LESSONS FROM THE SCHOOL OF POWER

A lot of Christians are getting tired of weak Christianity they have and as such they have been asking questions on how they could make progress from their present level. They ask how they could obtain power. Therefore, the focus of this message is to supply answers to these questions, which have been the concern of most believers today, since almost everyone knows full well from the word of God, that Christianity is a religion of power. There is something within the subconscious minds of believers challenging them about whether they possess this power in their lives now. That is why this message is entitled, “Lessons from the school of power” We will look at the lessons in seven perspectives. Therefore I counsel you to read with maximum concentration so that you could get the best from this message.

The first lesson is in the form of question: what is power?
Truly, power is derived from spiritual sources. Before anything could take place in the physical, some actions must have been taken place in the spiritual realm. When this occurs, nobody has any power to change the situation. Sometimes ago, when l was in England, I received a letter from the prison and I wondered who could write to me from there. But when I opened the envelope I was shocked to discover that somebody whom I expected to have been in Nigeria by that time was the writer. In his letter, he said “Dear Daniel, I wish to inform you that I am now in prison. Please pay me a visit and when you are coming buy some apples, toothpaste and other necessary things for me. It is now I know that I should have listened to all the things you used to tell me instead of laughing and making mockery of you” Truly, he used to laugh at me and call me names those days when I preached to him. So I went to see him at the prison. After passing through a rigorous prison protocol, I got to where he was and when he saw me, he broke down in tears lamenting that if he had listened to my words at that time, he would not have been clamped into jail. But funny enough, he had become born again and started preaching to other inmates. What offence did he commit? He issues cheque for the money he did not have, but nemesis caught up with him. I asked him if he was guilty and he said yes and asked the Lord to forgive him. He knelt down and asked for forgiveness. Thereafter, we transferred the case to heaven as he had repented. When he was charged to court, those of us who understood that the real power source is from the spiritual just laughed. On the judgement day, the presiding magistrate said, “As an educated and intelligent person with distinction in Master degree to your credit, I can only come to one conclusion about you, I think you are mad. Therefore, I hereby order that you should be deported”. That was exactly what we had decreed and prayed for. This is to tell you that true power does not belong here, it is from above.

At another instance, a six-year-old girl confessed in a revival programme that she was the one who bewitched her father’s hand. She said the reason he could not stretch the hand was they used it to cut firewood in their witchcraft meetings. Her father almost ran mad. If the six-year-old girl was asked to engage in a physical combat with her father of about forty, he would probably have broken her bones into pieces but he girl was stronger spiritually because that is the power base.

In this light, we can say that power is the process of control given by God through the spoken words that cause things to happen. It is capable of producing an effect that is the spiritual ability to accomplish things. However, one of the problems of Christianity today is that power is fading out and this sad development first started from individual believers.

Lessons No 2 what are the sources of power?
Power emanates from three sources namely: God, Satan and man. The divine power of God is the positive one, satanic power is negative whilst the human power is neutral. It can either be controlled by God’s own divine power or satanic power. We are only able to bind the evil and spoil his works by the power of Christ; otherwise we are no matches for the devil.

Lessons No 3 is the difference between authority and power.
People mix these two things up whereas they are two different things. As far as Christians are concerned, their authority comes from the word of God whilst their power comes from the anointing of the Holy Spirit. Many Christians have given commands to evil spirits by quoting scriptures but lack of good knowledge of where these scriptures are written have spelt defeat for them. This is the reason Bible study must be taken seriously. Many are still joking with their Bibles. If they are asked to open to any book, they will begin to fumble with their Bibles, looking for index, pages, numbers etc. You must be diligent with your Bible study.

Our authority as believers is exercised in the name of Jesus and the anointing of the Holy Spirit operates power. That is why you see two different levels of operation between two Christians. One can issue a command to an evil spirit in a person and the evil spirit leaves immediately. Whereas another Christian could use exactly the same words but the spirit would say, “You are not serious” So the difference lies on the power backing up the command. Authority is given to all Christian without measures, but power is given according to your level of self-crucifixion and faith. The moment a person gets born again, authority is automatically conferred on him. For it to move, the power of God must back it up. In other words, authority is the legal right of Christian, which you should claim and exercise. It is power that enforces your right as a Christian. It is possible to have authority without power and that can spell disaster. This is telling us the reason that the Holy Spirit is an indispensable factor in our Christian life. It is certain that no witch whether from the bottom of hell fire can kill you if you have the genuine baptism of the Holy Spirit.

Lesson no 4: What is our matching order from the Lord Jesus?
Knowing full well that we are soldiers of Christ John 14:12 “Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that believeth on me, the works that I do shall he do also; and greater works than these shall he do; because I go unto my Father”.

Just like the armed forces, Christian soldiers have their own matching order too. Matthew 10:8 “Heal the sick, cleanse the lepers, raise the dead, cast out devils: freely ye have received, freely give”.

Our marching order is clearly spelt out here. It says, “Heal the sick, cleanse the lepers, raise the dead and cast out the devils. As you continue to grow in your Christian life, if you fail to carry out any of these before you go and meet the Lord, you would have lived a powerless Christian life. What does the Lord expect us to be doing practically? How does the Lord want us to carry out our marching order? Should we just be hiding from our enemies? No. The Lord expects us to be creating headache for our enemies, but it is unfortunate to see that the enemies are oppressing believers instead. I used to have some troublesome friends in those days. I mean troublesome as Christian warriors and not as hooligans. One day at a night vigil, they prayed the following prayer points, “ Let all satanic transport services grind to a halt in the name of Jesus.” As they were praying violently, all of a sudden, a nicely dressed handsome young man landed on the floor and was saying, “What brought me down, what am l doing here?” And they told him without mincing words that he had been brought down by the power of the Holy Spirit backing up their prayers. I know some believers who dare not attend night vigils or pray fire prayer simply because the Christian marching order is not clear to them.