arisewithhope

What is a Christian in Simple Terms?

By Lisa Groen

Scripture and comments to show a few basic characteristics of a true Christian. (Words within parenthesis through this document are mine and all headings are mine.)

A Christian is someone who has been saved from the penalty, power, and pleasure of sin by an act of God’s pursuit of him/her, and will be taken to heaven for eternity and saved from the presence of sin there to be with the Godhead forever. (Godhead has three members who are one in purpose and unity=The Father, The Son Jesus Christ, and the Holy Spirit)

John 1:29 “The next day he saw Jesus coming toward him, and said, “Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!””

Matthew 1:21 “She will bear a Son, and you shall call His name JESUS, for He will save His people from their sins.”

Romans 6:23 “For the wages of sin is death, (spiritual death) but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord”

Acts 3:19 “Repent therefore, and turn back, that your sins may be blotted out,”

A Christian is someone who has faith in Jesus and aims to follow Jesus day by day.

Acts 16:31 “They said, “Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and you and your household will be saved.”

Luke 9:23 “Then He said to them all, “If anyone will come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow Me.”

Psalm 81:13 “Oh, that My people would listen to Me, and Israel would follow in My ways!”

Deuteronomy 11:1 “You must love the Lord your God and keep His charge, His statutes, His ordinances, and His commandments always.”

Deuteronomy 11:8-12 “Therefore you must keep all the commandments which I am commanding you today, so that you may be strong and go in and possess the land which you are going to possess; 9 and that you may prolong your days in the land which the Lord swore to your fathers to give to them and to their descendants, a land flowing with milk and honey. ¹⁰For the land which you are entering to possess is not like the land of Egypt from where you came, where you sowed your seed and watered it with your foot like a vegetable garden, ¹¹but the land, which you are entering to possess, is a land of hills and valleys and drinks water from the rain of heaven, ¹²a land for which the Lord your God cares. The eyes of the Lord your God are always on it, from the beginning of the year even to the end of the year.”

Luke 6:46-49 ““Why do you call Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ and not do what I say? ⁴⁷Whoever comes to Me and hears My words and does them, I will show whom he is like: ⁴⁸He is like a man who built a house, and dug deep, and laid the foundation on rock. When the flood arose, the stream beat vehemently against that house, but could not shake it, for it was founded on rock. ⁴⁹But he who hears and does not obey is like a man who built a house on the ground without a foundation, against which the stream beat vehemently. Immediately it fell, and the ruin of that house was great.”

A Christian knows the true Jesus of the Bible, and believes Jesus is God.

John 10:30 “My Father and I are one.”

Exodus 3:14-15 “¹⁴And God said to Moses, “I AM WHO I AM,” and He said, “You will say this to the children of Israel, ‘I AM has sent me to you.’ ” ¹⁵God, moreover, said to Moses, “Thus you will say to the children of Israel, ‘The Lord, the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, has sent me to you. This is My name forever, and this is My memorial to all generations.’

John 8:58 “Jesus said to them, “Truly, truly I say to you, before Abraham was born, I AM.”

John 17:3 “This is eternal life: that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom You have sent.”

John 14:6 “Jesus said to him, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me”

John 20:24-29 But Thomas, one of the twelve, called The Twin, was not with them when Jesus came. ²⁵So the other disciples told him, “We have seen the Lord!” But he said to them, “Unless I see the nail prints in His hands, and put my finger in the nail prints, and put my hand in His side, I will not believe.” ²⁶After eight days His disciples were again inside with the doors shut, and Thomas was with them. Jesus came and stood among them, and said, “Peace be with you.” ²⁷Then He said to Thomas, “Put your finger here, and look at My hands. Put your hand here and place it in My side. Do not be faithless, but believing.” ²⁸Thomas answered Him, “My Lord and my God!” ²⁹Jesus said to him, “Thomas, because you have seen Me, you have believed. Blessed are those who have not seen, and have yet believed.”

A Christian knows he/she can learn about God, Jesus, the Holy Spirit by reading the Bible and how to live a life that pleases God from the Bible.

John 5:39-40 “You search the Scriptures, because you think in them you have eternal life. These are they who bear witness of Me. ⁴⁰Yet you are not willing to come to Me that you may have life.”

Deuteronomy 12:28 “Observe and hear all these words which I command you, so that it may go well with you and with your children after you forever, when you do that which is good and right in the sight of the Lord your God.”

Acts 5:42 “Daily, in the temple and from house to house, they did not cease to teach and preach Jesus Christ.”

Acts 17:10 “These were more noble than those in Thessalonica, for they received the word with all eagerness, daily examining the Scriptures, to find out if these things were so.”

John 6:63 “It is the Spirit who gives life. The flesh profits nothing. The words that I speak to you are spirit and are life.”

2 Timothy 3:16 “All Scripture is inspired by God and is profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for instruction in righteousness,”

Colossians 1:10 “that you may walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, pleasing to all, being fruitful in every good work, and increasing in the knowledge of God,”

A Christian realizes they are a sinner. We are born into sin, because Adam and Eve, the physical parents we all descended from sinned, then spiritual death crept into the human race bloodline from then on.

Ephesians 2:1-3 “And you were dead in your trespasses and sins, 2 in which you formerly walked according to the age of this world and according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit who now works in the sons of disobedience, ³among them we all also once lived in the lusts of our flesh, doing the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and we were by nature children of wrath, even as the rest.

Romans 3:23 “For all have sinned and come short of the glory of God,”

Genesis 2:17 “but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat from it you will surely die.” (God speaking to Adam and Eve)

Psalm 51:5 “I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin my mother conceived me.”

Although a Christian was dead to God before he/she became a Christian, the Christian becomes spiritually alive by God making him/her born again, and is indwelt by the Holy Spirit because God has given them eternal life, when they have asked God to save them from spiritual death.

1 Peter 1:23 “for you have been born again, not from perishable seed, but imperishable, through the word of God which lives and abides forever.”

1 John 2:25” And this is the promise that He has promised us—eternal life.”

John 3:3 “Jesus answered him, “Truly, truly I say to you, unless a man is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.””

Romans 6:11 “Likewise, you also consider yourselves to be dead to sin, but alive to God through Jesus Christ our Lord.”

Romans 6:13 “Do not yield your members to sin as instruments of unrighteousness, but yield yourselves to God, as those who are alive from the dead, and your bodies to God as instruments of righteousness.”

1 Corinthians 6:19 “What? Do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God, and that you are not your own?”

Ezekiel 36:26 “Also, I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you a heart of flesh.”

Luke 15:24 “For this son of mine was dead, and is alive again; he was lost, and is found.’ So they began to be merry”

2 Corinthians 5:17 “Therefore, if any man is in Christ, he is a new creature. Old things have passed away. Look, all things have become new.”

John 5:24 “Truly, truly I say to you, whoever hears My word and believes in Him who sent Me has eternal life and shall not come into condemnation, but has passed from death into life.”

A Christian gets the benefit of being guided by the Lord Jesus throughout his/her lifetime because Jesus calls Himself the Good Shepherd.

Luke 1:76-79 ““And you, child, will be called the prophet of the Highest; for you will go before the face of the Lord to prepare His ways, ⁷⁷to give knowledge of salvation to His people by the remission of their sins, ⁷⁸through the tender mercy of our God, whereby the sunrise from on high has visited us; ⁷⁹to give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the way of peace.””

John 10:11 “I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down His life for the sheep.”

Psalm 23:1 “The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want.”

Psalm 48:14 “For this God is our God forever and ever; He will be our guide even to death.”

A Christian gets the benefit of being adopted into the family of God and receiving the many blessings associated with being a child of God.

Psalm 65:4 “Blessed is the one you choose and bring near, to dwell in your courts! We shall be satisfied with the goodness of your house, the holiness of your temple!”

Galatians 4:5 “To redeem those who were under the law, that we might receive the adoption as sons.”

Romans 9:4 “who are Israelites, to whom belong the adoption, the glory, the covenants, the giving of the law, the service of God, and the promises”

Psalm 33:12 “Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord, the people whom He has chosen as His inheritance.”

Psalm 24:5 “He will receive the blessing from the Lord, and righteousness from the God of his salvation.”

Ephesians 1:5 “He predestined us to adoption as sons to Himself through Jesus Christ according to the good pleasure of His will.”

Deuteronomy 7:14 “You shall be blessed above all peoples; there will be no male or female barren among you or among your cattle.”

A Christian actively pursues learning how to live a holy life and pursues learning how to grow in a Christ-like manner and continues to turn from sin as it is discovered in their life and seeks forgiveness from God whenever it may show up in their life.

Hebrews 12:14 “Pursue peace with all men, and the holiness without which no one will see the Lord,”

2 Peter 3:18 “But grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. To Him be glory, both now and forever.”

Colossians 1:9-12 “For this reason we also, since the day we heard it, do not cease to pray for you and to ask that you may be filled with the knowledge of His will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding; ¹⁰that you may walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, pleasing to all, being fruitful in every good work, and increasing in the knowledge of God, ¹¹strengthened with all might according to His glorious power, enduring everything with perseverance and patience joyfully, ¹²giving thanks to the Father, who has enabled us to be partakers in the inheritance of the saints in light.”

Acts 26:18 “to open their eyes and to turn them from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan to God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins and an inheritance among those who are sanctified by faith in Me.’

“Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is the good and acceptable and perfect will of God.” (We renew our minds by reading God’s word)

1 John 1:9 “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”

A Christian gets the benefit of God changing his/her spirit, mind, and spiritual manner and approach to life so he/she is able to grow according to God’s will to mature Christlikeness and holiness so he/she will be able to stand by grace in the free gift of Christ’s righteousness for him/her to be counted acceptable to God on judgement day when Christ shall judge the spiritually living and the spiritually dead, sending the spiritually living to heaven, and the spiritually dead to hell.

Ephesians 4:23 “and be renewed in the spirit of your mind;”

Luke 24:49 “Then He opened their minds to understand the Scriptures

Ezekiel 11:19 “I will give them one heart, and I will put a new spirit within them. And I will take the stony heart out of their flesh, and give them a heart of flesh,”

Romans 5:17 “For if by one man’s trespass (Adam) death reigned through him, then how much more will those who receive abundance of grace and the gift of righteousness reign in life through the One, Jesus Christ.”

Ephesians 1:6 “To the praise of the glory of his grace, wherein he hath made us accepted in the beloved.”

2 Corinthians 3:18 “But we all, seeing the glory of the Lord with unveiled faces, as in a mirror, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory by the Spirit of the Lord.”

Romans 12:2 “Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is the good and acceptable and perfect will of God.”

Romans 3:22 “This righteousness of God comes through faith in Jesus Christ to all and upon all who believe, for there is no distinction.”

Romans 4:25 “Jesus was given to die for our sins, and he was raised from the dead to make us right with God.“

Ephesians 4:15 “But, speaking the truth in love, we may grow up in all things into Him, who is the head, Christ Himself,”

1Thessalonians 4:3 “For this is the will of God, your sanctification: (holiness) that you should abstain from sexual immorality,” LG

Decreeing, Declaring and Commanding Things to Come to Pass Are Not Instructions Jesus Tells The Believer to Obey Part 1

Is It God’s Will for the Believer to Decree, Declare, or Speak Things Into Existence?

Many teachers from the Word of Faith Movement and the New Apostolic Reformation say that Romans 4:17 is all the evidence we need to believe that Christians can have whatever we speak into existence. In many places on TV and the internet we hear religious leaders telling us that our current life is the result of our words, the result of what we have said about our jobs, our families, our status in the communities in which we live and things like this. Similarly, the same teachers tell us the outcome of our lives is within our realm of control and that we must control our lives by carefully choosing to say only positive things about our lives so that they will come to pass. Kenneth Hagin has books entitled “You Can Have What You Say”, “How To Write Your Own Ticket With God” and a book simply called “Words”. Kenneth Copeland has books out entitled “The Power of The Tongue”, “Dream Big, Talk Big and Turn Your Faith Loose”, “How You Call It Is How It Will Be” and “Life and Death are in The Power of The Tongue”. Charles Capps has a book entitled “Calling Things That Are Not”, and “What I Confess, I Possess” are words in the beginning of a chapter in E. W. Kenyon’s “The Hidden Man”. They base these titles on ideas of speaking things into existence based on ideas taken out of context from Romans 4:17, Mark 11:23-24, Proverbs 18:21, Deuteronomy 28:8-9, and Psalm 133:3.

What Does Proverbs 18:21, and Romans 4:17 Mean?

All of the above writers/teachers are Word of Faith teachers. Proverbs 18:21 reads, “Death and life are in the power of the tongue, and those who love it will eat its fruit.” If we interpret Proverbs 18:21 as many Word of Faith teachers teach to mean that unless you speak positive things about yourself your faith is not at work and you will only get negative things in life, then that is to say God is not powerful enough nor loving enough to save a mute person. It means God is prejudice towards the mute and his salvation is only for the ones who can declare, decree and speak things into existence. This is to say God is biased and unjust, and partial towards the speaking! If we believe we have to show our love for the living word of God by speaking things the word of God says into existence we are saying we believe the mute cannot love the word of God and we make ourselves out to be prejudiced and contemptuous towards the mute. So this scripture truly must mean we can love the word of God and God himself in our hearts, and find his salvation at work just as strong in the life of a mute and faith just as strong in the life of a mute as in one who is not mute. It is unnecessary to speak God’s word out loud in order for a person to be saved or to experience the power of God’s word at work bringing life to the believing one who does not speak with his mouth.

Romans 4:17 mentions the idea that “God calls into being things that are not in existence as though they were. “Some translations use the phrase that says God “called things that be not as though they were”. But if we look closely at Romans 4:17, it says God is the one who calls things that be not as though they were. We find no scriptures at all in the Bible telling the believer to call things that be not as though they were. The Bible plainly says that this is what God alone does.

The sole exceptions were when the 12 apostles and the 72 other disciples and Paul were directed by Jesus to “drive out evil spirits and bring healing to people.” They commanded people to be healed, commanded them to walk, and commanded them to stretch out their limbs. According to the website https://renew.org/new-testament-writers/, “The New Testament comprises twenty-seven books and letters, amounting to a total of around 181,000 words.” And according to https://newhopeeugene.com/, it takes around “…18 hours and 20 minutes to read the New Testament.” Within this plethora of words and time it takes to read the New Testament God did not find it important enough to show a lay person to command healing or anything else to come to pass, and there is no biblical evidence Jesus ever commissioned a lay person to ever command healing to come to themselves or to others. There is no teaching or doctrine to the New Testament church on how to command anything at all to come to pass, no teaching or doctrine for the New Testament church on how to command an exorcism to come to pass, while what we see today taught in many churches is very out of balance as far as what is emphasized by the writers of the New Testament and found important and worthy enough to be included in the scripture. The only scope by which healings were commanded to come to pass or exorcisms to happen was when Jesus commissioned his 12 apostles to do these things, along with the 72 other disciples also known as the 72 elders, and Paul.

The Limit of Scriptures in the New Testament Showing Us What The Lay Believer’s Relationships to the Devil Should Be

Let’s look closer at this Bible reality that Jesus himself also never commanded nor commissioned a lay person to ever drive out evil spirits. Although the Bible tells us the New Testament believer has authority over the devil as far as resisting him, and standing against him, Christians are to hold to these two truths specifically. We have authority as far as standing in the faith against the devil, written in Ephesians 6, and we have authority to stand up against temptation as written in 1 Corinthians 10:13. The only teachings or commissionings showing a follower of Christ to be commanding healing to come to pass or commanding evil spirits to be driven out, were given by Jesus Christ to the 12 apostles, and to the 72 other disciples and to Paul who was an apostle who was one untimely born, (1 Corinthians 15:8) who also had a very dramatic encounter with Jesus Christ himself on the road to Damascus. What about the trampling of the devil under our feet as is spoken of in Luke 10:19? “Behold, I have given you authority to walk on snakes and scorpions, and authority over all the power of the enemy, and nothing will injure you.” We must look at the context. Two scriptures earlier in Luke 10:17 it reads “Now the seventy-two returned with joy, saying, “Lord, even the demons are subject to us in Your name!” ¹⁸And He said to them, “I watched Satan fall from heaven like lightning.” Again Jesus was establishing his authority to give the 72 disciples authority to heal people and cast out demons. These 72 elders were personally commissioned by Jesus to be full time evangelists and were given authority over the devil for reasons to be used in a full-time way. They gave up their lives and free choice of a career to obey Jesus’ commission to evangelize and heal. This was to point the early church to the reality of Jesus as Lord of heaven and earth. This authority was not used in places where mainly Christians would gather to worship Jesus in a large church meeting with beautiful music as is mainly how people today seem to use their authority over the devil in prayer and in attempting to heal people. Today the documented proof of lasting healing is rare and scarce. Very few doctors write letters to newspapers to confirm healings have happened, nor do you see doctors testify on video giving scientific proof that healings have been scientifically verified. There are many people who may say they feel better after a meeting in which they worship God and get prayed for but the majority of this type of thing seems to be psychosomatic healing that can go away after a day or after a couple days or so. This seems to point to the reality that believers today do not share the same effectiveness or level of authority or commissioning from Jesus to heal others, as the 72 other disciples did. What about the promise to believers today that Paul gives from God in Romans16:20 which reads, “The God of peace will soon crush Satan under your feet. The grace of our Lord Jesus be with you.” This scripture is indeed written to lay believers but does not say that the God of peace after you take authority over the devil, and bind him, rebuke him, and cast him out, will soon crush Satan under your feet. It says the God of peace (by HIMSELF, as an ACT OF HIS GRACE) will soon crush Satan under your feet. And this scripture is not a mandate from God that believers today should sing a praise song in which they jump around as if jumping on the devil to make it come to pass that God in fact will crush Satan as long as they do a worship dance of jumping and crushing the devil and shouting like Tarzan with a warfare victory shout about their authority over the devil.

The Difference Between the Way the Apostles, the 72 Other Disciples, and Paul Use Scriptural Precedent, Verses How Believers Today Use a Made-Up Scriptural Precedent to Command Things to Come to Pass

All of these New Testament people from Bible accounts above had personal relationships with Jesus face to face, except Paul. Paul himself was commissioned by Christ himself to write 1/3 of the New Testament and had a dramatic encounter with God in the heavenly realm where he was told it was not lawful in the sight of God for him to speak or write about what he encountered. It is safe to say he and all the above leaders in the New Testament I just mentioned are on a different kind of level, have a different commissioning, have a different kind of responsibility, and a different kind of authority than your average lay Christian today. None of these leaders commanded their circumstances to change, none of them spoke to cause their hardships to cease, none of them spoke for new seasons of blessings to come to pass, none of them spoke of seasons of prosperity coming to pass or things along those lines for themselves or for the church, none of them cursed illness, none of them cursed the roots of their problems, none of them commanded their situations to line up with their child-of-God blessings and line up with their spiritual-rights- as-children-of-the-King, none of them commanded their mountains of problems to move out of the way, none of them taught that the church is spiritual royalty with kingly privileges, none of them spoke to illnesses to leave, although they only spoke to evil spirits to leave. Sometimes illnesses are simply organic and not evil spirit based. But today we have so called teachers in the church all over the world teaching Christians to command their circumstances to change, to speak to cause their hardships to cease, to speak for new seasons of blessings to come to pass, to speak of seasons of prosperity coming to pass and to speak along these lines for themselves and for the church, teaching us to curse illness, to curse the roots of our problems, teaching us to command our situations to line up with our child-of-God blessings and line up with our spiritual-rights-as-children-of-the-King, we have teachers that teach us to command that our mountains of problems will move out of the way, we have teachers today that teach us that the church is spiritual royalty with kingly privileges, we have teachers today that teach us to speak to illnesses to leave, and for healing to come. Friends, if we have kingly authority, and should use it, Paul never would have had a thorn in his flesh, never would have had trouble seeing what he was writing with his own hand, none of the disciples ever would have been martyred, and Jesus who is the King of Kings NEVER would have died on the cross for our sins. We would be unworthy to wash his feet or undo his shoelaces forever because he never would have died for our sins and we would have never received forgiveness if Jesus had exercised his Kingly authority over us and demanded all his Kingly rights over us. It is the humility of Jesus that is amazing, and he calls us to walk in humility and grace and not be spiritual brats demanding our kingly rights!

We Must Understand the Writings and Teachings of the New Testament to the 1^st Century Church to See if Christians Should Command Healing, Command Circumstances to Change, or to Command or Rebuke the Devil

There are 9 writers of the New Testament and none of them ever wrote an admonition to any of the members of the New Testament churches to drive out evil spirits, or command healing to come to pass except the apostles, the 72 other disciples and Paul, and these received direction and direct commissioning from Jesus Christ himself being given special authority to do so. Not even the church leaders in the Bible who were not writers of the books of the Bible, the apostles, the 72 others or Paul ever once declared anything to come to pass to make their lives easier although many of them wrote about conflicts, and sufferings, and persecutions which would later end in the deaths of many of them. The 9 writers include Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Paul, James, Peter, Jude, and the unknown author of Hebrews. All of these authors except Jude, Luke and perhaps the author of Hebrews were apostles and were commissioned by Jesus to command healing to take place and to command evil spirits to be cast out of people, but they were not directed by God to include in any of their writings to admonish any lay believers to do the same kinds of practices.

There is no evidence the 72 other disciples Jesus sent out were given authority to transfer the gift of authority to command healing to come to pass to any lay person. We are not given Bible verses to show us we should practice any type of speaking things into existence, or commanding evil spirits to be cast out of someone as a normal part of our walk with God in the New Testament. Speaking things into existence is exactly what people try to do who are in the occult, in witchcraft, in the New Age and in mysticism. Furthermore, miracles were few and far between for the second century and beyond for the Christian leader, according to https://christianity.stackexchange.com/questions/50504/does-irenaeus-indicate-that-people-were-raised-from-the-dead-in-the-2nd-century. We have evidence that healings happened sparingly around the second century but no evidence that the leaders of that time commanded the healing miracles to happen or commanded the dead to be raised or commanded evil spirits to come out, but it is quite possible they prayed and asked God for the healings and miracles to happen, and asked God himself to remove the evil spirits when encountering a need for such things to happen. It remains to this day to be orthodox to ask God for healing by taking a humble and submissive approach, asking God to hear our prayers and not for the believer to command or speak healing or deliverance into existence.

What About Mark 11:23-24? Does it Give Us the Go-Ahead To Speak Things to Come to Pass?

Mark 11:23-24 is specifically about Jesus pronouncing a curse on the Old Testament religious system and on those who depended on the law, because the scripture already declared the curse would happen to those who rejected God’s plan in Jeremiah 11:3, Deuteronomy 27:26, Deuteronomy 29:9-21, and other scriptures. In Mark 11:23-24 Jesus gave the curse because there were many in Israel that were rejecting him, so God was simply fulfilling his word, and this does not have anything to do with the Christian speaking whatever he wants into existence. We have no right to call things into existence based on this scripture. I write more on this in future parts of this blog series.

Based on these findings, there is simply no evidence that today’s Christian has the right or go ahead from God to command anything to come to pass, to command healing, to command exorcisms to come to pass, or to speak anything into existence, because it is only God who calls things that be not as though they were.

Based on The Bible, What Does Our Authority Look Like?

While we do have authority over the devil, we do not have authority over healing. We only have authority over the devil in 2 ways, to resist him and to stand against him. There is no scripture telling the lay Christian to rebuke the devil. We are told to submit to God and resist the devil and he will flee in James 4:7. And in 1 Peter 5:9: we are also told to resist the devil; it reads, “So resist him, firm in your faith, knowing that the same experiences of suffering are being accomplished by your brothers and sisters who are in the world. In Ephesians 6:10-17 we are simply told to stand firm and resist the devil, while it fails to mention anything about the believer rebuking the devil, casting out the devil, or commanding the devil. While these scriptures clearly show the believer has been given authority greater than the devil, God seems to do so to free the believer from being under the temptations of the devil rather than for commanding the devil, rebuking the devil, or casting out the devil in order for physical healing to happen. There is no evidence in this greatest spiritual warfare instruction for the believers in the Bible of Ephesians 6 for anything about the lay person commanding healing to come to pass, or commanding anything else to come to pass.

In addition, Mark 11:23-24 is not a free ticket from God to command your problems like mountains to move out of the way, nor is it a ticket for the believer to command anything they desire to happen to come to pass, nor does it mean they can speak anything into existence just because they believe something in their heart, which I said previously I will cover in depth in one of the next parts of this series entitled “Decreeing, Declaring and Commanding Things to Come to Pass Are Not Instructions Jesus Tells The Believer to Obey”.

Let’s take a look: Ephesians 6:10-17 reads, “Finally, be strong in the Lord and in the strength of His might. ¹¹Put on the full armor of God, so that you will be able to stand firm against the schemes of the devil. ¹²For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the powers, against the world forces of this darkness, against the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places.¹³Therefore, take up the full armor of God, so that you will be able to resist on the evil day, and having done everything, to stand firm. ¹⁴Stand firm therefore, having belted your waist with truth, and having put on the breastplate of righteousness, ¹⁵and having strapped on your feet the preparation of the gospel of peace; ¹⁶in addition to all, taking up the shield of faith with which you will be able to extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one. ¹⁷And take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.

Overstepping Our Authority

We are to follow the examples of how the lay believer is to carry out their faith given us in the New Testament, and not overstep our authority. I trust that I have established the Biblical definition of overstepping our authority as seen in these examples which I mentioned before: “teaching Christians to command their circumstances to change, to speak to cause our hardships to cease, to speak for new seasons of blessings to come to pass, to speak of seasons of prosperity coming to pass and to speak along these lines for ourselves and for the church, to curse illness, to curse the roots of our problems, to command our situations to line up with our child-of-God blessings and line up with our spiritual-rights-as-children-of-the-King, to command that our mountains of problems will move out of the way, to demand solutions as the spiritual royalty of the church with kingly privileges like Kenneth Copeland did with demanding a vaccination of Covid-19, and demanding or speaking to illnesses to leave, and speaking for healing to come. The belief and practice of these abuses of spiritual authority leads the Christian to developing arrogance, false confidence which is a confidence based on something other than scripture, a lack of humility and lack of trust and reliance on God. It promotes self-reliance and self-directed prayer, and a belief in mystical answers from something other than God, and belief in mystical instruction rather than Biblical instruction.

Based on these findings, we can safely conclude that decreeing, declaring and commanding things to come to pass are not instructions for the New Testament believer. This short study of scripture gives us ample evidence to conclude that decreeing, declaring and commanding things to come to pass are outside the realm of normal and orthodox Christianity. We can also conclude that the practice of decreeing, declaring and commanding things to come to pass will lead the believer astray from the path of obedience to God. Following this false teaching resists our Christian humility and trust in God that He has chosen for the believer to follow. We can also conclude that those who teach the believer to decree, declare and command things to come to pass are teaching the believer to depart from the pathway of normal and orthodox Christianity and depart from obedience to God. LG

Who Is Kenneth Hagin’s Jesus From “The Believer’s Authority” Part Four

A Passive Jesus Who is Stubbornly Giving Up On His “Savior” Qualities.

On page 31 of Hagin’s book, he writes: “Not one single time in the New Testament is the church ever told to pray that God the Father or Jesus would do anything against the devil. In fact, to do so is to waste your time. The believer is told to do something about the devil. The reason is because you have the authority to do it. The church is not to pray to God the Father about the devil; the church is to exercise the authority that belongs to it…unless believers do something about the devil, nothing will be done in a lot of areas”…Jesus continued, “I’ve done all I’m going to do about the devil until the angel comes down from heaven, takes the chain and binds him, and puts him into the bottomless pit. (Rev. 20:1-3)”. Hagin says, “That came as a real shock to me”. And it should!

Whether you believe Christians have the authority from God to cast out devils or you don’t believe that, it still is against the nature of God to say “I’ve done all I’m going to do about the devil until the angel comes down …and puts him into the bottomless pit.” The nature of God is that God is a savior, a rescuer, a protector, and a provider of help for the believer throughout the Bible. But Hagin’s Jesus basically told Hagin, “I am not going to answer you from heaven with the spiritual help you need against the devil. I have already given you all the authority I have. So don’t bother praying to Me.” This is saying Hagin’s Jesus goes against the qualities of the biblical Jesus of saving, rescuing, protecting, and providing help against the devil and it is fully up to the believer to “do something about the devil”. If we look at examples of God rescuing his people in the Bible we will see historical facts that if the believer is truly needing help against demonically inspired enemies, Jesus or God as it may be won’t deny them what they truly need.

Hagin if he were alive today, would tell you I’m wrong, and that you’d be wasting your time to pray for Jesus’ help against the devil. But the Bible tells us that is exactly what Jesus does—he gives us help against the devil, and his minions by saving, rescuing, protecting, and providing help of all kinds against the spiritual battles believers face. Furthermore, God only trusts the believer with responsibilities that they are ready for. But Hagin’s Jesus throws the believer into a place of forceful action against the devil that he or she might not need to be in, not needing to rebuke, or command, or demand, or shout against the devil because now the believer is beginning to see himself as a forceful person in prayer who has got to start doing all these things all the time because Hagin says Jesus told him “the believer is told to do something about the devil”.

But to do something about the devil is very vague when there are only commands for the apostles to cast out devils and heal people. There are no requirements for the believer to cast out demons and heal people but just a single scripture in Mark 16:15-18 saying that it is possible for devils to be cast out by the believer, and possible for healings to follow the believer. But, the only things the Bible commands the believer to do are, to first submit to God then resist the devil, to stand with the armor of God on, and to give the devil no foothold. Resist the devil is very different than rebuke. God does the rest of the work against the devil, and he promises in Romans 16:20 “The God of peace will soon crush Satan under your feet.” If Hagin’s Jesus were true, it would mean it would be an utter non-negotiable responsibility for the believer to be expected to rebuke the devil, cast out the devil, and “get your healing” by chasing away the devil. His Jesus said it would be a waste of time to pray to Him for help.

Again Hagin has elevated man to the place of Jesus’ authority, and demoted Jesus to the place of a tired, and passive, unhelpful slacker.

Romans 16:20 alone is enough to completely contradict Hagin’s Jesus, because his Jesus said he had done all he was going to do against the devil until the angel binds him in the bottomless pit. Paul says the God of peace himself will soon crush Satan underneath the believer’s feet. It is this scripture alone that truly can set the reader free from the constant accusations Hagin makes about the believer not doing enough with his spiritual authority to solve all the negative problems in the world, that Hagin blames on the devil, of course. LG

Who is Kenneth Hagin’s Jesus? Part Three of Our Study of The Believer’s Authority

A Look at the Death of Jesus in The Believer’s Authority

I want to look at just a few statements by Hagin in this article, but look really in depth at the scriptures to compare the statements to check their validity. In future parts of this series, we will cover more ground and not go so in depth because the false teaching will be logically apparent, and we won’t need so much of the in-depth scriptural support. In fact, because of how Hagin is missing so much of the truth in his book with just a few statements, I wanted to go in depth, because this article covers some false teaching that becomes part of the crux of Hagin’s misunderstandings that he revisits throughout his book and many of the twisting of scriptures he does places a lot of weight on these ideas he shares that we will cover. Multiple points of confusion come out in his teaching based on the following statements, as his book unfolds. So, be prepared for a lot of scripture to do our examination which is our safeguard, right after a long quote or two from Hagin.

How Hagin Sees The Cross of Christ

Hagin writes on page 16: “We are seated at the right hand of the Majesty on High. All things have been placed under our feet.”

He continues “The trouble with us is we’ve preached a “cross” religion, and we need to preach a “throne” religion…The cross is actually a place of death…” “…we don’t need to remain there; let’s go on to Pentecost, the Ascension, and the throne! The cross is actually a place of defeat, whereas the Resurrection a place of triumph. When you preach the cross, you’re preaching death, and you leave people in death.”

1 Corinthians 1:17 reads, “For Christ did not send me to baptize, but to preach the gospel, not with eloquent words, lest the cross of Christ should be made of no effect. ¹⁸For to those who are perishing, the preaching of the cross is foolishness, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. (The fact that it is the power of God to those who are being saved is really good news. This is really good news in another sense to all those denominations that believe in the gifts of the Spirit because it simply shows us one avenue by which God delivers his power to us. Right here in black and white it says the cross is the power of God. The cross is available to all who will come to the cross. And the power of the cross is available to all who come to Christ)

Lets continue to the next few verses: ¹⁹For it is written: “I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and will bring to nothing the understanding of the prudent.”²⁰Where is the wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has God not made the wisdom of this world foolish? ²¹For since, in the wisdom of God, the world through its wisdom did not know God, it pleased God through the foolishness of preaching to save those who believe. (This is good news to those who have failed to know God by only going to the wisdom of the world. You don’t need to be intellectually smart to qualify for the wisdom of God. God can put that wisdom directly in your heart, no matter if you are a small child who didn’t study this in college, or a person with a theological degree.)

Furthermore, the diverging lots of those who see the cross in opposite ways are as follows: ²²For the Jews require a sign, and the Greeks seek after wisdom. ²³But we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to the Jews and foolishness to the Greeks. ²⁴But to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, we preach Christ as the power of God and the wisdom of God.” This phrase “the Jews require a sign” reminds me of people of the charismatic movement or of the Word of Faith Movement such as Hagin who require miracles and signs in order to think that God is really among them. But that is not the measuring stick that scripture presents us with. It’s interesting that here the Lord in his preaching is making clear that we are to preach Christ crucified because the preaching of the cross is the power of God and the wisdom of God.

Again verse 18 just six verses ago, says “For to those who are perishing, the preaching of the cross is foolishness, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.” So, it is not the preaching of miracles that shows us the power of God as clearly as the preaching of the cross speaks of the power of God. Very interesting when you think of how Hagin says on page 16 of his book “The Believer’s Authority”: “The cross is actually a place of defeat, whereas the Resurrection is a place of triumph.” (Hagin capitalizes the word Resurrection as if it is a proper name like God himself, as he does the word “Church” throughout his book telling the reader that the church shares the throne-room-authority of Christ. At first glance it appears he was just emphasizing the word Church by capitalizing it. But the word Church he seems to be giving some special focus of equal importance as Christ by capitalizing it, or may be drawing an equal parallel between the church and Christ because Hagin says on page 17, we are “…sharing not only his throne but also his authority. That authority belongs to us!”

Hagin’s View of the Cross is Powerless, But He Gives the Believer Equality With Christ In Heaven

And on page 15 Hagin quotes 2 Corinthians 6:14-15 which says “Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers: for what fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness? And what communion hath light with darkness? 15 And what concord hath Christ with Belial? Or what part hath he that believeth with and infidel?” In response to this Hagin says “The believer is called “righteousness,” and the unbeliever is called “unrighteousness.” The believer is called “light,” and the unbeliever, “darkness.” The believer is called “Christ,” and the unbeliever, “Belial.” Hagin continues to quote another scripture saying “First Corinthians 6:17 says, “But he that is joined unto the Lord is one spirit.” We are one with Christ. We are Christ” Hagin says! This is quite clearly blasphemy because it elevates man to the place of God.

So this is important to understand about Hagin and understanding this is the tone of his book—he preaches a theology of glory (for the believer) and spits at the theology of suffering (specifically Christ’s cross). Later on in his book he not only will deny that the theology of suffering is a biblically valid place for the church to walk through from time to time, but he squarely spits on the idea that the reality of the theology of suffering is a tolerable and normal Christian experience.

Glory Only For The Believer!! More Authority Gives You More Glory!!

To further highlight Hagin’s view of the believer, on page 17 he writes about how sharing the authority of Christ’s throne causes us to be able to demand things be done for us like kings and everything has to obey you when you demand your God-given rights. This is arrogance that flies in the face of Christ-like humility! Hagin on page 16 as previously stated, wrote, “When you preach the cross, you’re preaching death, and you leave people in death. We died all right, but we’re raised with Christ. (Sounds like glory to me!) We’re seated with Him. Positionally, that’s where we’re at right now. We’re seated with Christ in the place of authority in heavenly places.” On page 17 he continues “We’re to reign as kings in life by Jesus Christ. That’s authority isn’t it? Whatever the king said was law; he was the last authority. We partake of the authority that Christ’s throne represents.” (More glory according to Hagin for the believer!!)

This is quite a shame for a person who calls himself a man of God to use such derogatory language to describe the cross that the Bible designates as a tool that brings the believer to a place of freedom from sin. And it is quite inflating of the believer to such high disregard for Christ’s law to say if someone is a Christ follower, “whatever they say is law.” That assumes the believer would never make any mistakes in his thinking whatsoever when giving a law to be in perfect and prime harmony with God’s law. What hogwash! We are not home yet!!

The Bible Shows Us Jesus’s Death is A Place of Power for the Believer

To emphasize the importance scripture shows us of the theology of suffering and the believer identifying with Christ’s death, Romans 6:8-14 reads, “Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. ⁹For we know that since Christ was raised from the dead, he cannot die again; death no longer has mastery over him. ¹⁰The death he died, he died to sin once for all; but the life he lives, he lives to God.” We have to recognize the death of Jesus and identify with it as verse 11 states: “In the same way, count yourselves dead to sin (count yourselves currently dead to sin, not having been dead to sin once upon a time a while ago) but alive to God in Christ Jesus.” Currently dead to sin and currently alive to God both at the same time. This means we can and should rely upon the death of Jesus to do its work in us. “¹²Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its evil desires. ¹³Do not offer any part of yourself to sin as an instrument of wickedness, but rather offer yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life; (we must recognize the place of Jesus’s death and recognize Jesus’s full perfection was offered as a gift through his death) and offer every part of yourself to him as an instrument of righteousness. ¹⁴For sin shall no longer be your master, because you are not under the law, but under grace.”

Now if we are to count ourselves dead to sin, we can only do that because the death Jesus died was to sin, once and for all. If Jesus died to sin, he couldn’t have become sin, because he being perfectly holy was simply an offering for sin, in my understanding and could not become sin itself. So we can only count ourselves dead to sin, because Christ died to sin, and his death was a real death to sin, and it was a physical death.

And in my understanding, if he had become sin, he couldn’t have died to it, because how could he maintain his state of perfect righteousness and be the offering that washed away our sins? And it is his death that we can identify with, and it is what gives us power to separate ourselves from sin and temptation.

Jesus’s death gives us power to not be swayed by sin, and not be swayed by temptation. Because Christ was unresponsive to sin and temptation, inasmuch as he did not give in to it, he simply stood in the freedom of his holiness, and stood in his non-attraction to sin and temptation. His death on the cross shows us that his power to live right every day while he was on the earth is the power he has made available to us to be separated from or unresponsive to giving in to sin and temptation. There is real power in the death of Christ, because in his death he gave his every act of holy choices and holy living every day of his life as an offering to God on our behalf.

This gives us the hope that there is great power in the death of Jesus and in his death to sin, and that we all can find true freedom from the bondage to any sin habit or compulsion. The immensity of his righteousness, and the immensity of his holiness was his gift to God on our behalf, and this is perfect eternal righteousness and perfect eternal holiness that he gave as an offering to God as he did forever without blemish. This offering to God of eternal righteousness and holiness along with his death to sin, is the power by which Christ can fully change any sinner.

Again, in verse 18, it reads “For to those who are perishing, the preaching of the cross is foolishness, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.” We must forever take the preaching of the cross to be the power of God on our behalf, and know the victory that the death of Jesus gives us over sin, and over fleshly desires and appetites.

Hagin Tells Us “The Trouble With Us Is We’ve Preached a “Cross” Religion, and We Need To Preach a “Throne” Religion

It truly sounds like Hagin is trying to make the preaching of the cross sound like it is a snare to the believer rather than a place of finding true victory. Because we know that if we died with Him we shall also live with Him. Romans 6:8.

Let’s revisit 1 Corinthians 1:17-18 again. It reads “For Christ did not send me to baptize, but to preach the gospel, not with eloquent words, lest the cross of Christ should be made of no effect.” What would it have been about the preaching of the cross that should not be done in an eloquent preaching kind of way? It’s not that it should not be done that way, but that it could not be done eloquently. There is nothing eloquent about talking about a bloody, violent and brutal Roman crucifixion. It has not a shred of eloquence, pun intended. It shreds all drops of eloquence and expels all pictures of eloquence out of the mind. If one tried to describe the cross of Christ with eloquent words, the cross would be robbed of its power, as Paul is describing, in verse 17. Another reason Paul was saying that to focus on eloquent words was not the goal, is because the more consistently you can just state the facts of the truth about the crucifixion, the more direct and pure the message will be, and you can get rid of the flowery language which is like a mere and meaningless decoration on an already beautifully humble flower. That humble flower was like a flower picked and offered on a sweltering hot day that wilts its life out as the brutality takes hold of it to drain it of life. Only Christ is needed to be spoken of in the plain and mean sense, and there is not room and no need for any meaningless decorations. So away with the eloquence!!

To Hagin, the preaching of the cross is real foolishness. Again on page 16 he writes “The trouble with us is we’ve preached a “cross” religion, and we need to preach a “throne” religion. By this I mean that people have thought they were supposed to remain at the cross. Some have received the baptism in the Holy Spirit, have backed up to the cross, and have stayed there ever since…The cross is actually a place of defeat,” Hagin writes, “where the Resurrection is a place of triumph (p 16).”

Hagin Doesn’t Want Us To Identify With Christ’s Death But With His Throne

How could Hagin be so grossly wrong? His doctrine is clear off the chart and does not find value in identifying with the Christ that was obedient to the point of death. We can safely assume that if God portrayed Christ so clearly dying on the cross that several verses out of the Bible tell us of the brutal history of the event as well as how many people witnessed it, and by this we can truly see God must have thought about, and measured Jesus’s death on the cross to be of such monumental importance for every one of the gospels to devote several scriptures to describe it for us. So clearly these facts plainly tell us of its weightiness for us to learn about it and to take it in and to help us grasp some of the sense and meaning of God’s love for us.

By Hagin’s statements, we can see he has a grossly limited understanding of the theology of suffering, that is depicted quite pervasively throughout both the Old and New Testaments, and Hagin only focusses on the theology of glory. 1 Corinthians 1:18 again reads, “For to those who are perishing, the preaching of the cross is foolishness, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.” And it is!

Hagin Attempts to Shun A Blasphemer After He Did What the Blasphemer Did

To sum up chapter 3 of his book, entitled Seated With Christ Hagin tells of a false preacher called Father Divine who he says was once saved and filled with the Holy Ghost. “He had the real thing.” Hagin writes, “Then he began studying these very Scriptures we have been studying. He reasoned, “If we are Christ, then I am Christ. Christ is God, so I am God.” He founded a cult that was very popular,” Hagin says. “…It’s easy to get into the ditch on either side of the road—into excess, wild fire, and fanaticism, Let’s go down the middle of the road and maintain balance.” But this is the same Hagin who is studying and misinterpreting the same scriptures as this Father Divine and said in a quote from page 15 to 16, “1 Corinthians 6:17 which reads, “But he that is joined unto the Lord is one spirit.” We are one with Christ. We are Christ” Hagin writes!

Hagin’s Middle of the Road Assumes “We Are Christ”

If Hagin were alive today I would tell him this is not the middle of the road, this is blasphemy! And Hagin doesn’t say why his blasphemy is Okay and Father Divine’s was not! Just because we are one spirit with the Lord, like we are one body with the Lord does not make us the Lord, it makes us part of his body and part of His Spirit according to 1 Corinthians 6:17. Just as a husband and wife come together as one body, the husband’s sins are accountable to the husband, and the wife’s sins are accountable to the wife. The husband does not become contaminated by the sins of his wife, and vice versa. Our spirit is not as pure as Christ’s spirit, but he allows us to be cleansed by his sacrifice and we have received a deposit of his spiritual virtues and fruits into our spirits. But our spirits have impurities as Paul writes in 2 Corinthians 7:1 “Therefore, having these promises, beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from all defilement of flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God.” And we wouldn’t have to cleanse our spirits if our spirits were as pure as Christ’s.

So it follows logically that we should not assume any authority of Christ’s when so much of his authority is relatable to being trusted with it because he was proven absolutely pure and good and sacrificial in the highest sense towards sinners who need him. We should take pains to make sure the authority we actually believe belongs to us is actually the authority he has entrusted to us. Nothing more and nothing less. We should endure suffering because we are not home yet, and because of it’s purifying effects upon us. We should also both know and be comfortable with our humble state and have faith leaning on God to use his authority, which is graciously mixed with mercy and kindness and goodness, in our lives all our days as He sees fit, because He is God, and we are not. LG

Who Is Kenneth Hagin’s Jesus From “The Believer’s Authority” Part Two

We have been looking at Kenneth Hagin’s teaching from his book “The Believer’s Authority. This is part two of our series “Who is Kenneth Hagin’s Jesus?” The next few ideas we should examine from the book are in chapter 2 which is called “Seated With Christ.” In part one we talked about how the book of Revelation talks about Christ designating the church of Laodicea to sit on his throne with him after they are taken to heaven, and after they have fought the good fight, and they are sanctified completely. Going now to page 11, Hagin begins laying down spiritual sounding ideas not based in scripture that he is going to say over and over throughout his book and give them to us without backing them up, but will simply state them repeatedly as his choice way to make them sound plausible. The first of these is, “When Christ ascended, He transferred His authority to the Church.” But there is simply no scripture that tells us he transferred all his authority to the church, neither before he ascended, nor when he ascended, nor after he ascended.

If we consider Hagin’s vision, the Jesus in his vision was showing such an absence of authority in his actions that there seems to be a complete transfer of authority where no authority is retained by Jesus. This helplessness of the Jesus in the vision comes through loud and clear. But the Bible actually tells us that Jesus has all authority in heaven and on earth. There is no scripture that says Jesus gave up, gave away, transferred or for some other reason does not currently possess that same authority that he had from the foundation of the world. The Lord maintains this authority which in essence is Jesus being in control, or in other words, is in essence the quality of his Sovereignty.

Scriptures That Back Up the Continued Sovereignty of Christ

The Bible tells us Christ continues to possess Sovereignty even AFTER His ascension. Acts 4:24b reads, “…Sovereign Lord,” they said, “you made the heavens and the earth and the sea, and everything in them.”. John 1:3 tells us ^“All things were created through Him, and without Him nothing was created that was created.” We know John in 1:3 is speaking of Christ who created the heavens and the earth and the sea, because John 1:1 and 1:2 is talking of the Word that is God, and that is Jesus. So John 1:3 is speaking of Christ and Acts 4:24b is telling us that the person who created the heavens and the earth is Sovereign, so because of what we know from John 1 about Christ creating the heavens and earth that Acts 4:24b is telling us it is Christ that is Sovereign. All of these scriptures were written AFTER Christ’s ascension. There therefore could not have been a transfer of Christ’s authority at his ascension! Being Sovereign means you have authority!

To add to this point, 2 Peter 2:1b reads “…They will secretly introduce destructive heresies, even denying the sovereign Lord who bought them—bringing swift destruction on themselves.” The Sovereign Lord who bought them we know was the Lord Jesus who bought them with his blood, so this is saying the Lord who bought them-is Christ who is the Sovereign Lord. There could not have been a complete transfer of authority at the ascension because we could not call Jesus after he ascended one who is Sovereign if he in fact transferred all of his authority away from himself as Hagin claims Jesus did. Hagin’s Jesus was emphatic about not having any authority that he retained for himself but gave it all to the church!

To add again to this point, Jude 1:4b reads, “…They are ungodly people, who pervert the grace of our God into a license for immorality and deny Jesus Christ our only Sovereign and Lord.” This very clearly says Jesus Christ is the Sovereign and Lord. And it was written about him after his ascension which is when Hagin says he transferred away from himself all his authority.

Just what is Sovereignty?

According to Easton’s Bible Dictionary found at https://www.biblestudytools.com/dictionary/sovereignty/ the definition of sovereignty is speaking of God’s “absolute right to do all things according to his own good pleasure”. All these scriptures speak of Christ’s Sovereignty or in other words having full authority or full power to operate as he so desires in heaven and on earth. Hagin’s Jesus is not able to do everything he could desire. His Jesus said “If you hadn’t done something about the demon, I couldn’t”, shows us the anti-Sovereignty of God. To add to this point, the God of the Bible declares in Jeremiah 32:17-18 ‘Oh, Lord God! Behold, You Yourself have made the heavens and the earth by Your great power and by Your outstretched arm! Nothing is too difficult for You…”. And we know it was Christ who made the heavens and the earth by his great power and nothing is to difficult for Christ, either before the resurrection, or after, because it takes the Sovereignty of Christ to create heaven and earth, and that quality didn’t change about Christ from the Old to New Testaments, or from before the ascension to after the ascension.

To be clear in order for Jesus to have fully transferred his authority away from himself to the church, it by necessity had to have meant Jesus didn’t have all his wits about him, because what kind of Jesus would have given all his authority away so that he could not still remain in charge when he is King of Kings and Lord of Lords? Could God trust a broken church still in the process of sanctification and fallible or could such a God be trusted who put that weight of responsibility upon the shoulders of the fallen church? An emphatic NO is the correct answer!

What if it Was Just a Boundary Jesus Set on Himself to Get the Church to Act?

What if we looked at the possibility that there are people in the course of everyday business who might say something to another business associate like “I’m sorry, I can’t help you” and although they may be able to help someone, they are limiting how much they are willing to help someone due to their personal boundaries by simply saying “I can’t help you”. What they mean is their conscience won’t let them help the person seeking help. But the Jesus of Hagin’s vision is not in this category because of the way he speaks and acts. As noted before, he says to Hagin, “If you hadn’t done something about the demon, I couldn’t have.”, not “wouldn’t have”. According to His own words, he didn’t have a choice, he simply “couldn’t” help. We then know it was not that his conscience was the issue nor was it an issue of personal boundaries. Furthermore, the Jesus in Hagin’s vision contradicts Hagin’s own assessment of why Jesus could not help. Hagin says on page 27 that Jesus refused to deal with the demon, which gives him a choice about dealing with the demon because refusing is a choice. So Hagin can’t even make his story to line up with what Jesus said to him in the vision.

Hagin goes on to prop up his ideas of authority on page 11: “He is the Head of the Church, and believers make up the Body. Christ’s authority has to be perpetuated through His Body, which is on the earth”. Hagin expounds on this saying throughout the book that “it is ONLY through the body of Christ on the earth that Christ can perpetuate his authority.” To say this is again to rob Christ of His Sovereignty on the earth, and make him dependent on mortals. A quality similar to Sovereignty that God possesses is his aseity or self-sufficiency. According to https://www.biblestudytools.com/ in an article entitled “15 Amazing Attributes of God: What They Mean and Why They Matter” on the definition of self-sufficient, it reads “God Is Self-Sufficient – He Has No Needs. “For as the Father has life in himself, so he has granted the Son also to have life in himself.” – John 5:26 As limited humans, we have incredible needs, which left unfulfilled, result in death. God, however, has never once been in need of anything. As Tim Temple writes, “God is perfectly complete within his own being.”

Hagin hasn’t considered all the implications or the meaning of what would happen if through the church was the only way Christ could perpetuate his authority. Christ would fall terribly short in the self-sufficient category, and therefore cease to be God. In all of Hagin’s writings there is no evidence that Hagin has put any thought into how many parts of the universe are in operation as a result of the fact that God has self-sufficiency over countless things. To try to separate God or Jesus from his self-sufficiency of having control over every huge and infinitesimally small part of the universe and everything in between is an impossibility. It is not even remotely possible in the lamest sense.

The Insufficiency of Man Compared to the Self-Sufficiency of Christ

To take the responsibility of a perfect sinless God who does not have any blemish and who does not have any darkness or flaw but who is bursting with goodness and virtue and who has all power and authority because He is infinite and He is the source, and creator of everything we see, if the church was made the sole avenue by which Christ could perpetuate his authority, the heaviness of that responsibility would utterly crush us to powder in a split second, because it would be something we could never make a mistake with, and the cost of one mistake would utterly collapse the whole universe because God would not be upholding it anymore. He would have entrusted the care of the universe to a limited, sinful church which does not have perfect knowledge of how everything should be run, nor do most of us even know the names of half the elements that exist as part of the periodic table. But Hagin shows just how much he has not thought through the implications of what God’s authority and self-sufficiency are all about by thinking and saying that a limited and flawed church or person could share the same authority as the throne of Christ has. Hagin says this many times throughout his book. We will cover this more in part three of this series.

Jesus is The Light and Light Scatters Darkness

And to examine Hagin’s Jesus, there is no Bible scripture anywhere that says Christ has no longer any more authority to act against the demonic powers with self-sufficiency or to even rebuke a mere demon except through the church because Christ would never divide away from Himself any of the divine characteristics which only God has. Christ is light, and demons are of the kingdom of darkness. Light always scatters darkness. Jesus is the light of the world. So the very substance of Jesus that he carries with him when he shows up in any place is enough to cast out demons.

Isn’t the Ascended Jesus More Free to Act With Spiritual Power?

Divine authority is so much a part of the personality and fabric of the nature of God, that if you take it away from him you don’t have God anymore because the light of Jesus is pure light and more powerful than darkness. So we could easily expect the resurrected Jesus to rebuke a demon. Jesus is the light of the world, and light scatters darkness. Surely the resurrected Jesus seems to be more powerful than Jesus before he ascended, because the ascended Jesus could no longer be tempted in any way, even though the Jesus on earth underwent temptation. The Jesus with the spiritual body in heaven is unveiled as far as his power goes, but the Jesus who walked the earth because of his earthly body limited his free exercise of power. But Hagin misses this obvious truth over and over throughout his book. Even though he limited his power while walking on earth, the earthly Jesus did battle with the devil on every front and won by standing his ground and not giving into temptation on any front. So it would seem the ascended Jesus would have more freedom to use his heavenly privileges of spiritual powers freely and unveiled by the flesh and blood body that he had when he walked on the earth and be free to rebuke a demon.

Authority is a Spiritual Matter, Not Just a Physical One

1 Corinthians 15:44 reads, “it is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body. If there is a natural body, there is also a spiritual body.” Jesus had a natural body on the earth, and it has been raised as a spiritual body in heaven that he operates in. So his authority which he possesses everywhere although his body is in heaven is a spiritually based authority, one could argue, because his body has been raised a spiritual body. He completed every battle of the physical nature so he ascended into heaven. And not only for that reason, but because authority is a spiritual matter, not merely a physical matter.

God Can Operate Simultaneously in Multiple Realms

The fact that Jesus has a physical group of people on the earth does not mean that his spiritual authority does not preside over the physical group of people. And while Jesus walked on the earth, Jesus rebuked demons, so as he is spiritually intact in his spiritual authority in heaven, he operates on the earth with that same spiritual authority from heaven. His spiritual authority can reach the material world of the earth, because if we go by 1Cor 15:44, we know that every spiritual body on the earth has a spiritual body in the spiritual world. And if we limit our view of Jesus’s power, we still must believe he has full authority over everything in the spiritual world. Who says God can only operate in one realm at a time? His spiritual authority can operate in every dimension of the universe all at the same time because he is God, and if he wants it that way, he can operate that way, in the physical realms of earth, as well as in all the spiritual realms, because to believe anything less about Jesus is to believe in something far less than the Jesus of the Bible. Quite clearly he perpetuates his authority from his spiritual person in heaven which transcends time and space and matter.

Our Capacity

Even if this were the only obvious point Hagin missed, this would be enough to collapse every argument in his book. Therefore the reality about Hagin’s Jesus being not able to rebuke a demon because he “couldn’t” is enough to cause Hagin’s whole book to crumble into nothing as we see that authority comes with and from a spiritual source—God and/or Jesus who both exist in spiritual form in heaven to be exact. Furthermore, God and Jesus who are spirit, can operate in every dimension of the universe because they are God, and Jesus would have been out of his mind to transfer all authority away from himself and to the church upon his ascension. If we just look at who we are compared to God, we simply do not have the capacity to share equal authority with the Christ to be the only avenue by which Christ can perpetuate his authority on the earth, nor is the church an avenue by which Christ’s authority can operate without flaws, bumps, and wobbles.

What About the Possibility of Some Authority Transferring at The Ascension of Christ Even if a Complete Authority Transfer Did Not Happen?

One of the scriptures Hagin uses to tie into the idea of the complete transfer of authority of Christ to the church is found on page 17 where he mentions Matthew 28:18. It reads, “And Jesus came and spake unto them, saying, All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth.” Hagin is implying that what Jesus next said was the transfer of all authority. Verse 19 reads “Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost: ²⁰Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and, lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world. Amen.” This command that Jesus gave which Hagin links up with the transfer of authority happened before Jesus ascended into heaven, not after. And even though this happened before Jesus ascended, it wasn’t a transfer of Jesus’ full authority, it was Jesus telling them that He is the one who has all authority in heaven and on earth, not that he was giving away all of his authority to them for going into all the world. Logically we can say it would never take the full authority of heaven and earth to evangelize the world because Jesus has infinite authority, and he is unlimited and nothing takes all of the authority of Jesus to accomplish because nothing is infinite except God himself. So, nothing can drain the infinitude of God.

Also, it was in Luke 10:19 that Jesus gave the disciples a measure of authority. It reads “Behold, I have given you authority to tread on serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy, and nothing will injure you.” Jesus gave them authority only over all the power of the enemy, and he did not give them authority over speaking things into existence, telling the sun when to rise and set, nor did he give them authority over getting all their bills automatically paid on time, nor authority over raising every person from the dead that they could lay their hands on, and many other things they did not receive the full authority Christ. Even Jesus did not raise a lot of people from the dead. In his 3 and ½ years, there had to have been several dozen, if not hundreds of people in the cities he preached in who died, and he only raised Lazarus, Jairus’s daughter, and the widow’s son from the dead. The disciples were not designated to do works greater in stature than Jesus, but to do works in greater number, them being a group of 12 disciples, and Jesus being one person, and there is only a couple accounts of the disciples raising people from the dead, which should not surprise us, because raising someone from the dead should not be a common thing, unless you are God himself. Some scholars say most of the works they did were a lot of preaching and teaching and the authority for healing miracles dissipated from the apostles including Paul within a few dozen years after Jesus ascended. Wouldn’t there be a clear record of the healing miracles continuing for centuries after Jesus ascended if Christ meant for healing miracles to be an everyday thing? One would think this to be true.

When Was the Partial Authority Transferred? Matthew 28 Was Not About an Authority Transfer and Not About The Disciples Casting Out Demons or Devils.

Luke 10:19 was about when the disciples received a partial transfer of authority was spoken long before Jesus’ death and ascension, and they received authority over all the power of the enemy. In Matthew 28:18 Jesus was merely telling them that He was the One who had all the authority in heaven and on earth, but no authority transfer is given of all authority in heaven and on earth. Earlier in the beginning of Matthew 28, the disciples had just heard about the chief priests telling the soldiers to make up a lie about the disciples stealing away his body. The disciples knew that if they were to go out and preach that Jesus is risen from the dead they would be in direct opposition to the lies that the authorities or chief priests and soldiers were clearly planning to spread about why Jesus’s body was not in the tomb anymore. Starting in verse 11, it reads “Now while they were on their way, some of the men from the guard came into the city and reported to the chief priests all that had happened. ¹²And when they had assembled with the elders and consulted together, they gave a large sum of money to the soldiers, ¹³and said, “You are to say, ‘His disciples came at night and stole Him while we were asleep.’ ¹⁴And if this comes to the governor’s ears, we will appease him and keep you out of trouble.” ¹⁵And they took the money and did as they had been instructed; and this story was widely spread among the Jews and is to this day.”

So it was possible that the soldiers could get into trouble if the proof got out that Jesus actually did rise from the dead. This was the thing that they did not want to believe because they did not want people to follow Jesus as God, because they wanted to regard him as man. They believed he would attract too many followers if they considered him s coming from God and they would lose their positions of power. But the truth of the resurrection would save people, and that is why Jesus spoke of having all authority in heaven and on earth and that the disciples should go ahead and preach anyway about Jesus rising from the dead even though they might get into conflicts with the priestly authorities.

What Matthew 28 Does Not Say

Furthermore, this passage in Matthew 28 is saying nothing about the disciples being told to cast out demons or having authority over devils. Jesus was the one with the authority over devils, and he gave it to the disciples in Luke 10:19. Luke 10:19 reads, “Behold, I have given you authority to walk on snakes and scorpions, and authority over all the power of the enemy, and nothing will injure you.” But even in this transfer of partial authority there was never a time when the Lord walked the earth that He warned the disciples that He would become unable to help them fight the devil, nor was there any warning that the disciples would become the sole wielders of this authority. There was never a prophecy of the Old Testament given to warn the followers of Christ that they should get ready for a huge transfer of responsibility. Surely Jesus would have considered a transfer of authority of such monumental caliber to be told to his disciples, but he never told them “All the responsibility for perpetuating My authority on the earth will soon rest on your shoulders!”

Ready to Haphazardly Wield Authority?

To pull the story line from Hagin’s vision of fiction, there was never a time spoken of by Jesus of how he would sit down in heaven to take a break from his work on the earth in order for the weightiness of that work to be continued at the hands solely of the body of Christ. But Hagin spends much of his time in his book telling his audience that they are “not doing enough with the authority Christ gave them” because they “don’t know anything about authority.” And whether intentional or not, Hagin has now primed the pump of the imagination so to speak of his audience and they audience grasps for what that could mean and ready to try their hand at “wielding their authority” because Hagin never comes out anywhere in his book in a clear exhaustive way to tell his audience what it looks like to walk in authority. He just gives hints of it, speaking of healing and of dominating the devil, and of not being defeated, and repeats the same statement that “most of the body of Christ just don’t know that they have authority.”

We will see Hagin prime the pump again to keep the reader’s appetite for authority to flow as the plot unfolds and thickens in the next post about Hagin’s vision of this thoroughly unbiblical Jesus. LG

Who is Kenneth Hagin’s Jesus?—A Critical Look at the Jesus in “The Believer’s Authority” Part One

Because Kenneth Hagin is the grandfather of the Word of Faith Movement and many of his teachings are used widely within Christendom today, I thought how doing a critique of his books would be eye opening for the body of Christ. I am starting with his book the Believer’s Authority and in this series of articles, my aim is to expose the roots of Word of Faith Teaching that come out of this book.

I don’t want people to think I don’t have a Biblical precedent for doing this article series, so to begin with let’s look at 1 John 4:1. It tells us, “Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, for many false prophets have gone out into the world.” Every book of the New Testament except Philemon gives us healthy warnings to be on the alert for potential false doctrine in the church. One of the goals I have in this blog, is to look at the doctrinal beliefs held by different Christian media authors, and compare our findings with Biblical doctrine. From our results we will determine if the teachings are Biblical or not. For the last few years, I have been interested in learning about the doctrine of the Word of Faith Movement to examine it, to see if there are any deviations from the word of God. Now, I am here to share my findings with you.

Hagin’s book The Believer’s Authority is 70 pages with indications of false doctrine on almost every page. I wanted to begin with Hagin’s teachings to expose the root beliefs of this movement because many of the fundamental Word of Faith doctrines began with Hagin and for many years have crept in and fooled the unsuspecting churchgoer widely across mainstream Christianity. I hope what we will uncover today will open your eyes to what you may have heard taught over the years and give you the firmness of conviction to stay away from these teachings and possibly even warn others to get free from these dangerous deceptions.

Did Hagin Really See Jesus?

Hagin bases much of his book on interpreting what is going on in a vision he has of Jesus who appears to him and speaks to him. The question is, “Is it really Jesus?” If the Jesus of Hagin’s vision is real he would have words and actions that match the words and actions of the Jesus of the Bible. Hagin misinterprets what goes on in the vision and builds on one false idea after another stemming from the wrong assumptions he makes from his vision.

Hagin makes the claim in different videos, and in his writings that he has had 7 or 8 visions of Jesus beginning in 1951. The vision this book is based on is one from 1952. Hagin didn’t write his book until 1967 which is 15 years or a decade and a half after the vision. It is important to consider if the vision is the basis for the book or if scripture is the basis for the book. Did Hagin’s view of his vision shape his understanding of scripture or did his understanding of scripture shape his view of his vision? A Biblical approach to understand his vision would mean we start with the Bible and examine one idea at a time related to the vision to see if each of the ideas from the vision are Biblical or not. An unbiblical approach would place the Bible on the back burner and the ideas from the vision front and center. Since the Bible is the test for prophecy and vision, we must keep the Bible front and center for proper discernment, while we look at the information from his vision one piece at a time. Now that we have determined the best approach, let’s get started and jump right in.

Hagin starts talking about his vision in chapter 5 under the subheading “The Demon Jesus Refused to Deal With”. The first questions we can ask are-Did Jesus refuse to deal with the demon or did Jesus have a choice? How did Jesus go about refusing to deal with the demon? Hagin clearly said in his writing that Jesus refused, but let’s read how Hagin describes this vision of Jesus. Hagin describes that Jesus appeared to him and spoke to him for about 90 minutes about the devil, demons, and demon possession. He says at the end of the 90 minutes a monkey like demon appeared between him and Jesus and put out a smoke screen between them and began jumping around crying out in a shrill voice saying “Yakety-Yak! Yakety-Yak! Yakety-Yak!” He says he couldn’t see or hear Jesus and wondered why Jesus didn’t do anything to help him. He began to worry and said, “I almost panicked. I became so desperate I cried out, “In the Name of Jesus, you foul spirit, I command you to stop!” The minute I said that, the little demon hit the floor like a sack of salt, and the black cloud disappeared. The demon lay there trembling, whimpering, and whining like a whipped pup. He wouldn’t look at me. “Not only shut up, but get out of here in Jesus’ Name!” I commanded. He ran off.”

“The Lord knew exactly what was in my mind. I was thinking, Why didn’t He do something about that? Why did He permit it? Jesus looked at me and said, “If you hadn’t done something about that, I couldn’t have.” That came as a real shock to me—it astounded me. I replied, “Lord, I know I didn’t hear You right! You said You wouldn’t, didn’t You? “He replied, “No, if you hadn’t done something about that, I couldn’t have.” I went through this four times with Him. He was emphatic about it, saying, “No, I didn’t say I would not, I said I could not.” “I said, “Now, dear Lord, I just can’t accept that. I never heard or preached anything like that in my life!” By Hagin’s reaction we know just what Hagin’s Jesus is saying. It is not that his Jesus would not do something about the demon, but that he could not! In other words it was not a choice that Jesus made to not help, he simply couldn’t help him. Hagin’s Jesus didn’t refuse to do something about the demon. His Jesus said I didn’t say I would not help, but I could not help. Not that I wouldn’t, but couldn’t. The Jesus of Hagin’s vision did not have a choice, because he couldn’t deal with the demon. Hagin is rightly surprised, and astounded, and says, “Now, dear Lord, I just can’t accept that. I never heard or preached anything like that in my life”.

There are so many reasons why this quote should tell us that this is a false vision Hagin had of a fake Jesus, but I will start with just a couple eye opening reasons. The first is if Jesus couldn’t do anything about the demon, does that mean Jesus never could do something about any demon? Jesus has to be the same today, yesterday, and forever. The same Jesus who defeated all the powers of darkness on the cross is the same Jesus that is alive in heaven today. Because the same Jesus who defeated every spirit of darkness at the cross would need to be the same Jesus who would have interacted with Hagin and the demon that jumped between him and Jesus, we know that Hagin’s Jesus is completely weak and powerless in comparison with the Jesus of the Bible. Looking at the Jesus of the Bible you have a Jesus according to Colossians 2:15 which reads, “When He had disarmed the rulers and authorities, He made a public display of them, having triumphed over them through Him.” Friends, that victory was an eternal victory.

Furthermore, Hebrews 9:12 reads, “Neither by the blood of goats and calves, but by his own blood he entered in once into the holy place, HAVING OBTAINED ETERNAL REDEMPTION FOR US”. Hebrews 13:20-21a speaks of an ETERNAL COVENANT, and says, “Now may the God of peace, who brought up from the dead the great Shepherd of the sheep through the blood of the eternal covenant, that is, Jesus our Lord, 21 equip you… ”. The covenant Christ made with God on our behalf was an eternal covenant. The victory of the cross is by the shed blood of Jesus, speaking of the eternal redemption. The eternal blood speaks of a victory over the kingdom of darkness and the eternal redemption, eternal covenant, and eternal blood give us an eternal victory.

In addition to the victory of the cross, throughout Jesus’s life, he maintained victory over the devil as he never gave into any temptation from the devil and therefore never became subject to any kind of submission to the devil, but has always maintained all power and authority and supremacy over the devil. Hagin’s Jesus makes no sense in that he can’t battle one demon when the Bible tells us of a Jesus who defeated every spirit of darkness.

To build on this narrative, Hagin has set up the first four chapters of the book to say that Jesus transferred or delegated all of his authority to the church when it says nothing of the sort in the Bible. Later we will look more closely at how Hagin intertwines and conflates the meanings of the words transfer, delegate and confer to mean the exact same thing, when transfer, delegate, and confer have different meanings and how Hagin uses these words, they either oppose the reality of the Sovereignty of Christ, or he uses the words interchangeably to make the way he uses them to not seem so hard to believe. To be brief, this idea that Jesus transferred his authority to the church is foreign to every New Testament scripture that we have. Nowhere in the Bible does it say anything about Jesus giving his authority away to the church. By saying that God gave the church the responsibility to do something about the devil, and removing the responsibility of Jesus doing something about the devil, Hagin can then blame the believer if they are not healed, blame the believer if they have money problems, blame the believer if they have any hardship or difficulty and blame the believer if they want someone like a pastor to pray for them. Hagin does a whole lot of blaming in this book, and I will get into uncovering more of that later. This book fuels not only the healing movement, the name it and claim it or the blab it and grab it movement, but also the spiritual warfare movement seen today in churches across America.

Do We Really Share Christ’s Throne With Him And All The Authority of Christ’s Throne?

On page 17 Hagin writes we are seated with Christ on His throne. He writes “The elevation of Christ’s people with Him into the heavenlies clearly points to the fact that we are to sit with Him, sharing not only His throne but also His authority. That authority belongs to us!” No, that authority belongs to Christ! Hagin uses two scripture passages by twisting them to get us to believe him. The first is Ephesians 1:18-23 which is about the believer knowing the glory of our inheritance in the saints, and his mighty power (Eph 1: 20) “which he wrought in Christ, when he raised him from the dead, and set him at his own right hand in the heavenly places.” He starts by saying Christ is on his throne, and because the body of Christ which is the church is attached to Christ the head, that is supposed to mean the church therefore is sitting on Christ’s throne, because the body is attached to the head. But Ephesians 1 tells us nothing in the whole chapter of the church sitting on Christ’s throne. Nowhere in the whole book of Ephesians does it say anything about the church sitting on Christ’s throne. Where is the church seated? The Bible tells us and Hagin even uses the right scripture to tell us, but he misses the point! Ephesians 2:5-6 says “even when we were dead in our trespasses, (he) made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved— 6 and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus”.

As we can see, the Bible simply says we have been seated with Christ in heavenly places. But Hagin is conflating the meaning of heavenly places to mean Christ’s throne. Going back to the quote, “The elevation of Christ’s people with Him into the heavenlies clearly points to the fact that we are to sit with Him, sharing not only His throne but also His authority. That authority belongs to us!” is a blasphemy of raising up mankind to equality with God. Other translations use the phrase “we are seated in the heavenly realms with Christ”, and it should be very simple to understand there is a difference between a heavenly realm and a heavenly throne.

Let’s look at the preposition the Bible uses. We are seated WITH Christ. Logic can tell us we can be seated with friends at dinner tables, but that doesn’t mean we are seated on the same chair together. We can be seated with family on a sofa but that doesn’t mean we all sit on the same cushion. Now, we can assume that with all the people Christ plans on taking to heaven, and all the people there now, there must be a lot of different places to sit in the heavenly realms. If you are in a realm, chances are you are in a larger place than a single seat. There have got to be millions of seats in the heavenly realms, aside from the Throne of God the Father and aside from the Throne of Jesus. So, we can also assume Paul meant exactly what he said when he said we are seated in the heavenly realms and nothing about being seated on the throne with Jesus Christ because Paul could have written the words plainly that we are seated with Christ on His throne, but he did not. Paul simply said we are seated with Christ in the heavenly realms.

There is a single scripture in the book of Revelations about how the Bible says Christ promises the church of Laodicea if they repent, and overcome they will be given the right to sit with Jesus on his throne. This promise was only given to the Church of Laodicea and not directly given to each of the other 6 churches of the book of Revelations. Although it may be possible that Christ means for this promise to be given to every one of the churches, but we should not assume each Christian will receive every one of the blessings given to every church because Christ speaks different blessings to the different churches. We should keep in mind that the whole prospect of being saved and not going to hell is such a huge incredible blessing that will take eternity to wrap our minds around, that Christ freely gives everyone who believes. He bestows blessings as he sees fit.

This blessing of sitting on Christ’s throne is only made for the Laodiceans after they have been physically taken to heaven, after their earthly life is over, after they have fought the good fight, kept the faith, and finished the race. It is after they have been perfected in heaven, and therefore the danger of having sin involved in any decision is taken away. This is not how it is while we are on the earth—we still sin and our decisions are not perfect. It is not talking about something that happens while we are in this present life, nor does it mention being seated with Christ only in a spiritual sense as Ephesians speaks of. Therefore, we cannot take the idea that Christ has seated the body of Christ on His throne with him in heaven in a way that enables us to possess the authority of Christ’s throne to use as we see fit in this life as a fact because there is no sound Biblical evidence for this. We therefore do not share throne authority with Jesus. And with this clarity we see several arguments from Hagin’s book completely fall apart, because he gets a lot of mileage for writing his book from using the faulty ideas just mentioned.

Christ may back us with his authority, but it is a backing only and Christ has full oversight and he remains in control. According to John 1:12 he has backed the believer with the authority to become the children of God, and does not take that away. Rather He tells us to humble ourselves in the sight of God, to lean on God, and depend on God. But just as we are dependent on God to answer our prayers it is not our decision to decide for Christ which of our prayers he approves of answering and which he may want to answer in a different way than we have requested. That authority is not at our disposal, it is at Christ’s disposal. LG

Spiritual Washing with 1 Corinthians 1-3 with a Focus on 3:1-15

Author: Lisa Groen

Category: Unpacking the scripture

After reading again the first 3 chapters of 1 Corinthians, I have noted that unless the Christian is building the kingdom of God carefully, we are not following your will and might be wasting our efforts. 1 Corinthians 3:10b-15 tells us “But each person must be careful how he builds on it. ¹¹For no one can lay a foundation other than the one which is laid, which is Jesus Christ. ¹²Now if anyone builds on the foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, or straw, ¹³each one’s work will become evident; for the day will show it because it is to be revealed with fire, and the fire itself will test the quality of each one’s work. ¹⁴If anyone’s work which he has built on it remains, he will receive a reward. ¹⁵If anyone’s work is burned up, he will suffer loss; but he himself will be saved, yet only so as through fire.”

How I sincerely want to build in the Spirit with quality materials and not with wood, hay, or straw. Each time we read the scripture is the time to examine whether or not we have applied the scripture. Paul has taken some time in 1 Cor 3 in talking about jealousy, strife and comparison with those that seem to have a better deal in this life than we do. If we are not careful if our eyes are drawn to worldly goals, we run the risk of allowing for crooked building practices. Our building is only built right when we allow Christ to be our Chief Cornerstone, and aligning our building to fit rightly with Him! 1 Cor 3:1-3 tells us “And I, brothers and sisters, could not speak to you as spiritual people, but only as fleshly, as to infants in Christ. ²I gave you milk to drink, not solid food; for you were not yet able to consume it. But even now you are not yet able, ³for you are still fleshly. For since there is jealousy and strife among you, are you not fleshly, and are you not walking like ordinary people?” It looks as if Paul is saying some of the root problems and the definition in part of being fleshly, are jealousy, strife and comparison, and that these things block our being able to take in the solid food of the word of God. So, now that we have a short running definition of worldly comparison we truly see that after the fleshly Christian misses taking in the solid food of the word of God, he is not nourished correctly, and his habits become off center. The work the Christian does when his habits are off center when he makes room for the world could build a building that will be constructed off center. It only takes a little veering off course for a whole building to become crooked. With this scripture, do you sense The Lord prompting you to examine your life to look for the glimpses, the sounds and signs of worldly jealousy, strife, and comparison? The scripture beckons me to ask if my life will pass the test. That comparison I observe is not the key to happiness and not the key to gauging where God would have me to stand.

Prayer: With the guidance of your word Lord, I turn my attention to your goodness, and I let these old pieces of worldly clothing fall away from me. May we remember the gift you have given us of being wise builders of your kingdom, and the gift of grace for valuing what is eternally valuable—the salvation of people! As we consider how to hold to the right perspective for building the kingdom, Lord please help us make room in our thinking of how to steer closer to Christlike values, and away from worldly values within every area of life. May the treasure we possess be You Lord and Your kingdom and may we keep You as the number one value of our lives. May 1^st Corinthians 1-3 remind us of what would set us free whenever we might have our eyes on the wrong pursuits! Amen!

Keep on growing in the Word! LG

Prayer of Dependence on God-7

Author: Lisa Groen

Category: Christian prayer aiming for true Christian growth

Gracious Heavenly Father, even though we sometimes have a lack of passion Lord, and struggle with apathy, you do not change. Your purposes remain constant and fixed as surely as you are All-Wise and All-Powerful Oh Lord! We know this is an important thing to pray about, but lack the know-how for exactly what to pray! We all sense mistakes have been made by our economic leadership, perhaps some bad choices may have been directed by your hand for a greater good still to come. Many in the US sense a cognitive decline in our President Oh Lord, and see him as the fragile leader of the free world. Lord, some of us are embarrassed by our stagnation in our corporate conscience towards the self-protection of our republic. We avoid confronting the obvious issues of decline we see in our president seemingly just waiting to see if someone will “do something” to snatch the US from the flames of an implosion coming from the effects of this “Emperor with no clothes”. We quietly worry that our lack of political sensibilities in the US could result in bringing us down several notches in protection on the world scene and reduce our self-sufficiency and defense capabilities to basically a laughing matter in the eyes of our enemies—if those things have not happened yet! Lord, I pray the US is not in such a state as was the nation of Israel in Habakkuk’s time who cried in 3:16 “I heard, and my inner parts trembled; At the sound, my lips quivered. Decay enters my bones, And in my place I tremble; Because I must wait quietly for the day of distress, for the people to arise who will attack us.” But whether there may be coming a time like this or not, may we still be as strong as Habakkuk in 3:17-19 as likened to one who instead of crying over the fig tree that has failed to blossom, is still praising God anyway. It reads, “¹⁷Even if the fig tree does not blossom, And there is no fruit on the vines, If the yield of the olive fails, And the fields produce no food, Even if the flock disappears from the fold, And there are no cattle in the stalls, ¹⁸Yet I will triumph in the Lord, I will rejoice in the God of my salvation. ¹⁹The Lord God is my strength, And He has made my feet like deer’s feet, And has me walk on my high places.”

Lord, although the slump in the economy many say comes from our hefty sanctions on Russia, and our lack of fuel solutions from the fact that the Saudis who are our “ally” would not answer the telephone when the White House called to make deals about oil, the truth is some of our difficulties could be you lifting your hand of protection due to our sin in the United States. Please guide us in a country regarding our much needed repentance, and it’s many areas of needed repentance. Like Habakkuk may we still praise you and worship you. May we become worshippers who defy the enemy because we fix our eyes on Jesus, the Author of our hope, The Lord our God, our Maker. Amen

Keep on growing in the Word! LG

How The Christian Faith Should Inform Our Response to School Shootings

Author: Lisa Groen

Category: Devotional and prayer

If we have looked on the news over the last year, we have seen more reports of yet all too numerous barbaric school shootings. To learn from the past, the intercessors, or stable men of prayer seen in the Old Testament such as Daniel, Moses, David or Jeremiah would most likely be in a process of grieving, mourning, or wailing to God, and possibly fasting, throwing dust on their heads and sitting in the oldest sackcloth, in similar kinds of bloody times of war in the Old Testament. Both in Biblical times as well as today, we who know who God is, know Him to be gracious, kind, loving hearted, patient, and redemptive. However, while we live on the earth, to keep our faith alive, we must place before our attention the many good things God has done for us which can be counted as things that range from numerous profound miracles, to everyday type provisions in times of God’s blessing on our nation to keep our perspective accurate. For an accurate perspective, we must count our blessings, and become familiar with the one who blesses nations and makes wars to cease to the ends of the earth, as the scripture says who also delivers people from death. Psalm 46:8-10 reads, “Come, see the works of the LORD, who brings devastation upon the earth. 9 He makes wars to cease throughout the earth; He breaks the bow and shatters the spear; He burns the shields in the fire. 10 “Be still and know that I am God; I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted over the earth.” When we make the choice to lift our eyes up to heaven despite times of bloodshed or unexpected loss, recounting His power to make bloodshed and war to cease, we can benefit greatly as we truly look to the realities of God’s personality alone. This reality can inspire worship, and the worship can take on a purity when we go to God as people who worship Him in faith. What I mean is that when we who trust in Christ take God at his word and familiarize to ourselves the identity of God as is shown to us through the Bible, we hold true the belief that his personality is eternal and does not change. The reality of the stability of God and his power to cause evil to cease should give stability to our faith as long as we are in this dark world.

We can have the hope of safety with God alone, and in Him through faith in Him we have a solid place to stand. When we remember the dark world we live in is not the anchor for our hope, but believe that Christ overcame the world of sin and all temptation, we are inspired to bow before him as king, and we can believe it is He who is our anchor in the midst of tragedies that happen. This can result in a pure kind of worship. This dark world was never a satisfactory place for our hope to be settled in. We must know Christ came to rescue us out of the world laden by sin. he came to settle us in a place where sin and decay does not corrupt. Heaven is the one place God has set apart for himself and to bring to himself those who believe in him who also want to be done with doing acts of sin in their life.

The bloody school shootings we see are just one of a million different things that tell us this world of darkness cannot be, and will not be sustainable as a permanent home for anyone. The world is getting more and more full of sin, and the earth is grieving under the weight of the heaviness of it. As we painfully and clumsily “wake up” to the numbing injuries of these assaults on children and adults but mainly children, we have few words that seem fitting to bring before our God of salvation, except something perhaps like “Lord! Save the people in need! Rescue the dying, both spiritually and physically!”

As we go grieving for the reality that America the country that some of us have grown up in is sadly churning out murderous beasts like these unredeemed killers, it seems so surreal, yet we must process this along with the many other tragedies America has faced, if we aim to comfort the hurting or confused. Why God allows evil has never been fully answered by God or by man at any time but we must still hold the beautiful parallel reality that He allows good to happen to evil people. The Bible speaks of overcoming evil with good and encourages us to not be overcome by evil but to overcome evil with good. One way this can happen is for us to get into the habit of crying out “Lord Jesus, bring people out of their sins! May your salvation change the lives of people in the United States!” “Lord, reveal your stable love to the lost, and woo the dark world to yourself even if it means through these times of bloodshed and broken exasperation.” “Come to us as we come to You in prayer! And grant that would-be murderers would instead be set upon a different road with changed lives, dispositions and plans. May people not lose their faith in times like this!” “Yet, for others that are shell shocked, and worn out with the gun violence in the US, save the broken people of our country out of the pressure they feel in the darkness and may it be redeemed as one of the many ways people can seek you and be led to your light!”

Prayer: Lord, save the lost! Save those trapped in the darkness! Lord, save those who have not yet heard of the God who sits in the heavens and laughs at the plans of the rulers of darkness. You are the God who wishes none to perish but all to come to the saving knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ. You are the God who does not take pleasure in the death of the wicked, and you are the God who rejoices not with evil, but you rejoice in the truth. We pray that truth would be upheld, as many children and adults are swooned with darkness and heaviness, and as many barely have the strength to look up. We ask for many to be given the grace to look up and to believe in the God who cares and has deep compassion. We ask for grace to be given to countless children and adults to believe in You Lord as the God who holds the way of salvation, who himself is The Way out of darkness. Lord Jesus as You have called yourself The Way, The Truth, and The Life, You are The Way out of sinfulness, and the way out of evil. You rescue many in this life, and promise a home in heaven with You, in a place separated from all evil. We ask for the hope of salvation to be shed abroad in people’s hearts because one day Jesus, you will make all things new, and all knees shall bow to You. We ask Jesus for you to visit this hurting grieving world, and for you to bind up the brokenhearted and heal all the wounds, of these our neighbors, these in our community, these in America, in these dark days of evil. We lean on You Alone for salvation to reach countless people dear Lord of Mercy! Amen!

Keep on growing in the Word! LG

Borders Around the Biblical Jerusalem and How Christians in the United States Can Submit our Prayers for Borders to the Lord

Author: Lisa Groen

Category: Devotional and prayer

Students of history will tell you history repeats itself when the lessons The Lord puts before a people fail to be learned by that people. Yet, even more deeply it should be considered that when the Lord would have a people learn a lesson, it should not just be learned, but retained. A lesson retained in the heart should be able to be brought forth from a fountain of wisdom so to speak to be accessible for meditation and reference in future times of need.

During the time Nehemiah came to organize the rebuilding of the wall of Jerusalem, Israel had been in captivity for about 70 years. The Babylonians were their captors. Some of the Jews had already been released to populate Jerusalem again, and the temple had been rebuilt. It is widely known that Nehemiah led the people of God to rebuild the wall of Jerusalem in a record of 52 days.

Before we get too excited about making 52 days a “magic number” that we tack on any massive project in our minds about saving America today we may imagine ourselves aspiring to, we must first imagine what the heart condition and meditations and posture was like for any average Jew in that day just having come from out of the land of their captivity. They had come from a place where there were no freedoms. They had come from a place where there was no professional advancement or free enterprise among the Jews. They had come from a place where there was much forced physical labor, and forced servitude. They owned no property themselves. They were beggars, and depended on whatever their captors might have thought they could count “as trash or leftovers” that ended up becoming the “savings and capital” of the Jews. In those kinds of times, we can imagine they did not get to eat what they liked, or travel at will, or even see next of kin for any type of holiday or family reunion-like event. They were estranged from the joys of what God had done for them in previous times of victory and their worship of God was most likely gagged by the enemy’s mockery and by their own shame and isolation from corporate times of celebration.

These events and circumstances no doubt created a refining fire I would dare say and a “holy breeding ground” for their hearts to become “ripe with humility and contriteness” and very likely a hunger and perhaps even a deep desire to pursue God for scraps of mercy. Truths from the word of God may have spoken loud and clear to them about how God is a God of mercy and a broken and contrite heart the Lord will not despise. They might have recalled the great mercy and compassion of the Lord from other times of victory in the Old Testament documents they may have had that would have pointed to times where they “would just need to show up for the battle and stand still and see the deliverance of their God”. But whatever the case was in their day, it is logical to believe they knew their God was a God of mercy who responds to a broken and contrite heart. They knew who God was, and they knew who they were—a desperate, helpless group of beggars. This was not false humility—this was their reality. For 70 years.

Our problem today in America is much of America does not know how desperate we are, how Revelation 3:17 is so much more true of us than anything else as a nation. It reads, “Because you say, “I am rich, and have become wealthy, and have no need of anything,” and you do not know that you are wretched, miserable, poor, blind, and naked,”…!

Unfortunately, it is not just the worldly pagans and the lost in America that are like this, but the Lord directs his statement in Revelation to “his bride” which he rebukes and says to the church—“…you do not know that you are wretched, miserable, poor, blind, and naked,”. We can venture to say in our times of coldness to prayer and fasting, we have no doubt some level of lukewarmness to God, and it can be said in those times his church doesn’t even know “…that you are wretched, miserable, poor, blind, and naked,”. However, the solution God gives is found in verses 18-19: “I counsel you to buy from Me gold refined by fire so that you may become rich, white garments so that you may be clothed and your shameful nakedness not exposed, and salve to anoint your eyes so that you may see. 19Those I love, I rebuke and discipline. Therefore be earnest and repent.”

Because of the evidence of the sins in America, and the weakness of our borders and broken southern wall, we have much to cry out to God for. Our God is a God of mercy, compassion, and grace, slow to anger, and rich in love. Let his truth be the fuel for us to seek God in spite of our sins. Let not our sins as a nation or our broken walls and breaches become a “sore spot” for the devil to poke at us to mock or harass and exploit our weaknesses, become a reason to get us to give up praying for protection against invaders and terrorists. Let our prayers and heart condition become like how the Israelites presented themselves before God, as a people aware of their utter weakness, aware of their inability to save themselves or make themselves into anything great, and as a people who looked to their faithful God who had a purpose in establishing a people for Himself, in spite of the problems his own people created for themselves.

Prayer:

Lord, we recognize our deep sins and apostacy in the United States of America. We ask for you to heal the breaches of the church buried within the USA, and keep us for yourself. Please let us keep our eyes on you as we pray and fight in the Spirit for the welfare of your people in this USA. Please heal the breaches of our walls in keeping our Christian rights alive and well. Please heal our breaches in our voice declaring the truth about homosexual marriage and transgender laws when we need to speak. We pray the right people would hear and listen to the truth. We pray you would soften the hearts of those who love abortion rights and those who get involved in racial battles, whether it be a battle within themselves or a battle within their communities. Remind us in our time in the word how to raise our children and how to live for you in the midst of a dark and perverse generation. Please help us stay the course and pray through these times when it seems like many people are doing what is right in their own eyes. May we pray with passion and contriteness and humility and steadfastness. Lord, we ask for a safe leader in the Whitehouse. We ask for one who will uphold your laws, your desires, your ways, your plans, and your righteousness and goodness. We ask you would remove or crush the enemy and keep us from getting taken over by any invading country. Help us to pray for problems in our political procedures that keep our southern border so dangerous and pitiful and weak and turn it around for our good! Make us not the laughingstock of the nations. Heal our breaches oh Lord, Heal our land! We humble ourselves and pray, and by your grace may we fast and seek your face and turn from our wicked ways, so you might hear from heaven, and heal our land! May we buy from You gold refined by fire so that we may become rich, white garments so that we may be clothed and our shameful nakedness not exposed, and salve to anoint our eyes so that we may see. Help us pray these things Oh Dear God until we see them fulfilled, Oh Dear Lord our Rock and our Redeemer! Lord have mercy! Amen and Amen!

Keep on growing in the Word! LG