Authority Awareness as a Freeing Truth:
(September 2, 2008)1 Corinthians 2:1-16 (New International Version)
1 When I came to you, brothers, I did not come with eloquence or superior wisdom as I proclaimed to you the testimony about God. 2 For I resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ and him crucified. 3 I came to you in weakness and fear, and with much trembling. 4 My message and my preaching were not with wise and persuasive words, but with a demonstration of the Spirit's power, 5 so that your faith might not rest on men's wisdom, but on God's power.
6 We do, however, speak a message of wisdom among the mature, but not the wisdom of this age or of the rulers of this age, who are coming to nothing. 7 No, we speak of God's secret wisdom, a wisdom that has been hidden and that God destined for our glory before time began. 8 None of the rulers of this age understood it, for if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory. 9 However, as it is written: "No eye has seen, no ear has heard, no mind has conceived what God has prepared for those who love him"— 10 but God has revealed it to us by his Spirit. The Spirit searches all things, even the deep things of God. 11 For who among men knows the thoughts of a man except the man's spirit within him? In the same way no one knows the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God. 12 We have not received the spirit of the world but the Spirit who is from God, that we may understand what God has freely given us. 13 This is what we speak, not in words taught us by human wisdom but in words taught by the Spirit, expressing spiritual truths in spiritual words.14 The man without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually discerned. 15 The spiritual man makes judgments about all things, but he himself is not subject to any man's judgment: 16 "For who has known the mind of the Lord that he may instruct him?" But we have the mind of Christ.
What is the mind of Christ that as believers we have? How do we walk in this mind, which is Christ in us? How does the Spirit guide us? I believe part of this "mind" or "Spirit-attitude" for Christ while on the Earth as a man was his ability to recognize an unseen Authority enabling him, guiding him, and moving him day by day, moment to moment. The authority of God the Father evidenced through the Spirit, in every situation, freed Jesus to live unencumbered by fear or worry. Man-tainted laws, regulations, rules, traditions, cultural taboos, religious rulers, political powers and even ancient evil spiritual principalities could not shake Jesus from hearing, obeying, and remaining in the Authority of the Father's will extended to His beloved Son.
I believe, as Christ walked in this mighty freeing awareness, we too can discover this same freedom of boldness, humility, insight, wisdom, and obedience flowing from the living authority of the Father in heaven. Not only is the Father's will there for us to walk in, but also the mind of Christ is ready to guide us into ALL TRUTH.
Every need, every situation, every moment, every decision we face can be actively, dynamically engaged within the Authority of the Kingdom of God, within us, and among us! This is a powerful truth!
It can seen in scriptures from Adam, the first of Man, how authority over the Earth was conditionally granted to him to tend, care for, and have an obediently submissive dominion under God’s rule. Adam believing the lie of Satan, chose a “short-cut” to become a grand ruler as “a god”. Gaining the knowledge of good and evil via self-rule, Adam decided to operate outside of God’s rule and thus forfeited his conditional authority. Somehow, Satan had Adam’s forfeited authority “fall” to himself via Adam’s rebellion. The dominion over the Earth fell to the Evil One. Fallen man by fallen man, Satan’s kingdom grew in power. God allowed this . . . for a time.
When Jesus came as the Second Adam, the chance to regain the authority over the Earth became a reality. Jesus’ obedience, unto death, to God’s ultimate rule and heaven-based authority, would be Man’s chance to take back a forfeited authority that Satan was abusing generation unto generation. One may read of Satan coming to Jesus and offering Him the “short-cut” all over again to gain the world’s kingdoms. Satan tempted Jesus to walk in self-rule, to take independent action, and use the quick path to being a King with authority. Jesus resisted, submitting instead to the will, the rule, and the ultimate authority of His Father in Heaven. Where the first Adam fell, Jesus the Second Adam refused the Lie of the Evil One. In Jesus’ death and resurrection, he won back the lost authority over the Earth. The conditional test of rightful reign was over. Jesus’ race was finished victoriously!
Yet, as the scriptures attest, even now the conquered remnants of Satan’s rule, through fallen man, still operate. When the Church, the New Man in Christ, the Body of Christ was born of the Spirit and of blood ~ Jesus granted for us, yet again, His Father-given authority to operate in the Earth. The kingdom of God is conferred upon us through the Spirit of God operating among us. “And the gates, (the defeated authorities and powers), of hell will not prevail against us.” As the Church, the Body of Christ, we have a God-given authority to bring forward, into all the Earth, the kingdom rule of God. Evil, though defeated, still operates in the battlefields of men and women’s hearts. Those given over to self-rule are agents of rebellion. We may not believe or accept such. Yet where God’s authority is pushed aside or ignored ~ herein is the Enemy’s foothold. All self-rule resistance in all hearts is the remnants of Satan’s failed kingdom of rebellion against God-based authority. Some of us resist God and will become a Hitler. Many will quietly submit to all man’s laws of situational morality but still resist God’s way.
We all must submit to God’s authority sooner or later. Now is the accepted time to walk away from self-rule and each day thereafter is wisest. To wait until another day to hear the Spirit and follow is foolishness. We war; we battle not against flesh and blood but actually against unseen evil powers and rulers holding out in resistance against the always-victorious reign of God in heaven and earth. God has chosen to regain all lost ground through the obedience of men and women. By the chosen road of death to self-rule and walking in the rule of the Spirit, we are co-warriors with Christ. The kingdom of light pushes back the kingdom of darkness as we corporately walk in the will of the Father. Herein does the kingdom of God advance within and among us. And all advance is through the work of Christ in us and that is not of ourselves, not of self-rule but of daily surrender to the Lord.
