ANOINTING BREAKS THE YOKE

 ANOINTING BREAKS THE YOKE - 01

The Lord Jesus is referred to as the Christ, implying that He is the anointed and He expressed and lived the title of the anointed,

"Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light." Matt 11:28-30NIV

The anointing is a bondage breaker and yoke destroyer. The anointing comes to set the people free. This agrees with this scripture,

It shall come to pass in that day That his burden will be taken away from your shoulder, And his yoke from your neck, And the yoke will be destroyed because of the anointing oil. Isa 10:27 NKJV

The anointing for stands 3 things for the Church;

It stands for the authority of the name of Jesus Christ. His name is anointed and exalted above every other name and at the mention of this name every other name or dimension of authority must bow. (Phil.2:9-11)

The anointing represents the mandate that is given to the Church to represent Jesus Christ on this earth. That is the Church is empowered and positioned by a divine fiat to act on the behalf of Jesus Christ. The Church can speak and do things in His behalf and this is the right of every individual member of the Church. It is also a collective responsibility on the Church leadership on earth. This is what is known as the authority of the believers.

Thirdly, the anointing represents the presence of the Holy Spirit on the individual members of the Body of Christ. The Holy Spirit is often represented as oil and it is the oil of lubrication for the renewal of the Body of Christ in the area of healing, revival, transformation and unbinding rusted organs in the body of every child of God. (Rom. 8:11). The same way that lubricating oil can release rusted nuts in engines and machines, the anointing power of the holy Spirit can generate healing and renewal in the organic body.

The anointing has the power to lift the burden of depression, demonic oppression and the rust of curses that create difficulties on the part of those who would come to the Lord Jesus Christ.

Jesus Christ said that we will have to come…(Matt. 11:28). If we feel and recognize our need for deliverance and release from demons, sin and evil habits that are destroying our lives, He asks us to come. We are supposed to approach and open ourselves up for the oil or the anointing to flow into our lives.

For the anointing to flow into our lives, there are three very important spiritual factors every child of God needs and none of them is less important than the rest.

Prayer

The word of God

The anointing for the miraculous

But Jesus often withdrew to lonely places and prayed. One day as he was teaching, Pharisees and teachers of the law, who had come from every village of Galilee and from Judea and Jerusalem, were sitting there. And the power of the Lord was present for him to heal the sick. Luke 5:16-17NIV

The Lord read and studied the word of God as we all should. It was recorded that at about the age of 12 that He stayed back in the temple just to interact with those who taught Him the word of God. It was from what He was taught and read on His own that He taught others. (Luke. 2:46-47). There should be a deliberate effort on our side to study the word of God in the bible.

We can receive God’s word by reading the bible and other inspired books on our own. Listening to video and audio messages and sitting under sound teachers of the word of God are other sources of the word of God. Through the word of God, we can develop our faith to an effective dimension (Rom.10:17). It is important that every child of God should have a good knowledge of the basic truths of God’s word. The word of God is the Lord Jesus Christ Himself. (John. 1:1-2). There is power in God’s word.

However, quality time spent in secret prayers is the hidden generator of the miracles that accompanied the earthly ministry of the Lord. Take note of the clause, “But Jesus often withdrew..” (Luke. 5:16). It was His habit. It was in the place of prayer that He received the empowerment of the Holy Spirit for the great things and deliverances that His ministry was known for. If the miracles will continue to flow, then He must continue to find time to withdraw to a lonely place for the purpose of prayers.

Take note also, “Lonely places..”. This proves that no matter what city or whose home He found Himself, He still managed to search out a lonely place for the purpose of His private prayer.

Maybe this will answer the question for some people, “When I was coming up as a young believer, I used to witness the manifestation of God’s power and the miraculous in my life and ministry, but now I do not see them anymore. Why is it so?”

I can tell you by my personal experience that as a young believer, my heart was set on one thing; God and the pursuit of His presence. As I grew older, I started getting distracted by my pursuit of some men and women who I believed knew more about God or with whom I hoped to receive some favor to help me in life. It was not long before I began to spend lesser time in prayer and fasting. I soon began to worry about my life instead of living in a daily surrender to the Holy Spirit. When this happened, the regular refilling of the power of the Holy Spirit began to diminish and so also was the manifestation of His power.

In some cases, we begin to replace the time we spend in prayer and God’s word with religious activities and sacraments. It is very clear from the bible that no religious sacrament will take the place of the power of God and this power will not be generated just because you have fulfilled any religious sacrament or obligation. This is very evident from the earthly life of Our Lord Jesus Christ.

As soon as Jesus was baptized, he went up out of the water. At that moment heaven was opened, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and lighting on him. And a voice from heaven said, "This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased." Then Jesus was led by the Spirit into the desert to be tempted by the devil. After fasting forty days and forty nights, he was hungry. Matt 3:16-4:2 NIV

Take note that He was baptized in water, but that did not take the place of the infilling of the Holy Spirit. He was filled with the Holy Spirit but the infilling of the Holy Spirit did not automatically imply the available power for effective Christian life and ministry. The beautiful thing is that once the Holy Spirit took hold of Him (as should be the case for everyone of us), He led Jesus Christ to the place of prayer in the wilderness. The place of prayer is the place of another dimension of empowerment to prepare Him for the exploit that would later accompany His ministry. The devil, as should be expected, joined Him there in the wilderness just to tempt and possibly derail His purpose. The devil knows how important prayer is in your life and he will do everything to discourage you from visiting there often.

It was after He had spent time in the place of fasting and prayers that we read,

Jesus returned to Galilee in the power of the Spirit, Luke 4:14NIV

Luke 5:16 says that it was not a onetime thing, rather He often withdrew to lonely places to pray. For many believers, they are still flaunting that one and first time they fasted as the ground for their expectation of God’s power. Some evil boast that they enjoy the power of God without following the footsteps of the Lord Jesus Christ.

This is where lazy Christians have a serious problem because lazy people cannot pray more than the brief sacramental prayers of meal time, bed time and opening prayers for fellowship meetings. The result is that they cannot connect to the kind of power that can cause a major shift in the spirit. So, they look for cheap and easy sources of power; they go to mystic shops to buy items like anointing oil to make people to fall on the ground, salve to drop in their eyes so they can see in the spirit or they follow the usual pattern of Simon the sorcerer where they give an anointed person money so he could give them some of the ability to perform miracles (Act. 8:18-19). If he has some money, he could arrange and pay some people to fake miracles; some charlatans step up in his programs and claim that they got miracles while he prayed for them. All these because he was too lazy to get up from his bed early in the morning or late at night to stand up in the place of private prayer. On the last count, he will begin to argue that there are no more miracles today because they do not happen in his church or ministry. Anyone who has lived all his life at the creek will also argue that planes do not reach the ground.

There are those who have risen lately to say that all we need to do is to teach the people the word of God, and they add that if the people know the word of God, that would be OK for them. Our main text said that the Lord was teaching them the word of God but that was not all of it; it further said that the power of God was present. (Luke 5:17).

It is important that you take a special note of the reason for the presence of the power of God; the power of God was present to heal the sick. Initially there was no one in that meeting that expressed the need for the available healing anointing but it was not long when they noticed the movement in the roof and some desperate fellows laid their friend right in front of the Lord. Thank God that the power was available and the teachings of the Lord was not empty of power. The sick man got healed immediately.

Glory to God.

The Apostle Paul said about his ministry;

When I came to you, brothers, I did not come with eloquence or superior wisdom as I proclaimed to you the testimony about God. For I resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ and him crucified. I came to you in weakness and fear, and with much trembling. My message and my preaching were not with wise and persuasive words, but with a demonstration of the Spirit's power, so that your faith might not rest on men's wisdom, but on God's power. 1 Cor 2:1-5NIV

Take note of. “A demonstration of the Spirit’s power”; it was evident and visible to those who were in his meetings. If the anointing is there, it is there; if it is not there, then it is not there. If you have any doubt about how he acquired this kind of power, read the place the Lord introduced Paul to another servant of God.

The Lord told him, "Go to the house of Judas on Straight Street and ask for a man from Tarsus named Saul, for he is praying. Acts 9:11NIV

“He is praying!”

I have seen some men who claim to be students of the teachings of Paul but they are not people of prayer; they are just talkers. Paul was a man of prayer. Peter was a man of prayer and you will never find any person who functioned under genuine anointing power who does not spend quality time in prayer.

In Acts chapters 9 and 10, we saw that Paul and Peter, both received revelation for the next level of their calling and ministry while they were in their different places of prayer.

Prayer generates the power of the anointing on the believer.

Prayer generates power of the anointing on the word of God.

Prayer generates the power of the anointing for the manifestation of the gifts and fruits of the Holy Spirit.

Without prayer the word of God is mere letters and somewhere the Lord said that letters without the anointing is poisonous.

The presence of the anointing will break every kind of yoke.

To be continued.

Emma your brother pnurnigeria@gmail.com