I have referenced several times lately about our inheritance in Christ. I have to be honest, I have lived most of my Christian life not really knowing what I had inherited, besides my salvation, when I received Christ.  My salvation was a pivotal point in my life as I was on a path to destruction.  My emotions were a mess, my life style was a mess, my marriage was a mess.  I needed rescuing from the fire which was my life.

I was 21 when I received the Lord and made a massive turn in how I lived and what was important to me and I’ve never looked back.  I was saved and I knew that, but I was extremely broken and my process to healing and freedom still took some years.  I plan to write a book about that one of these days.

I got saved back in 1973. The church had not learned much about spiritual authority and even though some came into that understanding, I was in a stream who discarded that concept because some in that movement preached more on the wealth of the kingdom than the whole picture, so they perceived the whole thing as wrong and got turned off.  It’s unfortunate that they threw the baby out with the bathwater. (More about that later…)

This morning I came across several verses and felt led to write about it.  Let’s start with Luke 10:19. I’ll preface this scripture with the setting.  Jesus had sent out 70 people that he had appointed to go ahead of Him into each place, two by two.  He told them to take no money and that the laborers were worthy of their hire. He told them to heal the sick that they met along the way and say to them, “The kingdom of God has come near to you.”

Then it says the seventy returned with joy saying, ”Lord even the demons are subject to us in Your name.” Then in verse 19 He says, “Behold, I have given you authority to tread upon serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy, and nothing shall injure you.”  When I first got save, all I had was a King James Bible and it read like this, “Behold, I give unto you power to tread on serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy; and noting shall by any means hurt you.” 

Thank goodness we have versions now that differentiate between these two Greek words which are not the same.  Without some digging into the Hebrew and Greek words one would just assume that it would be the same word. I didn’t know that those two words translated at “power” were two different words.  It just sounded like both the kingdom of darkness had power and the kingdom of God also had power.  But that isn’t what Jesus was saying at all.

“Behold, I have given you authority (power).”  This is the Greek word exousia and it means: (in the sense of ability); privilege, i.e. (subjectively) force, capacity, competency, freedom or mastery, magistrate, superhuman, delegated influence

Let’s take a closer look at these highlighted words:

Privilege means a right or immunity granted as a peculiar benefit, advantage or favor: Prerogative, especially such a right or immunity attached specifically to a position or an office.

Magistrate means an official entrusted with administration of the laws, an official exercising administrative and often judicial functions.

Delegated Influence:

Delegated means a person acting for another, to entrust to another, to assign responsibility or authority

Influence means: 1. the power or capacity of “causing an effect” 2. One that exerts influence   3. An emanation of spiritual or moral force.

There’s some powerful stuff in this. Privilege is a right granted, magistrate is an official entrusted with exercising judicial functions, delegated influence is a person acting for another with the power or capacity to influence.  This is all just in the word exousia!  Do you see an image being formed here?

The word power (in that which we have authority over the enemy’s power) is the word dunamis.  Here is what it means:

Dunamis: force, ability, power, strength, violence (I only used the words that fit the enemies camp because dunamis is also used in other verses on the Kingdom of Heaven’s side).

So, another translation could be: I have given you authority over all the force of the enemy, over all the ability of the enemy, over all the power of the enemy, over all the strength of the enemy, over all the violence of the enemy. Wow!

Now I want to take you back to the word authority.  This understanding is powerful!

Authority: in the sense of ability, privilege, force, capacity, competency, mastery, magistrate, superhuman, delegated influence from 1832 it is right (through the idea of being out in public), be lawful from a double root: 1537 preposition denoting origin (the point whence action or motion proceeds) “from” and 1510 I exist, (used only when emphatic) “I am”, it is I

I don’t know if you caught that or not but let me break it down for you. The double root of the word authority (exousia) is from I Am.  This is powerful guys!  This shows that it is God’s power and strength flowing through us, nothing from us, it’s all Him! We have been given delegated influence; we have been given the privilege of being used by the Lord for His power to flow through us as we yield ourselves to Him, the Great I Am.

I wish I’d known this 40 years ago. So much of my Christian life was spent with me cowering in fear and allowing the enemy to overwhelm my mind with the issues of the day or the problems in my life.

The second verse I want to share about is Colossians 2:13-15: “And when you were dead in your transgressions and the uncircumcision of your flesh, He made you alive together with Him, having forgiven us all our transgressions, having canceled out the certificate of debt consisting of decrees against us and which was hostile to us; and He had taken it out of the way, having nailed it to the cross. When He had disarmed the rulers and authorities, He made a public display of them having triumphed over them through Him.”

Once I was dead in my transgressions, then I accepted Christ and was made alive together with Him, as I was forgiven. He cancelled out my debt, consisting of degrees that were against me.  This is legal terminology. God has a government and His government has an order and what He’s decreed is done. He took those things out of the way when they were nailed to the cross.  Now comes the part we haven’t readily stepped into.

It says He disarmed rulers and authorities and made a public display of them openly, triumphing over them through Him. Let’s look at the highlighted words disarmed, rulers and authorities.

Rulers (KJV says principalities).  In the Greek it is the word arche which means a commencement, chief, magistrate, power from 756 to commence (in order of time), (rehearse from the) begin(-ning) from 757 to be first (in political rank or power) reign (rule) over.

Authorities (KJV says powers) In the Greek this word is exousia (the same word as authority in Luke 10:19) which means (in the sense of ability) privilege, magistrate, delegated influence etc.  Take a look above for the full understanding. 

Guys! This is powerful.  This is indicating that at one time Satan DID have this authority. He underhandedly acquired it when Adam and Eve obeyed the serpent in the Garden.  BUT…it’s been taken back away from him. Jesus went into Hell, took the keys of sin and death away from the devil and It was given back to us as an inheritance when we came into the Kingdom of God.

Now for the word disarmed.  This is powerful guys!  It’s the Greek word apekduomai and it means to divest wholly oneself, or (for oneself) despoil, put off from a double root 575 “off” i.e. away (from something near) and 1562 to cause to sink out of (specially as of clothing) to divest, strip, take off from, unclothe

Divest means to deprive or dispossess especially of property, “authority” or title.

Colossians 2:15 says Christ removed the power and authority from satan (I think you can see this is clear) and made a public display of them, triumphing over them.  In Luke 10:19 Christ says His disciples (and us once He died on the cross and rose from the dead with the keys of sin and death) were given back that authority.

There are other verses that reveal that we also have power (dunamis).  Here are several:

Acts 4:33 “And with great power (dunamis) the apostles were giving witness to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, and abundant grace was upon them all.

Acts 6:8 “And Stephen, full of grace and power (dunamis), was performing great wonders and signs among the people.”

Romans 1:16 “For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ; for it is the power (dunamis) of God unto salvation to every one that believes; to the Jew first and also to the Greek.”

Now that we see that we have inherited exousia authority from Christ let me give an example to help explain what this means. We obey the police because they have authority. They have a badge that gives them that authority. If they go walk out in traffic and hold up their hand we stop. We see their authority and obey.  They also have power, they have a gun. They can back up their authority with their power for those who don’t acknowledge their authority.

Through Christ we have a badge (authority) and we have a gun (power) that we use on the works of the enemy. With our authority we take back from the devil what he has stolen (remember, Jesus said satan comes to kill, steal and destroy. John 10:10) and we overcome him with power flowing through us from I Am.

Satan has had the badge taken away from him. He was divested of authority and power as it was stripped off, taken off from and unclothed from him (per the meaning of divest above). I know I’m belaboring a point but I feel it’s a point worth belaboring. 

We have been lied to guys. Satan and his ilk have willingly allowed us to remain clueless in this area because they don’t want us to know.  If we perceive him to have power they willingly allow and encourage the deception.  That is how they operate, in the realm of lies and deception. The last thing they want is for the church to realize that we hold the upper hand not them. We have the authority to take things back and bring justice to their violence and we all know there is violence all around us.  We see it on the news and everywhere we look. One preacher I just heard said this lately and it really struck me. He said, “We are the enforcers of His authority.” Isn’t that powerful?

Now I want to cover one last point.  I mentioned in the beginning of this blog that we had thrown out the “faith message” because of the “prosperity” aspect.  I want to shed a little light on it here.

The word salvation in ALL of the Old Testament is the word Yeshua (or Yesha or Tshuw’ah. Here is the meaning of these three words:

Yeshua (which is Jesus in Hebrew) is H3444 and means something saved, deliverance; hence aid, victory, prosperity, deliverance, health, help(-ing), salvation, save, saving (health), welfare from 3467 to be open, wide or free, i.e. to be safe, to free or succor, avenging, defend, deliver(er), help, preserve, rescue, be safe, being (having) salvation, save(-iour), get victory.

Yesha is H3468 and means liberty, deliverance, prosperity, safety, salvation, saving from 3467 to be open, wide or free, i.e. to be safe; to free or succor, avenging, defend, deliver(er), help, preserve, rescue, be safe, bring (having) salvation, save(-iour), get victory.

Tshuwah H8668 means rescue, deliverance, help, safety, salvation, victory from 7768 to be free, but used only causatively and reflexively, to haloo (for help i.e. freedom from some trouble) cry aloud, shout

Tshuwah is used less often and is in verses like Psalms 37:39 which says, “But the salvation of the righteous is of the Lord; He is their strength in the time of trouble.”

I just wanted you all to see that prosperity is part of God’s description of salvation.  If this upsets you, take it up with Him…this was His idea not mine or all of the other teachers and preachers over the year that have talked about it.  If you will look again at the words above for Yeshua, liberty and freedom is mentioned (mental and spiritual deliverance from bondage), health is mentioned (healing) and salvation is mentioned (our salvation through Yeshua) and prosperity is mentioned.

Our salvation in Christ covers it all. He has provided salvation for us on the cross.  Through His death and resurrection we have been given spiritual freedom, safety, prosperity, health and healing and the authority and power to enforce it in the circumstances around us.

Let’s acknowledge that we have a badge and a gun and go kick some spiritual butt for the kingdom! And let’s become those enforcers of His authority that He has called us to be!

I cover this in some degree in my book “God Stories” which you can find in my Etsy Shop. Follow the link to find out more. You will read chapters about times when God has used me and others that I write about, and some chapters on learning who we are in Christ.

https://www.etsy.com/listing/1102840791/god-stories-learning-to-recognize-his?click_key=91fe974472ede576361800c53f2df9f84eeb19a8%3A1102840791&click_sum=0fdcca7a&ref=shop_home_active_1