Luke 4 – We have been anointed…

I am just back home from being away in Romania for two weeks on a missions team. While I was out there my friend found a few verses that he felt were speaking to him very strongly. Since I have been back home I have also had these verses on my heart, so I want to explore them and see what God wants to teach us from them. The verses are from Luke 4:18-19.

“The Spirit of the Lord is on me,
because he has anointed me
to proclaim good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners
and recovery of sight for the blind,
to set the oppressed free,
to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favour.”

The context of these verses is that Jesus is in the synagogue in Nazareth on the Sabbath and he quotes the above verses which are found in Isaiah 58 and 61. He then goes on to say in verse 21 that these verses have been fulfilled today in your hearing. These verses refer to Jesus being filled with the Holy Spirit and anointed to tell people the good news, to free the captives, to restore the sight of the blind and to proclaim the year or the Lord’s favour. In Luke 3 Jesus is baptised by John the Baptist and as he is being baptised the Holy Spirit comes and rests upon him. By quoting these verses Jesus was revealing himself to be the Messiah. We know from the rest of the gospels that Jesus did indeed fulfil this prophecy through all his teaching, miracles and parables.

God has been challenging me since I’ve read this that these verses are not just for Jesus but are actually for us. I believe that God wants us to put ourselves in that passage of scripture. In this passage I believe God is telling us, his followers, that the Spirit of the Lord is upon us and we, me and you,  have been anointed to preach the good news, set the captives free, heal the sick and proclaim the year of the Lords favour. Other passages in the New Testament would back this thought up and I will go through some of them now.

In Acts 2 the followers of Jesus are filled with the Holy Spirit at Pentecost. We as Christians, followers of Christ, have the Holy Spirit living within us, and that is the same Holy Spirit that came upon the followers of Jesus at Pentecost. From this we know that the Spirit of the Lord is upon us today if we are followers of Christ.

In Matthew 28 Jesus gives his followers the Great Commission, to go into all the world; tell people about God, baptise them in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit and to teach them to obey Gods commandments. This passage tells us that we have been appointed and anointed by God to preach the good news and set the captives free etc… Anointed simply means ‘set apart for the purposes of God’. We as followers of Christ have been set apart from the world to fulfil the Great Commission. Christians are called to seek God’s Kingdom first above everything else in this life. In Galatians 2:20 it says “I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me”. This is the same for all Christians. When we made the choice to follow God and accept salvation we died to our old selfish life and now live for the purposes of God’s Kingdom. We gave up all our own rights in order to serve God.

I believe that the year of the Lord’s favour can be used to describe the present time at which we live. We as followers of Christ are in a season where God’s Holy Spirit is evidently on the move, especially within Ireland. God’s Kingdom is coming to Ireland and he wants His followers to proclaim His coming and prepare the people of this land for the coming of His Kingdom. We are coming into a season in Ireland where we are going to witness first hand the miracles we read about in the New Testament. We are going to see a greater number of salvation’s, greater numbers of healings, people released from slavery and all the other miraculous signs and wonders we have read about in the Bible.

THIS PASSAGE FROM LUKE 4 IS FOR JESUS FOLLOWERS TODAY!!! God has anointed us and empowered us through the Holy Spirit to preach the good news, set the captives free, heal the sick, release the oppressed and proclaim the year of the Lord’s favour in Ireland and around the world.

If you are a Christian don’t settle for living a normal everyday life but instead live a life of miracles like the early apostles and disciples. Jesus didn’t die just to save you from your sin but to transform your life so that you could live a supernatural life and bring His Kingdom to earth.

I hope this has encouraged and blessed you. 🙂