Selah2020: Pause and Reflect

[Transcript of “A 5 minute cuppa” published by Horley Baptist Church on YouTube^[1], March 2021]

Hi everyone, welcome to ‘a five minute cuppa’. This is the place that you can come any time of day, just for five minutes, to relax, put your feet up, have a cuppa and listen to a few words to help you grow in your relationship with God.

Over the last couple of weeks in the five-minute cuppa we’ve been thinking about the way God communicates with us as a two-way communication rather than a monologue of ‘pleases’ and ‘thank you’s. We’ve tried pausing after asking questions, to see what God wants to say to us and have started to use simple practical tools like prayer diaries to help us pray for and respond to people and situations that are on our hearts.

Today we’re going to think a bit about how we can talk to God or use the information that he reveals to us in that closer relationship that we’re developing. You might remember that way back in the first session of a five minute cuppa I talked about how it’s okay to be dissatisfied with aspects of our spiritual life because that is often a catalyst for the Holy Spirit to come and do something new. I told you that I had been dissatisfied with my prayer life and that I had come to God honestly and asked him to teach me how to pray. Most of what I’ve been sharing in the five minute cuppas have come out of answers to that seemingly simple question.

Today I’m going to share one of the things I have come to understand about Jesus that has had the most impact on my prayer life and turned it completely around. Stories and texts in the Bible talk to us a lot about needing a mind change in order to receive a heart or an action change. For me this came by looking at things in the Bible that had become so familiar that they had become just meaningless words, and asking the Holy Spirit to show me what Jesus meant by them and how they could affect my life.

One of the things I’ve never really understood is is the scripture that talks about believers being ‘seated with Christ in heavenly places’. If you take that literally it doesn’t make sense. Jesus is in heaven with the Father and we’re still on earth – how can we be seated with him? I love the way that our Father gently helps us to make sense of things when we ask him. Over a few months the Holy Spirit showed me that because Jesus is seated at the right hand of the Father he has been given all authority and power over everything on earth and in the spiritual realms. Because as believers the Holy Spirit lives within us we too share that same authority and power.

When Jesus lived on earth he carried authority from the Father – what did that look like? Basically, Jesus would speak and God showed up and intervened. He didn’t use complex words, he wasn’t even talking directly to the Father, he just spoke out the opposite to what he was seeing in front of him. For example, in the middle of the storm he told the storm to be still, when confronted with the demon possessed he would say ‘Come out!’ or with the sick ‘Be healed’ or ‘Take up your mat and walk’.

It was a revelation to me that if we too hold that same authority we can speak directly to a situation with the authority of Jesus and speak the opposite of what we see. For example, if we see that a person is being surrounded by lies that are affecting their mind and spirit we can speak out ‘Know the truth, the truth will set you free’ or if it has been revealed to us that a person is is being crushed by the negativity of someone that they live or work with we can speak out ‘Know in your spirit that you are important and completely loved’ or if a friend or colleague is is suffering physical pain we can speak out telling that part of the body to work as it was originally intended and designed to and for the pain to go.

How do we get to a place where we know the authority we have been given and believe this on a daily basis, so that we can speak to all kinds of issues even those big mountains that Jesus talks about and actually see them change?

Sometimes little practical things help. Something that helps me and reminds me of the authority I carry is to put my hand on my stomach each morning, to make myself aware of the Holy Spirit living in me. I thank him for being there and I say ‘Holy Spirit, let’s do this day together’, then I put my hand on my head and say ‘Jesus transform my mind today that I will see things as the Father sees them. Help me to walk in your authority so I can affect change where it is needed’. Through doing this daily my faith has increased and I see changes that I didn’t think were possible before.

If anything I’ve spoken about today resonates with you then the Holy Spirit is most likely speaking to you. Why not ask Jesus to show you how you can walk in his authority and see what changes that brings about for you?

.
[1] YouTube link: Know Your Authority
Bible references: ~
 

Bible quotations: Unless otherwise specified, quotations are taken from the resources of Bible Gateway or Bible Hub, in accordance with the licencing conditions outlined on our Site Policies page.

Bible dates: Where appropriate, the dates given for Biblical events are based on the Bible Timeline resource
and are subject to the constraints defined on the corresponding webpage.