Do You KNOW Your Authority in Jesus?

The reason that I ask this question is that when my wife died in my arms while I was talking to her as we were going to sleep, my first thought was FEAR. My first thought was to run downstairs and call 911.

But the Holy Spirit spoke to my mind saying, “Stand in your AUTHORITY!” And I knew what God was saying to me without saying every single word of what to do in that moment of panic.

So then, this study is more of my personal testimony of standing in my authority in the NAME of Jesus to COMMAND life to return to my wife’s body. But before I begin this testimony, let me give you some background of my life as a Christian. 

Now, since I already have most of my personal testimony under the menu heading called My Personal Testimony, I will just briefly state a little on how I came to KNOW my AUTHORITY in the NAME of Jesus.

When I became a true born-again Christian at age 23, I had a hunger to read the Bible and Christian books on the subjects of faith, divine healing, and the second coming of Jesus.

And one of the books that I have read several times that helped my faith to grow is “In the Name of Jesus” by Kenneth E. Hagin. Here is a link to buy this book if you have not read it. I am not getting paid to promote this book. I searched for the lowest price of $6.95 which is less than I paid for my copy some 40 years ago.

This book along with other books on faith and prayer helped me to understand my “authority” of commanding the enemy to depart in the NAME of Jesus. Before I learned this authority over the enemy, I prayed by “asking” God for healing and providing my needs. And I have to say that the answers to my prayers increased beyond my expectation.

In other words, when we are new Christians or “babes” in Christ, then asking works fine. But as we grow in the Lord, then just like we expect our children to learn to tie their own shoes, God also expects us to USE the authority that He has given to every Christian to command the enemy to leave in the name of His Son, Jesus.

And thus, I knew exactly what the Holy Spirit was saying to me when I was about to run downstairs and call 911.

Here is my testimony, but I will start at the end, when my wife died the second time, and she went home to be with the Lord.

My wife went home to be with the Lord in 2005, when she died from cancer returning to her body. I say “returning” to her body, because 3 to three- and one-half years earlier the doctors declared her cancer free. In other words, through prayer and the help of chemotherapy and surgery, God healed my wife of breast cancer, and then the cancer returned. She was cancer free for around a year. It seemed much longer. I guess when the doctors tell you that you might die, then time slows down. I may share a little more of this testimony later.

However, the testimony in this study is about God raising my wife from the dead as I obeyed the Holy Spirit to stand in my authority in the name of Jesus, that happened some 16 years before my wife went home to be with the Lord in 2005.

Now, one of the things that my readers need to know and understand is that wife sincerely BELIEVED that she would die before either of our children turned nine years old. For you see, my wife’s father died when she was nine years old, and my wife clung to a FEAR that she would also die before our oldest child turned nine years old.

Personally, I believe that the enemy planted that thought in her mind and she believed that it was Almighty God telling her that she would die when her child was nine years old.

Anyway, I thought that I had convinced her that the fear she had of dying was from Satan, because she stopped “confessing” that she was going to die before our daughter turned nine years old.

I explained to her that Jesus said that out of the treasures of our heart the mouth speaks. And thus, we bring forth into existence what we BELIEVE in our heart and CONFESS with our mouth.

Matthew 12:33-35.

“Either make the tree good, and his fruit good; or else make the tree corrupt, and his fruit corrupt: for the tree is known by his fruit. 

Matthew 12:34. O generation of vipers, how can you, being evil, speak good things? For out of the ABUNDANCE of the heart the mouth speaks. 

Matthew 12:35. A good man out of the good treasure of the heart BRINGS FORTH good things: and an evil man out of the evil treasure brings forth evil things.”

In other words, the words we speak, as in, the words we continually CONFESS that we BELIEVE will happen are manifested by our CONFESSION of what we sincerely believe in the TREASURE of our heart. This is why the Bible teaches us to hold fast to the confession or the profession of our FAITH.

But evil things are also brought to pass by the words we SPEAK out of the abundance of our heart. Another excellent book that helped my faith grow is by Charles Capps called “The Tongue is a Creative Force”. Again, I am not promoting any book of any ministry. Rather, I am simply sharing with my readers what helped me grow in faith. You can also read the in-depth studies that I wrote called “G-4. THE POWER OF OUR WORDS! – A Matter of Truth” and “G-3 The Power and the Authority of a Believer!”

My point is that I knew that my wife’s “faith” and her “confession” that she would die when our oldest child turned nine years old needed to change. And her confession of dying stopped when our daughter was around three years old.

In fact, my wife’s faith had grown to the point that when the doctor told her that our son was dead in her womb that she commanded life to be in him. And when the doctors did another ultrasound, he said that he must have not been able to hear the heartbeat for some reason. But we both knew differently, and that God revived our son in the womb.

So then, I never gave my wife’s “forming” faith in dying another thought until the day she died in my arms some 6 years later, shortly after our daughter had just turned nine years old. She was born in October, and it was in the winter, either in November, December that year or in January, the start of the new year, that my wife died in my arms.

Here is what happened. We lived in a story and a half house, and our bedrooms were on the second floor. Both of our children shared the bedroom next to our bedroom, which was half again bigger than our bedroom.

The kids were asleep, and we were talking about remodeling our home and other things like that. My left arm was under her neck, and it was going to sleep. You know, my arm began to tingle so I asked my wife to lift her head so that I could remove my arm to get the blood flowing.

At first, I simply thought that she fell asleep, but as I removed my arm, I noticed that she was not breathing. I checked closer to see if she was breathing and she was not breathing. So, I shook her to wake her up and she would not wake up,

I started to panic, and I checked to see if she had a pulse, but I did not find any pulse. I shook her really hard and called her name out loud, but she still did not wake up. That is when I really started to panic all the more and was in the motion of jumping out of the bed to go downstairs to call 911.

And in that split second the Holy Spirit spoke to my mind as if I heard an audible voice, but I heard it in my mind. It was stronger than just a thought and the voice of the Holy Spirit said, “Stand in your authority!” So, I began commanding life to return to my wife’s body. I command in the name of Jesus.

In the name of Jesus I speak life! In the name of Jesus, I rebuke this death! Barb, I command that you come back into your body in the name of Jesus! I command healing in the name of Jesus!

I then repeated commands in the name of Jesus like this several times and my wife sat up suddenly and said that she was in heaven.

Here is what she told me of her experience. She remembered me talking with her about the things that we wanted to do with fixing up our home. She remembered getting sleepy and the next thing she remembered was she was in heaven.

She saw a figure standing in front of her that she believed was Jesus. As she was about to talk to Jesus, she felt that she was going to have to leave and go back into her body. So, she asked Jesus if she had to go back, and Jesus said that I was calling her back and that she had to go back to her body.

And the next thing that she remembered was seeing me kneeling on the bed praying in the name of Jesus. She then saw herself putting on her body somewhat like you would put on a one-piece jumpsuit. And as she slipped back into her body she woke up and sat up the moment she was back in her body.

I then told her what the Holy Spirit told me to do, and from that point on, we both knew that it was the enemy who placed that thought of dying in her mind.

It was around 13 years later that my wife found a large lump in her breast. I asked her where her level of faith was, and she said that it was low. She felt that after she had the lump removed, then she could believe to receive her healing. So that is what we did.

At the doctor’s advice, she did chemo first to shrink the cancer. It worked better than the doctor thought it would. He then did surgery to remove the cancer. Before the lump shank, the doctor was not very optimistic.

Now, during the chemo treatments, I would read the healing Scriptures and my wife would confess them to God and meditate on them. God healed my wife of breast cancer, and she was declared cancer free. Around a year of being cancer free the cancer came back, but this time it was spread all over her body internally. The only hope the doctors gave was radiation treatments.

My wife said no and that she would rather go home to be with the Lord than to have to fight the cancer again. Both of our children were grown. My daughter was newly married, and my son was still living at home but had a good paying job. So, we all gathered together and prayed in the Spirit to see if our decision to not fight the cancer was the right decision.

She was ready to go home to be with the Lord. The pain medicine that she was on made her sick to her stomach and she was so weak that she could not walk up the stairs to the bedroom. So, my son and I went upstairs brought the mattress off of our bed and laid it on the living room floor. My wife laid down to take a nap and the kids left the house. My daughter went to her home and my son went to visit his friend.

I talked to my wife before she fell asleep, and we prayed for her to be forgiven of any sin that she might have committed. It was about fifteen minutes later that I decided to lay down beside her and try going to sleep myself. It was then that I saw that she was no longer breathing. So, I called 911 and then called my son and daughter to tell them that their mom had died.

The ambulance came and was able to get her breathing again, but when we got to the hospital, the doctor told me that her “body” was alive by the machine. He asked me if I wanted to keep her body alive to see if she revives. My wife told me all of our married life that she never wanted to be kept alive by a machine. One of her aunts was hooked to a machine and she said to never hook her to a machine. So, the doctor pulled the plug and her body stopped breathing.

He said that her spirit was already gone and that the ambulance drivers got her body breathing again, but her spirit did not return to her body.

Now, some have asked me why I did not command life to her body in the name of Jesus the second time. And I have to say that I put her desire above my own desire. So, to me, my loss was her gain. She got to go home to be with Jesus.

I also knew that my faith would not be able to override her faith to be with Jesus. So, I committed her life into God’s hands that evening when we all prayed in the Spirit.

This testimony on the authority that all Christians have in the name of Jesus is just one of the many testimonies of my life as being a Christian. I share many other testimonies of healing and provision from God throughout the many Bible studies on my website at AMatterOfTruth.com. And eventually, I hope to have all of those studies uploaded to my new website hear at FirstbornOfGod.com.

In closing, the Lord provided me with a new wife, and it is as if I have been married to her my whole life. But I will say that the two years of being without a wife was the hardest fight of faith that I had ever had to endure. I would not wish loneliness on my worst enemy. You have to experience what I am saying to truly know what I mean. So, for me, getting married again was not an option, it was a NECESSITY to keep on living.

Thanks for reading and may God bless you richly as you stand in your authority in the name of Jesus against the enemy, Satan, the Devil.

Your Brother in our Lord Jesus Christ,

Brother Mark.