You Have Authority

The Abundant Life

God wants all believers to come before the throne of God with boldness and authority and to actually claim what is rightfully theirs. The price has been paid by the Lord Jesus Christ for believers to live one lifestyle only: a life of victory.

Everybody on earth who lives outside of God's abundant life, which is a life of riches, a life of health, a life of wealth, a life of knowledge, a life of peace, a life of comfort, a life of contentment, and a life of patience — everybody that lives outside of that kind of life is outside of God's will. Jesus paid the price for one lifestyle only. It's called the abundant life.

If you don't have abundance in every area of your life, there's something wrong with

your thinking. You need to change your way of thinking and fit it in with God's Word, because God's not going to change. He is not going to change His way of thinking.

God wants you to live an abundant life. That's the reason He says, "I want wealth and riches in My house." And as long as a person seeks the Lord, God makes that person prosper. He will make you to prosper, too, if you will seek Him.

But if you ever get hung up on religion or your church or your business or your family, you are on your way down, not up. And if you ever lose the authority you have in Christ Jesus, you're on your way down, not up.

'Seducing Spirits and Doctrines of Devils'

Now how does a person lose his or her authority in Him?

Now the Spirit speaketh expressly, that in the latter times some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits, and doctrines of devils....

1 Timothy 4:1

Understand, my brother and sister, that God is a faith God. He is not some other kind of God. God is a faith God, and God loves all human beings exactly the same.

God has no "big shots" and no "little shots." There are no big-shot gospel people. God loves everybody the same. And God is moved by one thing: faith.

Faith is believing in a God you can't see. It is believing Him when you don't feel a thing. That's called faith.

What Faith Is

If you can thank God for something He has promised you before you ever see anything, that is called faith. The Bible says that faith is not seen. If you demand to see something before you believe it, that is not faith, and you cannot please God that way.

But without faith, it is impossible to please Him. He that cometh to God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him.

Hebrews 11:6

When you get to the point that you cannot believe God for something before you see it; when you cannot thank Him openly for something before you see it, you break the connection of faith between you and God. Then God stops finding favor with you. When you depart from that kind of believing, you automatically throw your mind and your spirit open to the devil, to "seducing spirits and doctrines of devils."

When you leave the world of faith, evil spirits start coming in and seducing your mind. When they minister to your mind, they throw your mind into a world of wondering about God. Many Christians live in a world of wondering about God, which is sin. It is evil, and it will separate you from God.

In God, there is no wondering. You either know or you don't know, and there is no in between. You know that God is God by knowledge. You believe exactly what His Word says.

God Will Manifest Himself

If anyone—man, woman, boy, or girl—will believe God's Word for exactly what it says and stand boldly on it, God will manifest Himself to that person.

But if you don't believe God's Word for yourself and you get healed through some other person's ministry—by the laying on of hands, anointing with oil, the word of knowledge, or whatever—that same disease will usually come upon you again in time.

And By the Word of Your Testimony

You yourself will have to come to a place that you will overcome by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of your testimony.

Your testimony will have to be, "The Lord Jesus Christ is my Healer. I thank you, Father, because the Lord Jesus Christ is my personal Healer, and I am willing to confess it publicly. My testimony will ring out of my mouth as long as I live."

Always remember this: If you ever get tired of your testimony of what Jesus did for you, God will allow you to go back to the state you were in before. So don't ever stop giving your testimony about what the Lord as done for you.

If the Lord God has ever healed you, give that testimony as long as you live — even if it's eighty more years. Let that testimony ring out of your mouth. When God hears the truth and hears you glorifying His name on the earth for what He has done for you, He will continue to keep you in that state of blessing.

Meditate on Scripture

The only part of the Bible that ever works for you is the part that you get into your heart, your spirit. If you want to be healed from a healing verse, then you have to memorize that healing verse. Get it on the inside of your spirit. Make it a part of you just as your right arm is a part of your body. Then when you need that verse, it will be there, on the inside of your spirit.

I don't have to muster up something to cast out devils. If I meet someone needing deliverance, I say, "In Jesus' name, come out! Leave them alone, you devil. Come out of them, I said! Let them go free! You have no right to them."

Those cast-out-devils scriptures are in me. I don't have to get fourteen people to help me pray to "see what the devil will do." No, I tell the devil what I mean in Jesus' name: "Turn this person loose right now!"

You had better learn who you are in Christ Jesus. Take time to get miracle-working scriptures on the inside of your spirit, not in your mind. Your mind is half flaky. Get those scriptures on the inside of your spirit. Get devil-casting-out scriptures down on the inside of you. Get love scriptures down on the inside of you.

Love Humans and Fight Devils

Always remember this: Love the human race and fight devils. Some people want to fight the human race and love devils. "What do you mean, Norvel, the devil? Where's the devil? I don't see any devils."

I say, "The devil is a deceiver. He doesn't want you to see him. All you have to do is to take inventory of your life: your finances, your health, your joy, your peace, your authority, your strength, your patience, and your contentment. In every part of your life that is not victorious or successful, the devil is there. That's where he's working. The devil is a thief, a robber, a destroyer, and a killer. He doesn't want you to be successful in anything."

Where God Is, There Is Wealth

"Brother Norvel, my pocketbook is empty." Well, the devil's in your pocketbook. God has no nature in Him except wealth, success, victory, and love. Everything about God is the height of success. When He builds mansions, He believes in using the best materials. God is an extremist concerning wealth. He builds ruby floors, jasper doors, and diamond doorknobs.

You build yours out of brick, wood planks, and blacktop streets. God's streets are made out of pure gold. Your living room floor in heaven will be worth more money than Orlando, Florida.

"Brother Norvel, isn't that going to extremes about wealth?" Not if you are the One who makes the stuff in the beginning! If I were God, I would do anything I wanted to do. I would never ask you anything.

God is not on your level. God does not think like you think. God thinks like the Bible is. Everything that you confess that Jesus is to you, He becomes that to you.

God Wants To Bless You

I have missed some excellent moneymaking opportunities. In fact, I have missed God more than I have hit His opportunities, but thank God sometimes I did hit them.

You don't have to hit God's opportunities very often to become fairly wealthy. If you could just know how God wants to bless you, you would be surprised what God would do for you.

So get the mind of the Lord. Please don't think about it. Just read your Bible and believe it. Then you are believing how God thinks, but if you, are just going to think on your own and do what you want to do, you will probably wind up doing very little, because on your own, sometimes you get slothful. God says, "Those that dealeth with a slack hand will maketh to want" (Proverbs 10:4).

The graveyard is full of people tonight who left faith, got slothful in their thinking, and went out on their own without God.

Six Things God Hates

Proverbs 6 shows us some pitfalls to avoid so you can claim with your authority, what is rightfully yours in God and get it.

These six things doth the Lord hate: yea, seven are an abomination unto him:

A proud look, a lying tongue, and hands that shed innocent blood,

An heart that deviseth, wicked imaginations, feet that be swift in running to mischief....

Proverbs 6:16-18

Don't run toward temptation; run from it. It will destroy you.

Guard Your Mouth

Now look at verse 19:

A false witness that speaketh lies, and he that soweth discord among brethren.

Proverbs 6:19

If you ever hear one deacon in your church say anything bad about the pastor, go tell the pastor and suggest that he throw that deacon out now. Regarding anyone who ever sows discord in God's holy temple and the ministry and the administration of a ministry, God says, "Have nothing to do with him because I hate it. I absolutely hate it."

God is not interested in your opinion of your pastor. If you are a deacon of the church, God listens to what you think about Him. God is interested in your backing your pastor to the hilt, all the way.

Sow Seed for a Harvest

Some people are sick financially. God says that He can't get them to sow seed. They are not going to get a harvest until they sow seed. Oral Roberts told me the same thing. He was praying and trying to get God to send him about twelve million dollars. God told him, "You've already reaped all the harvest you have coming from the seed you've sown. I can't send you twelve million dollars. I can't send you twelve million dollars because you don't have it coming. I've already sent you 275 million dollars to build Oral Roberts University and the City of Faith. But you sowed a lot of seed back in those days."

God told Oral, "If you want twelve million dollars to finish that building, then sow some more seed." You see, the Bible is not just for preachers to preach, my brothers and sisters; it's for preachers to obey.

'Why Doesn't God Heal Me?'

I had two nationally known evangelists come to me a while back. One said, "Norvel, you're a Bible teacher; we have to ask you a question. We see people healed all the time through your ministry, but we're both still sick. Why doesn't God heal us?"

I said, "Because of your mouth. If you ask that question, it's for sure you don't know anything. The Lord is standing there with those stripes across His back, and you ask. 'Why doesn't He heal me?'"

"Well, why don't you claim it? Claim it, claim it, claim it! Walk the floor and confess, 'Jesus is my Healer.'"

I don't care who you are, where you come from, or what kind of disease you have, I could help you get your healing. I could take you by the hand, and we could start at eight o'clock in the morning and go to six o'clock that night. We could walk the floor and thank the Lord for your healing thousands of times.

"Thank you, Lord, for healing this woman. Jesus, You are her Healer. In Jesus' name, thank you for healing her." After a while, she will start getting it. (People's minds are usually so religiously brainwashed that it takes them a while to ever get in faith themselves.)

She might start saying weakly, "Thank You, Lord, for healing me. Thank You, Jesus, for healing me." I will say, "Oh, sicko, sicko, sicko. Raise your voice, woman, before you die! Come before the throne of God with boldness and claim what is rightfully yours. Do you believe Jesus is your Healer?"

"Well, I know He could if He wanted to."

Oh, be quiet. Don't say that. Do you believe that Jesus is your Healer?

"Well, I guess so, Brother Norvel, if you say so."

"I say so! Let's go two or three more hours. Your faith is totally wrecked because according to the Book of Hebrews, real faith has a voice! Faith has the voice of victory! If your voice doesn't, then you don't know what it means to have faith."

I tell her, "There is no point in your staying in the wondering stage, which will cause you to go to the graveyard early before your time. Don't do that. Know who you are. Walk the floor and confess, 'Jesus, You are my Healer. Jesus, You are my Healer. Jesus, I love you, and You're healing me now! Jesus, you are my Healer!"

If you will do that long enough and enough times, you will get God's attention. You must call on His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, your own personal Healer every day. Avoid a quickie frenzy, but be steadfast like a tree planted by the riverside, and call with authority. He will manifest Himself to you and heal you right on the spot. God will hear you.

God loves you. Get that straight. God does not want you sick. That same kind of faith in the Lord Jesus Christ works the same for everything. The Book of Hebrews kind of faith works the same way for everything.

Add Thanksgiving to Your Faith

The perfect definition of faith is this: "Whatever God has promised me in the New Testament through Christ Jesus, I thank Him for it out loud before I ever see it, and He will let me see it." Faith is not seen.

Many people want things from God and they are trying to believe God, but they are not giving thanks along with their believing, so they totally miss the whole promise of God. There is such a fine line in this area.

You can be a good person and love the Lord and tithe and do a lot of good things. But if you don't add thanksgiving to your faith, it won't work properly for you.

You have to thank God. Let your voice ring up to heaven and just thank God for your healing. "Jesus, You are healing me now. Jesus; You are my Healer." Don't waver; don't let your mind get off into wondering. "Jesus, You are my Healer. You are healing me now. My name is Norvel, and You are healing me now. I love You, Jesus, and I know You love me. I accept You, Jesus, as my Savior, and I accept You as my Healer. I thank You, Lord."

Just walk the floor for hours. "Thank you, Lord Jesus, for healing me. Thank you, Lord Jesus, for loving me. Thank you, Lord Jesus, for being so good to me and so kind to me. Thank you, Jesus, for healing me. You are my Healer, Jesus. Glory to God forever!"

Don't get nervous and try to change it. "Thank You, Jesus, for healing me. Jesus, thank You for healing me. Thank You for healing me." Just keep on and on until you get tired. Then have enough sense to sit down and rest. Be quiet for a little while. Get something to drink.

Then after you rest, get up and start again. "Jesus, You are my Healer. Thank You, Jesus, for healing me." Just keep on and keep on. Don't ever waver.

I will guarantee you that if you keep on, the Lord God in heaven will hear you. God and Jesus are in the throne room, and you will get their attention. Let your faith have a voice of victory, and let it ring up into heaven. Brother, heaven will listen to you. But you have to show the Lord your faith. Confessing a Scripture four or five times doesn't mean much.

Unwavering Faith

The Bible says that God Himself watches your faith. And when God sees that your faith is not going to waver, the Bible says that Jesus makes intercession for you. He is like a lawyer for you before God, and He will say, "Look here, Father, what John Smith of Orlando, Florida, has been doing. The doctor says that he has lupus in the last stage. And he has been confessing his healing for one month."

You know what God will say to Him? "How many times has he confessed it?"

Silent Faith Can Bury You

Always remember this: Silent faith will bury you in an early grave. Silent faith will leave your pocketbook empty. God does not honor silent faith. The Bible says that faith has a voice of victory.

"He has confessed his healing for one month, and he has confessed it 2,005 times." And you keep on and never waver; you just keep on. "Jesus, You are my Healer. Jesus, You are my Healer."

Then Jesus can go in and say, "Father, this man John Smith in Orlando, Florida, has increased his confession. He's called Me the Son of God, and he has called me his own personal Healer. He's called me his Healer ten thousand times in two months."

That is going to impress God, I can tell you right now. God is just and God is honest, but you are going to have to impress God with your faith. Keep sin out of your life and impress God. When you believe the Bible, you impress God; you get His attention.

I can hear Him say, "How many times did you say? More than ten thousand times?"

"Uh, huh, more than ten thousand, and he has an unwavering faith. He has not wavered."

This is the way you get healed. God can stamp your request, "I'll honor his faith." The moment He says, "Honor his faith," Jesus can speak from heaven to the Holy Ghost on the earth and say, "Heal him completely."

And the Bible says that the Holy Spirit who lives in you listens, and He performs only what He hears. He actually, literally performs what He hears. There are no shortcuts.

You have to come by your healing or whatever else you want from God honestly. You have to pay the price. Nothing from heaven ever comes cheaply. It never has. You are not going to get anything from heaven cheaply.

Believe the Bible

If you were raised in the kind of church I was, you have to bypass a lot of what you have been taught to even come to a full gospel church. And you can't go around to three or four ministers and ask them what they think of the pastor. "Well, he's a nice fellow, but he preaches a weird doctrine, you know."

Everybody believes that "If you don't believe what I believe, you have a weird doctrine." But that's not true. Your doctrine is weird if you don't believe what the Bible says — not what Norvel Hayes believes or what someone else believes. If you don't believe what the Bible actually says, then your doctrine is weird.

I always check up on people by asking them what the Bible says itself. They may say, "Well, I do this, and I'm this and I believe this. Actually, I believe the whole Bible."

"Yeah. Well, I guess you speak in tongues then."

"No, I believe that is of the devil."

"Well, I guess that you obey the sixteenth chapter of Mark, though, and you cast out devils, right?"

"No, I don't get involved in that crazy stuff."

I say, "Well, Jesus did."

"Well, I know, but that's been done away with."

"Oh, the New Testament has been done away with? That's a new doctrine."

"Well, I didn't say that."

"Yes, you did. You said that you don't obey the sixteenth chapter of the Book of Mark, which is in the New Testament.

"Oh. I did say that, didn't I?"

"Yeah, you did."

Bypass Human Beings

You have to watch. False doctrines are so deceiving. They will get you to believe the wrong thing and make you think it's right. There is nothing right except chapter and verse.

If you are going to get any great miracles through your own faith and your own believing, let me pass this on to you: Bypass human beings.

I love the human race, but you are going to have to learn to bypass them and to get in the Bible yourself. When you leave the world of faith, you allow seducing spirits and doctrines of devils to come in, which will talk you into not tithing and not sowing seed, but still expecting a harvest.

"Well, if the Lord wants to heal me, He will." No He won't! That's a lie. He will heal you every time, but not because He wants to. He will heal you because you pay the price to get it. And that holds true for anybody.

"Well, Brother Norvel, my case might be that the Lord doesn't want to..." That's a lie from hell. God wants you to be healthy, strong, and full of victory all the time, every day of your life. And if you'll walk the floor and obey the Lord Jesus Christ, He will make you what He wants you to be.

Don't Let Your Iniquities Separate You From God

So learn what faith is. Never leave the world of faith because if you do, seducing spirits and doctrines of devils will come in and psyche your mind out. Isaiah chapter 59 tells you what will happen to you.

Behold, the Lord's hand is not shortened, that it cannot save; neither his ear heavy, that it cannot hear:

But your iniquities have separated between you and your God....

Isaiah 59:1,2

Iniquities? Yes, things like wrong believing. Do you want me to jar your mind? When you think of iniquities, you think about obvious sins, like getting drunk, taking dope, committing adultery. But all those sins are sins of the flesh. Sins of the flesh won't cause you nearly as much trouble as sins of the spirit.

The Worst Sin

I would rather commit adultery than to doubt God. I would rather take a drink of whiskey than to start wondering about God.

Sins of the flesh are wrong, but they are not as important as sins of the spirit.

You need to know that. You can get forgiveness quicker for a sin of the flesh than you can a sin of the spirit.

I don't want to do either one, but I would rather commit a sin of the flesh than to run down the pastor of a church.

The problem is, if somebody says that you went out with another woman or had a drink of whiskey, people will try to wreck you for life. However, you can go around saying anything you want about a pastor, and they will still think you are a good Christian. But you aren't. You are just as flaky as you can be, and God knows you're flaky.

Repent

If you have been talking about your pastor, you ought to repent. Before you go to bed tonight, you ought to repent. I know, because I have done a lot of things wrong myself. But I just repent and say, "God, any bad thought I ever had about that pastor or that church—any thought, anything I've ever been so stupid enough to say with my mouth, please, Lord, forgive me. The pastor doesn't belong to me; he belongs to You, God. He's a God-called man, a pastor with a good heart, so, God, please forgive me. I don't want that held against me."

Then don't ever do that any more. It will separate you from your God. The little squirrely things you do will separate you from your God so that God can't even heal you:

But your iniquities have separated between you and your God, and your sins have hid his face from you...

Isaiah 59:2

'Mouth Sins'

Your sins have hidden God's face from you. And it might not be adultery sins; it might not be "getting-drunk" sins. It might be "mouth" sins, which are the worst kind in the world. That is the reason God says that your tongue is the most unruly member of the body. It will create in you a "fire of iniquity" and take you to hell.

Brother and sister, you had better watch your tongue if you want to go to heaven. Don't let it slash people because God doesn't like it. God says, "I hate it." So watch it closely. Your sins have hidden God's face from you, that He will not hear you.

Suppose you are in my healing line and you say, "Brother Norvel, I am glad you are here. I believe I will be healed if you will pray for me. I mean, the pastor hasn't been doing too good a job at the church, and well, I love him basically, but let me tell you about him."

There isn't any use of my praying for you because God is not going to heal you.

Get that straight. I could pray for you until my teeth fell out, and God wouldn't heal you.

God hid His face from you. He won't even hear your prayers until you repent. God says, "I told her not to touch my anointed, but she has been saying negative things about the pastor to her neighbors. I hate that. And I have hidden my face from her."

For your hands are defiled with blood, and your fingers with iniquity; your lips have spoken lies, your tongue hath muttered perverseness.

Isaiah 59:3

If you run somebody else down to hurt them, you are perverted. You are worse than a sex pervert. I bet you thought a sex pervert was bad. Not as bad as you if you deliberately run somebody down. Your tongue is perverted. Now read verse 4.

None calleth for justice, not any pleadeth for truth: they trust in vanity, and speak lies; they conceive mischief, and bring forth iniquity.

Isaiah 59:4

And that is what causes you to lose total victory and to lose your authority in Christ Jesus, to lose your health and your money. God won't hear you if you speak lies or perverse things or if you conceive mischief.

A Harvest Reclaimed

Brother Oral Roberts couldn't get God to give him the money he asked for because God told him, "You've used up all the harvest for the seed you've sown. You have a right to claim that building to be paid for, but you are going to have to sow some seed yourself. How about your ministry, Oral Roberts, blessing somebody else?"

Oral told me himself that he gave a ministry four million dollars. He did too. He didn't have any money, but he gave away his jet plane, free of charge. He gave it to Kenneth Copeland because he knew Kenneth had a "plane spirit." (Kenneth used to be Oral's copilot before he was ever a student at Oral

Roberts University.)

Kenneth called me on the phone and said, "Norvel, are you sitting down?"

I said, "I can be really quick like."

"Sit down, Norvel, I have something to tell you. Oral Roberts called me on the phone and gave me his four-million dollar jet! Are you sitting down? I'm going to come and get you in the morning and take you to California in the jet."

I said, "Is that right?"

He said, "It's not going to cost you a dime. Gloria and I will come and get you."

On the way to California, I said, "So God told Oral Roberts to give you a four-million dollar jet, huh?"

"Yeah. Isn't that wonderful, Norvel?"

I said, "Wait a minute. I'm a Bible teacher, not just a wanderer wandering around through the land wondering what I'm doing. Wait a minute, Ken. You had to do something for God to tell Oral to give you this plane. How many planes have you given away in your life?"

Seed Sown

He said, "Who me?" He turned to Gloria and asked, "Do you know how many planes we have given away?"

Gloria said, "Let me figure for a few minutes." Then she said, "Ken, from the time you learned to fly, we've given away fourteen planes, mostly to missionaries and pastors that God told us to give to. But all of them together wouldn't amount to very much, maybe $150,000. They were small, one-engine planes — missionary planes."

Ken said, "We'd have one, and God would say to give it to that missionary right there, and I would just give it to him free."

I said, "Uh huh. You planted fourteen planes as seed, and now after fourteen planes and sixteen years, you have a payday coming. You are reaping a harvest for the seed you've sown."

He said, "My wife Gloria drives a $65,000 Mercedes. I drive a $65,000 Mercedes, but I didn't pay for it with ministry money. I came home one day and there was a brand new one sitting in the driveway with a note, 'Ken, this is yours. We love you.' I came home a few weeks later and one was sitting there for Gloria with a note that said, 'Tell Gloria we love her, too, and here is one for her.'"

Kenneth said, "Norvel, the people sometimes make fun of me for driving these cars."

I answered, "Tell them how you got them. If somebody gives you a car, what are you going to do, sell it and buy you an old model?"

Here is a guy and his wife driving two $65,000 Mercedes and flying a $4,000,000 jet plane, and they didn't buy anything. It's called "getting blessed." It's called "sowing seed." Blessed be the name of Jesus forever.

Oral Roberts told me himself, "After we sowed that plane, the money for our need came through—all of it!"

In the very same way, when you sow a seed up to heaven that Jesus is your Healer, and you do it long enough, strong enough, and often enough, your healing will come."

You say, "Well, my healing didn't come." The only reason is that you did not confess that Jesus is your Healer long enough and strong enough. Maybe you did it weakly just a few times for the first two or three weeks and that was all. Now you don't confess it at all. But if you had kept on confessing, "Jesus, You are my Healer; Jesus you are healing me now! You are my Healer, Jesus," boldly and with authority, I guarantee you that God would have healed you. The disease would have disappeared.

And so will the lack of finances disappear if you will do the same thing with finances. "Jesus, you are my Provider. You are my Provider. Thank you, Lord, for the millions I need, for the thousands I need. Thank you, Lord, you are my Provider."

The healing, the provision will come; it will shower on you, out of nowhere. But you have to speak with boldness and authority, thank God for it, keep iniquity out of your life, repent of any sin quickly, and sow seed.

You Have Authority!

In This book, Norvel Hayes explains how to walk in the boldness of true as you exercise your authority in Christ.

Norvel also provides important reasons why people fail to receive what they are believing for.

God loves you and wants to bless you. Learn how to live by faith and approach God in prayer so you can achieve the abundant life God intends for you to have!

Norvel Hayes, a successful businessman, has learned through personal experience that God’s Word works for anyone who will believe and apply it. He shares witha bold simplicity that captures theheart of the reader and shines new light on hidden treasures.

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