Our Lord Jesus Christ was anointed to get involved in the lives of all the people of the world - people who are walking in darkness and under the bondage of sin.
Jesus proclaimed through Isaiah. "The Spirit of the Lord God is upon Me, because the Lord has anointed Me to preach good tidings to the poor; He has sent Me to heal the brokenhearted, 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, and the day of vengeance of our God; to comfort all who mourn, to console those who mourn in Zion, to give them beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness; that they may be called trees of righteousness, the planting of the Lord, that He may be glorified" (Isaiah 61:1 - 3, NKJV).
The anointing of the Holy Spirit upon Jesus was more than empowering Him to preach the Gospel of the Kingdom - but also to heal the brokenhearted, to set captives free, to comfort those who mourn, so that God's Name might be glorified.
Similarly, we are anointed to get involved in God's work. The anointing of the Holy Spirit enables us to be created people of God to thouch lives on the streets of this hurting world, in businesses, in the marketplaces and homes and in the hearts of men and women who are sitting, walking and doing things in darkness. God needs men and women who do not wait until they have finished Bible School or until they get a degree or until they get an ordination or a pat on the back; He needs everyday people of God who know the anointing of God to do God's work. Today is "the acceptable year of the Lord"; today is the hour to which men and women of all background, be they ordained ministers, be they lay people who are ministering to the Lord, to come out to touch lives. We have been commissioned by Him because we are all priests and kings and servants to the world through the anointing of the Holy Spirit.
God's Creative Anointing and the Holy Anointing Oil
When we think of the anointing we must see what God has in mind concerning the anointing. We need to go back to the Old Testament to the intent and purpose of God when He anointed three groups of people - prophets, priests and kings. He anointed prophets to reveal God to men; He anointed priests to redeem men to God; He anointed kings to reign over the visible and the invisible in the Name of the Lord.
God spoke to Moses concerning the Holy Anointing Oil:
"And take for yourself quality spices - five hundred shekels of liquid myrrh, half as much sweet smelling cinnamon (two hundred and fifty shekels), two hundred and fifty shekels of sweet-smelling cane, five hundred shekels of cassia, according to the shekel of the sanctuary, and a hin of olive oil. And you shall make from these a holy anointing oil, an ointment compounded according to the art of the perfumer. It shall be a holy anointing oil. And you shall anoint Aaron and his sons, and consecrate them, that they may minister to Me as priests" (Exodus 30:23 - 25, 30, emphasis added).
There were five ingredients (spices) that went in to make up this holy anointing oil. These were myrrh, cinnamon, cand, cassia and olive oil. All thse five ingredients were touchable, taste-able, smell-able, usable and practical in their contents.
In the same way the anointing of the Holy Spirit is not mystical, it is not fanatical, it is not foolishness, but it is practical. Unless our anointing is practical it has no reality in today's world. The anointing of the Holy Spirit has practical reality for any believer in Christ today. The five ingredients of the Old Testament 's holy anointing with their separate uses and benefits speak to us of the different types of anointing we need to receive for daily living.
The Anointing of Myrrh
Myrrh is an anesthetic, a pain killer to deaden pain. In Christ's birth the "wise men" brought myrrth, gold and frankincense as a gilf to Him (Matt. 2:11). At the end of the life of Christ they gave Him wine mingled with myrrh to deaden the pain of the cross although He refused to take it (Mark 15:23).
In this sense, God, through the Holy Spirit, is saying to us that from the new birth of our life in Christ and to the crosses (sufferings) of our life, from cradle to the crosses, we need the anointing of the Holy Spirit because Myrrh is symbolic of our power to take it - power to withstand pressure of life, to cope up in difficult times. In the midst of tribulation we still have peace (John 16:33) and still be a beautiful patient loving person serving the Lord. If we are to "walk worthy of our calling" (Eph. 4:1) we cannot do it in the flesh, we need the anointing of myrrh to accomplish it. We need the Holy Spirit to search out what we need.
Paul said, "But it is written: 'Eye has not see, nor ear heard, nor have entered into the heart of mean the things which God has prepared for those who love Him.' But God has revealed them to us through His Spirit. For the Spirit searches all things, yes, the deep things of God" (1 Cor. 2:9, 10, NKJV, emphasis added).
The deep things of God
I love the deep things of God and most of messages talk about the deep things of God. This message itself is the revelation of the deep things of God althought the things I talk about are not the deep things of God. But the fact is, whether you are a preacher, ordained minister or a Pastor, most of your time you spent are dealing with people and communicating with people. Most of the time you invlove yourself with family members, with problems and pressure at work and in these areas there is no place for you to tell people about the deep things of God. Instead, the deep things of God must be in your heart so that the Holy Spirit of God in your heart (Your spirit) can touch the lives of those around you.
Many of us failed to read what is written in 1 Cor. 2:10 where it says "For the Sprit searches all things". We conveniently jumped over the "all things" into the deep things of God. My most difficult things in life is not the deep things of God. It is simple things like misplacing my car keys, spectacles and my cell phone, especially when I am late for an appointment. The Holy Spirit seems to say, "I know where your keys are because I search all things". All I need to do is to be still in His presence (Ps. 46:10) and let Him take over in a moment of praise, prayer and thanks giving.
I am reminded that the anointing of myrrh is practicla, touchable and usable. It is not for a Church Service and not for preaching a sermon only. This anointing helps you to get along and relate with your wife, with your childred, with you fellow Church members and with you colleagues at work on a daily basis. We need the creative anointing of myrrh to take the presure of life and still be the people of God in the midst of this pressurized world.
The anointing of Sweet-smelling Cinnamon
The next ingredient for the Holy Anointing Oil is the sweet cinnamon. It is a fiery condiment similar to pepper, being used to add spice and flavor to the food that we eat. Notice that cinnamon is exactly half as much as myrrh as ingredients for the Holy Anointing Oil. Cinnamon speaks to us as the enthusiasm in our testimony to the character and attributes of God. According to my message last week, the character and attributes of God in our life is the presence of God or the fruit of the Spirit in our life. As we have seen, the anointing of myrrh in our life speaks of the power and anointing of the Holy Spirit in our life. And this anointing give us the power to take it or to cope up with the pressure of life. But with the anointing of cinnamon, our entusiasm is only half as much as our power to take it. In other words, it is more important to take it as for us to speak it.
If you only have fiery enthusiasm but you don't have the power to take it, whenever the pressure is on you will go back to your old fleshly way again. Your testimony must be balanced by your power to take it. Enthusiasm will be long lasting if it is balanced with the character of God which only the anointing of cinnamon could give. So many people have enthusiasm and because they have good personality they have many friends, but their witnessing lacks power. But they still fail to lead people to the Lord without the anointing of cinnamon.
We need enthusiasm that is based on the character of God.
The anointing of Sweet-smelling Cane
Sweet-smelling cane or calamus is an appetite creator. It is to make our tastes buds come alive. The anointing of cane or calamus creates an appetite in us to do all the things in the Spirit instead of in the flesh. It is far better to do things by the power of the Holy Spirit rather than trying to do it through psychology, through socialogy, through anthropology or through other works of the flesh. The work of the flesh comes in many forms - healing seminar, Church development seminar and Church growth seminar and the like. Once you have an appetite with the things of the Spirit you will never want to go back to the flesh again; you will never go back to manipulating people or lying to them or deceiving them. You will put your flesh and self effort under the subjection of the Holy Spirit.
When the Holy Spirit moves, people are blessed and set free from the lust of the flesh and then you have an appetite to see them keep on moving, keep on blessing and keep on walking in the Spirit.
Paul said, "Walk in the Spirit, and you shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh" (Gal. 5:16).
I want to stay in the Spirit so that I can bring self under control and let Jesus be glorified in my life.
So, the anointing of the sweet calamus is symbolic of our appetite to keep on working, keep on living and keep on moving in the Holy Spirit.
The anointing of Cassia
Cassia is quite similar to Cinnamon, but it is a purgative, a laxative or a cleansing agent. It is used as an ingredient to cleanse out the body the same way the Holy Spirit is a great agent for cleansing. He will not abide in anything that is unholy in the presence of God.
God said to Moses, "Do not draw near this place. Take your sandals off your feet, for the place where you stand is holy ground" (Ex. 3:5; Acts 7:33).
Whenever the Holy Spirit began to work in our lives He wants to keep on working until Jesus is seen in us (Gal. 4:19), in all His beauty and perfection.
With the anointing of Cassia the Holy Spirit will purge us and cleanse us so that we can receive the truth of God's Word. Jesus Himself said He will reveal all truth to us (John 16:13). He helps us to see ourselves as we look at the truth and compare it with the untruth in our lives until we find confession, repentance and restoration.
The anointing of Olive Oil
Olive oil comes from the pit of the Olive fruit. Olive oil mixed with wine bring healing balm to the one who is wounded (Luke 10:34). Spiritually it speaks of restoration; it speaks of our yielded-ness to do the will of God.
Olive oil is symbolic of people's willingness to do the work of God according to the plan and purpose of God. It is that which takes the darken areas of our lives and causes us to say, "That is God's will, that is what I want to do, that is what I want to live and walk in".
Jesus yielded to the will of the Father at a place called Gethsemane - in Aramaic means "Oil Press". Gethsemane was situated at the Mount of Olive, a short distance east of Jerusalem. It was the place where Jesus was broken and said, "O My Father, if this cup cannot pass away from Me unless I drink it, Your will be done" (Matt. 26:42).
The battle of the cross was first fought and won by Jesus in Gethsemane. Someone said, the soul anguish which Christ suffered in Gethsemane was equal to that which He suffered on the cross of Calvary! In reality, Christ "died" in Gethsemane before He ever died on the cross. He, no doubt, was "nailed" to Gethsemane's ground by prayer burden before the nails of the Roman soldiers hanged Him to the cross!
In my opinion, if the Church wants to do the will of God, she needs to seek the Gethsemane experience. She needs the anointing of the olive oil. If you want to be broken and say, "Lord your will be done" in all circumstances in life, you need the anointing of olive oil; you need to go under God's press at "Gethesemane"!
Tuesday, June 24, 2008
Tuesday, June 17, 2008
The Presence and the Anointing of God
The Presence of God and the Anointing of God are two great gifts that the Lord wants every servant of His to have. These two gifts are not the same and this will become real to you as you read on. You will realize that you will not receive the Anointing of the Holy Spirit unless you have experienced the presence of God first. In other words, the presence must precede the anointing. Notice that we are not talking about the Baptism in the Holy Spirit here although it is extremely important. Briefly, the presence of God is the presence of His glory; the anointing of God is the power of God.
The Presence of God
Every Christian needs to have the assurance that he is constantly surrounded by the presence of God and that the Almighty's presence abides with him through thick and thin.
God said, "I will never leave you nor forsake you" (Hebrews 13:5, NKJV).
The psalmist said, "He keeps his eye upon you as you come and go, and always guards you" (Ps. 121:8, TLB).
We are compelled by honestly to admit, however, that although the Scripture assures us that we are constantly guarded and surrounded by the presence of the Lord, we do not always feel it. There could be many reasons for this, of course, but the fault is always in us and never in Him. But before we talk about how we can cultivate the presence of God we must first find out from the Scripture what exactly the presence of God is.
The glory of His presence
Let us consider the experience of Mose as found in Exodus 33. He received the promise of God's presence.
Moses asked God to show him His Glory, believing that it could be experienced and known:
Moses said, "Please, show me Your glory" (Exodus 33:18).
God replied, "I will make all My goodness pass before you, and I will proclaim the name of the Lord before you, I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion" (Exodus 33:19, emphasis added).
God promised to show Moses His goodness, mercy and compassion in a concrete, visible way.
Look at what happened a few verses later on:
"Now the Lord descended in the cloud and stood with him there, and proclaimed the name of the Lord. And the Lord passed before him and proclaimed: 'The Lord, the Lord God, merciful and gracious, longsuffering, and abounding in goodness and truth, keeping mercy of thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, by no means clearing the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children and children's children to the third and fourth generation'" (Exodus 34:5 - 7, NKJV, emphasis added).
Notice the Glory of God or the Presence of God came with the attributes of God: grace, mercy, longsuffering, forgiveness, compassion and goodness. Moses was totally changed by God's presence.
The Fruit of the Holy Spirit
So we see the presence and glory of God brings the fruit of the Spirit, as described in Galatians 5:22, 23. The fruit of the Holy Spirit is the qualities or characteristics or attributes of God. I hope you see the revelation of this truth. The fruit of the Spirit, so missing in the Church today, is connected to the presence of God. Believers in Pentecostal and Charismatic Churches are all talking about the gifts of Holy Spirit but seldom the fruit of the Holy Spirit.
The major difference between the fruit and the gifts is - the fruit comes to you and leaves you as God's presence comes to you and leaves you. If you lose His presence you lose His glory which is His fruit. But the gift which comes with the power of God is given to you to fulfill God's purpose in the Church. The power of God comes upon you as a gift. It stays with you simply because it is a gift. If God withdraws it, He cannot call it a gift - but a loan instead!
Paul said, "The gifts and calling of God are irrevocable" (Rom. 11:29).
It is possible for the presence to withdraw and the gifts to remain, at least for a while. But that will ultimately lead to disaster. Since the manifestations of the gifts are for the benefits of the Church you can abuse it but its effects on other people will remain the same. But ultimatly, it will be a disaster to you when the presence of the Lord is removed and the Holy Spirit has left.
The fruit of the Spirit which comes with the presence and glory of God are not progressive - it comes in an instant. There is nothing in the Scripture to suggest that the fruit enters your life and then "grow". Remember, it is not your fruit but God's. If a preacher in your Church have ever told you that the fruit of the Spirit takes time to grow, it will be better for you to unlearn it!
If you think what I say is not true, look at Paul the apostle, previously called Saul, a man felled by the glory and presence of God on the road to Damascus (Acts 9:3, 4). He fell and came up a new man. He had been a persecutor, a murderer, and immediately after his experience with the presence of God, he was no longer a killer. Prior to that, he had no genuine knowledge of God. Suddenly, however, he knew God and lived for Him. He was even willing to die for Him. It did not take him years to "grow" and change!
The Anointing (the Power) of God
The power or the anointing of God is a must if you want to be used by God effectively, no matter what ministry you hold, or even without holding a specific ministry in the Church. In witnessing and sharing the Gospel to unbelievers; in just performing your duty in fulfilling the Great Commission you need the power of God.
Jesus said, "But you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be witnesses to Me in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth" (Acts 1:8, NKJV, emphasis added).
After the power came, three thousand were saved, then another five thousand, and then all Jerusalem was shaken. That is the power you must have with any service to God. In tandem with the presence, you can touch any life - believers or unbelievers.
You can have the wonderful presence of God and you can stand behind the pulpit to minister. But if there is no power you will be the only one having a good time. The people listening to you can feel His presence but there will be no conviction of sins, no healings and no binding of the Devil. No matter what your ministerial calling is, you need the power of the anointing of God to fulfill it. You will never accomplish what God wants you to do without it.
The three anointings
The Scripture reveals three anointings of the Holy Spirit in our service to God.
1. The Leper's Anointing
Leprosy is a type of sin. Leviticus 14:1 - 32 describe the ceremonial cleansing of lepers by applying the blood of animals followed by the application of oil - speaks of the anointing oil. This was the shadow of the sacrifice of Jesus, the Lamb of God. Jesus is the substance that takes away the sin of the world (John 1:29). Every born-again believer has experienced the leper's anointing which deals with salvation.
David was a good example of a person, under the Old Covenant, who received the leper's anointing (1 Samuel 16:12) which was the first anointing. After this, he still served King saul. Similarly, the apostles experienced the leper's anointing when Jesus breathed on them and said, "Receive the Holy Spirit" (John 20:22). They were still not ready to serve God. That is the reason why Christians who are saved are still not spiritually ready to serve God until they have received the Priestly anointing.
2. The Priestly Anointing
The baptism of the Holy Spirit is the priestly anointing of the Holy Spirit upon us. This is the anointing for ministry unto the Lord, including our duty to lead souls to the Kingdom of God. All Christians are priests of God (1 Peter 2:5, 9).
It is important to note that this priestly anointing is meant for the entire Local Church because it brings unity and harmony (Ps. 133). There is no such thing as a private priestly anointing; it comes in oneness, in unity, as the Church functions as one body. On the day of Pentecost 120 people, including the apostles, were praying and waiting upon the Lord, in one accord, in the Upper Room (Acts 1:15). The Holy Spirit came upon all of them with fire and power.
Another important point to note is that this priestly anointing is not a one-time anointing, which the leper's anointing is. Under the Old Covenant, the priests were anointed with oil every day. The same with you under the New Covenant, for you need a daily anointing in order to be an effective servant of God.
In the case of David his anointing came to him during his conflict with Saul and his household - over a period of time.
3. The Kingly Anointing
This is the hightest level of anointing that the Lord wants you to receive. Whereas the leper's anointing comes by accepting Jesus and the priestly anointing comes by fellowshipping with Jesus, the kingly anointing comes by obeying Jesus.
With this anointing comes with the voice of the Lord. You become sensitive to the rhema Word of the Lord which enables you to prophesy. You become a mouthpiece of God; you are able to say, "Thus saith the Lord". You will see miracles of healings and signs and wonders following your ministry - like those described in Mark 16:17, 18.
David was 30 years old (Biblical age of maturity) when he received the kingly anointing.
"Therefore all the elders of Israel came to the king at Hebron, and King david made a covenant with them at Hebron before the Lord. And they anointed David king over Israel" (2 Samuel 5:3).
Before that, David reigned over only Judah from his headquarters at Hebron. After he received the kingly anointing he reigned over all Israel and Judah from Zion which was called the City of David (2 Samuel 5:7).
The apostles received the kingly anointing even before they were arrested by the high priest. They boldly said, "We ought to obey God rather than men" (Acts 5:29). They stood their ground, and God sent a heavier anointing that produced a supernatural manifestation with the power to reach the World. As for Peter, the anointing was so strong that people were healed when he passed by and his shadow fell on them (Acts 5:15).
Two Basic Keys
Let us summarize the truth we have so far discovered. So many people want the power of God, but they fail to understant that it will not come until they first experienced His presence. And when the presence comes, the first evidence will be the manifestation of the Glory of God which is the fruit of the Spirit. The fruit will be evident in your everyday contacts with those around you. And when the fruit is genuinely there, the Lord will anointing you with His Spirit, which is power. Power follows the presence, not the other way round.
Two basic profound doctrines
The two basic doctrines, which form the foundation of the Christian faith, are the doctrine of repentance and the doctrine of the blood of Christ. It is beyond the scope of this message to study these doctrines in details. The fact is that our sins keep us from the presence of the Lord and only the blood of Christ can clease us from our sins:
Peter said in his first sermon after Pentecost, "Repent therefore and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out, so that the times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord" (Acts 3:19, NKJV, emphasis added).
John said, "But if we walk in the light as He is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanses us from all sin" (1 John 1:7, emphasis added).
Note the present tense of the action: cleanses. It is a now experience. Forgiveness deals with what you did; cleansing deals with what you are doing. Also note that when we fail to walk in the light we will not live in His presence and in His power (anointing).
The true meaning of repentance
Repentance is a daily experience. And it is a supernatural experienc, not something you can humanly accomplish by yourself. It is a gift of God and it needs to be granted by God (1 Tim. 2:25).
Solomon said, "He who covers his sins will not prosper, but whoever confesses and forsakes them will have mercy" (Prov. 28:13, emphasis added).
Repentance involves two actions - confessing and forsaking our sins.
Repentance must occur in every sinful action of your life, even in some simple things like - repenting if you haven't prayed, repenting if you haven't read the Word, and repenting if you failed to walk in wisdom toward those who are outside (unbelievers) (Col. 4:5).
Like the apostle Paul, we need to die daily (1 Cor. 15:31). We need to be crucified with Christ (Gal. 2:20):
"I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; ..." (Emphasis added).
If Christ is truly living in you, you will surely experience His presence and His power (anointing)!
The Presence of God
Every Christian needs to have the assurance that he is constantly surrounded by the presence of God and that the Almighty's presence abides with him through thick and thin.
God said, "I will never leave you nor forsake you" (Hebrews 13:5, NKJV).
The psalmist said, "He keeps his eye upon you as you come and go, and always guards you" (Ps. 121:8, TLB).
We are compelled by honestly to admit, however, that although the Scripture assures us that we are constantly guarded and surrounded by the presence of the Lord, we do not always feel it. There could be many reasons for this, of course, but the fault is always in us and never in Him. But before we talk about how we can cultivate the presence of God we must first find out from the Scripture what exactly the presence of God is.
The glory of His presence
Let us consider the experience of Mose as found in Exodus 33. He received the promise of God's presence.
Moses asked God to show him His Glory, believing that it could be experienced and known:
Moses said, "Please, show me Your glory" (Exodus 33:18).
God replied, "I will make all My goodness pass before you, and I will proclaim the name of the Lord before you, I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion" (Exodus 33:19, emphasis added).
God promised to show Moses His goodness, mercy and compassion in a concrete, visible way.
Look at what happened a few verses later on:
"Now the Lord descended in the cloud and stood with him there, and proclaimed the name of the Lord. And the Lord passed before him and proclaimed: 'The Lord, the Lord God, merciful and gracious, longsuffering, and abounding in goodness and truth, keeping mercy of thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, by no means clearing the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children and children's children to the third and fourth generation'" (Exodus 34:5 - 7, NKJV, emphasis added).
Notice the Glory of God or the Presence of God came with the attributes of God: grace, mercy, longsuffering, forgiveness, compassion and goodness. Moses was totally changed by God's presence.
The Fruit of the Holy Spirit
So we see the presence and glory of God brings the fruit of the Spirit, as described in Galatians 5:22, 23. The fruit of the Holy Spirit is the qualities or characteristics or attributes of God. I hope you see the revelation of this truth. The fruit of the Spirit, so missing in the Church today, is connected to the presence of God. Believers in Pentecostal and Charismatic Churches are all talking about the gifts of Holy Spirit but seldom the fruit of the Holy Spirit.
The major difference between the fruit and the gifts is - the fruit comes to you and leaves you as God's presence comes to you and leaves you. If you lose His presence you lose His glory which is His fruit. But the gift which comes with the power of God is given to you to fulfill God's purpose in the Church. The power of God comes upon you as a gift. It stays with you simply because it is a gift. If God withdraws it, He cannot call it a gift - but a loan instead!
Paul said, "The gifts and calling of God are irrevocable" (Rom. 11:29).
It is possible for the presence to withdraw and the gifts to remain, at least for a while. But that will ultimately lead to disaster. Since the manifestations of the gifts are for the benefits of the Church you can abuse it but its effects on other people will remain the same. But ultimatly, it will be a disaster to you when the presence of the Lord is removed and the Holy Spirit has left.
The fruit of the Spirit which comes with the presence and glory of God are not progressive - it comes in an instant. There is nothing in the Scripture to suggest that the fruit enters your life and then "grow". Remember, it is not your fruit but God's. If a preacher in your Church have ever told you that the fruit of the Spirit takes time to grow, it will be better for you to unlearn it!
If you think what I say is not true, look at Paul the apostle, previously called Saul, a man felled by the glory and presence of God on the road to Damascus (Acts 9:3, 4). He fell and came up a new man. He had been a persecutor, a murderer, and immediately after his experience with the presence of God, he was no longer a killer. Prior to that, he had no genuine knowledge of God. Suddenly, however, he knew God and lived for Him. He was even willing to die for Him. It did not take him years to "grow" and change!
The Anointing (the Power) of God
The power or the anointing of God is a must if you want to be used by God effectively, no matter what ministry you hold, or even without holding a specific ministry in the Church. In witnessing and sharing the Gospel to unbelievers; in just performing your duty in fulfilling the Great Commission you need the power of God.
Jesus said, "But you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be witnesses to Me in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth" (Acts 1:8, NKJV, emphasis added).
After the power came, three thousand were saved, then another five thousand, and then all Jerusalem was shaken. That is the power you must have with any service to God. In tandem with the presence, you can touch any life - believers or unbelievers.
You can have the wonderful presence of God and you can stand behind the pulpit to minister. But if there is no power you will be the only one having a good time. The people listening to you can feel His presence but there will be no conviction of sins, no healings and no binding of the Devil. No matter what your ministerial calling is, you need the power of the anointing of God to fulfill it. You will never accomplish what God wants you to do without it.
The three anointings
The Scripture reveals three anointings of the Holy Spirit in our service to God.
1. The Leper's Anointing
Leprosy is a type of sin. Leviticus 14:1 - 32 describe the ceremonial cleansing of lepers by applying the blood of animals followed by the application of oil - speaks of the anointing oil. This was the shadow of the sacrifice of Jesus, the Lamb of God. Jesus is the substance that takes away the sin of the world (John 1:29). Every born-again believer has experienced the leper's anointing which deals with salvation.
David was a good example of a person, under the Old Covenant, who received the leper's anointing (1 Samuel 16:12) which was the first anointing. After this, he still served King saul. Similarly, the apostles experienced the leper's anointing when Jesus breathed on them and said, "Receive the Holy Spirit" (John 20:22). They were still not ready to serve God. That is the reason why Christians who are saved are still not spiritually ready to serve God until they have received the Priestly anointing.
2. The Priestly Anointing
The baptism of the Holy Spirit is the priestly anointing of the Holy Spirit upon us. This is the anointing for ministry unto the Lord, including our duty to lead souls to the Kingdom of God. All Christians are priests of God (1 Peter 2:5, 9).
It is important to note that this priestly anointing is meant for the entire Local Church because it brings unity and harmony (Ps. 133). There is no such thing as a private priestly anointing; it comes in oneness, in unity, as the Church functions as one body. On the day of Pentecost 120 people, including the apostles, were praying and waiting upon the Lord, in one accord, in the Upper Room (Acts 1:15). The Holy Spirit came upon all of them with fire and power.
Another important point to note is that this priestly anointing is not a one-time anointing, which the leper's anointing is. Under the Old Covenant, the priests were anointed with oil every day. The same with you under the New Covenant, for you need a daily anointing in order to be an effective servant of God.
In the case of David his anointing came to him during his conflict with Saul and his household - over a period of time.
3. The Kingly Anointing
This is the hightest level of anointing that the Lord wants you to receive. Whereas the leper's anointing comes by accepting Jesus and the priestly anointing comes by fellowshipping with Jesus, the kingly anointing comes by obeying Jesus.
With this anointing comes with the voice of the Lord. You become sensitive to the rhema Word of the Lord which enables you to prophesy. You become a mouthpiece of God; you are able to say, "Thus saith the Lord". You will see miracles of healings and signs and wonders following your ministry - like those described in Mark 16:17, 18.
David was 30 years old (Biblical age of maturity) when he received the kingly anointing.
"Therefore all the elders of Israel came to the king at Hebron, and King david made a covenant with them at Hebron before the Lord. And they anointed David king over Israel" (2 Samuel 5:3).
Before that, David reigned over only Judah from his headquarters at Hebron. After he received the kingly anointing he reigned over all Israel and Judah from Zion which was called the City of David (2 Samuel 5:7).
The apostles received the kingly anointing even before they were arrested by the high priest. They boldly said, "We ought to obey God rather than men" (Acts 5:29). They stood their ground, and God sent a heavier anointing that produced a supernatural manifestation with the power to reach the World. As for Peter, the anointing was so strong that people were healed when he passed by and his shadow fell on them (Acts 5:15).
Two Basic Keys
Let us summarize the truth we have so far discovered. So many people want the power of God, but they fail to understant that it will not come until they first experienced His presence. And when the presence comes, the first evidence will be the manifestation of the Glory of God which is the fruit of the Spirit. The fruit will be evident in your everyday contacts with those around you. And when the fruit is genuinely there, the Lord will anointing you with His Spirit, which is power. Power follows the presence, not the other way round.
Two basic profound doctrines
The two basic doctrines, which form the foundation of the Christian faith, are the doctrine of repentance and the doctrine of the blood of Christ. It is beyond the scope of this message to study these doctrines in details. The fact is that our sins keep us from the presence of the Lord and only the blood of Christ can clease us from our sins:
Peter said in his first sermon after Pentecost, "Repent therefore and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out, so that the times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord" (Acts 3:19, NKJV, emphasis added).
John said, "But if we walk in the light as He is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanses us from all sin" (1 John 1:7, emphasis added).
Note the present tense of the action: cleanses. It is a now experience. Forgiveness deals with what you did; cleansing deals with what you are doing. Also note that when we fail to walk in the light we will not live in His presence and in His power (anointing).
The true meaning of repentance
Repentance is a daily experience. And it is a supernatural experienc, not something you can humanly accomplish by yourself. It is a gift of God and it needs to be granted by God (1 Tim. 2:25).
Solomon said, "He who covers his sins will not prosper, but whoever confesses and forsakes them will have mercy" (Prov. 28:13, emphasis added).
Repentance involves two actions - confessing and forsaking our sins.
Repentance must occur in every sinful action of your life, even in some simple things like - repenting if you haven't prayed, repenting if you haven't read the Word, and repenting if you failed to walk in wisdom toward those who are outside (unbelievers) (Col. 4:5).
Like the apostle Paul, we need to die daily (1 Cor. 15:31). We need to be crucified with Christ (Gal. 2:20):
"I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; ..." (Emphasis added).
If Christ is truly living in you, you will surely experience His presence and His power (anointing)!
Tuesday, June 10, 2008
The Ministry of God's Word
Many Christians fail to understand that only God's Word that comes out of God's mouth cannot fail. The tremendous effectiveness of the Word of God can be seen from the following passage of Scripture.
God spoke through Isaiah, "So shall My word be that goes forth from My mouth; it shall not return to Me void, but it shall accomplish what I please, and it shall prosper in the thing for which I sent it" (Isaiah 55:11, NKJV, emphasis added).
There is a very important point of qualification in the above verse which a lot of preachers have not noticed. God did not just say His Word will not fail or will not return to Him void, but He said God's Word out of God's mouth that cannot fail. In other words, you cannot separate the Word from the mouth that comes out of.
When God's mouth speaks it God's breath goes with it. And God's breath is the Spirit; it is the Word with the Spirit in it, which will never return void. The Word without the Spirit the Scripture says is dead:
Paul said. "... for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life" (2 Cor. 3:6).
The psalmist said, "By the word of the Lord the heavens were made, and all the host of them by the breath of His mouth" (Ps. 33:6).
The above is an example of Hebrew poetry. One of the principles of the Hebrew poetry is that you get two parallel statements which tell us two aspects of the same thing - not two different things.
We can put it this way, "By the Word of the Lord and the breath of His mouth, were the heavens and their entire host made." Not the Word alone but the Word when it breathes with the breath of God. The Word "breath" is actually translated as "Spirit" in Hebrew. In other words, when God's Word goes out by God's Spirit then it is creative, it is authoritative, it is effective and it will never return void. But the Word without the Spirit is just dead.
You cannot speak without breath. Essentially speech is breath being squeezed out of your lung through your oracle apparatus being modified by the position of your tongue and your lips until it produces the appropriate sound. But the basic force in all speech is breath - no breath, no speech. This is true also for the Word of God. The motivating power that brings forth the Word of God is the breath of God.
What it means to be a mouthpiece of God
God does not speak only out of His own mouth but He speaks through the mouth of human beings and He desires that every minister or servant of His shall offer Him a mouth that He can use. Every believer can be a mouthpiece of God so that when God's Word goes forth through that believer it is as authoritative and as effective as if God has spoke it Himself. But it can only be if it is God's Spirit that goes through that mouth with the Word.
Illustration of a mouthpiece of God
The prophet Jeremiah is a fascinating example of the authority of God's Word through the human lips. The Lord spoke to Jeremiah:
"Do not say, 'I am a youth,' for you shall go to all to whom I send you, and whatever I command you, you shall speak. Do not be afraid of their faces, for I am with you to deliver you" says the Lord.
(V. 9): "Then the Lord put forth His hand and touched my mouth, and the Lord said to me: 'Behold, I have put My words in your mouth. See, I have this day set you over the nations and over the kingdoms, to root out and to pull down, to destroy and to throw down, to build and to plant.'" (Jeremiah 1:7 - 10, NKJV, emphasis added).
What a dramatic transformation in one person in a short space of time. When God first spoke to Jeremiah, he said, "Ah, Lord God! Behold, I cannot speak, for I am a youth" (Jer. 1:6).
Notice the tremendous authority given to Jeremiah after the Lord had touched his mouth - "I have this day set you over the nations and over the kingdoms, to root out and to pull down, to destroy and to throw down, to build and to plant" (V. 10). And the Word of God in the mouth of Jeremiah was just as authoritative as would have been in the mouth of God Himself! The authority is in the Word when God ordains you to be His mouthpiece.
What does it take to be a mouthpiece of God?
Here is the price you have to pay in order to be an effective mouthpiece of God.
You have to sit alone
It cost Jeremiah something to be a mouthpiece of God.
Jeremiah said, "Your words were found, and I ate them, and Your word was to me the joy and rejoicing of my heart; for I am called by Your name, O Lord God of hosts, I did not sit in the assembly of the mockers, nor did I rejoice; I sat alone because of Your hand, for You have filled me with indignation. Why is my pain perpetual and my wound incurable, which refuses to be healed? Will You surely be to me like an unreliable stream, as waters that fail" (Jer. 15:16 - 18, emphasis added)?
Here are some statements of truth:
1. Jeremiah was called by God's Name. As a Christian you are in the same category. The call of God upon a person's life makes him a Christian.
2. The qualification for delivering the Word of God is feeding upon the Word of God - "Your words were found, and I ate them". Spiritually you are not fit to teach the Word unless you have digested it yourself - the Word is totally absorbed in your spirit. Failing which you can only give forth the Word from your mind and it will be totally ineffective. There is a lot of preaching and teaching you hear today is nothing but the product of intellectual study of the Word. It accomplishes nothing because that preacher has not first eaten the Word that he preaches. You have to eat the Word and then only you can give forth; you have to digest it and then only you can minister.
3. Jeremiah said that as a result of feeding upon God's Word it became "The joy and rejoicing of his heart". This is a mark of being a child of God - who loves the Word so much that it is a joy and rejoicing of his heart! You should have no confidence in the preaching of anyone who does not love the Word of God. Anyone who does not love the Word cannot be an effective believer.
4. Jeremiah "sat alone". This is true for every committed child of God. There will come a time when you are called to the ministry you have to sit alone. You cannot go with the crowd, you cannot enjoy the things the crowd enjoys, you cannot laugh at their foolish jokes - because the Word of God is something sacred and solemn and you have eaten it.
Every true Christian goes through a period of testing of loneliness. you might be the only believer in your family and no one else will understand you. God requires you to sit alone; He requires you to swim against the stream and come out victorious.
You have to stand before God
The Lord said to Jeremiah, "If you return, then I will bring you back; you shall stand before Me; if you take out the precious from the vile, you shall be as My mouth. Let them return to you, but you must not return to them" (Jer. 15:19, emphasis added).
Here are some statements of truth:
1. The word "return" means "repent". God wants every child of His to stand before Him - not before man or human counsel, or human institution or denomination. This is the only way you can be His mouthpiece. You cannot fill your mouth with cheap foolish conversation, gossip or empty talk.
In preaching, if you don't mean what you say in daily life as much as you say behind the pulpit, your words have no effect. If you only put on a religious act behind the pulpit, all you have is religion and you are misrepresenting God. You can be popular and get people laugh and smile at you, get the crowd with you, but you will never do them any spiritually good.
Paul said in his ministry in Ephesus, "For I know this, that after my departure savage wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock. Also from among yourselves men will rise up, speaking perverse things, to draw away the disciples after themselves. Therefore watch, and remember that for three years I did not cease to warn everyone night and day with tears" (Acts 20:29 - 31, NKJV, emphasis added).
Paul did not go around making people happy with laughter. He did not seek to be popular or to be crowd puller - he warned them with tears. The early Church aimed to do one thing - get men rightly related to God.
The ministry of the Word is not an attempt to make people feel good. He who ministers that way will never be a mouthpiece of God.
2. "Let them return to you, but you must not return to them" (V. 19). In other words, Jeremiah, being a mouthpiece of God must not be influenced by them, but he must influence and convince them. He must cue the line and stand on it. A mouthpiece of the Lord must never change his stand - because God has not changed all through generations. What God said centuries ago He says the same today.
The apostle Peter spoke about being a mouthpiece of God:
"If anyone speaks, let him speak as the oracles of God. If anyone ministers, let him do it as with the ability which God supplies, that in all things God may be glorified through Jesus Christ, to whom belong the glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen" (1 Peter 4:11).
In ministry we have to provide a mouth through which God can speak so that He may be glorified through Jesus Christ. The is the standard that is set for us in the Word of God.
Adding to and taking away from the Word of God
The Scripture absolutely prohibits the adding to and taking away from the Word of God. When you do that you blunt the edge of the Sword of the Spirit and make it ineffective.
Moses, a mouthpiece of God to his generation said:
"You shall not add to the word which I command you, nor take from it, that you may keep the commandments of the Lord your God which I command you" (Deut. 4:2).
"Whatever I command you, be careful to observe it; you shall not add to it nor take away from it" (Deut. 12:32).
Agur said, "Every word of God is pure; he is a shield to those who put their trust in Him. Do not add to His words, lest He rebuke you, and you be found a liar" (Pro. 30:5, 6).
We are not required to preach more than what God says in His Word. But at the same time we must not diminish His Word:
The Lord said to Jeremiah, "Stand in the court of the Lord's house, and speak to all the cities of Judah, which come to worship in the Lord's house, all the words that I command you to speak to them. Do not diminish a word" (Jer. 26:2).
God detests mixed seeds
It is interesting to look at the pattern in the Old Testament regarding mixed seeds.
God spoke through Moses, "You shall keep My statutes. You shall not let your livestock breed with another kind. You shall not sow your field with mixed seed. Nor shall a garment of mixed linen and wool come upon you" (Lev. 19:19).
Although the above is stated in the natural it has application in the spiritual. Mixed breeding of livestock is a type of a believer marrying an unbeliever (2 Cor. 6:14). In the New Testament we have very clear application of "mixed seed". Examples are the parable of the tares (Matt. 13:38 - 43) and the parable of the sower (Luke 8:11 - 15).
Preaching of other doctrines
Paul said to Timothy, "As i urged you when I went into Macedonia - remain in Ephesus that you may charge some that they teach no other doctrine, ..." (1 Tim. 1:3).
A preacher or a teacher has no authority from God to preach anything but the Word of God - we are not to sow the field (the world - Matt. 13:38) with "mixed seeds". Why do we have such a mixed Christianity today? The reason being we have sow the field with a lot of mixed seeds - partly Baptist seed, partly Methodist seed, partly Presbyterian seed and partly Assemblies of God seed. We have such a horrible mixture that we don't know when truth ends and error begins!
Giving ourselves to prayer and ministry of the Word
The psalmist David said, "The Lord gave the word; great was the company of those who proclaimed it" (Ps. 68:11, NKJV).
It is the Lord's business to give the Word and not ours. All we have to do is to publish and proclaim what the Lord gives.
The 12 apostles said, "We will give ourselves continually to prayer and to the ministry of the word" (Acts 6:4).
The apostles gave themselves to prayer and the ministry of the Word. This was their primary ministry and everything else was secondary. The tragedy is, today in the Church, you can probably count with the fingers of one hand the number of men who are totally given to prayer and ministry of the Word. We have allowed so many material consideration to crowed in; we are busy with things that are important but it is not our job to do it!
The Word is the Master and we are the servants. The Word has the authority and not we - our business is just to make the Word available after praying through in the Holy Spirit. We are not to lord over the Word of God; we are not to cut it up -we are the servants of the Word!
God spoke through Isaiah, "So shall My word be that goes forth from My mouth; it shall not return to Me void, but it shall accomplish what I please, and it shall prosper in the thing for which I sent it" (Isaiah 55:11, NKJV, emphasis added).
There is a very important point of qualification in the above verse which a lot of preachers have not noticed. God did not just say His Word will not fail or will not return to Him void, but He said God's Word out of God's mouth that cannot fail. In other words, you cannot separate the Word from the mouth that comes out of.
When God's mouth speaks it God's breath goes with it. And God's breath is the Spirit; it is the Word with the Spirit in it, which will never return void. The Word without the Spirit the Scripture says is dead:
Paul said. "... for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life" (2 Cor. 3:6).
The psalmist said, "By the word of the Lord the heavens were made, and all the host of them by the breath of His mouth" (Ps. 33:6).
The above is an example of Hebrew poetry. One of the principles of the Hebrew poetry is that you get two parallel statements which tell us two aspects of the same thing - not two different things.
We can put it this way, "By the Word of the Lord and the breath of His mouth, were the heavens and their entire host made." Not the Word alone but the Word when it breathes with the breath of God. The Word "breath" is actually translated as "Spirit" in Hebrew. In other words, when God's Word goes out by God's Spirit then it is creative, it is authoritative, it is effective and it will never return void. But the Word without the Spirit is just dead.
You cannot speak without breath. Essentially speech is breath being squeezed out of your lung through your oracle apparatus being modified by the position of your tongue and your lips until it produces the appropriate sound. But the basic force in all speech is breath - no breath, no speech. This is true also for the Word of God. The motivating power that brings forth the Word of God is the breath of God.
What it means to be a mouthpiece of God
God does not speak only out of His own mouth but He speaks through the mouth of human beings and He desires that every minister or servant of His shall offer Him a mouth that He can use. Every believer can be a mouthpiece of God so that when God's Word goes forth through that believer it is as authoritative and as effective as if God has spoke it Himself. But it can only be if it is God's Spirit that goes through that mouth with the Word.
Illustration of a mouthpiece of God
The prophet Jeremiah is a fascinating example of the authority of God's Word through the human lips. The Lord spoke to Jeremiah:
"Do not say, 'I am a youth,' for you shall go to all to whom I send you, and whatever I command you, you shall speak. Do not be afraid of their faces, for I am with you to deliver you" says the Lord.
(V. 9): "Then the Lord put forth His hand and touched my mouth, and the Lord said to me: 'Behold, I have put My words in your mouth. See, I have this day set you over the nations and over the kingdoms, to root out and to pull down, to destroy and to throw down, to build and to plant.'" (Jeremiah 1:7 - 10, NKJV, emphasis added).
What a dramatic transformation in one person in a short space of time. When God first spoke to Jeremiah, he said, "Ah, Lord God! Behold, I cannot speak, for I am a youth" (Jer. 1:6).
Notice the tremendous authority given to Jeremiah after the Lord had touched his mouth - "I have this day set you over the nations and over the kingdoms, to root out and to pull down, to destroy and to throw down, to build and to plant" (V. 10). And the Word of God in the mouth of Jeremiah was just as authoritative as would have been in the mouth of God Himself! The authority is in the Word when God ordains you to be His mouthpiece.
What does it take to be a mouthpiece of God?
Here is the price you have to pay in order to be an effective mouthpiece of God.
You have to sit alone
It cost Jeremiah something to be a mouthpiece of God.
Jeremiah said, "Your words were found, and I ate them, and Your word was to me the joy and rejoicing of my heart; for I am called by Your name, O Lord God of hosts, I did not sit in the assembly of the mockers, nor did I rejoice; I sat alone because of Your hand, for You have filled me with indignation. Why is my pain perpetual and my wound incurable, which refuses to be healed? Will You surely be to me like an unreliable stream, as waters that fail" (Jer. 15:16 - 18, emphasis added)?
Here are some statements of truth:
1. Jeremiah was called by God's Name. As a Christian you are in the same category. The call of God upon a person's life makes him a Christian.
2. The qualification for delivering the Word of God is feeding upon the Word of God - "Your words were found, and I ate them". Spiritually you are not fit to teach the Word unless you have digested it yourself - the Word is totally absorbed in your spirit. Failing which you can only give forth the Word from your mind and it will be totally ineffective. There is a lot of preaching and teaching you hear today is nothing but the product of intellectual study of the Word. It accomplishes nothing because that preacher has not first eaten the Word that he preaches. You have to eat the Word and then only you can give forth; you have to digest it and then only you can minister.
3. Jeremiah said that as a result of feeding upon God's Word it became "The joy and rejoicing of his heart". This is a mark of being a child of God - who loves the Word so much that it is a joy and rejoicing of his heart! You should have no confidence in the preaching of anyone who does not love the Word of God. Anyone who does not love the Word cannot be an effective believer.
4. Jeremiah "sat alone". This is true for every committed child of God. There will come a time when you are called to the ministry you have to sit alone. You cannot go with the crowd, you cannot enjoy the things the crowd enjoys, you cannot laugh at their foolish jokes - because the Word of God is something sacred and solemn and you have eaten it.
Every true Christian goes through a period of testing of loneliness. you might be the only believer in your family and no one else will understand you. God requires you to sit alone; He requires you to swim against the stream and come out victorious.
You have to stand before God
The Lord said to Jeremiah, "If you return, then I will bring you back; you shall stand before Me; if you take out the precious from the vile, you shall be as My mouth. Let them return to you, but you must not return to them" (Jer. 15:19, emphasis added).
Here are some statements of truth:
1. The word "return" means "repent". God wants every child of His to stand before Him - not before man or human counsel, or human institution or denomination. This is the only way you can be His mouthpiece. You cannot fill your mouth with cheap foolish conversation, gossip or empty talk.
In preaching, if you don't mean what you say in daily life as much as you say behind the pulpit, your words have no effect. If you only put on a religious act behind the pulpit, all you have is religion and you are misrepresenting God. You can be popular and get people laugh and smile at you, get the crowd with you, but you will never do them any spiritually good.
Paul said in his ministry in Ephesus, "For I know this, that after my departure savage wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock. Also from among yourselves men will rise up, speaking perverse things, to draw away the disciples after themselves. Therefore watch, and remember that for three years I did not cease to warn everyone night and day with tears" (Acts 20:29 - 31, NKJV, emphasis added).
Paul did not go around making people happy with laughter. He did not seek to be popular or to be crowd puller - he warned them with tears. The early Church aimed to do one thing - get men rightly related to God.
The ministry of the Word is not an attempt to make people feel good. He who ministers that way will never be a mouthpiece of God.
2. "Let them return to you, but you must not return to them" (V. 19). In other words, Jeremiah, being a mouthpiece of God must not be influenced by them, but he must influence and convince them. He must cue the line and stand on it. A mouthpiece of the Lord must never change his stand - because God has not changed all through generations. What God said centuries ago He says the same today.
The apostle Peter spoke about being a mouthpiece of God:
"If anyone speaks, let him speak as the oracles of God. If anyone ministers, let him do it as with the ability which God supplies, that in all things God may be glorified through Jesus Christ, to whom belong the glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen" (1 Peter 4:11).
In ministry we have to provide a mouth through which God can speak so that He may be glorified through Jesus Christ. The is the standard that is set for us in the Word of God.
Adding to and taking away from the Word of God
The Scripture absolutely prohibits the adding to and taking away from the Word of God. When you do that you blunt the edge of the Sword of the Spirit and make it ineffective.
Moses, a mouthpiece of God to his generation said:
"You shall not add to the word which I command you, nor take from it, that you may keep the commandments of the Lord your God which I command you" (Deut. 4:2).
"Whatever I command you, be careful to observe it; you shall not add to it nor take away from it" (Deut. 12:32).
Agur said, "Every word of God is pure; he is a shield to those who put their trust in Him. Do not add to His words, lest He rebuke you, and you be found a liar" (Pro. 30:5, 6).
We are not required to preach more than what God says in His Word. But at the same time we must not diminish His Word:
The Lord said to Jeremiah, "Stand in the court of the Lord's house, and speak to all the cities of Judah, which come to worship in the Lord's house, all the words that I command you to speak to them. Do not diminish a word" (Jer. 26:2).
God detests mixed seeds
It is interesting to look at the pattern in the Old Testament regarding mixed seeds.
God spoke through Moses, "You shall keep My statutes. You shall not let your livestock breed with another kind. You shall not sow your field with mixed seed. Nor shall a garment of mixed linen and wool come upon you" (Lev. 19:19).
Although the above is stated in the natural it has application in the spiritual. Mixed breeding of livestock is a type of a believer marrying an unbeliever (2 Cor. 6:14). In the New Testament we have very clear application of "mixed seed". Examples are the parable of the tares (Matt. 13:38 - 43) and the parable of the sower (Luke 8:11 - 15).
Preaching of other doctrines
Paul said to Timothy, "As i urged you when I went into Macedonia - remain in Ephesus that you may charge some that they teach no other doctrine, ..." (1 Tim. 1:3).
A preacher or a teacher has no authority from God to preach anything but the Word of God - we are not to sow the field (the world - Matt. 13:38) with "mixed seeds". Why do we have such a mixed Christianity today? The reason being we have sow the field with a lot of mixed seeds - partly Baptist seed, partly Methodist seed, partly Presbyterian seed and partly Assemblies of God seed. We have such a horrible mixture that we don't know when truth ends and error begins!
Giving ourselves to prayer and ministry of the Word
The psalmist David said, "The Lord gave the word; great was the company of those who proclaimed it" (Ps. 68:11, NKJV).
It is the Lord's business to give the Word and not ours. All we have to do is to publish and proclaim what the Lord gives.
The 12 apostles said, "We will give ourselves continually to prayer and to the ministry of the word" (Acts 6:4).
The apostles gave themselves to prayer and the ministry of the Word. This was their primary ministry and everything else was secondary. The tragedy is, today in the Church, you can probably count with the fingers of one hand the number of men who are totally given to prayer and ministry of the Word. We have allowed so many material consideration to crowed in; we are busy with things that are important but it is not our job to do it!
The Word is the Master and we are the servants. The Word has the authority and not we - our business is just to make the Word available after praying through in the Holy Spirit. We are not to lord over the Word of God; we are not to cut it up -we are the servants of the Word!
Tuesday, June 03, 2008
The Ministry of the Holy Spirit
The importance of the work and ministry of the Holy Spirit in the Church and the place of the Holy Spirit in the growth and fruitfulness of the individual believer cannot be overemphasized. The following is a list of important Biblical truth concerning the Holy Spirit.
Christ is revealed by the Holy Spirit
Paul said, "But the natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; nor can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned" (1 Cor. 2:14, NKJV).
The natural man means the soulish man, man of mind and intellect - connot understand nor receive the things of the Spirit. We know God through our spirit quicken by the Holy Spirit. Someone said: "God gave us our spirit to apprehend Himself, and intellect to apprehend theology". In other words, by intellect and theology alone we will never get to know God; we may know about God but we never get to know Him intimately.
Jesus said, "I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. However, when He, the Spirit of truth, has come, He will guide you into all truth; for He will not speak on His own authority, but whatever He hears He will speaks; and He will tell you things to come. He will glorify Me, for He will take of what is Mine and declare it to you" (John 16:12 - 14).
It is perfectly plain that the One who reveals God to us, who reveals Christ to us, is the Spirit of God. The Church cannot know Christ except as the Spirit reveals Him.
The Ministry of the Holy Spirit is the Ministry of Jesus
We must understand that the Holy Spirit has come as a Person and that He is willing and waiting to do for us all that Jesus would do if He were here on earth. But some of us don't recognize Him, don't praise and worship Him, and don't fear Him.
It is possible to run a Local Church and all of its activity without the Holy Spirit. You can organize it, get a board of leaders together, employ a Pastor, form a group of musicians and form a choir, launch a Sunday School and a ladies' group and all that. If you could increase the attendance of your Church until you need a much bigger building, if you could provide everything that men want and love and value, and yet you didn't have the Holy Spirit, you might as well have nothing at all.
"Not by might nor by power, but by My Spirit, says the Lord of hosts" (Zech. 4:6).
You cannot minister by eloquence of a man, not by good music, not by high-tech equipment, not by 'good' preaching, but it is by the Holy Spirit that God works His mighty work. The Holy Spirit is not enthusiasm. Some people can get all worked up over a song imagining that this is the Holy Spirit, but this does not necessaritly follow. Some of these same people go out and live just like the sinful world that hates God. I believe that is the reason most people don't want to be filled with the Holy Spirit - they want to live the way they want to live and to merely have the Holy Spirit as a bit of something extra.
We need to bring the Holy Spirit of God back into the Church. We bring Him back by prayer, by repentance, by obedience, by confession - until He takes over in our midst! Then there will be light, life, power, victory, joy and blessed fruit that will come to us. The Holy Spirit being a Person can communicate with you and He can love you. He can be grieved (Eph. 4:30) when you resist and ignore Him. He can be quenched (1 Thess. 5:19) as any friend can be shut up if you turn on him when he is in your home as a guest - he will be hushed into hurtful silence if you wound him, and we can also wound the Holy Spirit.
The Holy Spirit is exactly the same as Jesus, just as Jesus is exactly the same as the Father.
Jesus said to Thomas, "If you had known Me, you would have known My Father also; and from now on you know Him and have seen Him" (John 14:7).
Jesus said, "Not that anyone has seen the Father, except He who is from God; He has seen the Father" (John 6:46).
He added, "However, when He, the Spirit of truth, has come, He will guide you into all truth; for He will not speak on His own authority, but whatever He hears he will speak; and He will tell you things to come. He will glorify Me, for He will take of what is Mine and declare it to you" (John 16:13, 14).
Jesus was saying, in essence, "The Spirit will demonstrate me to you".
Life in the Holy Spirit
It is the will of God that all members of the redeemed Church be filled with the Holy Spirit. The apostle Paul, Peter, John and James wrote their epistles to spirit filled, though somewhat troubled, Churches. The truth is that God never fathered His Church apart from the Holy Spirit. The Spirit, then, is the medium, the divine solution, in which God holds His Church.
Here are some promises of God concerning the coming of the holy Spirit:
1. "Until the Spirit is poured upon us from on high, and the wilderness becomes a fruitful field, and the fruitful field is counted as a forest. Then Justice will dwell in the wilderness and righteousness remain in the fruitful field. The work of righteousness will be peace, and the effect of righteousness, quietness and assurance forever" (Isaiah 32:15 - 17, NKJV, emphasis added).
2. "For I will pour water on him who is thirsty, and floods on the dry ground; I will pour My Spirit on your descendants and my blessing on your offspring" (Isaiah 44:3, emphasis added).
3. "And it shall come to pass afterward that I will pour out My Spirit on all flesh; your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, you old men shall dream dreams, you young men shall see visions. And also on My menservants and on My maidservants I will pour out My Spirit in those days" (Joel 2:28, 29, emphasis added).
4. Jesus Himself said, "If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him" (Luke 11:13, emphasis added).
5. Jesus' last words to His disciples were, "Behold, I send the Promise of My Father upon you;but tarry in the city of Jerusalem until you are endued with power from on high" (Luke 24:49, emphasis added).
Here are some statements of truth:
1. The benefits of the filling of the Holy Spirit include fruitfulness, peace, quietness with assurance (confidence) and general blessings.
2. The outpouring of the Holy Spirit causes believers to prophesy, see visions and dream dreams.
3. The Holy Spirit will not force Himself on you. You have to desire Him, thirst for Him and ask Him to fill you.
4. The Holy Spirit will empower you to work the work of God.
The Holy Spirit and His work in the Church
From the Gospels, the book of Acts and the Epistles we can trace three periods with respect to the Holy Spirit and His work in the Church.
1. The period of promise
This period stretched from the time of John the Baptist to the resurrection of Christ. In this three-year period, the disciples were called, commissioned and taught in the best Bible School in the world - Jesus being their only Teacher. They didn't get a degree which they could frame and put in the wall but they had a degree inside of them! Jesus promised them a new life in the Spirit.
2. The period of preparation
In some measure, they were being prepared while Jesus was with them, but after He was gone, they actually began to prepare themselves. They stopped all their activities to organize a 10 days prayer meeting in an upper room in Jerusalem where 120 believers were involved. They prayed and waited on Him until the Day of Pentecost had fully come (Acts 2:1 -3). Suddenly they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance (Acts 2:4).
Shouldn't our Church stop all activities, once in a while, and organize a prayer meeting with multitudes of believers and wait upon the Lord - no "shopping list" prayer but just worship Him, praise Him and thank Him?
3. The period realization
The outpouring of the Holy Spirit came suddenly like a rushing mighty wind (Acts 2:2). The period of realization came suddenly, and the Father fulfilled His promise. The expections were fully met and more!
We are living in the period of the "last days" which began with Pentecost and continues until Christ returns. We are now living in the latter days when God is pouring out His Spirit on all flesh (Joel 2:28).
Peter's first sermon, after the outpouring of the Holy Spirit in the first Pentecost, came with these words:
"Repent, and let every one of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins; and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. For the promise is to you and to your children, and to all who are afar off, as many as the Lord our God will call" (Acts 2:38, 39, emphasis added).
Notice that the promise of the Holy Spirit also to future generations of believers.
You will notice that thoughout the four Gospels the disciples were asking questions - while in the book of Acts and after Pentecost they were answering questions. That is the major difference between the man who is Spirit-filled and the man who is not!
Fellowship of the Holy Spirit
The fact that the Holy Spirit is a living Person, we can get to know Him and have fellowship with Him. When we talk about communion with God and the fellowship with the Holy Spirit, we are talking about that which begins the moment we are baptized in the Holy Spirit, but will grow and increase and mature while life lasts. As we go on to have fellowship with Him we go on to have increasing knowledge of Him.
But no one is able to have fellowship with the Holy Spirit unless he walks in perfect agreement with Him. Contrary to what most professing Christians like to think, many of God's people are not willing to walk in perfect agreement with Him. This explains why so many believers do not have the gift of the Spirit, the power of the Spirit, the peace of the Spirit and many of the other qualities and benefits which the Spirit of God brings. This also explains why so many spirit filled, tongues speaking Charismatic/Pentecostal Christians lack power and the anointing of the Holy Spirit.
God spoke through Amos, "Can two walk together, unless they are agreed" (Amos 3:3).
Two persons, in order to walk together, must agree that they want to walk together, and they must agree that it is to their advantage to have the companionship and fellowship together.
In my opinion we can cultivate the fellowhip of the Holy Spirit and here are few suggestions:
1. Be engrossed with Jesus Christ
Contrary to what most people of God unintentionally assumed, the important thing here was not that the Spirit had come - the important thing was that Jesus had been exalted. Where Jesus is glorified and exalted, the Holy Spirit comes. He does not have to be invited nor even begged. Whenever Christ is truly honored in a Christian fellowship the Sprit comes (Acts 2). We honor Him by our worship, by our obedience, by our witness and by our fellowship.
2. Walk in righteousness
The Holy Spirit will not have fellowhip with those who will not live right and walk right.
Jude said, "For certain men have crept in unnoticed, who long ago were marked out for this condemnation, ungodly men, who turn the grace of our God into lewdness and deny the only Lord God and our Lord Jesus Christ" (Jude 4).
Christians need to understand that it isn't their righteousness that saves, but the salvation they have received brings righteousness. We must walk in righteousness if we are going on to know the Lord. The man who is not ready to live right is not saved, and he will not be saved.
Paul said, "For the grace of God that brings salvation has appeared to all men, teaching us that, denying ungodiness and worldy lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly in the present age, looking for the blessed hop and glorious appearing of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ, ..." (Titus 2:11 - 13, emphasis added).
3. Make your thought a clean sanctuary
Our thought life is part of us - controlled by our mind which is part of the human soul. Christians are new creation in Christ (2 Cor. 5:17). Therefore the mind of a Christian has been renewed by our spirit man which is controlled by God's Spirit (Romans 12:1, 2). But God give us freewill to control our thought life, to keep it clean or to keep it unclean.
Can you imagine a believer with malicious and evil thought in his heart having companionship with the Holy Spirit? Can you imagine a believer bloated with egotism having an intimate fellowship with the Holy Spirit? Never!
We can make our thought a clean sanctuary by seeking to know God in His Word! We are sanctified through His Word (John 17:17; 2 Thess. 2:13).
Christ is revealed by the Holy Spirit
Paul said, "But the natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; nor can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned" (1 Cor. 2:14, NKJV).
The natural man means the soulish man, man of mind and intellect - connot understand nor receive the things of the Spirit. We know God through our spirit quicken by the Holy Spirit. Someone said: "God gave us our spirit to apprehend Himself, and intellect to apprehend theology". In other words, by intellect and theology alone we will never get to know God; we may know about God but we never get to know Him intimately.
Jesus said, "I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. However, when He, the Spirit of truth, has come, He will guide you into all truth; for He will not speak on His own authority, but whatever He hears He will speaks; and He will tell you things to come. He will glorify Me, for He will take of what is Mine and declare it to you" (John 16:12 - 14).
It is perfectly plain that the One who reveals God to us, who reveals Christ to us, is the Spirit of God. The Church cannot know Christ except as the Spirit reveals Him.
The Ministry of the Holy Spirit is the Ministry of Jesus
We must understand that the Holy Spirit has come as a Person and that He is willing and waiting to do for us all that Jesus would do if He were here on earth. But some of us don't recognize Him, don't praise and worship Him, and don't fear Him.
It is possible to run a Local Church and all of its activity without the Holy Spirit. You can organize it, get a board of leaders together, employ a Pastor, form a group of musicians and form a choir, launch a Sunday School and a ladies' group and all that. If you could increase the attendance of your Church until you need a much bigger building, if you could provide everything that men want and love and value, and yet you didn't have the Holy Spirit, you might as well have nothing at all.
"Not by might nor by power, but by My Spirit, says the Lord of hosts" (Zech. 4:6).
You cannot minister by eloquence of a man, not by good music, not by high-tech equipment, not by 'good' preaching, but it is by the Holy Spirit that God works His mighty work. The Holy Spirit is not enthusiasm. Some people can get all worked up over a song imagining that this is the Holy Spirit, but this does not necessaritly follow. Some of these same people go out and live just like the sinful world that hates God. I believe that is the reason most people don't want to be filled with the Holy Spirit - they want to live the way they want to live and to merely have the Holy Spirit as a bit of something extra.
We need to bring the Holy Spirit of God back into the Church. We bring Him back by prayer, by repentance, by obedience, by confession - until He takes over in our midst! Then there will be light, life, power, victory, joy and blessed fruit that will come to us. The Holy Spirit being a Person can communicate with you and He can love you. He can be grieved (Eph. 4:30) when you resist and ignore Him. He can be quenched (1 Thess. 5:19) as any friend can be shut up if you turn on him when he is in your home as a guest - he will be hushed into hurtful silence if you wound him, and we can also wound the Holy Spirit.
The Holy Spirit is exactly the same as Jesus, just as Jesus is exactly the same as the Father.
Jesus said to Thomas, "If you had known Me, you would have known My Father also; and from now on you know Him and have seen Him" (John 14:7).
Jesus said, "Not that anyone has seen the Father, except He who is from God; He has seen the Father" (John 6:46).
He added, "However, when He, the Spirit of truth, has come, He will guide you into all truth; for He will not speak on His own authority, but whatever He hears he will speak; and He will tell you things to come. He will glorify Me, for He will take of what is Mine and declare it to you" (John 16:13, 14).
Jesus was saying, in essence, "The Spirit will demonstrate me to you".
Life in the Holy Spirit
It is the will of God that all members of the redeemed Church be filled with the Holy Spirit. The apostle Paul, Peter, John and James wrote their epistles to spirit filled, though somewhat troubled, Churches. The truth is that God never fathered His Church apart from the Holy Spirit. The Spirit, then, is the medium, the divine solution, in which God holds His Church.
Here are some promises of God concerning the coming of the holy Spirit:
1. "Until the Spirit is poured upon us from on high, and the wilderness becomes a fruitful field, and the fruitful field is counted as a forest. Then Justice will dwell in the wilderness and righteousness remain in the fruitful field. The work of righteousness will be peace, and the effect of righteousness, quietness and assurance forever" (Isaiah 32:15 - 17, NKJV, emphasis added).
2. "For I will pour water on him who is thirsty, and floods on the dry ground; I will pour My Spirit on your descendants and my blessing on your offspring" (Isaiah 44:3, emphasis added).
3. "And it shall come to pass afterward that I will pour out My Spirit on all flesh; your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, you old men shall dream dreams, you young men shall see visions. And also on My menservants and on My maidservants I will pour out My Spirit in those days" (Joel 2:28, 29, emphasis added).
4. Jesus Himself said, "If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him" (Luke 11:13, emphasis added).
5. Jesus' last words to His disciples were, "Behold, I send the Promise of My Father upon you;but tarry in the city of Jerusalem until you are endued with power from on high" (Luke 24:49, emphasis added).
Here are some statements of truth:
1. The benefits of the filling of the Holy Spirit include fruitfulness, peace, quietness with assurance (confidence) and general blessings.
2. The outpouring of the Holy Spirit causes believers to prophesy, see visions and dream dreams.
3. The Holy Spirit will not force Himself on you. You have to desire Him, thirst for Him and ask Him to fill you.
4. The Holy Spirit will empower you to work the work of God.
The Holy Spirit and His work in the Church
From the Gospels, the book of Acts and the Epistles we can trace three periods with respect to the Holy Spirit and His work in the Church.
1. The period of promise
This period stretched from the time of John the Baptist to the resurrection of Christ. In this three-year period, the disciples were called, commissioned and taught in the best Bible School in the world - Jesus being their only Teacher. They didn't get a degree which they could frame and put in the wall but they had a degree inside of them! Jesus promised them a new life in the Spirit.
2. The period of preparation
In some measure, they were being prepared while Jesus was with them, but after He was gone, they actually began to prepare themselves. They stopped all their activities to organize a 10 days prayer meeting in an upper room in Jerusalem where 120 believers were involved. They prayed and waited on Him until the Day of Pentecost had fully come (Acts 2:1 -3). Suddenly they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance (Acts 2:4).
Shouldn't our Church stop all activities, once in a while, and organize a prayer meeting with multitudes of believers and wait upon the Lord - no "shopping list" prayer but just worship Him, praise Him and thank Him?
3. The period realization
The outpouring of the Holy Spirit came suddenly like a rushing mighty wind (Acts 2:2). The period of realization came suddenly, and the Father fulfilled His promise. The expections were fully met and more!
We are living in the period of the "last days" which began with Pentecost and continues until Christ returns. We are now living in the latter days when God is pouring out His Spirit on all flesh (Joel 2:28).
Peter's first sermon, after the outpouring of the Holy Spirit in the first Pentecost, came with these words:
"Repent, and let every one of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins; and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. For the promise is to you and to your children, and to all who are afar off, as many as the Lord our God will call" (Acts 2:38, 39, emphasis added).
Notice that the promise of the Holy Spirit also to future generations of believers.
You will notice that thoughout the four Gospels the disciples were asking questions - while in the book of Acts and after Pentecost they were answering questions. That is the major difference between the man who is Spirit-filled and the man who is not!
Fellowship of the Holy Spirit
The fact that the Holy Spirit is a living Person, we can get to know Him and have fellowship with Him. When we talk about communion with God and the fellowship with the Holy Spirit, we are talking about that which begins the moment we are baptized in the Holy Spirit, but will grow and increase and mature while life lasts. As we go on to have fellowship with Him we go on to have increasing knowledge of Him.
But no one is able to have fellowship with the Holy Spirit unless he walks in perfect agreement with Him. Contrary to what most professing Christians like to think, many of God's people are not willing to walk in perfect agreement with Him. This explains why so many believers do not have the gift of the Spirit, the power of the Spirit, the peace of the Spirit and many of the other qualities and benefits which the Spirit of God brings. This also explains why so many spirit filled, tongues speaking Charismatic/Pentecostal Christians lack power and the anointing of the Holy Spirit.
God spoke through Amos, "Can two walk together, unless they are agreed" (Amos 3:3).
Two persons, in order to walk together, must agree that they want to walk together, and they must agree that it is to their advantage to have the companionship and fellowship together.
In my opinion we can cultivate the fellowhip of the Holy Spirit and here are few suggestions:
1. Be engrossed with Jesus Christ
Contrary to what most people of God unintentionally assumed, the important thing here was not that the Spirit had come - the important thing was that Jesus had been exalted. Where Jesus is glorified and exalted, the Holy Spirit comes. He does not have to be invited nor even begged. Whenever Christ is truly honored in a Christian fellowship the Sprit comes (Acts 2). We honor Him by our worship, by our obedience, by our witness and by our fellowship.
2. Walk in righteousness
The Holy Spirit will not have fellowhip with those who will not live right and walk right.
Jude said, "For certain men have crept in unnoticed, who long ago were marked out for this condemnation, ungodly men, who turn the grace of our God into lewdness and deny the only Lord God and our Lord Jesus Christ" (Jude 4).
Christians need to understand that it isn't their righteousness that saves, but the salvation they have received brings righteousness. We must walk in righteousness if we are going on to know the Lord. The man who is not ready to live right is not saved, and he will not be saved.
Paul said, "For the grace of God that brings salvation has appeared to all men, teaching us that, denying ungodiness and worldy lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly in the present age, looking for the blessed hop and glorious appearing of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ, ..." (Titus 2:11 - 13, emphasis added).
3. Make your thought a clean sanctuary
Our thought life is part of us - controlled by our mind which is part of the human soul. Christians are new creation in Christ (2 Cor. 5:17). Therefore the mind of a Christian has been renewed by our spirit man which is controlled by God's Spirit (Romans 12:1, 2). But God give us freewill to control our thought life, to keep it clean or to keep it unclean.
Can you imagine a believer with malicious and evil thought in his heart having companionship with the Holy Spirit? Can you imagine a believer bloated with egotism having an intimate fellowship with the Holy Spirit? Never!
We can make our thought a clean sanctuary by seeking to know God in His Word! We are sanctified through His Word (John 17:17; 2 Thess. 2:13).
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)