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 ANOINTED FOR MISSION AND MINISTRY

In John 20:21 Jesus states clearly that as the Father had sent Him, He was sending His disciples. That promise and command given by Jesus was not just for those in that room the evening after He rose from the dead. It is for all followers of Jesus Christ down through the ages.

Being fully God and fully man, Jesus became the Messiah when, being baptized by John, the Holy Spirit came down and anointed Him for mission and ministry. Messiah means “anointed one.” Jesus Christ was conceived by the Holy Spirit and born of the Virgin Mary and then anointed with the Holy Spirit and power for His mission and ministry.

We are born of the Holy Spirit when in repentance we believe Jesus and surrender our whole lives to His Lordship. We are then to be baptized in the Holy Spirit, anointed for mission and ministry as well. The Holy Spirit, dwelling in followers of Jesus, lives in them the resurrection Life of Jesus Christ. We must be born of the Spirit and then anointed by the Spirit.

Jesus told His followers whom He had already made into new creations when He breathed on them saying, “Receive the Holy Spirit.” that they were to be clothed with power from on High. Being new creations with a new Life, they were going to need the Holy Spirit’s power to live that new life.

Peter, on the Day of Pentecost when the Holy Spirit came upon the 120 gathered followers of Jesus empowering them to live the new life they had received, made an amazing claim about God’s promise. He said that people must repent of their sin, turn to God, be identified with Jesus in His death and resurrection through baptism and they would receive the gift, the anointing of the Holy Spirit JUST AS the 120 had received. Peter states that this promise was for those present that day, their children and as many as God would ever call. That means ALL followers of Jesus Christ are meant to receive that anointing, that release of the Holy Spirit for mission and ministry.

It is in surrendering all of life to the ongoing work of life-transformation by the Holy Spirit’s power that the church extends the Kingdom of God in this age. The Holy spirit, the Sovereign Lord, does not partially indwell the believer. He comes to live fully in the life surrendered to Him. His Life in us makes us part of the Body of Christ. One would expect that IF the church IS the Body of Christ, then the life and ministry lived out through the church would look like the Life, mission and ministry of Jesus Christ that we can read in the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.

Jesus doesn’t “partially” live His life in His followers; He lives His full life in them transforming them, guiding them, correcting them, empowering them to do His will, His way. Together, as His church, His Body on earth, He means to demonstrate and manifest the Kingdom of God through us as He did in His earthly ministry.

Since Jesus Christ is the same yesterday today, and forever, we should never lower our expectations that somehow the church is just meant to limp on through history with mere word and not the demonstration of the Holy Spirit and God’s power. Our faith is never meant to just be grounded in human oratory, but in the power of God.




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