“And whatever you ask in My name, that I will do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If you ask anything in My name, I will do it.”(John 14:13-14).
The word proxy, as defined by Dictionary.com means “the agency, function, or power of a person authorized to act as the deputy or substitute for another” (Dictionary.com, definition number 1). Another phrase that applies here is the term ‘power of attorney’ – defined by the same Dictionary.com as: “a written document given by one person or party to another authorizing the latter to act for the former.” Our ‘written document’ is the Word of God. In this teaching the hope is to etch in our thinking the thought that we, the Body of Christ, are to conduct Heaven’s affairs as Jesus Himself would right here, right now on the earth (He’s the Head, we are His Body).
Let’s look at the Amplified Classic Edition of our opening verse. “And I will do [I Myself will grant] whatever you ask in My Name [as presenting all that I AM], so that the Father may be glorified and extolled in (through) the Son. [Yes] I will grant [I Myself will do for you] whatever you shall ask in My Name [as presenting all that I AM].” Did you catch that? “As presenting all that I AM.” In other words, in His stead, on His behalf – as though He were conducting the ‘transaction’ Himself. We have been ‘commissioned’ to conduct the affairs of Heaven in the same manner Jesus did when He walked the earth in His physical body. That’s what He meant when He said “All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth. [Now, you] Go therefore” (Matt. 28:18-19a). The ‘Now you’ is implied, as the Lord was instructing His ‘Body’.
Couple that thought with what Jesus said in John 14:12 “Most assuredly, I say to you, he who believes in Me, the works that I do he will do also; and greater works than these he will do, because I go to My Father.” This corresponds with what we’ve been talking about. On a side note, I’ll put in my ‘two-cents’ regarding what the “greater works” are: I believe He’s talking about the New Birth. The reason I believe that is 1. He said “because I go to My Father” – it was the New Birth (new creature, as 2Corinthians 5:17 puts it) that Jesus accomplished after He went to the Father, 2. while on the earth, Jesus healed the sick, cast out devils, raised the dead – but He could not get anybody ‘Born Again’ (made a new creature, or get them Born Again). That was only available after He paid the penalty for our sin!
Now, let’s get back to our teaching. Go with me to 1Corinthians 12: “For as the body is one and has many members, but all the members of that one body, being many, are one body, so also is Christ. For by one Spirit we were all baptized into one body—whether Jews or Greeks, whether slaves or free—and have all been made to drink into one Spirit. For in fact the body is not one member but many” (vv. 12-14). Let’s unpack these verses. The first emphasis I made is there is only one Body (of Christ). There may be many assemblies (local churches), and even several denominations (which was never the Lord’s plan to have His Body segregated – that was the devil’s idea. Remember what Jesus said about a house being divided? “It will not stand” [Matt. 12:25]; “cannot stand” [Mark 3:25]; “house divided against a house falls” [Luke 11:17]. That is a spiritual law, and the devil knows it!).
REMEMBER THIS THOUGHT FOREVER: the devil cannot undo anything the Lord God of Heaven has done (or, will do)! So, what he does is use the laws (principals that govern life) that God has established and pervert them to work against the purposes of God. That’s why it’s so important to know the Book (Bible)! Study it, get familiar with it, listen to anointed teaching about it, read anointed articles about it. Paul told Timothy to “Be diligent to present yourself approved to God, a worker who does not need to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth” (2Tim. 2:15). If the Bible needs to be ‘rightly divided’ then it can be wrongly divided. Jesus gave us the perfect example when He was being tempted of the devil in the wilderness: “It is written” (Matthew 4 and Luke 4). He knew that faith in God’s Word was the victory that overcomes (1Jn 5:4) – anything the devil tempts us with! Plus, notice, He interpreted The Word by the Word (Matt.4:10 and Luke 4: 12)! That’s called ‘rightly dividing’ The Word.
I like to refer to the Bible as our “owner’s manual” for life – it reveals to us how ‘life’ works. It’s not a story book, or history book; and it’s certainly not fiction! Actually (getting a bit ahead of myself) it’s a Person! Jesus, Who is the Word (that was) made Flesh (John 1:14). Another thing to remember: the devil cannot steal your anointing! He’s not the one who provided it, God is. But, if he can somehow deceive you or me to not utilize it, then the result is the same – the Work of God doesn’t get accomplished, and he can get away with whatever he wants. [Some of you may need to read this paragraph again – let it sink in and dawn on your heart.]
So, there is one Body that we all were baptized into. Another thought that needs to be understood here is the Bible (the Manual for life) is a ‘spirit-book’ written to spirit beings. It must be (and can only be) understood spiritually. “For what man knows the things of a man except the spirit of the man which is in him? Even so no one knows the things of God except the Spirit of God. Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might know the things that have been freely given to us by God. These things we also speak, not in words which man’s wisdom teaches but which the Holy Spirit teaches, comparing spiritual things with spiritual. But the natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; nor can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned” (1Co 2:11-14).
By the Spirit of God we were baptized into the Body of Christ. The word baptized means ‘to be submerged into.’ This is an activity of the Spirit. We could say it like this: we all were placed into the Body of Christ by the Spirit of God. The illustration God gave me several years ago to explain this activity is that of an old color TV. If you looked really closely to the screen you would see many ‘dots’—but when you pulled back you saw the picture those dots made. Say you were looking at your favorite actor or actress really closely; all you would see are the dots of color that made up the picture of them (the same is true of a newspaper). Well, those multiple dots made up the one representation of that person. We all are those ‘dots’ that make up the overall Body of Christ! When we called upon the Name of the Lord to be saved we were (spiritually) placed inside the Body of Christ. He is the Head, we are the Body. The one Man, Jesus, in His resurrected body is not Personally walking the earth right now – yet, He is through His Body. That’s you and me!!
When He spoke the words of the Great Commission, He was making us His personal proxy to carry out the Plan of God on the earth – just as though (in the same way) He would if He were still physically walking this planet! You and I have the same (identical) anointing (power of God) to accomplish the Will of God in the earth. Let’s bring the important balance to this thought: Jesus said in John 15 “I am the vine, you are the branches. He who abides in Me, and I in him, bears much fruit; for without Me you can do nothing. If you abide in Me, and My words abide in you, you will ask what you desire, and it shall be done for you” (John 15:5, 7). We’ll look at this, leaving religious tradition and understanding behind, looking to the Holy Spirit for proper understanding and interpretation.
Jesus used the metaphor of a vine to illustrate He’s the Source of all godly activity (the activity of Heaven) on the earth. He being the vine and we being branches – the vine is the main overall body, the branches are extensions of it as they are connected to it (Him); “for without Me you can do nothing.” In verse six Jesus indicates that severed from the vine a branch withers and dies – indicating the importance of remaining ‘connected’ to Him! Notice He said “If you abide in Me, and My words abide in you” – this speaks of a vital union, plus, abiding in Jesus and Jesus abiding in us is the activity of abiding in the Word, because Jesus is the Word that was made flesh! [Read these things with your spirit-man, your brain needs to have them revealed to it.] This ‘abiding’ will affect your overall desire – then (and only then) can we ask what we will, and God grants our petition! In other words, the activity of ‘abiding’ will saturate our desires to align with God’s desires. “Now this is the confidence that we have in Him, that if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us. And if we know that He hears us, whatever we ask, we know that we have the petitions that we have asked of Him” (1Jn 5:14-15). This is vital information to be a proper and effective ‘proxy’, and carry out the responsibilities of ‘power of attorney’ that we’ve been commissioned to do.
The purpose of this writing/teaching is to stir each of us up to walk in the Supernatural power of God, demonstrating to those around us that:
- God is alive and well
- He is aware of the conditions that have befallen the human race
- His desire (intense desire) to heal humanity of their ills and woes
In His Sovereignty, at the beginning, God gave the responsibility to mankind to ‘guard and to keep’ the activities that go on in this planet: “God said to them, ‘Be fruitful and multiply; fill the earth and subdue it; have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over every living thing that moves on the earth’” (Gen. 1:28). “And the Lord God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to tend and guard and keep it” (Gen. 2:15 AMPC). That mandate has never gone away. The devil infiltrated Man with his wickedness and brought about the destruction we see happening today in the lives of God’s precious creation – Man. Jesus came to completely undo what the devil had done, and He gave the responsibility to us (His Body) to carryout His original plan for mankind. We are His proxy, we function with His power of attorney!
The Book of Colossians tells us “For in Him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily; and you are complete in Him” (Col 2:9-10a). Did you catch that? We are in Him, He is in us – so is the fullness of the Godhead! We have been fully equipped to carry out the desires, plan, and purposes of God – as His representatives! We are to heal the sick, we are to cast out devils, we are to raise the dead; “Freely you have received, freely give” (Matt. 10:8b). Notice this is not a suggestion, but a command. We have no excuse – we are commissioned and anointed to be His representatives.
The last word I want to say about this all important matter is uttering the Name of Jesus at the end of a prayer is not a ‘magic wand’ we wave to make something happen. It’s a position of authority we walk in as God’s proxy (power of attorney); it’s that “presenting all” that Jesus is in the ‘transaction’ we are conducting. I’m writing this article ‘in the Name of Jesus’ – functioning in cooperation with the anointing of God on my life to fulfill an assignment to teach the Body of Christ about aligning our lives with God in the same fashion Jesus did when He physically walked the earth. We are in the Last Days and the darkness that is covering the planet, and those who live on it, must be dispelled by the Light we have been called to be – as God’s representatives (proxy).
