Be Careful Not To Abuse Our Authority…
02.09.25
If Jesus Was Serious Then We Must Be Careful Not To Abuse Our Authority…
(Skye Jethani- What If Jesus Was Serious About Prayer ch. 25)
Many Christian Communities and traditions avoid any discussion of authoritative prayer, and when Christians do encounter this under-taught topic, they are understandably suspicious. No doubt this is because authoritative prayer has a long history of abuse and manipulation. Huckster preachers on television have employed a perverse form of authoritative prayer to sell desperate people simple solutions. If you just “name it and claim it” they say, all of life’s problems will disappear and all the world’s blessings will flow your way.
Others have misused authoritative prayer by detaching it from biblical wisdom and God’s will. For example, consumerism has largely obscured any vision for redemptive suffering, and Christians in such cultures can falsely conclude that all suffering is contrary to God’s will. When pain or struggle does arise, they employ authoritative prayer to denounce it or the evil forces assumed to be causing it. If the suffering persists, the Christian is left to conclude their faith must be at fault. This only compounds the suffering with the weight of one’s own failure.
Finally, authoritative prayer can cause harm when it is linked to what theologians call an “over-sized eschatology.” That’s a fancy way of describing those who believe the fullness of God’s kingdom is already here, and believe that evil, suffering, and injustice have already been fully defeated. Such Christians assume their life with God should be an unbroken sequence of victories. It’s a vision of following Jesus that is all resurrection and no crucifixion.
In truth, proper engagement with authoritative prayer requires great maturity and wisdom. It means developing an intimacy with God that produces knowledge of God’s will. It means discerning when to tell a mountain to move, and when the Lord is calling you to accept the mountain by painfully climbing its cliffs.