The following message that I am about to post is one that is very dear to my heart.
It also is an area of biblical truth that the Lord has reignited within my own spirit in part by leading me through a process of losing sight of certain things for a season only to have their value restored as exceedingly more precious in my life.
Today I have no doubt in my mind that what stands between us in the church and the lost in the world and the need to bring the harvest in, is not a lack of ingenuity or organization or mobilization or zeal or lack of it, or training or education but simply this; a lack of manifestation of the anointing of God which alone can destroy yokes and quicken life to the dead.
The ten million dollar question therefore is how do we get more of this anointing to be made manifest in our lives and within our church services so that we can bear more fruit?
I will answer this question as honestly as I can however first I would like to show how this vital area of new testament teaching has been put in a place of obscurity where it is not clearly understood or if it is discussed it is in such a manner that has had a tendency to exalt people rather than the Lord Jesus Christ whose anointing we are the recipients of.
The biggest reason for this obscurity is in a failure to properly translate the word Christ from the Greek in our English language.
For in reality every time that the new testament speaks of Jesus Christ it is referring to the fact that he is the One anointed by God with the Holy Spirit and with power(acts 13 )
The word Christ rather like the word baptize is taken directly from the Greek, and as to baptize simply means to immerse so the word Christ simply means to anoint.
So what does the word anoint mean?
It is a word that is best translated by several concepts which include "to pour over to smear all over and rub into, or to quicken and to make alive to empower and to energize"
It is the released and quickened presence of God, sometimes a person or a congregation may 'feel it' sometimes nothing is felt however its effects are aways evident for all to see.
It is the anointing only that will destroy the yoke(Isaiah 10v27 ) and there are as many yokes in the church as there are in the world.
There are yokes of religious pride, bondage to lust or mans approval or fear or sicknesses or diseases or unbelief
Part of the difficulty of seeing the anointing in a fuller and more open manifestation is that so much of the church has associated it and tried to understand it through the lives of those who have evidenced it in their ministries to a larger degree, however since some of the most anointed individuals in church history have also been larger than life we can end up attempting to discern the anointing through the lenses of personality and presence rather than upon the firmer ground of what the new testament teaches us upon this subject.
For in truth many things that may be supposed to be the anointing may in fact be human traits or quirks where as many of the vital hallmarks of the anointing of God that we need to encourage and to cultivate people can be ignorant of.
It is a fact that just as we need to learn to become skillful in handling the word of righteousness so also we must learn to acquire skill in handling the anointing of God.
And no two of us are anointed the same,therefore it is important that we learn to discern what our area of calling is, and to develop in the anointing of God in that area of our lives.
The anointing of God centers and revolves around Jesus Christ, he is the one anointed by God with the life of God and the Spirit of God without measure.
Therefore every gift and grace and manifestation of the anointing given among men comes from Jesus and flows from him.
Sometimes I feel that we lose the sense of the picture of great anticipation that builds through out the whole of the old testament of the messiah or the Christ who would come to bring Gods saving power into this world but would be recognized by one thing- that he would carry the anointing of God more than any other person ever has or ever would.
Isaiah paints a magnificent picture of Jesus as the one specially anointed by God when he states in Isaiah 61
"The Spirit of the Lord is upon me
Because he has anointed me to preach good tidings to the poor
He has sent me to heal the broken hearted to proclaim liberty to the captives
And the opening of the prison to those who are bound;
To proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord."
This of course is the precise passage that Jesus launched his public ministry with identifying himself with Gods yoke removing, darkness overcoming ,sickness destroying power and the people who knew him only in the flesh took great offense that day.
But later in the gospels we find even John the baptist whom Jesus described as the greatest of all the prophets succumbing to momentary doubt when he sent messengers to Jesus from his place of imprisonment to ask "are you the one or should we look for another?"
John had already on several occasions identified Jesus as the lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world, so what is he needing to settle in his own heart and mind before death?
Simply this "Are you the coming messiah?", which is the Hebrew word used to describe the same word in Greek Christ 'the anointed one'
It is fascinating what Jesus immediate response to this request is
"Go and tell John the things which you hear and see:
The blind receive their sight and the lame walk; the lepers are cleansed and the deaf hear; the dead are raised up and the poor have the gospel preached to them.
And blessed is he who is not offended because of me"
Remember how the man born blind challenging the Sanhedrin in Johns gospel when they tried to dismiss the fact that Jesus had healed him by saying "Since the world began it has been unheard of that anyone opened the eyes of one who was born blind" He spoke the truth.
No one had ever healed the lame or opened the eyes of the blind or unstopped the ears of the deaf until Jesus.
And Jesus describes these kingdom acts as the primary evidence of the anointing of God being upon him and of his being the one to whom God gave the Spirit without measure.
Peter sums up the ministry of Jesus as succinctly as possible in acts 13 when he says "How God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holt Spirit and power who went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil for God was with him"
God was with him meant that God was poured all over smeared into and flowing to fullness out of Jesus life.
And he still is.
There is a single statement in the book of Isaiah that does more to describe what the anointing of God is sent to do than possibly any other place in scripture.
It is found in Isaiah chpt 10 and vs 27 which says,
" It shall come to pass in that day
That his burden will be taken away from your shoulder
And his yoke from your neck,
And the yoke will be destroyed because of the anointing oil."
It is the anointing of God that destroys the yoke. It destroys every yoke.
The Hebrew word used here to speak of the yoke being destroyed is a particularly strong one. It speaks of complete annihilation, of something that has been binding being not just overcome but rather completely obliterated.
I think in my minds eye of the old agricultural heavy solid oak yokes that they would fasten securely to two oxen and drive those beasts with a stick or with a whip in whatever direction the farmer wished them to go.
Those animals had no choice they could not break themselves free or change direction willy nilly rather they were under the burden of that heavy yoke and it not they determined the direction that they could move forward in.
Many people are living their lives in a similar way under the reality of a heavy yoke of bondage.
The devil who is a legalist has found some point of access to their lives and they are not free, He is driving them cracking at the whip and though they may try to break free of their own volition they remain bound.
Only Jesus the anointed one can set them free.
If we could see into the spiritual realm we would witness these yokes as tangible forms of bondage that they have been carrying driving them relentlessly into further misery.
But the moment that they turn to Jesus and call upon Him, the moment that they learn to receive from him of his anointing those yokes are not just broken they are destroyed, completely obliterated.
They are so totally destroyed that there is no remaining evidence that they ever existed to begin with,and with the power of Christs cleansing blood even the memory of them can be completely wiped away.
Again I visualise the fist of Jesus the anointed one coming down full force on those yokes and shattering them to fine dust and powder that is blown away by the wind.
No wonder that satan so fears the anointing, for in reality he fears it as much as he fears Gods word.
For he knows what it can do.
He knows that the anointing of God can in a second undo a lifetime of bondage and seriously mess up his plans for peoples lives.
Actually the anti Christ spirit in the church today is best discerned when we understand what its objective is.
It is simply anything that seeks to hinder hamper persecute and oppose the anointing of Jesus from operating in our services as he would wish it to.
And the Pharisees and the Pharisaical spirit (or religious spirit) has always be the primary veil behind which this evil spirit seeks to hide.
What is a tragedy today is the extent to which churches are functioning with unanointed ministry.
People go into a service bound and come out the same.
People go in with depression and come out with depression.They go in with fear and come out with fear.They go in with torment and find little or no relief.They go in with some form of addiction and come out only more condemned.
They are not encountering the life changing yoke destroying burden removing presence and power of the risen Lord Jesus Christ.
And yet the anointing is available for us today the Lord Jesus Christ has never removed it from the church.
If it is not being seen in the church it is only because the people in those situations have not learned how to receive it and to release it. The fault therefore is entirely on our side not on Gods. His arm is still not to short to save nor his power to heal.
Much of the ministry in the church of the west today is about leaving people better informed in their minds and letting them get on with the business of living their lives by encouraging the exercise of the will and determination to do what is right; in most cases by being informed by what they have heard in a sermon or studied in a book.
Certainly studying has a valuable place in our growth as Christians however it is certainly true that the overwhelming emphasis today is placed upon feeding and informing the mind and intellect and little is spoken of the human spirit let alone the cultivating of the anointing of God which resides inside of our regenerated spirit.
The art of biblical meditation which is the key to increasing our spiritual strenght and the development of the presence of God within our hearts is almost totally neglected.
And yet the book of proverbs says that we are to guard our hearts with all diligence for out of it flow the issues if life.
The word issue is translated as stream, or flow or spring, speaking of the location of the Spirit of God within us, and indicating that our life force is that which flows out of our spirits not predominantly out of our minds.
I intend to write about this subject over two parts however it is important to state in this initial blog that is vital we understand and grasp that all of Gods people are anointed.
Every single one of us is a possessor of Gods anointing to some measure and to some degree.
We may not yet be walking in the realization of that anointing and we may not have learned how to release that anointing but all of us have been made inheritors of the anointing of Jesus who is the anointed one.
If you are in Christ then you are in the Anointed One and in his anointing and if Christ is in you then the Anointed One and his anointing is dwelling inside of you.
I started this blog by saying that the ten million dollar question is how do we learn to access and to release this anointing within our own lives?.
And my honest answers to this question is that which I shall endeavour to share over this and the next blog.
However it is also important for us to understand that scriptually the anointing of God has a twofold revelation.
It is both that which dwells within us (which is what every christian as a child of God has inherited) and is also that which comes upon us for specific tasks and works of service in the ministry.
Firstly then the anointing of God is that which dwells within us.
In 1 John 2vs20 says "But you have an anointing from the Holy One and you know all things"
Every born again child of God has the Spirit of God resident within them to teach them and to guide them into all the truth.
That unction within also will enable them to speak about the truth as they share it with others.
1 corn 1v says that "you have been enriched in Christ or in the Anointed One and in His Anointing in everything in all utterance and in all knowledge."
This is saying precisely the same thing as John is writing in the verse quoted above.
No christian should be tongue tied or should be easily misled away from the truth.
Often with a newborn baby christian they may lack the understanding of what God has given to them but even a brand new christian will know the alarm bells going off in their spirits when they hear falsehood, if they are taught to listen to their hearts.
But what is important for us to realize is that the anointing of God is the Spirit of God living inside of us and that Jesus said that the Spirit of God within would flow out of us as rivers of living water.
When we were born again we received eternal life and the Holy Spirit came to reside within our spirits.
However there is also a greater fullness of Gods presence that he intends for us to experience which is when we are filled with the Spirit or baptized with the Holy Spirit.
This experience should be normative to every child of God, however this is never portrayed as an end in itself in the scripture but as the door through which we walk into a greater fullness of the things of the Spirit.
That is why in the book of acts the first disciples were filled with the Spirit on the day of Pentecost and yet we find them only two chapters later being filled with the Spirit again to enable them to withstand the threats of the Jewish authorities and to give them greater boldness.
That is also why Paul exhorts the Christians in Ephesians to be filled with the Spirit and the literal Greek is continuous presence tense meaning that it would be more literally translated as be being filled with the Holy Spirit.
After the initial experience we should cultivate a life of be often refilled with the Holy Spirit and the scripture is very clear in giving us instructions on how we should do this.
This life of being filled with the Holy Spirit is the way in which the anointing of God most freely flows through our lives not only to refresh ourselves but to minister grace to others.
Many Christians therefore have the Spirit of God dwelling inside of them but have not learned how to release the Holy Spirit through them to others.
And the scripture is explicit in how this is achieved
Ephesians 4 says "be not drunk with wine where is excess but be filled with the Holy Spirit speaking to yourselves in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord.
Colossians chapter 3 says that we should speak to or admonish one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs singing with grace in your heart to the Lord.
So whether it is speaking to ourselves or to one another or whether it is singing to ourselves or to one another we maintain this fullness of the Spirit by saying things and by singing.
Simply put we release what is in us with our mouths.
This puts us in a place where the river of grace within our hearts is always ready to be released and it is I believe the primary manner in which the anointing of God is released through our lives to edify and to encourage others in the church.
It is evident however that the anointing is not just evident in what we say or in what we sing but it is also the manifestation of the power of God also to equip us for works of service.
This include healings deliverances and the release of the Spirit and of the gifts of the Spirit into others lives.
Most of these I will talk about in part two of this blog.
But let it be said and said well that Jesus is still the one anointed by God to do good and to heal all those who are oppressed by the devil.
And he is looking for those who will be willing to let him use them to manifest his power through their lives regardless of the cost.
The last point that I wish to make in this discourse on the anointing is the importance of the role of faith.
For many christians the great pitfall to their being confidently used to minister the anointing to one another is that they tie so much to their five senses, what they 'feel' or what they do not 'feel' of the presence of God.
This may be natural to a young christian but it is not acceptable to one who has grown out of spiritual babyhood.
For in reality our feelings are fallible and faith always precedes our feelings and enables us to be consistent not as those who are constantly looking for some evidence of their physical senses that God is working or moving in their midst.
If God does give such evidence we can rejoice but even if at the time we minister we see no evidence that does not or should not alter what we believe.
Neither does it alter the faithfulness of God and of Gods word which works in every situation where we minister it with faith.
Smith Wigglesworth who is one of my spiritual heroes coined the famous phrase that "I am not moved by what I feel I am not moved by what I see, but I am moved only by what I believe"
He probably saw more of the anointing of God and of the miraculous then any other person in church history I know, however his attitude when he walked into a service was that he would judge nothing by how it might appear but act only in the light of what he knew Gods word declared about the issue.
He was a man totally governed by his faith in God.
Recently I spoke at my grandmothers funeral, and shared some recollections concerning my grandmothers life.
I also read from the scripture both in the service and at the graveside.
Since I was not preaching a sermon or even giving a message I simply prayed that the anointing of God would be upon me (and the others who spoke )and that the word of God that was spoken as it was read would not return void but would accomplish what God pleased and prosper in the thing for which it was sent.
The anointing of God is always on His word and when we speak that word with faith in our hearts it will always bear fruit.
We may not see the evidences of that fruit straight away but God is not a man that he should lie and He has said that His word will never return to him fruitless.
I released my faith that the anionting would be manifest and though I did not especially feel anything the number of people who commented to me or to my family subsequently that they had been greatly moved was amazing.
What was it that they were responding to?
The Anointing.
When a person is ministering under the anointing of God you feel that you could keep on listening to them all day. You dont get bored or weary.
Likewise when a person is singing with the anointing of God you feel ushered into the presence of the Lord you do not sit there thinking about how gifted this person is.
When the anointing is operating through a ministry in a service you feel refreshed invigorated. You leave feeling encouraged and lifted.
When the anointing of God is operating in a service people are ministered to spirit soul and body.
They do not leave the same.They have been quickened in the presence of God.
Today we stand at a crossroads.
The greatest harvest of souls is about to be reaped.
The church is facing her greatest hour but in order to be the instrument of blessing to our families and to our towns and villages and cities we must begin to make this resolve.
We will do nothing without the anointing of God
But as we begin to grow in our confidence of how to flow in the anointing we shall see greater friuts and we shall fruitfully exercise those gifts that Jesus has entrusted us with.
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