ridding ourselves of the world and a time to grow close to the Father. God gives us time to come back to Him, and it often occurs in our wilderness moments in life. Many times, when we seem to be stagnant, God places others with us to comfort us. I like to call these people who come along our paths, “flame carriers”. They provide light and lead us along the way. Life is our own pilgrimage but God provides us protection, strength, and courage often through the one alongside us. It is usually the one we least expect. God is always giving us time to return to Him because we are His children, and He is our God (Jeremiah 24:7).
The Israelites had to learn the hard way. They were blinded because of their own unbelief and disobedience to God. God cursed them because of their bad behavior. Because they did not believe, they were kept from the Promised Land. This dry and barren land was the place where a generation that would come after them would experience who God is through the testimony and witness ,how they would be restored into the land of milk and honey that God had kept for them all along (Exodus 3:8). The Israelites were held in bondage for forty years because God knew that the next generation would be a believing generation. The original people complained. Today we all go through these same wilderness times but through Jesus we can be saved from the ways of the world. God wants to restore us now.
When we accept Christ, we become one with Him and are seated at the right hand of the Father. The right hand signifies authority and honor. This is proof that we are in the same ranking as Jesus, because he is now in us. The written word of God tells us that we are to become the mirror image of Him (Philippians 3:12-14). There is a faith that ignites when we are about to receive Jesus. Our belief comes alive, and we are ready to receive directly from God. We are ready to be forgiven, healed, restored, delivered and more. But then what happens after we receive Jesus? In most cases this is where we see the stagnancy of life enter in. This is where most Christians get stuck. What is missing is that there is a requirement of all new believers at that moment at the cross. We are assured to be forgiven and to be transformed into a new creation but under many circumstances, our chains are broken only to be held back into bondage. Little do we know that our journey is just beginning.
Understanding our spiritual authority through Christ will help us to walk out the original design that God has called us to from before we existed. To do this, we must continually take steps forward from salvation growing into a deeper relationship with God. In this our spiritual eyes will open allowing our eyes of understanding to be enlightened. Luke 24:48, Acts 1:8 and 4:39 reveal how we connect with the Father through the power of the Holy Spirit within us. At salvation we receive all that God has for us. When we say yes to Jesus, all that He had and has done on earth is transferred to us. That includes the Holy Spirit! The Holy Spirit is the vehicle in which we can operate. The Holy Spirit is how we can see into the spiritual realm. This is where we can hear from God.
The Holy Spirit is the activation that is needed for us to come alive from the dormancy of the mundane life we live. It’s like a light switch that when turned on reveals all things into being that were held captive in the darkness. God is light and His spirit in us lights our way on the path of life. This light also helps us in times of need and guides us into our destiny. This requires our obedience and a great surrender of our total being. We must learn to lay it all down on the line to see the great rewards that God has for us. This process is often called “sanctification”. It happens throughout the course of our lives. There is always going to be a struggle for our flesh just as Ephesians 6 speaks of, but as we feel the resistance to come closer to the Lord, it is through our choices that we will be able to pick up our cross daily and fully receive the gifts and blessings that God has for us to complete the mission. Part of our calling is to learn how to move with the Holy Spirit in us. We are the vessel to be poured out for the one in front of us.
The scriptures are filled with the gifts we have available to us through the authority we have been given through receiving Christ. It is our responsibility to act on the written word of God. The Bible is our living manual for this life. As we grow closer to the Lord, we supernaturally begin to activate God’s spiritual authority for our lives, and we begin to move in it. This is what we call alignment with God. For more information on this, I recommend reading the book of Ephesians with your spiritual eyes. By now you may be wondering what it is exactly that God wants from us? The true nature of God is revealed to us as we surrender to Him. We were made to co-labor with Him but sin got in the way. The world has kept us from God’s original intentions and that is why the greatest miracle ever provided was what God had planned for us through His Son Jesus. He wanted to restore us from the sin of the world and bring us back to Him. He is a jealous God (Exodus 34:14). We were created for His anointing. He has a perfect plan for us because He is perfect in all ways. Therefore, His plan is to perfect us as we align with Him. He wants us to turn our hearts back to Him. It is through life’s refinery that we will learn the truth of the Lord. Love conquers all. God is love… Therefore, we being made in His are also love. It is God’s nature for us to receive eternal life. As we grow old and pass on from this life, our spirit never dies, and God wants us to receive our full inheritance in Him. Through following the Lord, we begin to gain an understanding that surpasses the knowledge of the natural world, and we transform into being fearfully and wonderfully made in His image.
How we respond to the calling of the Lord is the key to what our future will look like. God has made us for His anointing. As we act on next steps, God will provide increase for us as we obey Him. He does this through the prophetic. As our spiritual ears and eyes adhere and open to the spiritual realm of God, a standard is revealed as our new natural way to hear from Him. This can only happen through the effort to which we choose to know Him. Reading scripture and prayer helps us with this.
As we are learning to hear from God, the spirit of prophecy can be used to lift up, comfort, encourage and strengthen the one in front of us. We must learn to unveil this gift and put it to use. God provides great rewards for us along the way. Some of these rewards come in the form of giftings mentioned in 1 Corinthians 12. These giftings are provided for us to show who God is and to release the testimony of the spirit of prophecy to others. This release gives hope to the hopeless and increases faith and belief in others. It may be the use of our giftings to heal or encourage one another or it may be to give a word to help the hurting. Whatever gift God bestows upon us is to be used supernaturally to show who God is and bring His children back into communion with Him. Some believers release prophetic words from the Holy Spirit into the life of another. These words give hope and are meant to be kept and looked back on to see what God has been and is doing in their life. The prophetic words that are spoken over our lives are connected to the destiny that God has for us. God reveals all things in His own timing, and it is up to us to be obedient to His true nature. God has fashioned us for good things. He wants us to be successful and prosper. He also equips others as the flame carriers we talked about earlier who come along our paths to give us what we need to continue on. God is always sending confirmations to us. He sends us people who we know and sometimes even strangers along the way. He confirms to us when we open our Bible to the exact scripture that we needed, and He even comes to us at night in dreams and visions. God has deposited great things into our lives. It is up to us to see these transactions that God is making in our lives. As we grow in Him, we become naturally prepared and ready to receive these blessings to continue along our paths. These are just some of the ways that God gives us insight and points us in the way we should go.
Psalm 1 tells us that the disciples only asked one time for Jesus to teach them something. They asked Jesus to teach them to pray. This is huge because when we receive Jesus, we become His students. We become His disciples. The Merriam-Webster defines a disciple as “One who accepts and assists in spreading the doctrines of another.” A disciple is a student of the Lord. When we choose Jesus, we must commit to learning all the ways of the Lord, and this can only come into fruition through knowing the Lord. Prayer creates a direct line of communication to the Father which allows our relationship with Him to grow at greater depths than we can imagine. The disciples knew how important this would be if they were going to leave all behind and follow Jesus. This is what we are choosing when we say “yes” to Jesus. This is not a one-time fix, but saying “yes” is a lifetime covenant with Jesus. It provides restoration over and over through grace and mercy that cannot be won but only given by the Father. God provides great rewards for those who come to Him!
When we carry out our calling, we are choosing to walk out the 2 Peter 1:3-11 mission over our lives. God has given us everything for living a godly life through Jesus (verse 3). Only when we choose to align with the Father can we truly understand the authority we have in Christ as believers. This positioning happens through our hunger, faith and hope. So much is given to us when we begin to understand the advantage we have over the enemy as a believer. A great book of the Bible to read that goes into more detail of this is the book of Romans. We become righteous and justified through uniting with Jesus and then will be filled with the power of the Holy Spirit to carry out the John 14:12 calling. (“Amen, amen I tell you, he who puts his trust in Me, the works that I do he will do; and greater than these he will do, because I am going to the Father).
Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears My voice and opens the door, I will come into him and dine with him, and he with Me. Revelation 3:20 NKJV
Our Father is the Everlasting unchanging God who is always present in our lives. As we look back and reflect upon our lives, we can see the inner workings of who He is and how we have been grafted into Him. It is in His will to make us the best we can be each day. We are perfected in Him. As we see God in a more intimate way, we will begin to understand our spiritual authority as a believer. When we choose Jesus and begin to co-labor with Him, God brings new life to us.
I bless you to begin to hear the voice of God and to walk out the calling over your life as a son, daughter, saint, priest, royalty–an heir to the kingdom of God. May you hear the voice of God and His promises for you. May you never quench the spirit of God but act upon who He is and what He has prepared for your life. May you take up your seat at His table and learn to dine with Him in His presence. May the mantle of Jesus become visible over your life and may you move in spiritual power in authority. May you reign all the days of your life and may your light show who God is. May the one in front of you hunger for this same God that you portray in your life. May you bring life to the broken and hurt and may you lift up the one in front of you. I bless you to receive the Isaiah 58:11 promise for your life and that in it you will always be refreshed, restored, and filled with God’s anointing oil. May you have the strength of Ezekiel and the heart of Jeremiah. He is with you always.
Come Holy Spirit