“The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me because He anointed Me to preach the gospel to the poor. He has sent Me to proclaim release to the captives, and recovery of sight to the blind, to set free those who are oppressed, to proclaim the favorable year of the Lord.” And He closed the book, gave it back to the attendant and sat down; and the eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on Him. And He began to say to them, “Today this Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.” (Luke 4:18-19 NASB 1995)
Jesus went into Galilee and proclaimed the gospel of God. He said, “The time is fulfilled and the kingdom of God is near. Repent and believe the gospel!” (Mark 1:14, 15 NET)
And you will perish, too, unless you repent of your sins and turn to God.” (Luke 13:3, 5 -New Living Translation)
Jesus preached the message of healing, deliverance, AND repentance! That is the gospel or good news. It was not a message of sadness, poverty, weakness, sickness, powerlessness, and acceptance of sin and darkness.
Why am I mentioning these things as I am here? The woke, sissified, and powerless churches preach and teach being nice, neighborly, and acceptance of people's sinful lifestyles. They believe that will attract people to their churches. It's true that some people want a weak and sissified, tight jeans, soy-latte "gospel" preacher that never challenges them and NEVER calls on a manifestation of God's power to heal, deliver, prosper, and to convict people of their sin. THAT, is NOT the gospel of Jesus and those are not God's ministers!
The gospel goes and brings people to repentance and salvation, but also to healing, divine protection, and deliverance!
What would Jesus do? The same thing He told us to do IN HIS NAME!
He sent out the twelve:
Then He called His twelve disciples together and gave them power and authority over all demons, and to cure diseases. He sent them to preach the kingdom of God and to heal the sick. (Matthew 9:1, 2 NET)
He then sent out the 70:
After these things the Lord appointed [a]seventy others also, and sent them two by two before His face into every city and place where He Himself was about to go... And heal the sick there, and say to them, ‘The kingdom of God has come near to you.’ (Matthew 10:1, 9 NET)
Then, He told the church, ALL His followers, what to do:
15 And He said to them, “Go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature. 16 He who believes and is baptized will be saved; but he who does not believe will be condemned. 17 And these signs will follow those who believe: In My name they will cast out demons; they will speak with new tongues; 18 they will take up serpents; and if they drink anything deadly, it will by no means hurt them; they will lay hands on the sick, and they will recover.” (Mark 16:15-18 NKJV)
That is the manifestation of God's power and the anointing to set the captives free!
We MUST get this straight in our thinking. Jesus was always results, actions, or works oriented. He states to each of the 7 churches in Revelation chapters 2 and 3, "I know your works." (Revelation 2:2, 9, 13, 19, 3:1, 8, 15) He never said, "I know what you believe" but what they were doing for the kingdom of God. What they DID was proof of what they believed. What you and I do are proof of what we believe!
Each of those churches started with the salvation of the Lord and a day of Pentecost, Holy Spirit and fire experience. They were also ministering the miraculous. Read Acts chapters 2 through 19 and see it for yourself. Many coming to Jesus, being miraculously healed, and gloriously delivered, it what vividly marks those chapters. Yes, the Word is taught and preached consistently, but not without POWER in manifestation. (1 Corinthians 2:4)
Acts 19 is the powerful story of how the church at Ephesus began and continued for years as a beacon of the Word AND the miraculous. Somewhere along the line, they started to lose ground because they lost their first love of preaching the Word, getting people saved and baptized in the Holy Spirit and speaking in tongues, and ministering healing and deliverance. They were warned by the Lord Jesus to go back to their first love as demonstrated in Acts 19:1-20. Did you know that the "mega" church of Ephesus lost their light and anointing historically and diminished until noth
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