The Anointing, Part 2

"The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me, Because He has anointed Me To preach the gospel to the poor; He has sent Me to heal the brokenhearted, To proclaim liberty to the captives And recovery of sight to the blind, To set at liberty those who are oppressed; To proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord." (Isaiah 61:1,2)

As we mentioned in Part 1, these verses at the beginning of Isaiah 61 are prophetic of the ministry of Jesus on earth. He demonstrated this when He read them in the synagogue in His hometown of Nazareth at the beginning of His Messianic ministry. It is also obvious that the people who heard Him read the verses that day understood them to be Messianic prophecies. When he told them those Old Testament verses were beginning to be fulfilled that day, those who heard Him were at first curious because they had watched him grow up in that town. When He went on to say rather obliquely that His ministry was really only for those who were ready to receive it, they became very angry and attempted to kill Him. You can read that bit of history in Luke 4:18-29.

Again, as we said in Part 1, these verses are also prophetic of the ministry of Jesus' disciples on the earth. No, we do not mean the twelve He chose to accompany Him while He was on earth or even the one who took Judas' place after the betrayal. Of course they would be included in that group, but so would all of us. Yes, really. A disciple is a learner. Most of us do not know much except what we have learned from Jesus. At least we do not know much about spiritual life other than that. Ok, I feel the need to be fair. I should not have included all of you in that blanket indictment. I just know I do not know that much of any real value that I have not learned from Jesus. Sometimes he teaches me through the Bible, sometimes through other people or things those people have written. Sometimes He teaches me directly through the Holy Spirit speaking to my spirit. However it happens, if I learn, I am a disciple--and so are you.

I wonder if you also have the same problem I do thinking about all Jesus might want me to do. I do not know how much that is or how great those things are, but I am pretty sure it is more than I am doing now. In any event, having my ministry compared to Jesus' ministry always leaves me feeling as though I am coming up a little short. I wonder if that might be part of the reason Jesus chose the men He chose to be His first disciples? They were uneducated and untrained men. That is what the religious leaders of the day said. But they also took note of the fact those men had been with Jesus. (Acts 4:13) Maybe if Jesus is just too high a standard for us to reach, we can at least relate to fishermen, tax collectors, and other ordinary men.

One can get all the spiritual and religious education that is necessary to do most ministry without ever darkening the door of a Bible college or seminary. One can also end up holding some pretty ridiculous ideas when he learns theology in a vacuum as it were, without the benefit of people wiser and more experienced than himself. By way of illustration of this, perhaps the most ridiculous idea we ever heard is that the original King James Bible is the onlyEnglish version God has approved. As proof, the man who told us that opened to the first page of his King James Bible where it said, "Authorized Version." Talk about deception. He actually believed God, rather than King James of England had authorized that version. We might as well go on to another subject. There does not seem to be much else we can say about that.

Looking back at those verses from Isaiah 61, and taking a step back to get the bigger picture, we can see Jesus' ministry is all about putting things right in people's lives. He came to bring the Gospel (good news) to those who needed some. He came to heal physical and emotional hurts and to free those who were in bondage. Maybe most importantly, He came to show us that with His coming, all that began. All that began. Twice should be enough to say that. We are not awaiting some day in the future to see Jesus work His love, miracles and healings. He is doing it now. He began to do it when He started His earthly ministry. He is doing it now through His Holy Spirit anointed Church. There are some religious traditions that leave the ministry of the Holy Spirit only within the pages of the Bible. The adherents of those traditions actually believe the gifts of the Holy Spirit ceased to be necessary when the Bible was completed. That is just silly. (I could go on, but I dare not lest I never finish this post.)

Now listen, get this straight in your thinking. Although all three members of the Trinity, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit work together, there is only one of them that carries the majority of the work on earth in any period of time. The Father was the one who worked from the creation until Jesus, the Son, began His ministry. Jesus ministered for a little over three years. By His own words, we know He turned the ministry over to the Holy Spirit when He returned to His place at the right hand of the Father. (John 16:7)



The Holy Spirit has been constantly at work on the earth since Jesus returned to heaven. He works behind the scenes as it were. His job is to glorify Jesus, convict the world of sin, righteousness, and judgement, and to lead us into all truth. (John 16:8-14)

The apostle Peter, in explaining God's plan of salvation tells us that, "...God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and with power..." (Acts 10:38) Sometimes the prepositions can help us understand the concepts in the Bible. In this case, "with" indicates the Holy Spirit is the substance of the anointing. The ability, the power, to do the works comes along with the Holy Spirit. This can be a little confusing, but the Holy Spirit is what Jesus was anointed with, while power is what was observed as a result of that anointing. In this case, the power was Jesus' ability for "...doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil..." (Acts 10:38) Wait, you get more.

The apostle Paul tells us, "Now He who establishes us with you in Christ and has anointed us is God." (1 Corinthians 1:21) Hang on now. The clear teaching, when we put these two verses together, is the same God who anointed Jesus has also anointed us. That almost sounds too good to be true. It is not. All we have to do is add one more verse from the apostle John and we know we are anointed. "But the anointing which you have received from Him abides in you..." (1 John 2:27) Notice that we have already been anointed. That applies to everyone who has made Jesus Lord of his or her life. No exceptions.

To put the bow on this package, a quick recap is in order. We learned the anointing breaks the yoke of bondage. The anointing was given to Jesus. We were also anointed with Him and by Him to carry out His work on earth. That means we have all the ability Jesus had to do the things He did while he walked the earth in flesh and blood. The anointing that gave Him that ability was the Holy Spirit. We have also been anointed with the same Holy Spirit. About all we can say to end this is that we all have the ability to work the works we are called to. All we need to do is to go do them. Whatever God has called you to do, just do it.

The Work of God

Sometimes we get it right. Sometimes we get it wrong. That applies to all of us who tread this sod in human form. God never gives ministry to people who always get it right. Nobody does. Let the record reflect: I am not as smart as you probably think I am. My IQ tests put me a couple steps above average and I have a fairly good memory for things I consider important, although it is not nearly as good as it used to be. Still, at family gatherings, I look at several people, including my own children, who are smarter than I am. By the way, for the record, I live right here in this skin. I am not all that impressed. I am just a guy doing my best to do what I am supposed to be doing. There is one thing I do better than most that makes people think I am smarter than I am--and I can only wish I did it better than I do.


The inter-working of the spirit, soul, and body has long been an area of interest to me and is a specialty in my teaching. We have discussed that before. (The Image of God--Spirit, Soul, Body 6-14-09) I claim some level of expertise in that area. It is because of this expertise that I feel fairly comfortable saying, I seem to have an above average ability to function out of my spirit rather than out of my soul. That is strictly an observation on my part and admittedly subject to personal bias. Nonetheless, living in the spirit is something I aspire to do more and to do better, and it is my considered opinion that you should too.


Functioning out of the spirit is foreign to the human nature. As with most things in the kingdom of God, what we think to do, feel to do, know to do, and will to do are almost exactly opposite from what we should be doing. King Solomon recognized this concept when he wrote, "There is a way that seems right to a man, But its end is the way of death." (Proverbs 14:12) What we think, feel, and do out of our human nature will always be wrong. That is why it is imperative that we think, feel, and do as Jesus would. He was our perfect example of how to live life on this earth, and He operated out of His spirit through the power of the Holy Spirit. Of course, it also did not hurt that He did not have to deal with a sin nature every day.


Most Christians, it seems, think they operate out of their spirits, but most do not. There are a couple axioms that will help in determining how effectively we are operating out of our spirits besides the one from Proverbs mentioned above. The first axiom is that believing is seeing. In our minds, seeing is believing. The word for this is counterintuitive. That means it seems backwards to our intellect (soul). The second axiom is that the physical world is the real world. In fact, the spiritual world affects everything that happens in the physical world. That is not some sort of mystical, or religious science concept, it is simply fact. The enormity of the ramifications of this second axiom are impossible to overestimate. (I know. I actually wrote that sentence in such a way that most people would have to stop and think about it after reading it more than once.) That means if we really understand the second axiom, the benefits to us are huge.


When we understand the physical world is subject to the spiritual world we understand we need to do things differently. One example of this is that we would never try to hoard the resources God puts into our hands. The Bible is full of instructions to give. The great verse we see almost every Sunday of football season in the endzone is the ultimate example of this principle. John 3:16 tells us that God loved the world so much that He gave His only Son, Jesus. Jesus did not hold onto His equality with God, but gave it up to go to the cross for us. (Ph. 2:6-8) God gave His Son. The Son gave His life. We have not begun to touch that level of giving.



I remember shortly before Christmas in 1979 I was ushering at church, probably for a Sunday morning service. One of the men I was working with asked me how I was doing, you know, one of those polite, friendly questions. My answer became a revelation from God to me. I listened to myself say, "I am great! This is my first Christmas with a son." It instantly became very real to me what God had done in giving His Son. I am not giving up my son. (I actually have a word from the Lord that I will not have to give up my son. That is another story.) Do not misunderstand me here. I love my girls. I am not giving them away either, but in that moment I really knew what God had done. Ok so I already gave two of my daughters to husbands, but I told every one at the wedding receptions the daughters and still mine and now I have more sons as well.


The Bible tells us why God gave His Son. He did it because He made the laws by which the universe is governed. One of them says whatever is given will be multiplied and given back. It is called the Law of Sowing and Reaping. Because it is a law it always works. God applied this law in giving His Son because He wanted more sons. There was no way for us to be born again and be sons of God (rather than being just His creations) until Jesus submitted Himself and became the sacrifice for our sins. If one accepts the Law of Sowing and Reaping, he does not even need to be spiritual to understand this. Simply apply logic and we see God giving, Jesus dying (giving His life), people being born again and becoming sons of God.


"...now we are the children of God," the apostle John says, "and it has not yet been revealed what we shall be, but we know that when He is revealed, we shall be like Him..." (1 John 3:2) That sounds a little oblique. What does it mean anyway? Perhaps it is not the whole answer, but Jesus has been revealed to us, so at least part of the answer has to be that we are to work the works of God on the earth while we are here. He did say we would do the works He did. (John 14:12) There is also a future element here which is the usual interpretation. Jesus is coming back and our mortal bodies will be changed. Then we will be doing the same work He is doing somewhere else.

This is sort of sounding like the previous post. Suppose we leave this one right about here and start doing whatever it is the Lord is calling us to do individually.