Since the name of God is “I,” and since that is my name also, and since God gave His offspring dominion over all the rest of creation (Genesis 1:26), every time I say the word “I,” I am speaking as God; and whatever I say accomplishes that which I have spoken and does not return unto me void (Isaiah 55:11).
We must remember that God is invisible Spirit which has taken upon itself form (man); therefore, man is God expressed. The expression of God that is called “man” is the form that has been given the power and authority to rule and reign in the earth. It is the only form that can say “I,” the only form with a consciousness of itself, the only form made in God’s image and likeness.
We must also remember that there is only one “I” (“I and my Father are one”—John 10:30) though it appears as countless individualized forms. Jesus called this “I” “Father”; Paul called it Christ.
Galatians 2:20 I [the personality that we have thought ourselves to be] am crucified with Christ: nevertheless “I” [the son of God, spiritual being that I truly am] live.
It is the Christ (“I”) that is living each of us. But the life that is manifested in you and in me is determined by how awakened we are to our true identity as “the Christ, the son of the living God” to whom has been given all power and dominion over what is called “matter”—the visible universe—and also by the extent to which we recognize that we are one, not only with our Father, but also with one another. Please stop here and read Perfect in One: Growing up into Christ before continuing.
God (I AM that I am) Itself (God is not a man) descended in the form of Jesus to be born of a woman into a mistaken Hebrew identity. But He grew in wisdom until He realized that He was one with the Father (John 10:30) and also one with each of us (John 17:11-21; Hebrews 2:11; Romans 12:5). That recognition of His true identity was what enabled Him to heal the sick and raise the dead. He knew that God (“I”) could not be sick or dead; and he knew that every individualized expression of that “I” also could never in that “I” identity be sick or dead, indeed, that sickness and death had no reality except in the human mind which believes that there is a power opposing omnipotent God.
He demonstrated the unreality of death by rising from the dead after declaring, “Destroy this temple [body], and in three days “I” will raise it up” (John 2:19). He understood that the “I” of the Father and the “I” that was Himself was the same “I.”
Jesus told us:
Matthew 12:37 For by thy words thou shalt be justified, and by thy words thou shalt be condemned.
He understood the power that the words of “I” have in themselves to bring to pass whatever is spoken. That is why He told us that what we believe and say will come to pass, that we can have what we say (Mark 11:23-24). Of course this is not some magic use of the word “I” as if it were a genie in a bottle granting our wishes. It is an exercise in dominion given to us by our Father.
The problem is that we use our authority and dominion against ourselves to bring upon ourselves all sorts of calamities that we don’t want; and we fail to use it to establish righteousness, peace and joy upon the earth (Thy kingdom come . . . on earth, as it is in heaven—Matthew 6:10). All day every day we are constantly giving expression to our fears and thereby bring them into manifestation. We judge by appearances rather than by what God says is true.
The solution doesn’t lie in merely changing what we say. It is out of the heart that our mouths speaks. What I believe will find its way out of my mouth. So I must change what I believe in my heart by coming into a deeper knowledge of God and of my relationship to Him. When I know that God doesn’t test me (James 1:13) and has only good thoughts towards me (Jeremiah 29:11) and that all He is and has is mine (Luke 15:31), I begin speaking words which reflect that knowledge. When I believe and receive the love that He has for me, the love that “passes knowledge” (Ephesians 3:19) the love from which I can never be separated (Romans 8:35-39) even if I make my bed in hell (Psalms 139:8), when I allow that love to cast out all the fears that have tormented me a lifetime (1John 4:18), I will cease expressing those fears; and they will cease manifesting in my experience.
When I know that “I” cannot have the flu, I will cease fearing it and saying that I will probably get it this year because I had it the last three years. And I will find that I don’t get it at all because I know that flu has no power except that which I give it by believing it to be a power opposed to God.
John tells us that we are to walk as Jesus walked (1John 2:6). And Jesus tells us that we are to do the works that He did, and “greater works” (John 14:12). We will never do this until we have the same mind and revelation that Jesus had. He knew that as a human personality He was not “good” (Mark 10:18) and could do nothing (John 5:30); but as a spiritual being (with the Christ mind) who knew that He was one with His Father, He “thought it not robbery to be equal with God” (Philippians 2:6) and found all things possible in that identity (Matthew 19:26), even raising the corrupted body of Lazarus (John 11).
As Paul tells us, although we have been given power and dominion to be “lord of all” creation, we are no more than a “servant” until we awaken to our true identity as heir of God (Galatians 4:1-7) (see Living as Heirs of God).
The centurion understood authority and the power of the the words spoken by the one in authority:
Matthew 8:8 The centurion answered and said, Lord, I am not worthy that thou shouldest come under my roof: but speak the word only, and my servant shall be healed. 9 For I am a man under authority, having soldiers under me: and I say to this man, Go, and he goeth; and to another, Come, and he cometh; and to my servant, Do this, and he doeth it.
And Jesus commended him for his understanding:
Matthew 8:10 When Jesus heard it, he marvelled, and said to them that followed, Verily I say unto you, I have not found so great faith, no, not in Israel.
Jesus is saying that we really cannot exercise the faith to believe that what we say will come to pass unless we have this same understanding:
Matthew 8:13 And Jesus said unto the centurion, Go thy way; and as thou hast believed, so be it done unto thee. And his servant was healed in the selfsame hour.
The people listening to Jesus “were astonished” that “he taught them as one having authority (Mark 1:22; Matthew 7:29). It was Jesus’ understanding of the authority of the “I” that He was in his true identity as “the Christ, the Son of the living God” (Matthew 16:16) which enabled Him to teach with authority and also to exercise authority over disease, demons and death. He spoke only that which He heard His Father say (John 12:49), and those words accomplished that for which they were spoken:
Isaiah 55:11 So shall my word be that goeth forth out of my mouth: it shall not return unto me void, but it shall accomplish that which I please, and it shall prosper in the thing whereto I sent it.
When we come into that same understanding—that the “I” of me and the “I” of God are the same “I”—and know the authority of the works spoken by that “I,” I will know that it is indeed “I” that is “forming the light and creating the darkness, making peace and creating evil” (Isaiah 45:7) by the beliefs of my heart and the words of my mouth.
When I get the revelation that I am the one who is creating the environment that I am living in, I will, like Jesus, begin to listen to and say and do only what I hear my Father say. I will cease cursing myself and others with my words (James 3:8-10) which are not founded in truth but in fear.
I will begin to take seriously Jesus’ warning that I am condemning and justifying myself by my own words and James’ warning about the use of my tongue. I will begin to hide God’s words in my heart and set a watch over my mouth (Psalms 119:11; 141:3) because I now know that “I” am the son of God who has been given authority to manifest God’s kingdom in this earth, that this “manifestation of the sons of God” is what all of creation is waiting for (Romans 8:19-23).
When the seventy returned to Jesus rejoicing that “the devils are subject unto us through thy name,” Jesus quickly responded that the disciples themselves had the same power over the enemy that He had and that they were to rejoice that THEIR names were written in heaven (Luke 10:17-24)—that they had the same name that He had, the name “I” that God told Moses was His name “forever” (Exodus 3:14-15), the name “which is above every name” and before which “every knee” will bow (Philippians 2:9-10).
It is not the name “Jesus” as we have thought, but rather the name OF Jesus, the name “I” “of whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named” (Ephesians 3:15), the name given to us in the beginning:
Before Abraham was, “I” am.
It is the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost, the name that carries within itself all power, dominion and authority—the name that has been invested in each of us; for, indeed, we are all one.
Let us, with thanksgiving and great reverence, go forth in this name, using the authority invested in that name, no longer to “create darkness” as we have done in our ignorance, but to rather be the light of the world, bringing into manifestation the kingdom of God on this earth.