To every one of us, God has given kingdom authority. But what most Christians don’t realize is that your own clouded view can keep you from experiencing what God has to offer. In this message, Tony Evans challenges you to ask God to help see things clearly in hopes that you might seize your spiritual authority given to use in the context of His will.

faith must always precede site. Once you put site in front of faith, you’ve negated faith, faith is based on what you do not see. If you got to see it first, you won’t see it. Mhm. The euphemism of walking in the bible means to live according to because you’re moving with the mind of christ, you’re not just doing that on sunday morning when it’s church time because he wants to know that you want him. So if you’re in distress, don’t let that drive you away, draw you near closer so that you like Jacob and say, I’m not gonna let you go until you answer me when you get close and want to live for him. Want to please him, want to honor him, want to exalt him, want to draw near to him, then heaven opens up and he lets you find he lets you find Welcome to the fire. Our series has been called, it’s called Igniting Kingdom Prayer and the purpose of this series is connecting you with your authority with your spiritually endowed authority granted to you by God. If you are a believer in jesus christ. But for far too many of us, we do not see clearly because we do not understand that it is our shaded view that’s keeping us from experiencing what God offers God wants you and me to have kingdom authority. Kingdom authority may be defined as the divinely authorized, right and responsibility delegated to believers to act on God’s behalf in spiritually ruling over his creation under the lordship of jesus christ in verses 15 to 18 paul prays that they will apprehend what they have, He says in verse 17 that God will give you a spirit of wisdom, a spirit of revelation. He praised in verse 18 that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened. All that means is so that you start seeing things as they really are and not as you think they are. He wants God to clarify. So I want you to whisper in your mind or with your lips as I’m speaking to you today. I simply want you to ask God to help you see that the eyes of your heart might be illuminated to see clearly What this authority that you possess I possess, we possess as believers. In fact, he uses an interesting word in the end of verse 18, which are the riches of the glory of his inheritance in the saints. So I’m here to declare to you you are rich, he says, I want you to understand how rich you are in the spiritual realm that you have inherited by virtue of your faith in jesus christ, there is not a poor person here spiritually as far as your inheritance is concerned. So if we are spiritually poor, we don’t know how to withdraw because he says, I want you to see how rich you are spiritually speaking. Now, I know as a christian, your major concern is going from hell to heaven safely I know as a christian, your major concern is when you die, you will wind up in the presence of the Lord. However, on your way there, God wants you to know there are riches, rights and privileges that you can benefit from. On your way to your ultimate destination, paul says, I don’t want you to go to heaven to see how powerful heaven is. I want you to be enlightened now about the rights and privileges that are crude to you and me and us based on our relationship with jesus, christ what God wants you to know me to know and us to know that there is more in there to be experienced, not just to be held in your hand, but to be experienced. He says, I pray that your eyes might be enlightened, but our problem is we’ve got fog on our glasses. Many of us have put pesticide on what God has for us and it’s contaminated it. That pesticide is called human wisdom, that is man’s point of view, the human way to go the natural way to think. And we have sprinkled pesticide on God’s organic truth and wonder why we’re spiritually sick, even though we’re still chewing on the word, because it’s been contaminated by what the bible calls the wisdom of man, which nullifies the manifestation, illumination and revelation of God. He says, I pray that your eyes would be open, that you will become wise, that you would become knowledgeable in an experiential way of what God wants to do because you already have the riches. In fact, he says in verse one, chapter one verse three, You’ve already been blessed with all spiritual blessings. Everything God is ever going to do for you, he’s already deposit. So you already have it now. Having established what he’s praying for what you and I should be praying for clear glasses so that we can see, he goes a little bit further. What does he want us to see? Well, He says Verse 19, what is their surpassing greatness of his power toward us? Who believe so, guess what? He wants you to see? He wants you to see his power. He says that I’m praying that you’ll see the surpassing greatness blow your mind power toward us. Who believe these are in accordance with the working of the strength of his might. He says, God wants to show you his muscles. God wants to show you his potency. God wants you to experience his power. So he doesn’t just want you to see his power. He wants to see you. He wants you to see him show off his power, demonstrate his power, not just theology. Eyes about his power. Well, how big is this power? Well, he tells you Which verse 20 he brought about in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in heavenly places far above rule authority. Power and Dominion every name that is named, not only in this age, but in the age to come, wow, guess what kind of power God wants you and me as believers. If you’re a believer, this applies to you to experience in your life, he wants you to experience here, it is resurrection power, he says it’s the power that raised christ from the dead. He wants you to see the power that reverses things that can take things that are dead and make them alive, take things that are bad and make them good, take defeat and make victory take lost and wind up with gain. He wants you to see watch this, that he can change the natural order of things. Resurrection is changing the natural order of things. Now that’s going to happen to you and me physically like it happened to jesus when we’re giving our new bodies at the resurrection, but he’s not talking about when believers die, he’s talking about why we’re still alive. He says I want you to see it now, I want you to put on glasses so that you get to see resurrection power. Now let’s go a little deeper when he raised jesus from the dead, it says that jesus being raised, seated him at his right hand in heavenly places, jesus rose on sunday, Then he ascended 40 days later through the Clouds into heaven where he sat down. Now you said you sit down when you finish something okay, the bible says he sat down on the right hand of the father. The father’s right hand is his power hand. So follow this, jesus christ is now seated in the spiritual realm, ruling on the throne. He is seated very much alive in the spiritual realm called heavenly places. But what is he doing in that spiritual realm? He’s ruling because he’s seated on a throne and he sits high above it says all rule and all authority. Don’t miss that. High above all rule and all authority. Well wait a minute. That means he cannot be overruled because everything he rules over is underneath him because he sits high above ruling authority. That’s angels and every name that is named that’s humans, jesus christ is not a ruling from heaven for the benefit of history and he cannot be overruled. But he possesses veto power because while he can’t be overruled any attempt to overrule him, he can veto because he sits above them, just like courts can veto of the courts because they sit above them. So he wants your eyes to be open, that you’ve got this wealth available to you, to your experience, his power and that power is demonstrated in the person of christ. Hebrews chapter two verse 14 which says that in jesus’s death and resurrection, satan was defeated. So let’s get this straight, you cannot now be defeated by satan unless he’s allowed to do it and he does it now by deception because jesus took away his fangs, okay bible says he took away the power of death. So satan now must trick us to defeat us. He can’t just overpowers to defeat us. If you’re a believer in jesus christ, he’s gotta do pew, that’s why he wants your eyes, my eyes to be open that satan is now under jesus feet. Look at Chapter 2: verse six I’m gonna reverse 4-6. But God being rich in mercy because of his great love with which he loved us. Even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with christ by grace. Have you been saved? And raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in christ, jesus, did you just see what I just read? Were your eyes open? I don’t believe it, I don’t believe it, I got to read it again. But God being rich in mercy because of his great love with which he loved us. Even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with christ by Grace, you have been saved and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in christ, jesus. So guess what, Jesus is not the only one in heaven? Somebody’s with him together with him. Not only are there folks with him and together with him they are seated beside him it says seated with him and they are together with him, seated with him in the same location as him heavenly places, heavenly places is the spiritual realm. So guess what paul is praying that you and I and we understand you’re here but you’re not here. He says you have been relocated spiritually, even though you are physically located right here right now in church, he says, because if you are saved, you died with him. Were raised with him, were seated with him in the heavenly places. So here’s the problem if you’re seated with him in heavenly places, but you’re operating from earthly places, then you’re functioning from the wrong location. So the reason many of us are not seeing the power is we’re operating from the wrong location. Were seated in heaven because that’s where the power is. But we’re operating on earth and there’s no power there, he says. But if you learn to operate from where you are truly seated, which is in heavenly places, you’re looking at things totally different because you’re looking at it from God’s perspective, not from man’s perspective, he says, you are seated with him. Authority works where jesus christ rules where his jurisdiction exists, we do it all the time what they call it, zoom teleconferencing. You can be in Dallas and be in a meeting in Chicago without ever leaving Dallas because technology has set it up that you can really be in Chicago and never leave Dallas because the way technology has happened is that connections are made between a place you aren’t to put you there while you still aren’t there. So you’re physically in Dallas, but you’re in the meeting in Chicago because technology has put you in two places at one time. Now before man ever created all this techie stuff, God had a spiritual system in place to connect us from earth to heaven without leaving your location. And that spiritual connection point has every believer in heaven while they never leave the premises on earth. The problem is we get so used to earth that we never connect the spiritual technology to heaven and wind up with the limitations of earth and therefore don’t see the authority and the power that God has granted believers to experience. So how do you get to experience this? Okay, here it is. Notice verse 20 verse 20 two and he put all things in subjection under his feet and gave him his head of all things to the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills all in here. It is you will not see the connection open up and the screen come on up there in heavenly places where you are down here on earthly places where you sit unless you are under jesus feet, you have to be under his feet. God has placed all things under his jesus’s feet. That means under his authority, under his control, under his rule. And the one issue that must be settled is the lordship of jesus christ over every area of life. That that issue must get settled. When you trust christ for the forgiveness of sins, you’re now on your way to heaven. But when you submit to the lordship or the ruler ship of jesus christ over every area of your life, that’s when heaven can visit you and heaven will not visit you if you’re not under his feet, let me read to you right now, romans 14 about the Lordship of jesus christ, here’s what it says in verses seven through nine for not one of us lives for himself And that one dies for himself. For if we live we live for the Lord and if we die we die for the Lord. Therefore whether we live or die, we are the Lord’s for to this in christ died and lived again that he might be both, that he might be Lord both of the dead and of the living Until he is Lord. He uses the word Lord four times in those verses until he is master rules final decision maker, meaning you’re under his foot. You know when somebody puts their foot on somebody, they want to hold them down. Okay, Unless God can hold you down. Unless you are willing to say yes Lord to his authority, unless you and I are willing to say I am not my own, I’ve been bought with a price and that buying with the price covers all of my life, my personal life, my financial life, my attitude, no life, my relational life, it covers all of my life because I am not my own. He says I want to be Lord while you’re living and when you’re dead, I don’t want to just be Lord. When it comes time to go to heaven, I want to be Lord on your way there until he we are under his feet, we will not see his authority being manifested in our experience. We won’t see his power, we won’t see change because that look the way you know that this christian thing is working is God demonstrates his power. See when jesus was on earth, how did they know he was the messiah because of his powerful demonstrations? Okay, so if you really want to know how real he is plug into his power, but you can’t plug into his power unless you’re under his foot, you gotta be under his authority. In other words, he must have the right to veto you. He must have the right to overrule you. He must have the right to dictate to you. He must have the right to consume you because he died and rose to be Lord. Not just to be savior, he died and rose to take you to heaven, but also rule you on earth. And if you want to see his rule on earth, that he must be Lord over all of life. The problem today is we have AM FM christians, They switch frequencies, you see they heavenly on sunday then they go secular on monday. You see they keep switching frequencies back and forth and wonder why they don’t get to hear the whole too because they keep switching frequencies and God says I ain’t gonna let you two timing. Now you have to decide if I am lord or if I am not now, if I am lord, that means final say so veto power. And then when it comes time for me to do something, I don’t have to go far since you’re sitting next to me, I can just turn because you’re already sitting next to me in the spiritual realm. But if you’re not operating from that realm, you don’t even hear him talking. You don’t see the riches, you don’t experience the power and jesus just becomes a religious experience that encourages you. That inspires you. But you never see the authority. The overruling. But I will tell you this, there’s nothing like seeing it because when, when he, when he shows up and you get to see it and you get to say, whoa, I just saw God dude, I just saw God do a switch on me. I just saw God take something dead and raise it from the great, I just saw that I was dying in this situation, dying with this problem dying with the resources dying and I just saw God flip the natural order of things. See then you won’t have to lean on somebody else’s testimony because you’ll be able to say I’ve seen him with my own eyes. Yes. So right now in closing, I want to switch a word. I want to switch a word. I want to change out a word. Okay now the word I want to change out is a great word. It’s a good word, but it’s a problem word. But it’s a natural word. The word I want to switch out is the word commitment. See we call on people to make a commitment. There’s a problem with a good word. The problem with the word commitment is you’re still in control. See when you make a commitment, you’re in control. Like like we committed to lose the weight we gained over christmas, we’re committed. We’re committed. I’m going on a diet and I’m gonna lose that weight. We committed to start working out. We just committed. We’re committed. We’re committed to read our bible every day or to pray more and we were so sincere when we made those commitments, I’m telling you we were so sincere. But then life happen and distractions happen and our commitment began to wane not because we weren’t sincere but we were in control and when the control got weak, the commitment got weak. So I want to switch the word out. I want to switch the word out from commitment to surrender. Si si if a man holds a gun up and says put your hands up, he just trump commitment. I don’t need commitment. I’m surrendered. I’m throwing my hands up. I ain’t thinking about it. I ain’t going into do I really want to commit? Yeah I really want to do this. You know why? Because somebody else is in control, Somebody else got to go. He said sit down. You don’t have to tell me twice, I’m gonna sit down. Why? Because I’m not in control. You know what you do when you surrender what you told you see because when you surrender somebody else is in control, somebody else is calling the shots. So commitment is a great word but we will get shaky with commitment. So let’s go to surrender so that it’s not up to us. It’s whatever you say boss, you’re the boss man. Whatever you say. Yes sir, I surrender I hold up my hands because you’re the authority because now it doesn’t depend on my commitment, it depends on my obedience to the authority who’s telling me what to do. So I surrender and once you surrender heaven wakes up and say we got one we got one who’s ready to see my power and my authority when jesus christ rose from the dead and he ascended up to heaven and set on the right hand side of his father. He now sits in a position of spiritual authority and he has invited us, his people to join him there. The scripture says that we are seated with him in heavenly places, believers have access to the risen christ and the authority that he wills in the spiritual realm for us to activate, utilize and make manifest in the physical realm. We’re now able through our prayers to draw down from heaven for help in our histories, personal histories, family histories and our environmental realities. Authority is the legitimate use of power. People can use power illegitimately. You have a policeman that has a gun, you have a criminal that has a gun. Both have firepower, but only one has a badge. Well, when it comes to spiritual authority, jesus christ has given his people a badge. So we have legitimate access to God legitimate access through christ. And that means we have the ability to be authorized to bring God’s will God’s presence into our circumstances. We can bring spiritual reality into a physical reality. So when you pray, you know that you have the right and you have been authorized to exercise heaven’s authority and history so that history can be transformed because we’re seated alongside of the authoritative one, jesus christ mm hmm. Mhm When you’re in the spirit but the bible calls the spirit a win a wind that blows my opinion. Nobody’s opinion. When it conflicts with God is to be considered as truth, the bible says, let God be true and every man alive mother nature doesn’t work without Daddy God. That’s because truth then adjust. Because if it comes from God, it’s true because God has absolute standard by which reality is measured.