THE SHAPE-SHIFTING ANOINTING

The Essence of God not only understands where we are, it challenges us to be where we need to be. Love affirms us, shifts us, and reminds us that God has more for our life. God is providently up to something. He is spiritually shifting us. Stop whining about what happens, because shifts happen. Know that God is sending this word as confirmation to tell you that you are about to walk in the greatest seasons of your life. This will be a season where God will silence your enemies. This will be a season that God will blow your mind. Eyes have not seen, nor ears heard, nor has it entered into the hearts of men the things he has in store for your life. You are here at the right time and right place. The shifts that will occur in your life are inevitable. The shifts are going to happen with you or without you and you ought to make up in your mind that you are going to be where God wants you to be. We are not going to miss the shift.

 We are God’s greatest creation, yet we fail to know it. God is about to bring about a harvest that is about to blow our mind. He is going to replenish you. You planted in the winter and you stayed faithful and kept serving him and now God says he is about to bring about a harvest that is about to blow your mind. What is ahead is better than what’s been. Your sickest days are behind you! Your broke-est days are behind you! God is about to shift you!
There are people that don’t realize that this shift has nothing to do with the physical calendar. This shift is so profound, you can be in another place and people around you might not even notice that you have shifted. You don’t respond to the same things you used to. Things that used to impress you, doesn’t impress you anymore. It is Spring time in the spirit. You about to walk into the greatest manifestation you have ever gone through before. Get ready for new ideas and new growth. Shift Happens!

AMAZING GRACE

Soar back through all your own experiences. Think of how the Lord has led you in the wilderness and has fed and clothed you every day. How God has borne with your ill manners, and put up with all your murmurings and all your longings after the ‘sensual pleasures of Egypt!’ Think of how the Lord’s grace has been sufficient for you in all your troubles.

I do not come  hoping that perhaps somebody will of his own free will return to Christ. My hope lies in another quarter. I hope that my Master will lay hold of some of them and say, “You are mine, and you shall be mine. I claim you for myself.” My hope arises from the freeness of grace, and not from the freedom of the will.

In Gods case, if He had said in the infinite sovereignty of His absolute will, “I will have no substitute, but each man shall suffer for himself, he who sinneth shall die,” none could have murmured. It was grace, and only grace which led the divine mind to say, “I will accept of a substitute. There shall be a vicarious suffering; and My vengeance shall be content, and My mercy shall be gratified.”

CONQUEST BY LOVE

Satan is ever seeking to inject that poison into our hearts to distrust God’s goodness – especially in connection with his commandments. That is what really lies behind all evil, lusting and disobedience. A discontent with our position and portion, a craving from something which God has wisely held from us. Reject any suggestion that God is unduly severe with you. Resist with the utmost abhorrence anything that causes you to doubt God’s love and his lovingkindness toward you. Allow nothing to make you question the Father’s love for his child.

Grieve not the Christ of God, who redeems us; and remember that we grieve Him most when we will not let Him pour His love upon us, but turn a sullen, unresponsive unbelief towards His pleading grace, as some glacier shuts out the sunshine from the mountainside with its thick-ribbed ice.If I belittle those whom I am called to serve, talk of their weak points in contrast perhaps with what I think of as my strong points; if I adopt a superior attitude, forgetting “Who made thee to differ? and what hast thou that thou hast not received?” then I know nothing of Calvary love.

If I do not look with eyes of hope on all in whom there is even a faint beginning, as our Lord did when, just after His disciples has wrangled about which of them should be accounted the greatest, He softened His rebuke with those heart-melting words, “Ye are they which continue with Me in my temptations,” then I know nothing of Calvary love.If I am afraid to speak the truth lest I lose affection, or lest the one concerned should say, “You do not understand”, or because I fear to lose my reputation for kindness; if I put my own good name before the other’s highest good, then I know nothing of Calvary love.

LOVE CONQUERS ALL

To worship God in truth is further to admit that we are entirely contrary to Him, and that He is willing to make us like Himself if we desire it. Who will be so imprudent as to turn himself away, even for a moment, from the reverence, love, service and continual adoration which we most justly owe Him?

If I do not look with eyes of hope on all in whom there is even a faint beginning, as our Lord did when, just after His disciples has wrangled about which of them should be accounted the greatest, He softened His rebuke with those heart-melting words, “Ye are they which continue with Me in my temptations,” then I know nothing of Calvary love.

If I cannot hear “The sound of rain’ long before the rain falls, and then go out to some hilltop of the Spirit, as near to my God as I can and have faith to wait there with my face between my knees, though six times or sixty times I am told “There is nothing’, till at last there arises a little cloud out of the sea, then I know nothing of Calvary love.

GRACE CHANGES EVERYTHING

The word “grace” in its special Christian sense refers to the freedom of salvation in Jesus Christ. As used by Paul in particular, the word underscores the fact that salvation is freely given by God to undeserving sinners. This is its central meaning; it also has other meanings, some of them peripheral to the NT message of salvation.

The Greek term is cháris, a common word in secular Greek. The LXX uses cháristo translate OT Hebrew terms that often bear only a faint suggestion of the Pauline sense of cháris. NT writers other than Paul use the term, sometimes in a sense similar to Paul’s, but none uses it consistently with its central Christian meaning, and a few do not use it at all. Once the Pauline sense of the word is grasped, however, we can recognize all the saving acts of God as acts of grace, even when the word is not used. Our primary objective will be to examine the uses of the word cháris in the Bible; but it must be kept in mind that, in the light of its most pregnant meaning, the reality of grace appears clearly wherever God is revealed in His redeeming purposes and actions as the God who saves freely, without obligation and without regard for merit.

To be risen with Christ means not only that one has a choice and that one may live by a higher law – the law of grace and love – but that one must do so. The first obligation of the Christian is to maintain their freedom from all superstitions, all blind taboos and religious formalities, indeed from all empty forms of legalism. The whole Christian life is a life in which the further a person progresses, the more he has to depend directly on God. The more we progress, the less we are self-sufficient. The more we progress, the poorer we get so that the man who has progressed most, is totally poor – he has to depend directly on God. He’s got nothing left in himself.

Grace is of a stirring nature, and not such a dead thing, like an image, which you may lock up in a chest, and none shall know what God you worship. No, grace will show itself; it will walk with you into all places and companies; it will buy with you, and sell for you; it will have a hand in all your enterprises.s a man, looking steadfastly on a dial, cannot perceive the shadow move at all, yet viewing it after a while, he shall perceive that it hath moved; so, in the hearing of the Word, but especially in the receiving of the Lord’s supper, a man may judge even his own faith, and other graces of God, to be little or nothing increased, neither can he perceive the motion of God’s Spirit in him at that time; yet by the fruits and effects thereof, he shall afterward perceive that God’s Spirit hath little by little wrought greater faith and other graces in him.

SPIRITUAL WARFARE

There are two primary errors when it comes to spiritual warfare—over-emphasis and under-emphasis. Some blame every sin, every conflict, and every problem on demons that need to be cast out. Others completely ignore the spiritual realm and the fact that the Bible tells us our battle is against spiritual powers. The key to successful spiritual warfare is finding the biblical balance. Jesus sometimes cast demons out of people; other times He healed people with no mention of the demonic. The apostle Paul instructs Christians to wage war against the sin in themselves and warns us to oppose the schemes of the devil 

Ephesians says, “Finally, be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power. Put on the full armor of God so that you can take your stand against the devil’s schemes. For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.” This text teaches some crucial truths: we can only stand strong in the Lord’s power, it is God’s armor that protects us, and our battle is ultimately against spiritual forces of evil in the world.

Eph 6:13 is a description of the spiritual armour God gives us. We are to stand firm with the belt of truth, the breastplate of righteousness, the gospel of peace, the shield of faith, the helmet of salvation, the sword of the Spirit, and by praying in the Spirit. What do these pieces of spiritual armor represent in spiritual warfare? We are to know the truth, believe the truth, and speak the truth. We are to rest in the fact that we are declared righteous because of Christ’s sacrifice for us. We are to proclaim the gospel no matter how much resistance we face. We are not to waver in our faith, trusting God’s promises no matter how strongly we are attacked. Our ultimate defense is the assurance we have of our salvation, an assurance that no spiritual force can take away. Our offensive weapon is the Word of God, not our own opinions and feelings. And we are to pray in the power of the holy spirit. 

Jesus is our ultimate example of resisting temptation in spiritual warfare. Observe how Jesus handled direct attacks from Satan when He was tempted in the wilderness . Each temptation was combatted with the words “it is written.” The Word of the living God is the most powerful weapon against the temptations of the devil. “I have hidden your word in my heart that I might not sin against you”.

A word of caution concerning spiritual warfare is in order. Nowhere in Scripture are we instructed to cast out demons or even to speak to them. The name of Jesus is not a magic incantation that causes demons to flee from before us. The seven sons of sceva are an example of what can happen when people presume an authority they have not been given. Even Michael the archangel did not rebuke Satan in his own power but said, “The Lord rebuke you!” . When we start talking to the devil, we run the risk of being led astray as Eve was ). Our focus should be on God, not demons; we speak to Him, not them.

In summary, what are the keys to success in spiritual warfare? We rely on God’s power, not our own. We put on the whole armor of God. We draw on the power of Scripture—the Word of God is the Spirit’s sword. We pray in perseverance and holiness, making our appeal to God. We stand firm; we submit to God; we resist the devil’s work , knowing that the Lord of hosts is our protector. “Truly he is my rock and my salvation; he is my fortress, I will never be shaken”.

THE PROPHETIC

The most urgent need of the modern church is for the restoration of the prophetic ministry. In recent years the gift of prophecy has been rediscovered, but there is still a desperate shortage of prophets. The church will not come to true maturity until God has raised up prophets among his people.

Unfortunately, the purpose of the prophetic ministry has caused a great deal of disagreement in the church. Some writers have suggested that the role of the OT prophets ended with the cross. They suggest that the New Testament prophets are limited to encouragement and exhortation. This view turns prophets into Good News Guys

Many church leaders fear the prophetic. They are happy for prophetic people to give personal words to people during church services, but want the leadership of the church to be immune from any prophetic challenge. This has truncated an important ministry and weakened the church. The quality of the prophets is critical for building the church on a solid foundation (Eph 2:20), so we need to understand how the ministry of Jesus changed the role of the prophets.

 

THE ANOINTING

The origin of anointing was from a practice of shepherds. Lice and other insects would often get into the wool of sheep, and when they got near the sheep’s head, they could burrow into the sheep’s ears and kill the sheep. So, ancient shepherds poured oil on the sheep’s head. This made the wool slippery, making it impossible for insects to get near the sheep’s ears because the insects would slide off. From this, anointing became symbolic of blessing, protection, and empowerment.

The New Testament Greek words for “anoint” are chrio, which means “to smear or rub with oil” and, by implication, “to consecrate for office or religious service”; and aleipho, which means “to anoint.” In Bible times, people were anointed with oil to signify God’s blessing or call on that person’s life (Exodus 29:7; Exodus 40:9;2 Kings 9:6; Ecclesiastes 9:8; James 5:14). A person was anointed for a special purpose—to be a king, to be a prophet, to be a builder, etc. There is nothing wrong with anointing a person with oil today. We just have to make sure that the purpose of anointing is in agreement with Scripture. Anointing should not be viewed as a “magic potion.” The oil itself does not have any power. It is only God who can anoint a person for a specific purpose. If we use oil, it is only a symbol of what God is doing.

Another meaning for the word anointed is “chosen one.” The Bible says that Jesus Christ was anointed by God with the Holy Spirit to spread the Good News and free those who have been held captive by sin (Luke 4:18-19;Acts 10:38). After Christ left the earth, He gave us the gift of the Holy Spirit (John 14:16). Now all Christians are anointed, chosen for a specific purpose in furthering God’s Kingdom (1 John 2:20). “Now He who establishes us with you in Christ and has anointed us is God, who also has sealed us and given us the Spirit in our hearts as a guarantee” (2 Corinthians 1:21-22).

BROKEN BY SIN

At the very moment when the pulpit has fallen strangely silent about sin, fiction can talk of little except evil, not indeed viewed as sin, but apparently as the invariable ways of a peculiarly repulsive insect, which it can’t help, poor thing; and there is no manner of use expecting anything from it, except the nastiness natural to it.At the very moment when the pulpit has fallen strangely silent about sin, fiction can talk of little except evil, not indeed viewed as sin, but apparently as the invariable ways of a peculiarly repulsive insect, which it can’t help, poor thing; and there is no manner of use expecting anything from it, except the nastiness natural to it.

We are sinners simply because we choose to sin or live selfishly. We are never held accountable for what we are not the author of. Ability is always the measure of responsibility. God has given us the ability to direct our lives, either according to intelligence in recognition of our obligation to God and our fellowmen, or according to selfishness and unintelligence in the supreme seeking of our own happiness.

GODS CHOICE FOR YOU

Nobody wants somebody who wants them for what they have or the position they’re in–you want somebody who wants you for you. In case it all goes crazy and it all turns to dust. I want somebody who loves me in the welfare line, eating gumbo, eating fish,black eyed peas and rice. I want somebody that loves me. God wants you to love him, not his cars, not his house, not his blessing–love him

Your life and my life flow into each other as wave flows into wave, and unless there is peace and joy and freedom for you, there can be no real peace or joy or freedom for me. To see reality–not as we expect it to be but as it is–is to see that unless we live for each other and in and through each other, we do not really live very satisfactorily; that there can really be life only where there really is, in just this sense, love.

We should take heed with whom we join in league and amity. Before we plant our affections, consider the persons what they are; if we see any signs of grace, then it is good; but if not there will be a rent. Throughout our whole life this ought to be our rule; we should labour in all company either to do good or receive good; and where we can neither do nor receive good we should avoid such acquaintance. Let men therefore consider and take heed how they stand in combination with any wicked persons.

There are some men and some women in whose company we are always at our best. While with them we cannot think mean thoughts or speak ungenerous words. Their mere presence is elevation, purification, sanctity. All the best stops in our nature are drawn out by their intercourse, and we find a music in our souls that was never there before.