Unleashing Heavenly Authority: Operate in Your Place in the Spiritual Realm

The centurion answered and said, “Lord…only speak a word, and my servant will be healed. For I also am a man under authority, having soldiers under me. And I say to this one, ‘Go,’ and he goes; and to another, ‘Come,’ and he comes; and to my servant, ‘Do this,’ and he does it.” When Jesus heard it, He marveled, and said… “I have not found such great faith, not even in Israel! …Go your way; and as you have believed, so let it be done for you.” And his servant was healed that same hour (Matthew 8:8-10,13 NKJV).

We like to be around powerful people, but we need to ask ourselves, “Is this person’s power under authority?”

Power combines ability and energy and force, while authority is the right and permission to use that power. Authority is the right to use power effectively, not because you could, but because you should. Authority makes power legal.

Therefore, authority is more important than power. Teenagers may have the power to leave home, but they do not yet have the authority to leave. A person may be very aggressive and loud in speaking, but if they do not have authority, their words will not carry weight.

Submission to authority is what makes a person effective.

See also how the centurion’s military experience gave him a more complete understanding of the way authority works. He was completely submitted to the Roman emperor and any other commanders who ranked above him. He had at least a hundred soldiers who reported directly to him. (The title centurion is related to the word century, which indicates one hundred.) Probably he had been watching Jesus. He may have seen Him healing the sick, raising the dead, casting out demons, and more. Obviously, this man Jesus had power. Obviously some higher Authority was guiding Him. He knew that a person’s performance depended upon his obedience to the instructions he had been given.

In the same way, if we want to experience God’s best for our lives, we must stay under His authority—then we will be heard and answered.

When you submit to God’s authority, you will live your best life.

Keys to the Kingdom and Victory

[Jesus said,] “I will give you the keys (authority) of the kingdom of heaven; and whatever you bind [forbid, declare to be improper and unlawful] on earth will have [already] been bound in heaven, and whatever you loose [permit, declare lawful] on earth will have [already] been loosed in heaven” (Matthew 16:19 AMP).

Citizens of the Kingdom have a responsibility to learn the words of the Bible. We need to read it often, because we tend to forget what it says. We need to read it more often than we read the newspaper. When the devil attacked Jesus in the wilderness, His responses came straight from Scripture. He said, “It is written” (see Luke 4:1-13). Those words were His keys to the Kingdom and victory.

Jesus said, “Most assuredly, I say to you, the Son can do nothing of Himself, but what He sees the Father do; for whatever He does, the Son also does in like manner” (John 5:19 NKJV). He exercised the keys of Kingdom authority better than anyone before or since. Yet He, true Prince that He is, wants nothing more than for the citizens of His Kingdom to exercise those same keys.

You need to do only two things: 1) seek the Kingdom in order to get into citizenship; and 2) seek the King’s righteousness in order to stay in it. In other words, stay aligned with the King. When you stay aligned with the King and His government, you obligate Him to take care of you. All of the promises in the Constitution remain accessible to you, as needed. Things that you would otherwise need to fight for will come your way with no sweat.

“It is written” is the key to the Kingdom of Heaven and to your everyday victory—read God’s Word faithfully.

Prayer

[Jesus said,] “In this manner, therefore, pray: Our Father in heaven, hallowed be Your name. Your kingdom come. Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors. And do not lead us into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one. For Yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen” (Matthew 6:9-13 NKJV).

Prayer itself does not get things done—positioning in prayer gets things done. The best preparation for prayer is your obedience to the laws of God. Many times, the reason God can’t help you is because you ask Him last. Only by staying aligned with the Lawgiver and Judge, through the work of the Spirit and Son, can you prevail.

Have you noticed that if you have just sinned, you are unable to find boldness in prayer? When you break God’s law, it shuts down your prayer life. You have canceled your right to appeal. “If I regard iniquity in my heart, the Lord will not hear me” (Psalm 66:18 KJV). The prophet Isaiah stated it clearly: “But your iniquities have separated you from your God; and your sins have hidden His face from you, so that He will not hear” (Isaiah 59:2 NKJV).

It won’t matter how loudly you beg for mercy and cry out for help, because God does not bless you because you cry; He blesses you because you qualify. Believers have authority in prayer as long as they have maintained their side of their covenant with the King, a legal agreement. You don’t have to go before Him with theatrics or hysterics any more than a lawyer would go before an earthly judge that way. You just have to be a citizen in good standing, and the Judge will hear your case.

“The earnest prayer of a righteous person has great power and produces wonderful results” (James 5:16 NLT).