Binding and Loosing: Releasing the Power of Your Spiritual Authority

Excerpted from The Ascension Dimension.

Jesus revealed how to live in a heavenly dimension while being in the earthly realm.

This means before His actual physical ascension, He operated in a spiritual dimension while on earth. What you are about to read is not spooky or superficial. But it is supernatural.

Often when we think about the ascension or ascending, most people get the idea of leaving their bodies to float up somewhere into another realm. I’m not saying that you won’t have amazing supernatural experiences or be caught up from time to time and see and experience things that are clearly beyond the natural human existence. Many believers have had dreams, visions, translations, and even out-of-body experiences. But those are moments dictated by the Holy Spirit that none of us can predict. Jesus lived an ascended life while being in the earth realm on a daily basis. And although Jesus did ascend physically after the resurrection, He lived in the earth for thirty years and yet He functioned from heavenly places. I believe that His whole life in the Gospels is a template for us on how to live in a spiritual ascension in the earth on a daily basis.

Now I already know that many of you will say, “Of course, He did; He is Jesus.” Now, I wholeheartedly agree with the fact that Jesus was called to earth on a special mission of salvation and redemption. According to His purpose, there was no one like Him and there will never be another. However, my retort to that response is, it wasn’t just Jesus who operated in the supernatural and miraculous dimension. The disciples also did mighty works, and they were just common men. The question is, how did Jesus and the disciples who later became apostles do it? Jesus told us how!

And Jesus returned in the power of the Spirit into Galilee: and there went out a fame of him through all the region round about.

And he taught in their synagogues, being glorified of all.

And he came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up: and, as his custom was, he went into the synagogue on the sabbath day, and stood up for to read.

And there was delivered unto him the book of the prophet Esaias. And when he had opened the book, he found the place where it was written,

The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor; he hath sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised,

To preach the acceptable year of the Lord.

And he closed the book, and he gave it again to the minister, and sat down. And the eyes of all them that were in the synagogue were fastened on him.

And he began to say unto them, This day is this scripture fulfilled in your ears (Luke 4:14-21 KJV).

He did it all by the Spirit of the Lord. This is why in Chapter 5 of this book I talked about the purpose of the Spirit being sent to us on earth. It is for the same purpose the Spirit was sent to Jesus, to give us power from on high. This power is to give us overriding ability for the natural activity in the earth realm. It is spirit realm ability that dominates natural realm ability. It transcends the natural realm because the Son of God, Jesus, had access to this power from the heavenly realm. He needed it because of the assignment, which can be broken down into two parts: the ministry of Jesus and the mission of Jesus. The ministry of Jesus was to seek and save that which was lost, which is covered in Luke 4:14-18. But the mission of Jesus is found in Matthew 16:

When Jesus came into the coasts of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, saying, Whom do men say that I the Son of man am?

And they said, Some say that thou art John the Baptist: some, Elias; and others, Jeremias, or one of the prophets.

He saith unto them, But whom say ye that I am?

And Simon Peter answered and said, Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God.

And Jesus answered and said unto him, Blessed art thou, Simon Barjona: for flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but my Father which is in heaven.

And I say also unto thee, That thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.

And I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven (Matthew 16:13-19 KJV).

His mission was to build the Church to carry on the ministry and establish the Kingdom of Heaven on earth.

All of the language of binding and loosing is ascension language. In essence, what Jesus was letting us know is what He did while He was on earth. While Jesus was on earth, He told us, “For I have not spoken of myself; but the Father which sent me, he gave me a commandment, what I should say, and what I should speak” (John 12:49 KJV).

And similarly in John 5:

Jesus answered them, My Father worketh hitherto, and I work.

Therefore, the Jews sought the more to kill him, because he not only had broken the sabbath, but said also that God was his Father, making himself equal with God.

Then answered Jesus and said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, The Son can do nothing of himself, but what he seeth the Father do: for what things soever he doeth, these also doeth the Son likewise.

For the Father loveth the Son, and sheweth him all things that himself doeth: and he will shew him greater works than these, that ye may marvel (John 5:17-20 KJV).

In these two passages of Scripture, Jesus revealed the secret to His ascended life in the earth: He did what he saw the Father doing, and He said what He heard the Father say (John 5:19). How did He do that? Through the Holy Spirit:

Howbeit when he, the Spirit of truth, is come, he will guide you into all truth: for he shall not speak of himself; but whatsoever he shall hear, that shall he speak: and he will shew you things to come.

He shall glorify me: for he shall receive of mine and shall shew it unto you.

All things that the Father hath are mine: therefore said I, that he shall take of mine, and shall shew it unto you (John 16:13-15 KJV).

One more Scripture passage and then I will attempt to tie this all together. John 4:23-24 (KJV) says:

But the hour cometh, and now is, when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth: for the Father seeketh such to worship him. God is a Spirit: and they that worship Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth.

Jesus was speaking of a spiritual dimension in which we would be able to worship God in the spirit. Jesus was explaining to the woman that there was a dimension of the spirit she had not yet entered into, but it was coming. And that’s what He did after the resurrection. He brought us all into a dimension where we could and would have direct access to God through our spirits. This direct access would give us the ability to see, hear, and sense God. This is the ascended life, to be on earth and yet be connected to God who is a Spirit. This is how we function now as the new creation. We are spiritually connected now, so that we can do what He does and say what He says.

Now remember, when we speak of the ascension, we are talking about functioning as if you’re at the right hand of the Father, saying and doing what He would say and do. At the risk of being redundant, I really want you to get this. This must become an intentional way of thinking and acting. The reason Jesus’s thinking, speaking, and functioning on earth was done with such power and authority was because He was functioning from this ascended position. Remember, Jesus didn’t come to earth to redeem Himself or establish a position in the heavens for Himself. He had no need to be redeemed. He had no need to establish a position with the Father. He already had one. He is doing this for us! It is us whom the Father wanted in this position. Paul explains it this way:

Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus: Who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God:

But made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men:

And being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross.

Wherefore God also hath highly exalted him, and given him a name which is above every name:

That at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven, and things in earth, and things under the earth;

And that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father (Philippians 2:5-11 KJV).

Do you see the extremes that Jesus went through to bring us into this life and position? We owe Him the glory and the honor; but not only that, we owe Him the return on His investment.

When Jesus was on earth, He ascended every realm of activity. His every word and life were the ascension in action. When Jesus came out the wilderness after being tempted for 40 days by the devil, the Scripture says that He began to preach saying, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand” (Matthew 4:17 KJV). The word repent is metanoeo in the Greek. It means to think again or afterward. It’s a changing of the way you used to think before, a change of mind. That’s different from an apology or confession of wrongdoing. Real repentance is a changing of the way you think. Jesus was telling them that the King and Kingdom from Heaven has arrived on earth, and everyone is going to have to change the way they’ve previously been thinking. A higher authority and system of governing the earth has arrived. This Kingdom that Jesus spoke of has not changed. It is the same Kingdom. It also has the same authority, laws, and power of the Kingdom that Jesus spoke of two thousand years ago. What it did then, it will do now if we repent. But repentance is not easy. Consider God’s words to us through the prophet Isaiah:

For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the Lord.

For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts.

For as the rain cometh down, and the snow from heaven, and returneth not thither, but watereth the earth, and maketh it bring forth and bud, that it may give seed to the sower, and bread to the eater:

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 (Isaiah 55:8-11 KJV).

The Kingdom’s thinking and Kingdom ways are far superior to our ways of thinking as mere men. Thus, if we are going to spiritually ascend to this level of functioning on earth, it requires a renewed mind. I often say that we have two real enemies, satan and an unrenewed mind. This is why Jesus constantly commanded the people to repent. If we do not repent, we will sit, think, and act as the unseated think and act. If you’ve been born again, your spirit has already ascended into this state and position. Now, the goal is to get your mind where your spirit is.