As we walk our journey’s with God we may at some time come to realize that we think of God the Father, or we feel a real relationship with Jesus yet hardly know the Holy Spirit.

Or we think much of the Holy Spirit and ignore Jesus and cannot stomach the Father. Others still find companionship with Jesus while others know God but outside the context of Christ.

Spiritual Authority is all about harnessing the fullness of God, the full spectrum of glory and directing it. Because this comes out of the context of relationship with God, how are we to do this if there is a part of God we are not familiar with or comfortable?

Unless with are in relationship with all of God, it begins to be a taking advantage of the power found in the Lord. This is the exact sin that the first of the Ten Commandments addresses, “Do not take the name of your Lord in vain.”

We surface skim this verse thinking it has to do with the words of our mouths. We apply it to swearing and yet the commandment is about something much deeper.

The context to which this commandment is speaking is the state where we see the power of God, recognize the amazing things in and through God and want that for ourselves yet without the relationship.

In the Old Testament when the Israelites settled in the promised land there were all sorts of other nations watching. If you remember, the Lord went before the Israelites. God was their might as they conquered and settled in the land.

They were a powerful force to be reckoned with, and the nations round about them recognized that it was due to the God of Heaven and Earth that they had that great power.

These other nations wanted that power for themselves. So they would ‘use the Lord’s name in vain’. They drew on the name of God yet without any relationship base by which to do so. Thus the ‘in vain’ reality of their words and the heart-sin of using God.

As believers we can come under this same judgment. We pray to Father God yet ignore Jesus Christ. We come under the influence of the Holy Spirit yet reject the admonitions of the Father. We stand solidly in Jesus Christ yet judge anything smacks of crazy Holy Spirit stuff.

Simply put, being divided does not work and in the end we may come to see that while we’ve been operating in the name of our Lord we actually never knew him or welcomed him.

“On that day many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast our demons in your name, and do many might works in your name?’ And then will I declare to them, ‘I never knew you ; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.” Matthew 7:22-23

The realization that we have been denying one part of God is a grand revelation, and maybe you are realizing today that there is a part of God that you are uncomfortable with and haven’t been too keen to fully accept.

As with all revelations this comes from the grace of God revealing to us the secrets of our hearts. In this we can know that God desires to open our hearts and minds to more of who he is and as we welcome all of who God is, we are truly equipped.

Engaging and welcoming all of who God is, entering into a relationship rather than scripts and formats is the only way to ensure that the authority by which we operate truly is of God.

God does not want to be taken advantage of any more than the rest of us.

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NOTE: This post is an excerpt of our Walking in Spiritual Authority course that we are beginning this Friday. The class is full (although we’ve tucked in a few more just today).

Please keep us in your prayers as we study Module One – The King’s Heart & Understanding Authority.