Exercise Dominion

My brethren, let not many of you become teachers, knowing that we shall receive a stricter judgment. For we all stumble in many things. If anyone does not stumble in word, he is a perfect man, able also to bridle the whole body. Indeed, we put bits in horses’ mouths that they may obey us, and we turn their whole body.  Look also at ships: although they are so large and are driven by fierce winds, they are turned by a very small rudder wherever the pilot desires. Even so the tongue is a little member and boasts great things. See how great a forest a little fire kindles! And the tongue is a fire, a world of iniquity. The tongue is so set among our members that it defiles the whole body, and sets on fire the course of nature; and it is set on fire by hell. For every kind of beast and bird, of reptile and creature of the sea, is tamed and has been tamed by mankind. But no man can tame the tongue. It is an unruly evil, full of deadly poison. With it we bless our God and Father, and with it we curse men, who have been made in the [f]similitude of God. Out of the same mouth proceed blessing and cursing. My brethren, these things ought not to be so.

James 3:1-10

You are responsible for all you have dominion over. 

The primary thing you have dominion over is yourself. Once you begin to exercise dominion over yourself, you can expand that dominion to include things outside of yourself. The hardest part of yourself to control is your tongue. However, controlling your tongue is the way you control your life and demonstrate dominion over yourself. The amount of dominion you have over yourself comes out in the amount of control you have over your tongue both to stay silent and to speak timely words (Luke 6:45). You have the responsibility to exercise control over what you have dominion over. God expects you to have dominion over yourself before you can assume the role of having dominion over creation as He has given you.

Figure out what you have dominion over and be faithful in your authority. 

Once you learn to exercise dominion over yourself and begin to expand the horizon of your dominion to include things outside yourself, you have to actually exercise your dominion and be faithful with your authority.just as faith without works is dead (James 2), so having dominion without actively, effectively exercising that authority is useless. You must determine what God has given you dominion over and you must exercise your authority over those things to bring them to a place where they can better give glory to God. As you grow in your exercising of authority and dominion, you can progress from having dominion over physical matter to spiritual matters so you can have greater gain (like the unjust steward in Luke 16 who used his dominion over physical matters to gain reputational and non-physical wealth).

Put to death the desires of your flesh. 

To have dominion over your spiritual self, you must first have dominion over your physical self. When you demonstrate control over what you have—yourself first—you will be given more; however, when you fail to exercise dominion over yourself, even what you have—personal autonomy—will be taken away (e.g. Mark 4:25). As you discover what you have dominion over and are faithful in executing that dominion, you will be given more dominion. To exercise dominion over yourself, you must control your tongue, which bridges the divide between the physical and spiritual realms. As you put your spiritual ideas into physical words, you translate from the spiritual language into physical terms, whether audio waves or written words.