Everything in the world was first created through an idea or a thought in someone's mind. Before the chair was invented, it was a picture or image in someone's mind. Or before a table was ever invented, it was first the idea of someone's thoughts. But as he started to talk, draw, or relate it verbally or nonverbally, it took shape in this world. I believe it was the same as how God created the earth, animals, plants, and humanity. It was all first residing in the mind of God. And it was until God spoke then boom, the light was created, the heavens formed, and the sun, moons, and stars existed. And because we are made in the likeness of God (Genesis 1:27), we also carry His creative power within our being. The question I asked myself was, why weren't the planets created in God's thoughts? Why did He have to speak to make it? Haha, and it is still a mystery to me to this day. But I know that if God works and functions that way, I will also operate that way. Therefore if I can tap into God's divine imagination for the created world, which on a side note, we can because scripture tells us we now have the mind of Christ (1 Corinthians 2:16). Once we can imagine God's ideas and functions in our minds, then we will be able to recreate that reality here on earth in the physical world. This is what the prophetic gift enables us to do. The Holy Spirit's gift of prophecy empowers us to peer into the thoughts of God and speak them here on earth. Heaven is the spiritual domain God rules, where His realities are all completed and finished. But those things have yet to be fulfilled on this side of time and space. Therefore God sent His Holy Spirit at Jesus' resurrection, and the Holy Spirit now empowers everyone to see the finished work of Jesus.
With these realities at play, let's look at how the power of decree can be integrated into our daily lives and the marketplace. As mentioned in our other blog about divine imaging, we learned that we could peer into God's finished work over our jobs and interactions. And all we need to do is do what the Father is doing, what we saw in the divine imaging experience, and we can have dramatic, miraculous results in our work. Something I like to do before actually partnering with the divine imaging is to use the power of decree to speak what God already did in the Spirit into the physical realm. For example, if in divine imaging you see that a client will go through with the deal, then even before I ever meet with the person, I already start decreeing and declaring the promises of God. The Bible tells us that the power of life and death is in our tongue (Proverbs 18:21). God has given us the ability to co-create new realities with Him. Because what God shows us is already done, all we need to do is activate that heavenly reality with the spoken power of our voice here on earth. The word here for death can mean to harm others, or it can also be talking about the ability to cancel or cut off things, not of God's kingdom. Sometimes during prayer or divine imaging, we will have moments where we see negative things about to happen; this is when we also need to partner with the power of decree to cancel the works of the enemy to steal, kill and destroy. I find a lot of my life after accepting Jesus as my Lord and Savior is more proactive than passive. There are moments when we need God's divine intervention, but I don't believe that is always the case. I think God is looking for a mature and victorious bride (Ephesians 5:27, Revelation 19:7), speaking about a Church that knows who she is and stands for truth.
When we partner with the power of decree, we grow up in maturity as a follower of Jesus. Instead of waiting for Jesus to rescue us, we are beginning to step into the reality of our partnership as co-heirs of Christ (Romans 8:17). I remember sharing this reality of the power of our decree when I was in Hawaii with a friend who worked as a middle school teacher. And she shared how challenging it was to manage her classroom full of middle school students. It had already been up to six months working at this public school, but it was constant chaos in her classroom. Anyways, I told her when she got home later tonight, when she was in her bedroom, to practice and execute the power of decree over her students and her classroom environment. As she is delegated authority over her classroom, she has the authority to speak and set both in the Spirit and the natural what is allowed and what isn't. So while she was in her bedroom that night, she started to contemplate some things in heaven that Jesus had already established through the finished work of the cross. And a few things came to her; she thought about how orderliness is something in heaven, even with all the heavenly hosts. And she thought about how God is a God of peace, not confusion or chaos. With these two simple realities of heaven of peace and order, she started to speak in the classroom. She declared something along the lines, "There will be order in my classroom. My students will be well-behaved in my classroom, and they will listen to me as I teach the class. There will be peace in my classroom; the spirit of rebellion is not allowed." And then, to her surprise, the next day, as each student entered the classroom, they were well-behaved and went to sit down in their assigned seats. Throughout the lesson, they were well-behaved and listened to the teacher as she taught. My teacher friend was amazed as she had not believed any would happen. Long story short, she fulfilled her mandate and assignment from God as a middle school teacher. This is just one example of how the power of decree can transform our world. Whether we are middle school teachers, a lawyer, a doctor, business owners, or even a pastor, we can all partner with the power of decree to shape our world by ushering the realities of heaven to earth.
The Bible speaks of the power of decrees quite explicitly in Psalms 107:20 - He sent His word, healed them, and delivered them from their destructions. Along with the scripture passage in Matthew 8:5-13, where the gentile centurion said to Jesus, you don't need to come to my home but speak the word here, and he will be healed there (paraphrased). And this is one of the few times Jesus was blown away by someone's faith. The centurion understood that God's Kingdom was not limited to time, space, and distance. In the same way, we can begin to partner with God in the marketplace to speak the decrees of heaven and see Kingdom transformation in our workplaces. Feel free to share in the comments below the times you partnered with God through the power of decree in your marketplace environments and saw God move on your behalf.