The Spirit of the LORD is on Me, because He has anointed Me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to release the oppressed, to proclaim the year of the LORD’s favor. Luke 4:18-19.
Today your LORD (יהוה) God (אלהים) says:
After Jesus had spent time with Me in the wilderness, forty days and nights with His attention entirely on Me, like I had done with Moses on Mt. Sinai to prepare him to speak My Words to the people, to do My works among the people, to be the intercessor for the people, to be a prophet to the people, and to be the leader of the people with the government resting on his shoulders, and My Son was then fully equipped to save My people. And Moses prophesied about My Son: “The LORD said to me, ‘They have spoken well. I will raise up a prophet from among their countrymen like you, and I will put My words in his mouth, and he shall speak to them all that I command him. It shall come about that whoever will not listen to My words which he shall speak in My name, I Myself will require it of him.” Deuteronomy 18:17-19.
In that time with Me in the wilderness, Jesus became strong in who He was, why I sent Him, and His mission. But above all He knew how beloved He was of Me. That we are One since everlasting. And He found Himself in Scripture, as you all can as well. He was ready to explain Me everywhere He went and to be Me to others. He knew why He came and from where He came.
Jesus, knowing that the Father had given all things into His hands, and that He had come forth from God and was going back to God, got up from supper, and laid aside His garments; and taking a towel, He girded Himself. Then He poured water into the basin, and began to wash the disciples’ feet and to wipe them with the towel with which He was girded. John 13:3-4.
And He once told the questioning Jewish leaders, saying He alone could not testify as to who He was, that is, that He was My Son, but Jesus had My testimony to Him as well, so He had the answer:
Jesus answered and said to them, “Even if I testify about Myself, My testimony is true, for I know where I came from and where I am going; but you do not know where I come from or where I am going. You judge according to the flesh; I am not judging anyone. But even if I do judge, My judgment is true; for I am not alone in it, but I and the Father who sent Me. Even in your law it has been written that the testimony of two witnesses is true. I am He who testifies about Myself, and the Father who sent Me testifies about Me.” John 8:16-18.
He came to serve you and Me. He came to pay the ransom for all of you to Me. He came to undo the works the devil had done in taking away My children and tormenting you and all the world. He came to do My Will and it prospered in His hands. Isaiah 53:10. He came to set the captives free and make the blind to see. But before He was ready to do that with the strength from on High, He had to know I was there for Him. “Father, into your hands I commend My Spirit.”
So Jesus said, “When you lift up the Son of Man, then you will know that I AM, and I do nothing on My own initiative, but I speak these things as the Father taught Me. And He who sent Me is with Me; He has not left Me alone, for I always do the things that are pleasing to Him.” John 8:28-29.
Jesus knew why He was there.
Now I am going to ask you a question, “Why are you here?” Answer Me as best you can at this moment. Why are you where you are at this moment?
Some may say it is because of a job they took from what they studied and made their profession. Another may say to study at a particular school. Another might say because of whom they married. Others may say to escape a bad situation. But those are not the answers I am seeking, they are temporal, though they are important at this moment, especially if you are living in a sinful situation or immoral relationship you need to leave to keep My Words. But think deeper, for this question goes to your very existence, to your life itself. So think again.
I asked Elijah, as he ran in fear from Jezebel, “What are you doing here?” I knew well what he was doing but I wanted him to analyze it so he could have revelation and take responsibility and thus be ready for the solution. I asked Adam where he was after he sinned and hid himself from Me. I knew where he was and why he was there, but he needed to search his own heart and repent to be of a new mindset.
So let Me ask you again, “Why are you here?” And you may have located the answer in your heart and in My Word which made you and brought you to be, but here is your answer: You are here, you exist, you were born, you were planned, for Me. I am the one who brought you into being and I did so because I particularly and specifically wanted you to be. So the correct answer is, “I am here for You, LORD.” And that is why you are here and that is why you are.
And now you ask Me the same question about Myself, “Why are You here?” And My answer is the same, “I AM here for you.”
I sum it up in a song to you, it is the Song of Songs, and it is a love song right in the middle of the Bible and in that song there is the bride (you individually who believe and you corporately as a member of the body of Christ, the Church) and the bridegroom (Jesus and Me, for we are One). And the bride calls the bridegroom, “My Beloved.” So what is your part to say? “I AM MY BELOVED’S AND MY BELOVED IS MINE.” Song of Songs 6:3. And I can say it to you as well.
Jesus told you this, “The glory which You have given Me I have given to them, that they may be one, just as We are one; I in them and You in Me, that they may be perfected in unity, so that the world may know that You sent Me, and loved them, even as You have loved Me. John 17:22-23.
Jesus came to earth and lived among you on a mission, a mission from Me. And what is that mission? The Mission is pure love. I sanctified you in Him in the beauty of holiness. Love heals, love cleanses and purifies, love nourishes, love sets free, and love raises up. Love is jubilee—all debts cancelled and all slaves set free.
Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself up for her, so that He might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, that He might present to Himself the church in all her glory, having no spot or wrinkle or any such thing; but that she would be holy and blameless. So husbands ought also to love their own wives as their own bodies. He who loves his own wife loves himself; for no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ also does the church, because we are members of His body. For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and shall be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh. This mystery is great; but I am speaking with reference to Christ and the church. Ephesians 5:25-32.
After His experience in the wilderness and His victory over the temptations of Satan, Jesus returned to Galilee in the power of the Spirit and news about Him spread through all the surrounding district. He began teaching in the synagogues and thus He came to the synagogue in Nazareth, where He had been reared. He was ready to share with His own people who had seen Him grow in wisdom and grace, who had experienced His purity and goodness, the good news He had to give them. It was time for them to know Him for who He really was, their Messiah, Savior and Lord. The One who was sent. Shiloh. The lion of the tribe of Judah foretold by Jacob and the Lamb I provided for the burnt offering foretold by Abraham. The anointed foretold by the prophet Isaiah had now stepped out of the written Word to become the Word incarnate, fulfilled right before their eyes.
As was His custom, for He had grown up in Nazareth and knew the synagogue well, He entered the synagogue on the Sabbath, and stood up to read. And the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was handed to Him. And He opened the scroll and found the place where it was written, “The Spirit of the Lord LORD is upon Me, because He anointed Me to preach the gospel to the poor. He has sent Me to heal the broken hearted, 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 rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant, and sat down; and the eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on Him. He had their attention because He read it with personal authority. That was His mission and it was about Him written over seven hundred years before the day He read it to them. And He began to say to them, “Today this Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.” Luke 4:14-21; Isaiah 61:1-2.
What do you see from His mission statement there in Nazareth that He never swerved from to the right or the left? For He knew His mission meant the difference to all between eternal life and eternal death. HE HAD COME TO BRING THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN TO EARTH.
He had come to open the gates again that had slammed shut to you when Adam and Eve were evicted and shut out of the Garden of Eden. They had lived under an open Heaven, but sin had shut those gates. Jesus is the gate. He is the way, the truth, and the life. He was your new and living way back to an open Heaven. Back to the tree of life.
That day after He read His mission statement in His town of Nazareth, they rejected Him and tried to kill Him by throwing Him over the brow of the hill. But it was not time yet for His death until all was fulfilled that He came on His mission for Me and you to do. So I hid Him in the secret place under the shadow of My hand and he walked right through their midst without being harmed. Read Psalm 91 and you will understand, and know that I will do the same for you if you do what I tell you to do in that Psalm.
After He left Nazareth, He and Mary went to live in Capernaum, which is by the sea, in the region of Zebulun and Naphtali. This was to fulfill what was another prophecy spoken through Isaiah “The land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali, by the way of the sea, beyond the Jordan, Galilee of the Gentiles—the people who living in darkness have seen a great Light, and those who were living in a land of the shadow of death, upon them a Light dawned.” And from that time Jesus began to preach and say, “Repent, and believe in the good news, for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand.” Matthew 4:13-17; Mark 1:15.
Repent. Metanoia. It means to completely change your mindset, that is, your focus and orientation. It is time to start seeing things in the spirit by faith and not only setting your mind on the flesh and walking only by physical sight and your five senses. There is much more than that. The mind set on the flesh is death and fear of death, for the flesh is going to perish. But the mind set on the spirit is life and peace, for your spirit is eternal and will live forever. The flesh is in a hurry to grab everything it desires for it knows its time is brief, but the spirit has forever and all things are yours who believe in My Son.
Let us look again at the mission statement of Jesus prophesied by Isaiah. It begins, “The Spirit of Adonai Yahavah is upon Me, because He has anointed Me.” Look again. By whom was Jesus anointed? By the Holy Spirit who is referred to both as My Spirit and the Spirit of Jesus. So hence in Isaiah’s prophecy you see both Adonai and Yahavah mentioned, as we are One. But it is clear that the Holy Spirit anointed Jesus as a priest forever in accordance with the Holy Spirit’s own priesthood. The priest of the Most High, Melchizedek is the Holy Spirit. You are not used to seeing Him in that form but that is how He appeared to Abraham and how He speaks to the Churches in the Book of Revelation. And that is in the capacity in which He anointed Jesus. And the oil with which He anointed Jesus, and anoints all believers with, is the oil of joy.
And just as the anointing is your strength, so My joy is your strength as well for that is the anointing of the Spirit. And it is not by human power or might things are moved and created but by My Spirit in you and on you as well.
And in the next Life Lesson we will look more into the awesome mission of Jesus, which you are still walking in today, for where the Master is there will His servant be as well. Or should I say where your Head is, there His body will be?
I love you, walk worthy of the calling you have received. You have a journey to make and it should always be going forward and upward. On eagle’s wings.