Spiritual Authority

We are the New Israel, a spiritual nation bound together under the Blood of Christ.

Our Covenant is written in the souls of those who cannot resist the call to walk the footsteps of our Savior. We understand this covenant is rooted outside of our time-space constraints, residing in Heaven, not on the earth. It touches this earth in the same sense our Creator touches His creation — He is not part of it, but master of it. Our Lord remains intimately aware of every sub-atomic particle, it’s status, state and location at all times and outside of time. He’s aware of how each fits into larger plans He has, and we cannot possibly imagine what it all means. So no one of us can pretend we can have much say in things here on earth.

We should not confuse earthly authority with spiritual authority. Men use power and violence; we use the power of the Spirit. Do you not understand that when Paul asserted something as an Apostle of the Lord, he of all people understood it was a simple matter of you walking away if you couldn’t in clear conscience agree? His authority on the earth was entirely voluntary. Only the reflexes of the various church members and leadership kept them together under his authority. It was totally voluntary. To argue with him simply meant you weren’t working with him. There was room for flexibility, but the whole point was a voluntary agreement, not a threat of political pressure. He left that behind, lying on the road outside Damascus.

When I rise up to speak as a prophet of God, I have only the authority He grants through His Spirit. All I have is the unspeakable confidence and assurance that I know what He wants for me. In the nature of that obedience, He commissions me to share what I find in my encounter with Him. If I am persuasive, it is His persuasion working in my feeble human abilities. If you rise up to counter my words, I have an answer because of the clarity and depth of my commitment to what He shows me. It has nothing to do with earthly authority as men practice such things. That stuff ended on the Cross. The Covenant of Moses was closed up in the work of Christ; the mission of Israel as an earthly nation was complete.

The mission of Israel was then committed into the hands of this risen Messiah and He placed it upon those who follow Him. It is a spiritual kingdom with earthly manifestations. Human words can hardly contain the message; human ideas are a poor shadowy reflection of His higher truth. My words and my existence are merely one reflection of that higher truth.

I will most certainly take full advantage of the earthly opportunities to have my say. You can count on me to spout off every time the Spirit moves me. You’ll get my best effort to faithfully render in words what happens in my spirit. While in my mind I naturally assume it applies to all humans who can read those words, my mind also knows it is not in charge of enforcement. That’s not my department. Whatever happens to you from listening or not heeding at all is not in my hands, and I’m so very glad of that. I’d surely mess things up. It’s all I can do to be faithful in reporting what I see and hear. For you to heed any authority in my words is entirely voluntary, a transaction between you and God. May the Almighty lay His full wrath on every human who attempts to assert fleshly authority over other believers.

Spiritual authority is a spiritual matter, not something exercised by the flesh but upon flesh.