Things Revealed

As for you, the anointing you received from him remains in you, and you do not need anyone to teach you. But as his anointing teaches you about all things and as that anointing is real, not counterfeit—just as it has taught you, remain in him.

1 John 2: 27

Where have we heard this before? And why do we need to be reminded that the anointing we received when we became believers “remains” in us? Because we are mere mortals. Born again, but from worldly stock. Some of us forget names seconds after introductions. Others forget important dates and appointments. And many forget that they have been transformed—filled with the power of God to do great and mighty things, forgiven for past transgressions and equipped in all ways to fulfill God’s call on their lives.

The anointing is for a purpose. One purpose is to bring us into intimate relationship with God himself, to know his love and fellowship. Another is to equip us deep within so we can step out in faith with holy confidence.

John says we received the anointing (an infilling of the Holy Spirit; the oil of God; gifting and equipping; the act of having been chosen by God). He says that it remains in us. When called to step up and step out in faith and speak the word of the Lord to friends or family, our first thoughts are often that we are not qualified. And rather than risk embarrassment, we remain silent. So John reminds us we are qualified because the anointing remains in us. No one has to teach us about it, because the anointing—the Holy Spirit—teaches us about all things. And it’s not just wishful or positive thinking, but the very power of God. Only, we must remain in him. (Jesus himself proclaimed: “Remain in me, and I will remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me.”)

Paul put it this way: “He has made us competent as ministers of a new covenant—not of the letter but of the Spirit; for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life.”

And even before Jesus walked the earth, God’s radical plan was to pour out his anointing on our lives. It was prophet Jeremiah who told us what to expect:

'The time is coming,' declares the LORD, 'when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah. It will not be like the covenant I made with their forefathers when I took them by the hand to lead them out of Egypt, because they broke my covenant, though I was a husband to them,' declares the LORD.

'This is the covenant I will make with the house of Israel after that time,' declares the LORD. 'I will put my law in their minds and write it on their hearts. I will be their God, and they will be my people. No longer will a man teach his neighbor, or a man his brother, saying, "Know the LORD," because they will all know me, from the least of them to the greatest,' declares the LORD. 'For I will forgive their wickedness and will remember their sins no more.'

Jeremiah 31: 31-34

(Is this word just for Israel? Not according to Paul, who tells us in Romans that the Jews are the natural branch (the original covenant people of God) while the Gentiles are the wild branch that has been grafted in. Which means both believing Jews and Gentiles are the new covenant people of God.)

Since the Garden, God has been reminding us that he provides everything as we abide (remain) in him. But like Adam, it’s in our nature to wander away and forget what we have been given and what we have learned. In fact, much of the Bible is the history of people walking away from God and forgetting what he has done. Many knowingly. Others unaware that they had even strayed.

Maybe it’s time to get our bearings again. Do we remember that we are anointed? Are we moving in it? Are we hearing the voice of God?

If not, we need to ask, Why not?

The anointing remains in you, even if you've forgotten about it. Let the Spirit of God show you where you are and just how far you’ve wandered. Then change your direction, remember the anointing and take your rightful place as competent ministers of the new covenant.

Leave these men alone! Let them go! For if their purpose or activity is of human origin, it will fail. But if it is from God, you will not be able to stop these men; you will only find yourselves fighting against God.

Acts 6:38

These were the words of Rabbi Gamaliel to the Sanhedrin after Peter and the apostles were arrested for preaching the word. The members of the Sanhedrin wanted to put them to death, but Gamaliel cautioned restraint: “consider carefully what you intend to do to these men.” Since Gamaliel was highly honored, they heeded his words. The apostles were flogged instead, and freed with a warning “not to speak in the name of Jesus.” As for heeding that warning, Acts says this about the apostles: “Day after day...they never stopped teaching and proclaiming the good news that Jesus is the Christ.”

So much for derailing God’s plan.

Jesus said, "Many are called but few are chosen.” In fact, the call of Jesus is for the restoration of all mankind. Our response to that call is one of the rare instances in life when we actually choose ourselves. Sadly, few do, so few are chosen. But for those of us who raise our hands or hearts to the Lord, for those of us who exercise our right to become “children of God,” we receive "the Spirit of sonship" and become “heirs of God and co-heirs of Christ.” From that moment on we no longer walk alone or only in our own strength. And what we share with others—the good news that Jesus is the Christ—is more than mere words; it is the word of life infused with the power of God Almighty.

Gamaliel understood something we need to lay hold of. If what we do for God, or rather, what we think we are doing for God, is of human origin, it will fail. If we share the word to be noticed, to get recognition or to get credit from God, we will accomplish nothing. In the same way, if our motivation is to be seen as different or holy or somehow better than those around us, we will accomplish little that lasts. Worse, because our motivations are never as concealed as we think, we will likely harden the hearts of those who hear us because our words will be eclipsed by our motives. All they will see is more of the world.

But if we love God and are committed to pleasing him, we will share with others out of the overflow of our hearts. Whatever that leads us to say or do, no matter how inadequate we think our understanding or delivery, they will hear and see something supernatural. Something uniquely different. Something unstoppable. For as Gamaliel explained to the unbelieving Sanhedrin, “if it is from God, you will not be able to stop [them]; you will only find yourselves fighting against God.”

As for those who try to stop us, don’t take it to heart or make it personal. Their opposition is not our fight. That battle belongs to the Lord. Let them fight against God.

And isn’t that really the point? To draw them into a fight with God (who says “come now, let us reason together”), then trust that the Lord of Hosts will bring them to the point of surrender, death and new life in Christ Jesus. To the place where to lose is to win.

There’s no stopping God.

And there’s no stopping us if our purpose or activity is from him.

When Jacob awoke from his sleep, he thought, “Surely the Lord is in this place and I was not aware of it.”

Genesis 28:16

Life is full of peaks and valleys. There are times of trouble and tears and times of testing and triumph. But for better or worse, the uncertain road into the future rarely announces a curve in the road, a steep incline or a sudden drop off.

For believers, life is full of even higher peaks and lower valleys. Nothing is more profound or exciting than an encounter with the living God. There is no higher high. But when God is silent and we cannot discern his leading or presence, we become profoundly aware of his absence. Having known the riches of God’s presence, his silence can test the limits of our faith and endurance. We pray. We wait. We press in and keep doing the things we’re called to do. But in those quiet times—often very long times—it seems like we are completely on our own.

A day of feeling alone is bad enough. A few months of it is trying. A few years of it is life altering. Look at the people of Israel in Egypt. At Moses. At Joseph, Mary's husband. It’s in those long periods of waiting that God is most mysterious. And challenging. For it's during those very times that doubt and hope battle for supremacy in our hearts and minds.

Like all of us, Jacob was on a journey. Somewhere along the way he reached “a certain place.” He had a dream there. In it, he saw angels of God ascending and descending a stairway reaching from earth to heaven. Above it all stood the Lord, who said, “I am with you and will watch over you wherever you go...” When Jacob awoke, he thought “Surely the Lord is in this place, and I was not aware of it.” Then, when the awesomeness of where he was struck him, he realized, “This is none other than the house of God; this is the gate of heaven.”

Wherever we’re heading, there is a certain place along the way where God is just waiting to reveal himself. None can know where or when he will do it, but we can proceed with the knowledge that he wants to demonstrate his power. In fact, God has said to all of us, “I am with you always, to the very end of the age,” almost the exact same thing he said to Jacob. Knowing God is with us means he is every place we are. It also means we live every moment at the edge of the miraculous—because God likes to move through our testimony, through our witness and through our willingness to step out in faith and prayer. That’s how the lost get saved, the sick get healed and the gates of heaven swing open to receive God’s prodigal children.

We are the gatekeepers in the house of the Lord.

God’s certain place may be in a restaurant with a waiter, your place in line with a cashier or on the phone with a wrong number. And, like Jacob, you are unaware what God has planned. When the gates of heaven swing open, you may be the one pushing on them.

God’s power is made perfect in our weakness. What better time for him to move then when we are exhausted from the wait and from the battle for our hearts and minds. It’s not a question of being beaten, but of being surrendered.

God loves to bless the battle weary. It shows those entering the gate that it was he, not us, who made the way. And it reminds us that apart from him, we can do nothing.

The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much.

James 5:16

There’s a line that we cross when we become believers in Jesus Christ. Our general sense that there is a God and a heaven gives way to a realization—a revelation—that Jesus is God incarnate and the Kingdom of God is real. And with that revelation comes another: We are not God. More than that, we cannot become God. There is no "God within” to discover and no getting in touch with our own divinity, because we have none. There is rather, a God to recognize, to receive and to get to know intimately. The problem is that he is not like us.

Most people, even believers, have a tendency to make God in their own image, even though God said “Let us make man in our image, in our likeness...” When looking at world history, current events or our own troubles and losses, we frequently judge God’s performance based on outcome. If things work out, God is taking care of business in much the way we would if we were God. If they don’t work out, we wonder about God's motives: Why would he allow our financial losses, marriages to fall apart or the injustice of a child dying? In the last hundred years alone, how could he permit 6 million Jews to perish in concentration camps, 20 million to die in the Soviet Gulag and tens of thousands to be killed by terrorists who murder at will without concern for God’s wrath or vengeance, and worse, seemingly without consequences. He could have prevented all of it.

But the God of Heaven and Earth who was God yesterday when things were going fine, is the same God today and will remain God tomorrow when things are not so fine. To those who are confused and perplexed he declares, "my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways...As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.” That doesn’t mean we stop trying to understand him. It means we can never understand him completely.

Yet as baffled and sometimes disappointed as we are by his mysterious ways, we are still made in his image, empowered by his Holy Spirit and set apart for his purposes. And among his purposes are that we be a people of prayer. A people who trust that God hears and answers our prayers, even when the answers are not to our liking. Just as we trust that God hears us even when our prayers are not to his liking.

Look at James and John.

When Jesus was not welcomed in the Samaritan Village, James and John, who were still figuring out their part in God’s work in the earth (like most of us), asked, “Lord, do you want us to call fire down from heaven to destroy them?” It says that Jesus “turned and rebuked them.” That wasn’t the answer they were looking for, but then their's wasn’t the prayer he was looking for.

Now look at Abraham: When the Lord made known to him what he was about to do to Sodom and Gomorrah (probably the inspiration for the prayers of James and John), “Abraham approached him and said: ‘Will you sweep away the righteous with the wicked? What if there are fifty righteous people in the city? Will you really sweep it away and not spare the place for the sake of the fifty righteous people in it?’” And in their conversation (prayer), the Lord accepted Abraham’s proposals again and again as Abraham sought mercy for Lot and his family, to the point that God answered, “For the sake of ten, I will not destroy it.” Unfortunately, even among Lot’s extended family, ten were not to be found and the cities were destroyed.

Moses approached God in much the same way. When the Lord’s anger burned against Israel for making and worshipping the golden calf, he told Moses: “your people” have become corrupt. “Now leave me alone so that my anger may burn against them and that I may destroy them. Then I will make you into a great nation.” Rather than yield to the inevitability of the Lord’s wrath and accept his great-nation proposal, Moses interceded for the people of Israel. He reminded God that they were “your people,” that he had delivered them from slavery and that the Egyptians would say it was his plan to kill them all along. And he finished with this plea: “Turn from your fierce anger; relent and do not bring disaster on your people.” It says “Then the Lord relented and did not bring on his people the disaster he had threatened.”

Such is the power of the effectual fervent prayer of a "righteous man." Abraham was a righteous man. He didn’t save the city, but his prayers saved Lot. Moses was a righteous man. His prayers didn’t save those who worshipped the calf and indulged in their every lust, but they saved the rest of God’s people and his brother Aaron.

If you are a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ, you are a righteous man or woman. The word says “God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.” We might not always have the right prayers, but when we do we move in the power of God. And we always have the right to petition the King. More than that, among the lost and a world cast adrift, we have an obligation to petition the King. This is how the Lord put it to Solomon:

[I]f my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and will heal their land.

2 Chronicles 7:14

The world may not have a prayer, but we do.

Pray for the lost. Pray for this nation. Pray for the peace of Jerusalem. Pray for healing. Pray for revelation. Pray for renewal. Pray for revival. “And pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests.”

The effectual fervent prayers of a righteous man availath much. But only if he prays.