Luke 4:18 "The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me [Jesus], because He has anointed Me to announce the gospel to the poor; He has sent Me to proclaim release to the captives, and recovery of sight to the blind, to send away in release those who are oppressed, (19) To proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord, the year of jubilee." Acts 10:38 Jesus, the One from Nazareth, how God anointed Him with the Holy Spirit and with power, who went about doing good and healing all those who were being oppressed by the devil, for God was with Him.
God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and with power before the Lord Jesus went about doing good and healing those who were oppressed by the devil. God anointed Him with ointment. What is this ointment? It is the Holy Spirit, and it is also power. It is very wonderful and precious that the Holy Spirit is ointment on us and power to others. To others the Holy Spirit is experienced as power, whereas on us, it is ointment. Whenever the ointment is on us, those who come in contact with us will touch power. If we are separated before the Lord, spontaneously we will be power to others. Power is not first but second. If the problem of consecration before God is settled, spontaneously the question of power to others is settled. Whenever there is a problem with consecration (or, in other words, with separation), there is a problem with power, and there is a problem with the work. Anointing brings in spontaneous power. In learning to serve God, we often come across a fact: when we are going to speak, if we are doing it for God, the anointing will be upon us. We will not need to speak strenuously or painstakingly, for we are conscious of the presence of the anointing upon us. Our words may be rather common and simple, yet we become stronger as we speak and feel the presence of the anointing. When we feel this, others will sense the presence of power. At other times we may also speak, but we feel like a deflated tire; we do not feel that there is any sense in our talking, and others do not sense the presence of power. Herein lies the difference: with the anointing there is power; without the anointing there is no power. The anointing is refreshing to us and power to others.
Bible verses are taken from the Recovery Version of the Bible and Words of Ministry from Watchman Nee, General Messages, Vol. 37, in The Collected Works of Watchman Nee, pp. 32-33. Both are published by Living Stream Ministry, Anaheim, CA. Please visit us at www.emanna.com. Send comments to: [email protected].
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