In Matthew 12:28, the demons were cast out by the Spirit of God, the motive power source of the Kingdom. The Kingdom of God is empowered, enlarged and enforced by the activity of the Spirit of God. The Holy Spirit is in all that the Kingdom is in. He encompasses the Kingdom. He is inseparable from it but not the same as it. Where the Spirit is present the liberty of the rule of God is seen (2Cor 3:17). The King’s domain is made manifest by the working of the Spirit. Any one lead by Spirit will come into conflict with the other kingdom.
God has immediate & ultimate goals: salvation is not the ultimate goal of Christ’s coming! It was the intermediate target (without accomplishing redemption there was no hope of the ultimate goal). The ultimate goal was to form a people, a born again, citizenship of heaven, bringing the Kingdom upon the earth by means of the anointing of the Hoy Spirit. To prepare for Jesus ultimate return to bring a new heaven and a new earth.
What is the anointing? Anointing is the tangible expression of the Holy Spirit. Christ was not Jesus surname! Christ means the anointed one. Not sufficient that Jesus was sent to earth with a title. He had to receive and anointing coming to Him in an experience, if He was to accomplish His mission. Jesus had laid aside His powers and was only able to do what He did in power of the anointing. The anointing of the Spirit on Jesus started an intervention from heaven which still flows today. So by the Spirit the “kingdom of heaven is at hand” not just our destination but our present experience within arm’s reach!
Anointing means literally “to smear” or “to pour over”. Holy Spirit as anointing oil of God was smeared over Jesus at His baptism. Today the Holy Spirit wants to make Christians literally into little Christ – ones smeared with Holy Spirit. In the Old Testament people were anointed for priesthood, kingship and prophet-hood. We today are anointed to be prophets, priests and members of a royal kingdom.
So Jesus is committed to moving us out of our religious social comfort zones to embrace the religious radicalising of the Holy Spirit.
Spirit wants to shape us for His service not our convenience.
Spirit comes to take over not to take sides. Only acceptable control in Church is that of the Spirit.
Spirit takes us into the realms of imbalance. Balanced people are stuck.
Spirit has no commitment to not rocking our boat (storms are not always from the devil!).
Spirit has no commitment to maintain our current status-quo. The Spirit is committed to no other peace than His own.
Following the cloud of God’s presence today? Following Jesus means to follow the anointing, this is analogous to the Israelites having to follow the cloud in the desert. The cloud helped them to know Gods presence and direction. Moses said “don’t send us up unless you go with us”. The issue is how much value do we set upon the primacy of God’s presence? And how do we recognise it amongst us today?
Many Christians struggle to follow the leading of the Spirit because we tend to see Him in such a narrow spectrum of phenomena e.g. conviction feelings of peace or bringing a scripture to mind. We often have a small list of acceptable manifestations of the Spirit. Recognition of situations with the Holy Spirit’s fingerprints on them is essential if we don’t want to end up grieving, quenching or opposing the Spirit presence when He does something different from what we believe He should do! Wide spectrum Holy Spirit phenomena: shaking, groaning, laughing, roaring, dancing, goose bumps, up welling joy, up welling compassion, heat, fire, winds or breezes, mist, oil, aromas, gold dust, prophetic actions or movements, high praise shouts, light phenomena.
Fear of being deceived shows we have too small a God. Let us learn to trust that when Jesus offers us something it will be good for us and good for His Kingdom.
Andy Hall Associate Minister CCBN