And they were astonished at his doctrine, for his word was with authority
Lk 4:32
Let us see some more examples how Jesus preached with authority. Jesus went up on a mountain and preached to the people many things.
Mat 7:28-29 And it happened, when Jesus had ended these sayings, that the people were astonished at his doctrine. For he taught them as one having authority, and not as the scribes.
Jesus rebuked the demon and it came out of him.
In Mat 10:1 and Lk 9:1, the Lord Jesus has given us power and authority to do all that he did . Jesus commanded us,
Mar 16:15 ….., Go into all the world, proclaim the gospel to all the creation.
Without this power and authority exercised, people will not accept the Gospel. Jesus has given us power and authority freely. Soldiers of the Army of Jesus should also give to the people freely.
To carry out the Great Commission, the Lord gave us, the Army of Jesus soldiers (AOJ) many tools like Gift Schools, Troop Church. Let us make the best use of them to reach out to people and to bring all of them to his feet .
Jesus, at the age of 12, was found in the Temple of Jerusalem sitting in the midst of the Teachers, both listening to them and asking them questions.
Luk 2:47 And all who heard him were astonished at his understanding and answers.
Every believer should be manifested in the same way because the Spirit of the Lord is upon us. We, the Church was, and is (still most of the Christians) under the misconception that only a few people, say, Church heads and Evangelists only were given this authority. We wasted almost 2000 years without using this authority, given to all believers. What a great loss to the Church and to the Kingdom of God!
When we, AOJ Sisters started the first Troop Meeting at Manaparai in South India, as per the command of the Lord, we started with the opening prayer and pledge of AOJ, (2 Cor. 10:3-5) at once one lady possessed with an evil spirit started closing her ears with both the hands, shouting, “Stop it , stop it, I won’t allow any Troop Meeting to be started”. But all of us continued repeating the pledge in a loud voice. Then the demon was weakened and finally it left her. She became normal. We understood that this verse which is given to AOJ as a pledge, is powerful to demolish the strongholds of satan and to cast them out.
So we recite this pledge in every prayer meeting after the opening prayer.
Prayer: Father give us the anointing of the Holy Spirit to use this authority given to each of us, so that we may see the whole world coming to Your feet .
Sr. Roger AOJ