Authority Over The Thief

 There Is Only One Thief
In growing up, I usually engaged in prayer when something was lost. My prayer sounded something like "Help! Help! " without much expectation that help would come. Increased responsibilities of adulthood brought an increased need to be strong in faith and effective in prayer. "Help! Help! " went through a metamorphosis.

The first noticeable change was more assurance that God was interested in my plight. This is called faith, I found out. Now my "Help! Help! " had some confidence behind it.

One change-producing situation came when we were hosting an evangelistic event attended by scores of people. At the end of the lunch break a friend approached me with news that one of her youth was missing his wallet. They had spent the break time searching for it. With their thorough searching, it appeared that the wallet had been taken.
As we prayed together, my fiend and I, we heard the Lord say, "There is only one thief. Bind him! "
Jn 10:10 The thief does not come except to steal, and to kill, and to destroy. I have come that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly



Here was our scripture!
So we prayed the scripture and bound the thief:
Lord You have given us authority over the full strength of the enemy (Lk 10:19) . So we exercise our authority now. We bind you, fowl thief! (Matt 16:19) Drop what you have taken and leave here at once in Jesus mighty name.(Jn 14:13)

My friend returned to her seat and within moments was motioning to me. The wallet was found at the side of her chair. Ten minutes before, the floor had been clear. We flushed with excitement.



Authority of the Believer
The authority of the believer had been on our radar. We had read about it, prayed over it…now we had tasted it. No looking back! Our prayer was so brief and simple, but heavy with assurance: assurance in the power and authority of the Word that we proclaimed and assurance in our own authority as believers.

Over the years I have prayed that prayer many times as the Lord has directed. One of those times occurred when another friend came to me at church and asked for prayer for a lost watch. It was a valuable Christmas gift from her husband. She had searched everywhere! ....and I knew from observation that a speck of dust would be challenged to hide in her home.

We prayed. A few mornings later she awoke to see the watch neatly laid out on her dresser. She inquired of her husband where he had found it. He hadn’t. He had seen the watch and assumed she had found it. The thief had been bound and he dropped what he had stolen!



Persistence May Be Needed
But there was one time when things went a different way: One morning I reached for my prescription sun glasses to find them missing. I prayed, reviewed where I last had them and retraced my steps…lots of steps. I was hearing a tormenting voice tell me that these glasses were not coming back.

Good sense said this was probably the truth. I had been all over several neighborhood streets and our community college campus the evening before, sunglasses dangling from the v-opening of my shirt. But, good sense and faith are not the same thing.

On the second day of no glasses and the tormenting voice, I waged a faith offensive. In the next month I developed a morning prayer, laying siege to the camp of the thief.

I claimed back everything that ever slipped through our hands including the joy of living. My daughter was still coming through a long bout of depression. We hit it now in prayer like never before.

I made copies of the outline of this prayer to distribute to friends to pray on their own behalf. Some of them pray it to this day. I was praying it daily…with fervor!

Three months later, through a miraculous set of circumstances, my daughter learned that her blood was drastically low in essential amino acids. She started on a custom blended supplement and within days was herself again…bright and hopeful. Praise God!

We began to see a shift in many areas of life….as if the thief had erected a barricade to hold back blessings that God had released to us. The barricade was under siege and crumbling. Many blessings!



God Answers: In His Time
Early one morning about six months after starting this prayer siege, I walked into my daughter’s kitchen. She lived across the street from me. My sunglasses sat on her countertop. My son-in-law had found them in a mulched flowerbed pressed up against the bender board edging. The glasses were dirty, but unscratched.

Prayer gets answered in God’s time and a stand of faith will yield a just reward! When the glasses were found, the house was up for sale. A few weeks’ later my daughter and her family moved out. Lord, You are always on time. Your time!