Is God’s Word a delight to you? It is to me. It exhilarates me! When I awake in the morning, the joys and wonders of the glorious truths that the Lord brings to me are like the singing and chirping of a beautiful little songbird (Isaiah 50:4–5). God may have been a burning bush to Moses (Exodus 3:2), but to me He is like a lovely early morning songbird that is always chirping, singing songs I have never heard before; He is continuously bringing truths that I have never seen before.
I would like to give you an explanation of faith that should absolutely turn your world around. So many times when I give a simple Word of faith, that Word comes back to me a hundredfold. It is marvelous! Then when the testings come, there is a supply of faith to resist the enemy with great effectiveness. In the midst of intense spiritual battle, I find a greater understanding of what faith really is.
The level of faith in the Church Age, since the time of the gospels, has been one in which people have believed that Jesus had an ability to do many things; however, they have usually missed the key, the real secret, of how the Lord actually moved. They have not understood why He had such unlimited authority, particularly when He had emptied Himself of His equality with God to become practically nothing (Philippians 2:6–7). Was there some golden key? Could not any one of us develop the power of mind and focus of spirit to tap into that same faith? We have become a bit confused about what faith really is and how it actually works, because we see only a limited aspect of it.
We do see faith as God’s authority being manifested, and that is always a marvel to behold. We have seen that aspect so clearly in the Scriptures: “I just say this Word and it is done; I lay hands on you and heal you.” However, if we want to get a true picture of what faith will be like in the days of the Kingdom, we must search out those passages of Scripture which repeatedly refer to the Gospel of the Kingdom. Those Scriptures are found in profusion in the book of Matthew.
Matthew chapters 5, 6, and 7 lay out the principles of the Kingdom—principles which those in the Church Age have preached, but have never been able to actually live. The Sermon on the Mount, for example, is very difficult; many of us still have a little trouble as we read it. “Take no thought for what you shall eat or how you shall be clothed” (Matthew 6:25). No thought! Most of us do think about eating at least once in a while, and certainly if our stomach starts to rumble! Do you ever ask yourself, as the Gentiles did, “Where shall I get my food? Where will it come from? How shall I be clothed?” (Matthew 6:31.) Christ responded to those questions, “Why do you take thought for your clothing? Do not be like the Gentiles who worry about these things, living in fear and anxiety because they are serving mammon. Consider how God adorns the lilies of the field. Be anxious for nothing; only seek first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness” (Matthew 6:24, 28–34).
I have struggled to be a true believer in the Sermon on the Mount—to actually walk in it. If you are honest with yourself, you realize that you too still struggle with this. You can read only one little passage, for example, “Judge not lest you be judged” (Matthew 7:1), and realize that you are left in jeopardy!
Matthew chapters 8, 9, 14, and 15 emphasize the authority of faith. Some of the most commanding pictures of the miracle power of God and the authority of His coming Kingdom are presented, one after another, in Matthew chapters 8 and 9. In these chapters you will discover examples of a level of faith that you have never seen before. Look for them. Are you so intrigued that you will now read again the book of Matthew, including the Sermon on the Mount? Here is a little “road map” to direct you into the Word. As much as I love to expound the Word myself, I know it is more important to steer you into the love of the Scriptures and into the understanding of them that must come to you in this new age.
A few people are beginning to grasp this anointing upon heir understanding of the Word. When Christ came, speaking the Scriptures, the Pharisees—those who were actually steeped in those Scriptures—could not understand them. Christ told them, “You search the Scriptures, for in them you think you have eternal life; and it is these that testify of Me. Yet you will not come to Me, that you might have this life” (John 5:39–40).
In these verses, Jesus spoke a profound truth that has not been really understood. He said that they were searching the Scriptures for some mystical formula, when they should have realized that the answer they were seeking was Christ Himself. They should have been trusting Him and submitting their hearts to Him. He said, in effect, “You will not receive Me. You persist in looking for magic formulas when your salvation is here, in Me as your Lord.” Much of Christianity still does that. Beware lest you, too, look for mystical formulas in the Word. Instead, search the Scriptures for a revelation of Christ!
Of all those who were healed as recorded in these chapters, only the centurion of Capernaum discovered the secret of Christ’s authority. And when He had entered Capernaum, a centurion came to Him, entreating Him, and saying, “Sir, my servant is lying paralyzed at home, suffering great pain.” And He said to him, “I will come and heal him.” But the centurion answered and said, “Lord, I am not qualified for You to come under my roof.” Matthew 8:5–8a. Why was he not qualified? It may have been that he felt his own unworthiness. Perhaps he thought, “I am a Roman, a Gentile, and this Man was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel” (Matthew 15:24). People always have reasons for feeling that they are unworthy. This centurion said, “I am not qualified; I am not worthy” (Matthew 8:8). Yet in Luke’s account, the Jews said of him, “This man is worthy; he built us a synagogue” (Luke 7:2–5). People’s judgment of who is worthy and who is not worthy is sometimes based upon dollar signs.
The quality and the worth of an individual who is dedicated to work in the Living Word, for example, is certainly not based upon how much money he can put into the offering. Do you understand this? The qualification of an individual should never be based on the degree of his financial solvency. In the religious world, any man with a large enough bankroll could easily be appointed to the church board and become a deacon. Yet some poor man who really has a walk with God could never attain that place of authority. Dollars often determine the rank and position of the member, and make the real distinctions. Too often, churches look for a prestigious class of people. That should not be. Sometimes God takes a former slave and actually makes him the overseer over his former master, as in the story of Onesimus and Philemon, recorded in the book of Philemon. That principle at times may pose somewhat of a problem; nonetheless, the Lord Himself provided for it—the last would be first and the first would be last (Matthew 19:30).
The centurion said, “Lord, I am not qualified for You to come under my roof, but just say the word, and my servant will be healed.” Matthew 8:8. What could that unchurched man possibly have experienced in his lifetime which could enable him to relate to Christ in this way? In that day no doubt there were many people who said to Jesus, “Only say a Word and I will live. Let me touch the hem of Your garment” (Matthew 9:20–21). Many had the level of faith wherein they believed that the authority of Christ could produce miracles with only a Word. Yet this centurion had the key to a greater faith. Read this verse carefully; for it is the heart of the message. “For I, too, am a man under authority, with soldiers under me; and I say to this one, ‘Go!’ and he goes, and to another, ‘Come!’ and he comes, and to my slave, ‘Do this!’ and he does it.” Matthew 8:9. He said to Jesus, “I, too, am under authority.” Primarily, it was not the authority of Christ that impressed him; rather, it was Christ’s submission to the authority of the Father. He could identify with Christ’s relationship to the Father.
The man said, “I, too, am under authority. I am a centurion,” meaning, “I am totally submissive to Rome. I am a soldier. Rome is everything to me; therefore, to this people I am Rome itself. If Rome tells me to go out and battle, I would do it—even if I knew that I would die—because I am totally submissive. I also have charge over people who are in submission to me. When I tell them to do something, they do it.” The people did not submit because of his qualities as a man; they submitted because of the fact that all of Rome’s authority covered him since he positioned himself under it.
This is a foretype of the patriotism of the Kingdom. When Jesus tells someone, “You go and do this, for all authority is given to Me in heaven and in earth” (Matthew 28:18–19), He is saying, “To the extent that you are submissive to My authority, that authority will be operating through you.” Do you now understand why, for these many years, the Lord has been teaching us so intensively about submission and its principles? Submission can be a perverted religious exercise if you do not have a revelation of the authority of the one to whom you are being submissive. Paul tells us, “Submit yourselves one to another as unto the Lord” (Ephesians 5:21–22).
What was Jesus’ response to the centurion’s statement? Now when Jesus heard this, He marveled, and said to those who were following, “Truly I say to you, I have not found such great faith with anyone in Israel.” Matthew 8:10. Of all the people who knew the Scriptures, even those who could believe for miracles and wonders, no one had that kind of faith. No one was so totally submissive to higher authority that his faith could actually take that authority and manifest it.
This should be encouraging to you. When the Lord tells you to be submissive, and you submit to Him as Lord, do you understand the actual nature of the authority of Christ that you are submitting to? Philippians chapter 2 describes the authority of Christ in the earth. Have this attitude in yourselves which was also in Christ Jesus, who, although He existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied Himself, taking the form of a bond-servant, and being made in the likeness of men. And being found in appearance as a man (He did all of this; then He went a step further), He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. Therefore also God highly exalted Him, and bestowed on Him the name which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of those who are in heaven, and on earth, and under the earth, and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. Verses 5–11. These are the perfect extremes of submission and authority.
We often talk about the complete authority of Christ, but are we always aware of His complete submission? We do not consider that first Christ totally humbled Himself. He not only accepted and endured what the Father wanted Him to do; He went even further: He humbled Himself to always do those things which the Heavenly Father said (John 8:29). It was in this total submission that Christ’s authority came forth. When we grasp this, we will have the keys of true faith.
Most of us do not comprehend the vast spiritual force of Christ’s authority. Have you ever considered the greatest physical force in the universe? According to astronomers’ present understanding of the stars and how they die, the inner core begins to collapse into itself and the outer star then begins to shrink into the inner mass. Eventually the star disappears to become what scientists term a “black hole.” They have discovered evidence that these black holes exist, even though there is no way to actually see them because they swallow up even visible light rays. The only way to detect the presence of a black hole is that it exhibits such gravitational force that it can cause a nearby star a million times larger than itself to disappear within itself—and that star emits certain detectable X rays as it disappears. The black hole is a region of enormous gravitational attraction which has been created because such a large mass has become condensed into such a small space. Jesus, too, decreased; He became submissive even unto death (John 3:30). He said, “And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men to Myself.” John 12:32. He became that invisible spiritual force which will draw all men, until every knee will bow and every tongue will confess to His Lordship (Philippians 2:10–11). Why? Because all of the great spiritual force in heaven and in earth—all authority—is in Christ (Matthew 28:18).
Can you understand now why the Scripture admonishes us, Have this attitude in yourselves which was also in Christ Jesus. Philippians 2:5. Be nothing. Shrink down into nothingness, to become absolutely nothing in your own sight, and then humble yourself a little more. Become like the fellow who expressed what he wanted to be by writing a big zero on the blackboard—then with an eraser he rubbed the rim out. He wanted to be a zero with the rim rubbed out, because he felt in his heart that if he could become that humble before God, then he would have accomplished everything.
You are not seeking to become humble only so that you can passively trudge along under the seeming weight of your “humble badge.” What you do in humility must be something of action, not of passivity. You are not discarding human arrogance to become nothing, to become a vacuum. What you are doing is taking all that you are and laying it at the feet of Christ, saying, “I submit to You as the Lord over my life. Every day, in every way, I will become more and more submissive to You, Lord.”
Are you thinking, “With all that authority, we can easily succumb to pride”? No—you do not saunter around flashing your merit badge of “humility” either. Not one disciple boasted of a miracle that he had performed. Christ Jesus Himself never boasted of any miracle that He performed. Why? Because there was no ego left. There was not even a sense of self-satisfaction: “Well, look what I did! With my own little hands!! I laid my hands on him and made it happen.” They became total servants.
Read Acts chapter 8 and notice what happened after the stoning of Stephen and the dispersion of the Church because of persecution. Philip went down to Samaria and started preaching the Word. As he proclaimed Christ, the entire city turned to the Lord. Many were healed and saved.
This man previously had been waiting on tables and serving the widows of the church at Jerusalem (Acts 6:1–7). Now suddenly all of Samaria was rejoicing because of his ministry. Was there any ego in him? No; if there had been any ego left in him, probably he would have stayed there in Samaria to build his own kingdom. When the apostles heard the news, Peter and John went down to Samaria to lay hands on those who had been saved so that they might receive the Holy Spirit (Acts 8:14–17). Meanwhile the Spirit led Philip elsewhere (Acts 8:26). No one wanted to build his own kingdom. They did not even want recognition for what had been accomplished through them. They did not want a great name. They did not want a position. They were compelled only that Christ be acknowledged as Lord. Jesus is the Lord, Lord of lords and King of kings (I Timothy 6:15; Revelation 19:16).
Sometimes, even in our dedication and consecration, we focus on ourselves more than we should. Do not ask yourself, “What can I do?” That focus leads you further and further from the Lord until you are convinced, “Oh, I’ll never make it because I have this fault, and that fault, and this other fault.” Instead, ask yourself, “What can Christ become in my life? What can He become to me?” Purging does not usually come by our concentrating on a problem; the purging of our lives usually comes by our focusing on His fullness.
As our submission to the Lord increases and our focus on ourselves decreases, we move into greater authority in the Lord (John 3:30). The disciples recognized this. When Peter and John went to the Gate Beautiful, they met a lame man who begged them for alms. His thinking was focused on the wrong level; what they had to give him was not in the material realm. Therefore it was not something egotistical in Peter and John that compelled them to say, “Look on us.” They were not saying to him, “See what great apostles we are!” What they had to do was change that man’s focus. Then they could tell him, “Silver and gold have we none, but what we do have we give to you. In the name of Jesus, get up and walk” (Acts 3:1–8).
Authority sometimes seems to be arrogant. But it is so completely without self that it does not need to boast, nor does it need to crawl. It does not need to make claims, nor does it need to be self-abased and self-critical. Once submission has been worked in your life, so also is authority evident in your life.
Concerning the centurion’s faith, Jesus said, “Truly I say to you, I have not found such great faith with anyone in Israel. And I say to you, that many shall come from east and west, and recline at table with Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, in the kingdom of heaven; but the sons of the kingdom shall be cast out into the outer darkness; in that place there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth.” And Jesus said to the centurion, “Go your way; let it be done to you as you have believed.” And the servant was healed that very hour. Matthew 8:10b–13. It is always done unto you “according to your faith” (Matthew 9:29). The centurion found this to be so.
This is a very interesting principle. Why is it that every time God moves anew in the earth, the religious people miss it? Jesus came to the most religious sect that had ever arisen in the history of the world—the Pharisees—and He told them, “The harlots and the publicans will go into the Kingdom before you” (Matthew 21:31). In fact, Jesus once rebuked a Pharisee who had invited Him to dinner because the man became disturbed when a harlot came in to his house and washed Jesus’ feet with her tears, then used her hair as a towel to dry the tears away (Luke 7:36–50).
When will we learn that even though nearly 2000 years have passed since Jesus rebuked the religious flesh of those Pharisees, the Adamic nature in man has changed very little. It still can become very religious and critical. The more religious a man is, usually the more critical he becomes, until he can find many things to criticize. People can find many, many things to get very religious about, and thus excuse their unbelief. Is the goal of the Bible to establish “religion”? No; the purpose of the Bible is to establish a relationship between God and man. The Father “so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son” by a work of the cross (John 3:16). “As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up” to draw all men unto Himself (John 3:14). Read the third chapter of John again. It is beautiful. It shows that God is reaching for a relationship with you. He does not intend to exalt you by making you a very religious, superior sort of person. Rather, He intends to bring you into a relationship with Himself, where He is God, He is the Father to you, and then you submit to Christ Jesus as your Lord and Master. Your coming not only to believe in Him, but to submit totally to Him, is the key of everything that God will manifest in the earth.
Can you understand why God has chosen the “weak things to confound the mighty, the base things, the despised, the things that are not, that He might nullify the things that are”? (I Corinthians 1:27–28.) We are striving for the day when we speak the Word as clearly as Christ spoke it, with the same authority with which He spoke. Those who are spiritual, who read the Scriptures with a hunger and with perception, yearn to go beyond the pattern of simply expounding verses. We would like to be free of the limitation of simply explaining principles and truths. We would like to reach the place of such total submission that we can go to the oppressed and say, “Be loosed. Be free!”
In the eighth chapter of Matthew we read how Jesus healed everyone who was brought to Him. Yet that chapter ends rather ironically. After Jesus went to the land of the Gadarenes and delivered the vicious demon-possessed men, the whole city begged Jesus to leave their coast. When Jesus cast those demons from the men, they entered into the swine, and the swine rushed into the sea and drowned. When the people saw what had happened, no doubt they reacted, “Under other circumstances we would love to have You come and give us a little more religion, but we cannot pay the price of deliverance. It is too expensive for us to sacrifice all of our pigs simply to see a man delivered! It is too costly for us to become involved to the extent that we humble ourselves, and that we too are willing to be stripped of everything so that You can be exalted and glorified” (Matthew 8:28–34).
A new day of faith is coming—a faith like the centurion’s faith. I determine to have it. I know that I, too, am under authority, and every day I work to submit myself to the Lord by saying, “Yes, Lord. Yes Sir. Whatever You want. You are the Master. You are the Lord.” I determine to submit everything, both in my personal life and in my responsibility to the churches, even if it is to my own detriment, to do whatever God confirms to my heart. I have purposed to be totally submissive. As I move in this complete submission, I find that there is an authority which absolutely binds things over to God. I have not been praying for authority; I have been praying to be more submissive to the Lord. As our submission deepens, the time comes when we say, “I too am under the authority of Christ, in the same way that Christ is submissive to the Father; now I too can speak and see it happen.”
Christ gives us the promise, “If you abide in Me and My Words abide in you, ask what you will and it shall be done” (John 15:7). It does not happen because you are able to conjure up a high level of acceptance of a truth; it happens because it is based on a relationship. It happens because you believe. You believe with your whole being. The course of your entire life is governed by what you believe, by the truths you have heard. Then you go a step further. You say, “Lord, I will live in You, and Your Words will live in me. In this way I will come into the faith by which I can ask anything.” You can ask anything because your request is based upon that living relationship and oneness you have with Christ. It is based upon your total submission to Him and to everything He wants to come forth in your life.
This really challenges our thinking. Human thinking tells us that in order to move into authority, we must build up to it. Yet what God is doing is actually devastating what we are; and the result of that—what is left—is His pure authority and pure faith. This is why submission is so important. There must be a submission in our hearts to the work of the cross and to the devastation that is taking place (Matthew 10:38). It is one thing to say, “Lord, speak a Word; I will submit to that Word.” But it is quite another thing to say, “Lord, I submit to the devastation, to the work of the cross which that Word will bring to my life.”
This is the submission Jesus had. He was submissive “to the point of death, even death on a cross” (Philippians 2:8). We must realize that even though Christ has dwelt in us all this time, as we have received Him, yet the arrogance of our own flesh has been a prison to Him. By His Word the Lord brings devastation; and as we submit to that, the ego is being eliminated (Hebrews 4:12). What will remain is only the fullness of Christ in His Body. This is what we want. We accept this Living Word not only on a mental plane, but we submit with our whole heart. We repent for those areas in which we have not been submissive. Let our hearts cry to have the same level of submission that Christ has to the Father. This must be our experience.
Do you recall when the disciples were having a difficult time forgiving others? They asked the Lord, “How often shall we forgive others? How often shall we forgive our brother when he sins against us? Seven times?” The Lord answered, “No; seventy times seven” (Matthew 18:21–22). What was the response? “Lord, increase our faith” (Luke 17:4–5). In some way they sensed the relationship between faith and submission with love—that quality which does not judge, but rather submits to walk with God. They knew that if they could forgive a man seventy times seven times and still retain a good spirit, they were being perfect servants of the Lord, and they were thereby open for God to increase their faith to this level of effectiveness which they were seeking.
We could correlate the progressive levels of submission with the corresponding levels of faith that result. For example, at the first level of submission, faith is active in a certain limited realm. But the more we move into the deeper levels of submission, the more that active, living faith comes forth. Faith is a gift (I Corinthians 12:4, 9). Submission is the result of a work of the cross in your life, but faith is a gift. If we want the Lord to increase our level of faith, we can take a step toward it by saying, “We submit to You, Lord, in a greater level of submission.” Out of it will come the endowment of faith.
We need to apply this Word to where we are in our own spirit. The centurion created a certain relationship with Christ as he saw by revelation who He was. This message must become a keynote in our relationship with the apostolic company. This message creates a purity of relationship. You will not see who the commissioned ones are if you do not see who the Lord is. When you see who the Lord is, and you see the submission of others to Him, then you can accept that authority which flows through them—and even through yourself as you become a partaker of the same submission.
You will not move into greater faith and authority simply because you accept someone as an apostle or a prophet. You will receive faith and authority only as you accept Him as the Lord of lords and the King of kings (Revelation 19:16), and then you accept His commissioned ones, in their submission and in their relationship to Him. Then when that same submissive relationship is established with you to the Lord, it in turn becomes the basis of your relationship to the Kingdom.
It is important that we receive the revelation of this message, because this will be the issue of the coming persecution. Some of the Pharisees came up to Christ and asked, “By what authority do You do this?” (Luke 20:2.) Others came up to Christ and saw Him as a kind of lunchwagon to create food for them (Matthew 14:19). Everyone had a certain limited way of relating to Christ, but what the centurion saw as Christ walked toward him was a vessel of the authority of the Father.
How should we relate to those in authority over us?
We are not focusing on what they are, but we are focusing on the authority of the Father that is ministered through them. Then we too find the way to tap in, not to anything that they are, but to what the Lord is. Then our relationship with them becomes a pure channel, a pure way of receiving the flow of the Father to our own lives. That is how “greater works than these” we shall do (John 14:12). Some will be confused over this issue, but others will recognize that in this relationship to those in authority, we go directly to the Father. The way we relate to those in authority over us is the way we relate to the Father.
Acts chapter 19 presents quite a picture of this principle in action. The sons of Sceva tried to cast an evil spirit out of a certain man, saying, “I adjure you by Jesus whom Paul preaches.” What the evil spirit said in response is interesting: “I recognize Jesus, and Paul I know, but who are you?” That spirit recognized the authority of God that came down from Christ to Paul; and it knew that if Paul was speaking, it would have had to submit. But because these sons of Sceva were not submissive to the Lord, they could not use the name of Jesus with any authority (Acts 19:14–16). The name of Jesus spoken by them meant nothing because they did not have a relationship with Christ.
Will the Kingdom be built by faith? Yes. Will faith reach the ends of the earth? Yes. Will authority bring down principalities and powers? Yes. Do we have mighty weapons of warfare? Yes. (II Corinthians 10:4.) But all of this will happen through a people who are very meek and humble before the Lord, with a deep revelation of His Lordship (Matthew 5:5). Because the Lord has devastated us, we can understand this clearly. We know that we will reach the world with this Word. We are treasures before God (Psalm 135:4). This Word is not building us up; it is tearing us down until we, too, become “black holes,” and we will draw everyone who comes near us. I am not concerned about the size of our problems; I am concerned about how small we are in our own sight before Him, and how great He is.
We magnify the Lord (Psalm 34:3). We determine to walk in faith. We determine to walk in authority. But first we must examine our submission. We must examine how much the Lord is to us. This is a walk with the Lord. It is a walk with Him as Lord of lords and King of kings (Revelation 19:16). Our problems do not have priority; we are not reaching first for solutions, we are not reaching first for miracles, we are not reaching first for healings. We want our relationship with the Lord and our submission to Him to have absolute priority.