The Ananias Anointing

The Scripture indicates that in the middle of his High Priest sanctioned rampage against the early Church, Saul of Tarsus had a supernatural encounter with the resurrected Jesus (Acts 9).  Falling down from the overwhelming force of God’s glory, Saul exclaimed, “Who are you, Lord?” The Lord replied, “I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting.” Saul, now blind and infirmed, was taken into the city of Damascus to receive care.

The Lord then came to a man named Ananias in a vision and commanded him to go to Saul of Tarsus and lay hands on him that he might be healed and be filled with the Holy Spirit.  Despite the threats Saul had made and his notorious track record of persecuting, arresting, and even affirming the execution of Christians, Ananias, whose name means “to be gracious and to show favor,” honored the call of God and went to Saul because the Lord had great plans for Saul of Tarsus. Jesus called him his chosen instrument to preach to the gentiles and to their kings.

The Ananias type of believer, or the Ananias anointing, is desperately needed in the day we live.  Like Ananias with Saul, they help to restore to God what was previously lost, allow God to use them to bring healing to those that are afflicted, help God’s people get filled with the Holy Spirit, and help raise people up for God’s service and glory. We need more individuals in the body of Christ who, like Ananias, will be dispensers of God’s grace and favor, refusing to pay attention to the anti-supernaturalist and cessationist who deny the present day ministry of the Holy Spirit.

How can you become an Ananias in this critical hour in Church history? First, you must yourself be born again and filled with the Spirit. You cannot impart what you do not possess. Second, you must be tuned in to the realm of the spirit so that you can pick up on the signals of the Holy Spirit’s direction.  Notice Ananias was told to go specifically to the house of Judas in Damascus on Straight Street where he would find a praying Saul who had a vision Ananias would come to him. Third, you must be fearless in the face of the ominous threat and intimidation so prevalent in the world today against Christians.  It’s not that Ananias didn’t feel afraid. He simply refused to be ruled by that emotion. Fourth, you must be obedient and simply go.  It’s amazing how often Jesus uses that simple command.  Finally, you must be deliberate to carry out the details of your assignment, including the who, the what, and the where.

When Ananias placed his hands on Saul he was filled with the Holy Spirit, healed of his blindness, received water baptism, and began to eat and regain his strength. The Lord is in need of bold believers just like Ananias to share the resurrected Jesus with the lost, confused, religious, bound up, and hurting of our world.  He has sovereignly chosen to use people to lead people to salvation, Spirit baptism, deliverance, and healing.  Ask the Lord Jesus to send you, and don’t be surprised when he says, “Go!”

Contagious by Association

People influence one another for good or bad simply by being around each other.  Every person we come in contact with is both making and receiving a unique positive or negative impartation.  As we connect with people we are bestowing and conferring on others what is operating in our lives in abundance, and they are bestowing and conferring upon us what is operating in their lives in abundance.

Moses, for example, was told to lay his hands on Joshua so that an impartation of wisdom, authority, and honor could be made into his life.  Similarly, Elisha received a double portion of the anointing when Elijah graced him with his cloak.  Paul indicated that his special grace of divine protection and deliverance was available to his partners in ministry who prayed for him and supported his ministry endeavors.  In other words, we catch what people have, not what they simply say or want us to catch.  We don’t catch the mumps from someone who has the measles.

We all have something to impart, and we all have something that can be imparted into our lives from others.  They key is to be careful who we connect with, associate with, and align with because we all will imbibe or absorb, assimilate, and take in the spirit of our connections and associations, good or bad.  The Bible says, “iron sharpens iron” (Proverbs 27:17), and “bad company corrupts good character” (1 Corinthians 15:33).  We must be mindful of who we are giving the privilege of speaking into and influencing our lives.

Some people impart love, mercy, graciousness, positivity, and gratitude into our lives.  Others infect us with cynicism, dishonor, negativity, and compromise.  The Scripture plainly teaches we will know them by their fruit (Matthew 7:16).  Learn to guard your heart from being influenced by people who have little or no good fruit in their lives.  Are they faithful to the local church?  Do they faithfully participate in ministry?  Do they give faithfully?  Do they share their faith and invite people to church?  Do they actively walk in love, practice mercy, and control their tongue?  If not, be careful connecting with them because you will start to manifest what they have been manifesting.  You may just need to quarantine yourself from people like that unless and until they start showing signs of life and positive impartation.

The key is to make sure we are imparting life to others while maintaining diligence over what we are exposed to ourselves.  The reality is that we are all extremely contagious and we infect others with our spirit, our spirituality, our attitude, our thinking, and our behavior.  Let’s make sure our associations result in positive impartation for ourselves and others with the result that we get stronger as believers, grow in maturity, and become more effective as witnesses of Jesus Christ.

Trump, Clinton, and The Cyrus Effect

Like many God-fearing believers around the country, I have struggled to make sense out of this election cycle. After suffering the radical progressive policies of the past 8 years, I long for someone to take the helm of this great nation who has the spiritual and leadership credentials to bring restoration, healing, security, and prosperity back to our country (you know, someone with the moral and spiritual depth and maturity of a Billy Graham mixed with the economic, policy, and communication prowess of a Ronald Reagan).  After a long and contentious primary season that feels like Alice in Wonderland, we seem to be left with Tweedledee on the right and Tweedledum on the left.

I realize there are some Christians and Christian leaders who will exhort us all to just preach Jesus and stay out of the political arena altogether, but that position is out of sync with our nation’s history and inconsistent with God’s demonstrated concern for the nations as indicated in the prophecies to the nations in Isaiah. No, God is very much concerned with the governance of nations and He uses the nations throughout time as instruments of his purpose and plan.  I believe He still has a great plan for our country. The truth is we have a Scriptural, moral, and civic responsibility to participate and not in a LBJ IRS amendment “churches keep your mouths shut kind of way.”  We as Christians are citizens of the United States and we did not forfeit our citizenship or constitutional rights when we joined a church or accepted the call into the ministry.  We simply cannot stick our heads in the sand while our national fabric is unraveling, our country is being drained morally and financially, our future is being held hostage, and our people are being slaughtered around the world with no clear champion to defend them.

Between 597 B.C. and 581 B.C. the Jewish people were exiled to be held captives in Babylon where they cried out to Almighty God for their deliverance: “By the rivers of Babylon we sat and wept when we remembered Zion” (Psalm 137:1).  If you were to gather the rulers and elders of Israel together in that captive place and asked them what their deliverer from captivity would look like, I’m sure they would be thinking of a Moses or a David like historical and biblical figure to execute that deliverance. Shockingly, Isaiah prophesied that Israel’s help would come from a total pagan ruler, Cyrus, and worse yet, God would have the audacity to use messianic terms to describe him: “This is what the Lord says to his anointed, to Cyrus, whose right hand I take hold of to subdue nations before him…so that you may know that I am the Lord, the God of Israel, who summons you by name.  For the sake of Jacob my servant, of Israel my chosen…though you do not acknowledge me” (Isaiah 45:1-5). Cyrus came to power 170 years after the prophecy, captured Babylon in 539 B.C. and two years later decreed Israel’s return to their homeland, the rebuilding of the temple, and that the treasury of Cyrus would pay the bill (2 Chronicles 36; Ezra 1).

I mentioned to my sister back in January of 2016 that I believed something is going on in this nation that transcends normal politics, political parties, and political alliances.  By the millions, born again Christians have been crying out to God on behalf of our nation for years, a country being held captive philosophically and spiritually. God’s dealings with man throughout history reveal one important lesson that may have some application to our nation’s current election cycle – we have the right and liberty to cry out for deliverance, but just like the Jewish leaders in Babylon, that does not mean we get to choose through whom that deliverance will come.  Too many Christians are looking for a president that would qualify for a deacon, Sunday school teacher (Jimmy Carter was a great Sunday school teacher), or pastor in their church forgetting that God’s ways are not our ways (Isaiah 55:9).  

I believe we are experiencing our own Cyrus moment in the United States this year.  My candidate of choice in the primary did not survive the process (and considering his behavior at the RNC I’m glad) so it looks like I have a choice between Tweedledee (Trump) and Tweedledum (Clinton).  Despite the misgivings and ambivalence I may have toward both candidates, the question is simply who is most likely to be an agent of that deliverance?  Who appears to have the favor of God?  To me, Tweedledum has demonstrated failed leadership as a Senator and Secretary of State, she holds policies and values that are completely contradictory to mine, and she does not possess a clear moral compass as indicated by the never-ending ethical issues.  Tweedledee, a recently born again believer, is a brash, blunt, bold, and successful businessman who lacks the polish and couth (but also lacking the veneer) of a seasoned politician, but says things that resonate with many disillusioned and alienated Americans.  

I have concluded during this election cycle given the enormous stakes, including the fact that the next president will most likely appoint as many as four Supreme Court justices, to put away my grocery list of likes and dislikes and attempt to discern God’s big picture agenda and his Cyrus for this moment in U.S. history.  At the risk, well, of alienating everyone, and although as distasteful to some Americans and Christians as Cyrus was no doubt to the Jews who benefited from his political, military, economic, and human rights policies, I believe the mantle of Cyrus is on Tweedledee during this turbulent and unprecedented election season as an agent of change, not based on his spiritual or political credentials, but based simply on God’s sense of humor, penchant for irony, the prayers of his people, and directional sovereignty. Of course, time will shortly tell.

 

 

The Spirit of Infirmity

“Now He was teaching in one of the synagogues on the Sabbath. And behold, there was a woman who had a spirit of infirmity eighteen years, and was bent over and could in no way raise  herself up.  But when Jesus saw her, He called  her  to  Him  and said to her,  ‘Woman, you are loosed from your  infirmity.’ And He laid  His hands on her, and immediately she was made straight, and glorified God. But the ruler of the synagogue answered with indignation, because Jesus had  healed on the Sabbath; and he said to the crowd, ‘There are six days on which men ought to work; therefore come and be healed on them, and  not on the Sabbath day.’ The Lord then answered him and said, ‘Hypocrite! Does not each one of you on the Sabbath loose his ox or donkey from the stall, and lead  it  away to water it? So ought not this woman,  being a daughter of Abraham, whom Satan has bound—think of it—for eighteen years, be loosed from this bond on the Sabbath?’ And when He said these things, all His adversaries were put to shame; and all the multitude rejoiced for all the glorious things that were  done by Him” (Luke 13:10-17, NKJV).

I love to read about the power, wisdom, and compassion of Jesus Christ when it comes up against religious tradition. In this simple story about a woman with a chronic back problem, Jesus forever takes the lid off to reveal who exactly is behind sickness and disease – Satan through the agency of a spirit of infirmity (demonic activity that produces chronic weakness, debilitation, or sickness mentally, emotionally, or physically). For many years, the enemy was able to lay the blame at God’s feet with even some of God’s servants and ministers beating the drum and bearing witness to a wrong conclusion about the nature and origin of sickness. But Jesus makes it plain: “…whom Satan has bound.” Acts 10:38 echoes this vital truth by revealing that God anointed Jesus with the Holy Spirit and power and went around doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil. The simple truth is that Satan comes to steal, kill, and destroy, but Jesus came that we might have life, to the full, until it overflows (John 10:10).

It’s laughable to think that the synagogue ruler would challenge the people to come on the normal six days of work to be healed instead of the Sabbath. It’s amusing (and sad) because all this time people ought to have received healing ministry during the rest of the week through the synagogue system (healing has always been the will of God and “the Lord that heals us” has always made provision for healing throughout both the Old and New Testaments). The truth is, however, that people started to get healed when Jesus came preaching the message of the blessing and restoration and then backed it up with supernatural power. This is precisely why the Scripture says that the Word of God is made void (robbed of its power) by the traditions of men (Matthew 15:6). This is a classic example of a religious leader twisting Scripture to serve his own agenda and protect his own insecurities. It is unthinkable that his position and prominence was more important than the spiritual welfare and restoration of the people he was charged to lead.

But Jesus takes the issue even further. He chides the rulers because hypocritically they would untie or unbind their animals to make sure they had life-sustaining water on the Sabbath but through their religious tradition impeded human beings – covenant children of God like Abraham who have healing as a benefit of that covenant – from partaking of God’s living water. That same spirit that we see now that demands the whales be saved while espousing the right to terminate unborn children has been in the world since the fall of man. Men, made in God’s image, are made inferior to animals and lands that were made by God for man both to enjoy and to steward.

A vital weapon the enemy uses to keep God’s people bound is ignorance – a lack of knowledge of the heart, nature, will, and power of God. Hosea 4:6 indicates that God’s people are destroyed for a lack of knowledge. No more. Jesus has blown the devil’s cover (and religion’s cover). Be encouraged that healing is part of the covenant blessing we share by faith (Galatians 3:13-14) and that, according to Jesus, covenant men and women of God OUGHT to be free from their bonds. Rejoice in the knowledge that there is no chain, no bondage, and no affliction that can stand up to the anointing released through faith in the name of Jesus. For whom the Son sets free is truly, free indeed – as free as Jesus is free (John 8:36).

The Anointing of Acceleration

“When evening came on, His disciples went down to the Lake. There they got on board a boat, and pushed off to cross the Lake to Capernaum. By this time it had become dark, and Jesus had not yet joined them. The Lake also was getting rough, because a strong wind was blowing. When, however, they had rowed three or four miles, they saw Jesus walking on the water and coming near the boat. They were terrified; but He called to them. ‘It is I,’ He said, ‘do not be afraid.’ Then they were willing to take Him on board; and in a moment the boat reached the shore at the point to which they were going” (John 6:16-21, Weymouth).

Sometimes our lives seem just like the disciples in their Sea of Galilee experience. We have a dream, a vision, or an objective but we don’t feel like we are making much progress. Darkness has set in and the path seems unclear and confusing. God seems distant even though we know that the Scripture says he never leaves us. Like the boat on the lake, strong winds of spiritual turbulence are blowing kicking up opposition and hindrances. Circumstances like rough waves one after the other are marshaled against us. Yet, what do we do? Like the disciples who traveled four miles to the middle of the lake, we have gone to far to turn back now. Just like the disciples, the spirit of fear is trying to move in to make the kill by telling us that God’s Word will not work for us, or that we are not going to get to our destination, or that the dream is dead.

The Scripture shows us that we can experience an altogether different outcome if we will apply some simple truths in the midst of our challenge. First, acknowledge him. Jesus said, “It is I,” to remind us that he has not abandoned us. Second, stop the fear. We have not been given the spirit of fear but a spirit of power, love, and a sound mind (2 Timothy 1:7). He boldly challenges us to trust him and come back to faith. Finally take him in. The Scripture teaches that the disciples agreed to let him in the boat. We need to agree to let him in the middle of our situation as well.

What happens next in this story is nothing short of amazing. John 6:21 says that “in a moment the boat reached the shore at the point to which they were going.” For years I’ve read that story to mean that they just sort of continued with Jesus in the boat rowing four more miles to the other side of the lake. But that’s not what the Scripture says. The Bible says (and backed by every major translation) that “in a moment” they made it to the other side. The NIV, KJV, and the NLT all say they made it “immediately” (the NLT placing an exclamation point for emphasis). The NCV declares they got there “at once.” The Message paraphrase says, “So they took him on board. In no time they reached land-the exact spot they were headed to.”

The Lord released what I have come to know as an “anointing of acceleration” in this situation to let us know that time is subject to him but he is not subject to time. I heard this phrase in my spirit many years ago when the Lord spoke to me about pouring out an anointing on my life that would bring acceleration or the speeding up of things that seemed to drag on or were slow to manifest. During the Pensacola revival back in 1995 the man of God hosting the meetings prophesied to me these words: “your life has been like a rubber band stretching out and then snapping back into place, but now it will be like a catapult covering a lot of ground very quickly.” To accelerate means to cause faster progress, development, advancement, or hastening. It means to change the velocity or rate of motion. It also means to reduce the time normally required for a certain activity.

Maybe you can relate to the feeling of pushing forward and then getting nowhere (just like the disciples), but I want you to know that the anointed one has a special ability to accelerate your life, your dreams, and your ministry just like he brought that boat the distance of four miles in a moment. Be encouraged that the anointing of acceleration is real and we will all see its full force and effect either by way of rapture or resurrection (“in a flash, in the twinkling of an eye”), but we don’t have to wait until then to experience a taste of it. Jesus employed this anointing for the purposes of accomplishing his will in the earth. It’s important to remember what this supernatural anointing can accomplish in your life. First, it will speed up your progress. Second, it will bring you to the exact place the Lord wants you to be (better than the best GPS system for accuracy). Finally, the anointing of acceleration will definitely make up for all that time lost in that “middle of the lake experience” where the darkness, sense of abandonment, opposition, circumstances, and fear tried to hold you back.

Take the Shot

Murray State University students and alumni in Murray and around the country continue to celebrate the stunning defeat of Vanderbilt in the first round of the NCAA Division I Tournament yesterday. Murray’s consistent and controlled game gave them a small lead after the first half. Vanderbilt rushed back in the second half and had a one point lead with 4.2 seconds left in the game. With only one second left on the clock, Danero Thomas made a 15-foot shot to take the game 66 to 65. According to Murray State’s coach, Billy Kennedy, Thomas was the third or fourth option. Kennedy commented, “It was a miracle play…It was just something I drew up, something that we’d never done before.”

I love the fact that MSU, the 2010 Ohio Valley Conference Champions, is once again playing in the tournament and took out a top seed to advance to the next round. I haven’t seen this much excitement over a MSU men’s basketball team since their stunning defeat of Jim Valvano’s NC State team back in the late 1980’s. I’ll never forget the look on Valvano’s face when he congratulated MSU’s coach after the game (who are you people anyway). But what makes this victory such an inspiration is the tenacity of the team, though visibly tired and spent, and the fact that the unlikely player saved the day. Stories like this should encourage all of us that we can make a difference too.

The Bible states that, “Brothers, think of what you were when you were called. Not many of you were wise by human standards; not many were influential; not many were of noble birth. But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong” (1 Corinthians 1:26-27, NIV). It doesn’t matter what we were or what we had done before the call to the “big dance” of service unto the Lord. It doesn’t matter that we were not voted most likely to succeed in high school or that we were undistinguished among other athletes (or even picked last for the team). The one God calls he also equips. The Lord anoints his people to accomplish his will and purposes in the earth. That anointing is God on flesh doing what flesh can’t do. “He puts his ability on our ability giving us the ability to do what we could not do before he put his ability on our ability” (thanks Creflo). He adds his super to our natural for supernatural or miraculous results (just like Danero’s 15-footer). So, when the Lord passes you the ball, and even though you are tired and more than a little intimidated, take the shot because there’s something on you. This could very well be God’s “for such a time as this” moment in your life.

Congratulations Danero, Coach Kennedy, and the entire Murray State University Racer team!