All power in heaven and on earth belongs to God. He is the Almighty God the God of all creation, the God of all flesh. He has awesome power. He can do all things. There is nothing, absolutely nothing beyond His power.

God in His love as a father has given His power to His own; His people – Ps68:35. This great influence, this great dominion, this great control over all, has been bestowed on us.

God desires that we live in dominion and manifest authority wherever we are. He has given us power over all.

However, power is nothing in itself if it is not exercised. For every power that exists, there is a licence/a right, to exercise, to display, to manifest that power. Without this licence or right, the power can not be displayed. This right is called “authority”. This licence is from the custodian of the power, the originator of the power.

How can we display the power that we have been given?

Exercising and manifesting spiritual authority is hinged on certain truths.

1. We must believe what the word of God says. He has given us power. Luke10:19. We must believe and not doubt. What I have been given is mine, so I can use it freely without fear.
2. We must have a close relationship with the “Author”, if we are to successfully exercise spiritual authority. Intimacy with God guarantees your exercising spiritual authority. When you walk in the corridors of power you will also exercise power.
3. To exercise authority one must understand authority and the way it works. “Understand” means, “to know thoroughly by close contact with or long experience of”. You cannot claim to understand something until you have a sound experience of that thing. A man who will exercise authority is a man who is actively submitting to authority. To exercise and manifest spiritual authority one must be under spiritual authority.

You cannot emerge suddenly as a great man of God. Who have you poured water into His hands? Authority is posessed in service. Who did you serve under? Who are you submitting to as we speak?

To manifest in the fullness of the power that Jehovah the Most High has bestowed upon us, we must be actively submitting to spiritual authority.
Matthew 8: 5-9 – The captain/centurion said to Jesus, I understand authority “for I am a man under authority, I say to one go and he goes and to another come and he comes”.
The message translation of the bible says, “I’m a man who takes orders and gives orders”. We love to give orders, but we would prefer not to take orders.

Spiritual authority does not come by age. You can be age mates, but not GRACE mates. Recognising the grace of God and submitting to it helps you to manifest the “fire” power of the living God.

4. Spiritual authority answers to spiritual maturity. Spiritual maturity is spiritual growth, not the number of years you have been born again, nor the number of bible verses you can quote. Spiritual maturity is not the beautiful sermons you preach, nor the ministers of God you know.

To be spiritually mature is to be developed in the things of the Spirit. It is the much of God we see in you, in your character in your attitude. To mature is to be ripe, to come of age. Ripe means “sufficiently advanced in preparation and ageing to be used”, to be used as food. Are you spiritually ripe? Are you sufficiently advanced in the things of God to feed others? How many people do you feed spiritually?

Immaturity is childishness, unskillfulness. An immature person is not developed enough to handle anything of significance. A child cannot exercise any rule, he cannot exercise dominion. Heb 5: 12-14.
Even though he has been given all things, as long as he refuses to grow and remains a child, he cannot manifest nor exercise spiritual authority – Gal 4:1-7.

A spiritually immature person is still a child in the things of God, he is always seeking the attention and approval of people; he is temperamental and selfish. He believes all he has been given power for is food and drink. All he does, he does to satisfy himself and his needs.

The spiritually immature continues to feed on milk and is not developed enough for solid food, therefore, he his unable to handle relevant matters. He cannot spend quality time chewing down the word of God. Deep communion with God in intimate fellowship is strange to him. He cannot go through the process of growth. He has a form of godliness, but the demonstration of the power of the living God is absent in his walk. This spiritually immature person cannot operate in the dynamism of spiritual authority.

Scripture refers to sons of God as soldiers. Soldiers are mature people of authority. For a soldier to take hold of authority and fully exercise it, he has to-
A. Be Ready – we need to be determined and prepared for growth. We need to be hungry for it. We should be prepared to go through the process of growth, it does not happen in a day. We should be violent in our faith – Matt 11:12.
B. Get Up – Gal5:1 we must stand up from the floor. We must get up from the dirt and snatch ourselves from the beggarly elements that threaten to consume us. We must stand up and stay up and stop sleeping in bondage. We have been set free, so let us stand in that liberty.
C. Get Training – Training is instruction and practice. We need to receive instruction – Ps4:13. We must apply our hearts to instruction, only fools despise instruction – Pr1:7; Pr23:12.
We receive instruction from reading and studying the bible, from sound teachings, tapes, books, etc. We must immediately then, put into practice what we hear and see. Practice brings into perfection – Heb 6:1&2.
Training will take us into the desired standard of growth that can display and exercise spiritual authority.

Spiritual authority is our God given right, but it is not automatic. One needs to enter into it through understanding. The enemy of our soul knows that when we operate in our God given power and authority we subdue his machinations and wreck havoc in his kingdom, so he is determined to keep us from manifesting the power of God. We must be violent in our spirits and take up what has been freely given to us. This way we will manifest the power of the Most High God, taking what is rightfully ours, releasing the saints of God to manifest God, defeating the kingdom of darkness and ultimately bringing glory to the name of Jesus, our God and soon coming King. Shalom! – KJO.