In the beginning, God positioned mankind in a high position. Man enjoyed close fellowship and partnership with God. But man made poor choices, listened to and agreed with the enemy, and forfeited his position. Since then, the enemy has been exploiting the gap, and Man has been fighting to regain his original, rightful position. Then Christ came, redeemed what had been lost, and man was rightly restored to his position as hidden with Christ. In essence, Christ restored man’s ability to live positionally, instead of experientially.

Unfortunately, human beings—bound in flesh—tend to live by experience, or what we can perceive with our five senses, especially by what we hear and see. Sprinkle in centuries of people worshiping thought and reason since the Enlightenment, and the result is a society that elevates what our brain can figure out. Our modern world expects and grooms people to live by what we experience and can rationally decipher.

God, however, has organized the world positionally and has never deterred from that approach. When things are rightly positioned, everything has meaning in relation to how other people or things are organized, or over whom we have authority. Positionally, God has decreed that we are hid with Christ (Colossians 3:3 For ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God), that “as he is, so are we in this world” (1 John 4:17 Herein is our love made perfect, that we may have boldness in the day of judgment: because as he is, so are we in this world), and that Christ is in us (Colossians 1:27 “God wanted to make known among the gentiles the glorious wealth of his mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory)”.

Positionally, it is critical to remember that we are indwelt by the Father (Ephesians 4:6 One God and Father of all, who is above all, and through all, and in you all); indwelt by the Son (Colossians 1:27 “God wanted to make known among the gentiles the glorious wealth of his mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory), and indwelt by the Holy Spirit (1 Corinthians 3:16 Know you not that you are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwells in you?).

In contrast, when people are living experientially, they are governed by what people say or what they see. The physical facts are king, when living according to experience. However, in Scripture, when great-faith saints are faced with facts that contradict what God says, it is the fact that must bow to the Truth of what God says (Romans 4:18-20 Against all hope, Abraham in hope believed and so became the father of many nations, just as it had been said to him, “So shall your offspring be.” Without weakening in his faith, he faced the fact that his body was as good as dead—since he was about a hundred years old—and that Sarah’s womb was also dead. Yet he did not waver through unbelief regarding the promise of God, but was strengthened in his faith and gave glory to God).

All through Scripture, God repositions us. It’s his overarching strategy all through time. He moves us from darkness to light (Acts 26:18), from desolate to fruitful (Isaiah 60-62), from servants to friends (John 15:15), and from condemned to forgiven (1 John 2:12). We get new names, identities, and purposes. Based on Scripture, our spiritual positioning is:

• A legal and spiritual FACT

• Founded on what God has already done

• Not a feeling

1. •Not a progression
   

There is no negotiating, no wiggling around it, no “if’s,” “and’s,” or “but’s.” Over

and over again, God describes our position as righteous (2 Corinthians 5:21 For he hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him), triumphant (2 Corinthians 2:14 Now thanks be to God, who always leads us in triumph in Christ, and diffuses through us the fragrance of his knowledge in every place), victorious (1 Corinthians 15:57 But thanks be to God, which gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ), and blessed with everything we need (Ephesians 1:3 NKJV Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ).

God only deals with the positional. He negates the experiential (Romans 4:17 Even God, who quickeneth the dead, and calleth those things which be not as though they were). And because we are made in his image, he expects us to live positionally, mindful and activated by the truth of who we are, and both believing and behaving out of our rightful place of spiritual authority. He is not phased by experience; neither should we be.

If we truly believe what the Bible says about our position, it would change everything as it relates to healing. Because of the authority we have as a believer, we can stand on God’s promises before we stand on the physical condition of a person needing healing, or a physician’s report. The Word decrees, “No plague shall come nigh our dwelling (Psalm 91:10 There shall no evil befall thee, neither shall any plague come nigh thy dwelling), and that nothing shall hurt us (Luke 10:19 Behold, I give unto you power to tread on serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy: and nothing shall by any means hurt you.) This position has been decreed from heaven. It should manifest here on earth.

Practically, what does this mean? If our position has value, it ought to change how we live practically. Because God has positioned everything in a hierarchy of spiritual authority, living positionally instead of experientially means that we have authority over sickness and disease (Hebrews 2:5-8 For unto the angels hath he not put in subjection the world to come, whereof we speak. But one in a certain place testified, saying, What is man, that thou art mindful of him? Or the son of man that thou visitest him? Thou madest him a little lower than the angels; thou crownedst him with glory and honour, and didst set him over the works of thy hands: Thou hast put all things in subjection under his feet. For in that he put all in subjection under him, he left nothing that is not put under him).

If we approach healing from a position of rightful spiritual authority, our job, then, is to put all things under our feet, and to make everything bow the knee to Jesus. (Romans 14:11 For it is written, As I live, saith the Lord, every knee shall bow to me, and every tongue shall confess to God.) Everything—including all sickness, disease, diagnosis, issue, brokenness, and deformity—has to bow to the name of Jesus. As he (Jesus) is, so are we in this world (1 John 4:17 Herein is our love made perfect, that we may have boldness in the day of judgment: because as he is, so are we in this world), and Jesus healed all sicknesses and diseases (i.e. Matthew 12:15, Luke 4:40); therefore, we are to do likewise. We are not only empowered to do this, we are commanded to do it (Mark 16:18 They shall take up serpents; and if they drink any deadly thing, it shall not hurt them; they shall lay hands on the sick, and they shall recover).

Positionally, and practically, this means that if we pray for healing in accordance with God’s will, and we don’t experience right away what we prayed, then we kick in the door and keep at it until we see it! (Curry Blake, DBI Course 1, Lesson 4)

The science fiction movie, The Matrix, brilliantly portrays the dynamic tension in which we live as Christians trapped between reality experientially and  positionally. In the movie, highly wanted computer hacker, Morpheus, awakens Neo to the real world, and his experience comes face to face in dramatic tension with what is real. He has to settle what reality is—what he feels and sees, or what he knows to be true but can not feel. In the movie, reality as experienced by most humans is actually a simulated reality called "the Matrix," created by sentient machines to subdue the human population, while their bodies' heat and electrical activity are used as an energy source. (Wikipedia.org) Similarly, as believers walking in Jesus’ stead, doing even greater works than He did, we have to learn to live, move, and have our being in accordance with our rightful spiritual position, not our Matrix-like experiences. (John 14:12 Very truly I tell you, whoever  believes in me will do the works I have been doing, and they will do even greater things than these, because I am going to the Father). What we see is not what we get. What we get is what God says, and what we believe to be the Truth that trumps facts we might experience.