Exercising God’s Rule in Your LifeSample
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Bringing Heaven to Earth
When God created mankind, it was His intended purpose to partner with the human race to bring His will from the spiritual realm into the physical realm. So, He turned the managerial operation of Earth over to mankind when He said “Let them rule” (Gen. 1:26). The stewardship of the planet then would be in the hands of humanity (Ps. 115:16).
God simultaneously gave men the responsibility to choose whether or not they would rule under His authority. Their obedience, faith, and submission to His Word would empower them to successfully exercise dominion in and over His creation. This authority was immediately implemented when Adam was given the right to name all the animals. God brought them but Adam named them. Thus, the scope of man’s kingdom authority would be determined by his cooperating with what God wanted done, not simply by what he wanted to do.
Therefore, kingdom authority is to be directly tied to accomplishing the will of God as humankind lives by divine revelation, not human reason (symbolized by the prohibition against eating from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil). However, man’s disobedience led to the transfer of his God-given authority over to Satan (Gen. 3:1–24; 1 John 5).
However, when Jesus arose from the dead He reclaimed mankind’s God-given right to rule (Heb. 2:14; Eph. 1:1, 18–19) and proclaimed kingdom authority in both heaven and earth (Matt. 28:19–20). He would personally serve as the link between eternity and time and between the spiritual and the physical (Matt. 28:18; Eph. 1:10; Phil. 2:10). It is God’s goal to transfer authority from heaven into history through His kingdom disciples who consistently live all of life under Jesus’s lordship (Rom. 14:8–9; Matt. 28:19–20). He occupies the executive seat of authority in heaven (Eph. 1:20) and gives us the privilege to sit beside Him (Eph. 2:6) so we can share in His position of authority. This authority is realized and activated as Jesus equips His followers to rule on His behalf as we overcome this world’s attempt to defeat us.
However, while kingdom authority is provided to all believers, it is not a guaranteed experience. The desire of this work is to inspire and equip believers to embrace the right to rule God offers to His people so we live out our divinely designed purpose and kingdom calling.
Kingdom authority gives believers, both individually and collectively as the church, the authorized right to exercise kingdom authority in order to bind and loose (i.e., forbid or permit—Matt. 16:18–20; Luke 9:1–2) when we are in spiritual agreement with God. The goal of kingdom authority is to obtain divine resources and support from the invisible realm into the visible realm. It is time for believers to exercise our kingdom constitutional right to act as heaven’s representatives on earth since it is the Father’s good pleasure to give us the kingdom (Luke 12:32).
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About this Plan
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In this five-day devotional from Dr. Tony Evans, pastor and author of “Kingdom Authority,” learn more about using the kingdom authority God gives his people, which begins with becoming aware of it and then fully surrendering to the Lordship of Jesus Christ. Once aligned with God, we are allowed to share in His work.
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