June 2024

One of the things that I realized over this more than half a century of making disciples and helping develop people is that the topic of identity, self-image, and self-worth had a greater impact on people than anything I ever taught them. Today, I want to talk about identity and authority. I will try to cover this as quickly and concisely as possible, and I believe it will greatly help you. It may inspire you to pursue and dig deeper into this.

One of the great myths we face is that when sin came to Planet Earth, man gave his authority to the devil. You should realize that only God has the ability to give authority to anybody here on Planet Earth. God didn’t give authority to the devil, which means we could not give our authority to the devil. Besides that, no single scripture indicates that man ever gave his authority to the devil.

The Book of Revelation talks about the kings of the earth following the Antichrist and giving him authority, but God doesn’t give him authority because, remember, here on Planet Earth, God gave authority to man, and He has never taken that back. The world would have been better off if we had lost authority, but the problem is that we still had authority. However, we had a sinful nature and used that authority for incredibly destructive purposes.

In Genesis 1:26, the first part of that verse says, “Then God said, ‘Let us make man in our own image, according to our likeness; and let them have dominion.'” The key factor you want to realize here is that number one, authority was given to man, but number two, as you’ll see as we walk our way through this, the reason man was able to function in his God-given authority was because of his sense of identity, or his image. In other words, he knew he was created in the likeness and image of God. He knew that God had given him authority, so he did everything he could to operate in authority, from the sense of his identity to his relationship with God.

Once that got all messed up, people who did use authority used it for corrupt purposes. By and large, believers, because religion has perverted this for the last 2,000 years, don’t even understand that they have authority. Or, when we realize we have authority, we tend to use it more ceremonially, operating some formula, saying the words just right. Even then, when we jump through all those hoops, very seldom do people in their hearts have the confidence that they can speak to a situation and change it—that they can speak to a situation and it has to leave if they send it away, or they can speak something forth into their life, and it has to come. But that doesn’t happen if we don’t have confidence in the words that we speak.

Remember, Jesus said, when talking about faith, that you must speak to the situation and believe that those things you say will come to pass. This isn’t about convincing ourselves that our words come to pass. That confidence comes inherently when we know who we are. People raised in royal families are taught their entire lives that their word is law and what they say is what goes. They grow up never questioning that what they speak becomes law and must be observed.

The problem is that religion does not want us to know that we have authority. Religion does not want us to understand what we can do and what we have in Jesus. Religion wants to convince us that we must seek and beg God to do things that He has already given us the authority to do. It’s incredible how many things we ask God to do that He cannot do for us because He has given us the authority. People struggle with that, and I understand it, but that is the scripture and how it all comes forth.

The last part of Genesis 1:26 says, “Then God blessed them, and God said to them, ‘Be fruitful and multiply; fill the earth and subdue it; and have dominion.'” This clarifies that God has always intended for man to have dominion. In my book, “Keys of the Kingdom,” I discuss this, stating that once we know what is settled in heaven, we are ambassadors for Christ. We’re not just out here trying to recklessly or lawlessly use our authority. As ambassadors for Christ, we need to know what happened through the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus. 

We need to know what has been established in heaven. Once we know what has been established in heaven and who we are in authority, we can establish it here in our lives. This is called “binding and loosing.” Jesus described it as using the keys of the kingdom. With the keys of the kingdom, you’re not praying and asking God to do something; you’re recognizing what Jesus did at the cross and using your authority to establish it in your life. For example, all the promises of God are yes and amen.

If you’re in Jesus, according to 2 Corinthians 1:20 and dozens of other scriptures, all the promises of God are Yes and Amen in Him. If you know you are in Jesus and you see a place in your life where God’s promise is absent, it’s not happening, and something else is happening, you have options. You can whine, cry, complain, get counseling, or beg God to fix it. However, when Jesus talked about using the keys of the kingdom, He said it’s our job to bind and loose.

If a promise of God is missing in my life, I must persuade my heart to believe it and speak from a sense of who I am in Jesus. The truth is, I can speak that blessing forth into my life. On the other hand, Galatians 3:13 says we are delivered from all the curses of the law. Although we are delivered, it does not mean they won’t attempt to come upon us. We have legally been delivered from these things and given all the promises, but action must be taken on our part from a perspective of faith to see these things come into our lives.

When curses are in our lives, even though we have been delivered from them through the resurrection of Jesus, we speak to those situations and send them away. It’s that simple. As we realize our authority, most of what remains in our prayer life and connection with God is to develop an intimate relationship with Him. We should ask Him for leadership and wisdom, allowing Him to teach us, but we must stop trying to get Him to do something that would violate the authority of man on earth, making Him a liar and causing everything to fall apart.

The problem is we lost our sense of identity when man sinned. That intimacy with God was corrupted, and man was immediately filled with fear. He hid from God and sewed fig leaves together to cover himself because he was ashamed to be in God’s presence. He lost his sense of the image of God. But in Jesus, we can recover our lost identity if we enter into fellowship with Him.

Romans 8:28 is a passage often taken out of context. It says that all things work together for good to those who love God and are called according to His purpose. People may interpret this to mean that everything that happens will work for our good or that everything, whether good or bad, is done by God for our good. This is a limited concept. The verse means that for those who love God and are called according to His purpose—those who respond to His call—things work together for good. It does not apply to everyone.

This does not imply that God loves one person more than another. It reflects our need to make choices. God does not violate our will or authority; we must choose to walk in what God is doing in our lives. Knowing who we are and understanding God’s promises, we can turn situations around, regardless of how they arise. Evil things do not come from God; the Bible says not to be deceived, as God is always good, and there is no variableness in Him. Every good and perfect gift comes from God.

Returning to Romans 8:28, verse 29 helps us understand His purpose. It states that He also predestined those whom He foreknew. Predestination does not mean determining who will be saved and who won’t. It points to determining how something will happen. God predestined that every believer should be conformed to the image of His Son, Jesus. This conformity means being jointly transformed into His image, experiencing everything we need from God through Him and every aspect of what He has accomplished for us.

“For whom He foreknew, He predestined to be conformed to His image.” He is saying that God predestined every believer to be conformed to the image of His Son, Jesus. The word “conformed” in the Greek means jointly conformed or jointly transformed, suggesting that we can be jointly conformed to the image of His Son.

Jesus was the firstborn from the death of sin. He conquered sin, rose from the grave, and took on our sin—though it wasn’t His own. He had to conquer our sin to rise from the grave. The Gospel, however, is often misunderstood or underappreciated today. Few people have truly heard it, fewer believe it, and even fewer live their faith around it.

In 1 Corinthians 15:1-4, Paul explained the three components that make up the Gospel: what happened on the cross, what happened in the grave, and what happened through the resurrection. Jesus became our sin on the cross, marking the first step in reconciliation, which means to exchange. Jesus took our sin on the cross, died for that sin in the grave, and endured all the punishment we deserved. He was alienated from God and spent three days in Hades, operating His faith in the grave before being raised up in righteousness.

The first part of the exchange is that Jesus became sin. The last part is that we, trusting He has taken our sin and paid the price, are raised up over sin, death, and the grave. We become new creations, sharing His righteousness. As the Bible says, “God made Him who knew no sin to become sin that we might become the righteousness of God.” This describes the exchange that took place. Even though this exchange is legally binding, Paul urges believers to enter into this reconciliation and experience joint transformation with Jesus.

This means that even though I am declared righteous legally and positionally, it only becomes meaningful when I am living in that righteousness.  Everything Jesus did for us on the cross, in the grave, and through the resurrection is legally set. Paul urged believers, those already born again, to enter into this exchange with Jesus and experience joint transformation.

Jesus was transformed to become sin. The question for us is whether we see and experience Him becoming our sin. Jesus was bound in the grave for three days and nights. Do we recognize that this is what we deserve? By understanding this, we can let go of guilt, fear, shame, and dread of eternity and gain confidence. In the resurrection, Jesus conquered the grave, sin, and death and was raised above every name, principality, and power. By entering into this part of His transformation, we can realize that we were raised with Him and that His resurrection life is working in us. Sharing in His righteousness is possible because we are in Him right now.

This is all about the process of transformation. Sadly, the concept of transformation has largely been lost in the 21st-century church. Instead of entering into the death, burial, and resurrection with Jesus, we often think that just learning scriptures, occasionally reading the Bible, praying, or attending church will mystically lead to transformation. However, true transformation requires more than these occasional practices.

We choose to follow the biblical instruction or prescription for how to enter into this transformation, and it has to be done from our hearts, trusting God. Another interesting passage in Colossians 1:11 says that Jesus is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. This is really important! If He is the exact image of God, and according to Hebrews 1:3, the exact representation of God, then He was here on Planet Earth as God originally meant for man to be. God originally meant for all mankind to live in this image. Jesus came and showed us what the image of God looked like in a human being because He emptied Himself and became a man in every way, including facing every kind of temptation we will ever face. He is the image of the invisible God.

If I enter into this exchange — the cross, the grave, and the resurrection —I will put on that image that was restored to Him through the resurrection. Colossians 3:9-10 tells us to “put off the old man with his deeds and put on the new man who is renewed in knowledge according to the image of Him who created us.” Putting off, putting on, and renewing the mind all involve using the keys of the kingdom. If I know that my old man has died with Christ, if I know that I am dead to sin with Him because He took my sin and died, that should be the end of it. Any sin I commit beyond that is out of my ignorance, my lack of trust in God, or simply because I want to sin and get by with it. We fall into sin for many reasons, but the point is that we don’t have to.

Any aspect of my old life — my old man — isn’t just who I was before I got saved. My old man is anything or any way that I perceive myself outside of who I am in Jesus. I don’t have the right to have an opinion about myself that differs from who I am in Jesus. So, put off the old man by sending it away. This has been established and settled in heaven according to Scripture. Therefore, you have the authority to send away the old man, any part of your life that does not manifest the image of God. You can send it away, and it will go away because it’s settled in heaven. You are harmonizing what’s happening on earth in your life with what has already been done in heaven.

Then it says we renew our mind and put on the new man, who is renewed in knowledge. This is the knowledge of who Jesus is, what He has accomplished, and the understanding of the Scriptures that tell me what I have because I’m in Him. I am determined to take on that identity by renewing my mind with that knowledge. I’ve sent away the old man and begun acknowledging who I am in Jesus. 

The “Prayer Organizer” is one of the most powerful tools I have created to help people make this journey. It has over 200 identity scriptures. When you renew your mind with those daily, you eventually can’t see yourself in any way other than how you are in Jesus. You can’t see yourself as living in the curse.

People often ask how my ministry has survived financial crises when other ministries and churches fell apart. Here’s an interesting thing: I realized I was taking the old man with me when I dealt with my old man coming out of poverty. I sent that away and began to renew my mind about God’s blessings and promises for me. The truth is I can’t see myself broke. Even if I lose everything I have, which I have a few times, I can’t stay there because of who I am. I have absolute confidence in using my authority because I know who I am in Jesus, not because I’m anything special, but because Jesus is something very special, and we are in Him.

I hope you will pursue this: In my Bible, I color-coded all the scriptures in the New Testament that have to do with “In Him,” “through Him,” “by Him,” and “for Him,” which I call the identity scriptures. I did that to quickly remind myself of who I am in Jesus anytime I began to waver. You can do the same. You can get a “Prayer Organizer,” start working on it or get my “Identity, Self-Image, and Self-Worth” series. You may even want to join my Ultimate Impact Personal Coaching Program. We have a link in the script that goes along with this if you want to check it out and pursue this journey.

I hope this blesses you. I want to get the word out to every single person I can. Dive into this, ponder, and meditate on the fact that you are in Christ, a new creation created in the likeness and image of God. To know what that looks like, look at the life of Christ, His ministry, and how He treated people. There, you see God’s image in a human being’s life. I hope you enjoy this and are built up and encouraged, but I hope you’ll take it to the next step of application.

Several tools and resources are available, including an audio series on “Identity, Self-Image, and Self-Worth” and free video series on the same topics on our website. We will also be launching a new Ultimate Impact Life Transformation Workshop soon. We’ll provide a link in the text for you to check out this program. I appreciate your support for this ministry. Given the hardships in the world today, inflation, and other challenges, your sacrifices mean a lot. We don’t have much time left, and I would use my resources for the kingdom and store up treasures in heaven.

When we stand before the Judgment Seat of Christ, we will meet millions of people whose lives were influenced by what we did together. Those people will want to meet all of us who invested in them, even though we never saw or knew them. We invested to ensure these people had a chance to receive the Gospel. I appreciate you so much. Be sure to look at the information that comes with this, as there will be interesting things, including testimonies. Blessings to you, and I will talk to you again soon.

Blessings,
Jim Richards

Also, Enjoy this dialog with Abi and Silvia Renshaw, our German translator, who provides an update on the outreach to our German-speaking friends.

Abi: My name is Abi Lopez, and I work in the International Department for Dr. Jim Richards. We are translating his materials into different countries and languages. We are so blessed to do it. I am a Polish translator, but I am with someone very special today. This is Silvia Renshaw from Switzerland. Sylvia, how are you? Could you tell us a little bit about how you met Dr. Jim, how his message of the Gospel of Peace changed your life, and how you got in touch with me and decided to help us translate Dr. Jim’s work into German for three countries: Switzerland, Austria, and Germany?

Silvia: Thank you so much. That’s right. Hi Abi, so good to see you! Well, about 12 years ago, or maybe a bit longer, around 2008-2009, I had a serious religious crisis. After 50 years, I realized that nothing was working as I expected. I was at home and, as charismatics do, I watched Sid Roth, and Dr. Jim was on. When I heard Dr. Jim talking, it was like all the lights went on in my head, and I realized this was the end of my search. He talked about his life, which was similar to mine, a bit extreme. I was still damaged at that age.

Then I ordered the CDs “Change Your Heart, Change Your World,” which really impacted me. After that, I ordered more books. I must say that “Take Control of Your Life” is the book that saved my life, and “How to Stop the Pain” is the book that saved my daughter’s life. This whole series, “Wisdom for Healing,” I did a simultaneous translation as a birthday present for a friend who was over 70, and it saved his life. It stopped his lifelong depression, and he is living a full life today. I’ve never looked back; I’ve dug into all the material and translated it for my non-English-speaking friends, everything I thought would help them.

Abi: That is so amazing. You mentioned a book that was printed in Germany and Switzerland years ago. Could you talk about this a little bit?

Silvia: Yes, during the COVID time, there was nothing to do, so Jim sent us the eBook “God’s Wisdom for a Fair and Just World.” You said it had been translated, and then you sent me your translation. But Dr. Google didn’t have a clue about Jim, so I offered to fix Dr. Google. This is what came out: the book “God’s Wisdom for a Fair and Just World.” Here you are.

That’s amazing, but we haven’t printed enough copies for our friends. We didn’t sell it, but if anybody really wants it, I can organize it. After that, it just continued. I kept getting emails from Abi and interesting things to translate, and that’s it. Because I am still excited about the message and see how the lives of people who have embraced the message have changed, I will continue translating for as long as possible. I enjoy it very much.

Abi: Thank you so much again. The YouTube channel where we post your translations, Marthann is helping me. She is an incredible partner in this hard work. You also have your friends Paul and Stephen, who are helping us by recording the audio version. You spend countless hours translating, making sure it is grammatically correct. Thank you so much for all your work and hours in making the text readable and understandable for their culture and mentality.

Thank you so much for doing this. Our YouTube channel reaches German-speaking people in Switzerland, Austria, and Germany. We already have 500 subscribers and thousands of views on the teachings that Silvia translates from Dr. Jim. She is making these teachings accessible in those countries. Thank you so much for doing this. God bless you, and let’s continue this work.

Silvia: Yeah, thank you. I really enjoy it. Thank you.