Date: March 27, 2013
To: The Body of Christ
From: Aldwin and Wendy Naruse
Subject: Our daily devotional journal
Re: The ministry of Isaiah 61:1
Bringing healing and freedom to those in bondage
“The Spirit of the Lord GOD is upon Me,
Because the LORD has anointed Me
To preach good tidings to the poor;
He has sent Me to heal the brokenhearted,
To proclaim liberty to the captives,
And the opening of the prison to those who are bound;” (Isaiah 61:1, NKJV, Nelson)
What this tells me is that Jesus has called us to mend those who are brokenhearted, expose darkness, open blind eyes, set captives free and proclaim the good news. Jesus is reaching out to them through our hands and feet. How will they know if we don’t tell them? How can we tell them unless we are sent? How can we be sent if we are not filled with the Holy Spirit?
What this means is that we NEED to be baptised and be filled with the Holy Spirit in order to be effective for the kingdom of God. Without the Holy Spirit, we can do nothing of value for the Lord Jesus Christ. Without the baptism of the Holy Spirit, we have no love, no power, no strength, no authority and no wisdom. We are merely operating in our own limitation.
What we are called to do is to bring comfort and deliverance to the least one of these and do this for the rest of our lives. The least one of these are those who are sick, hurting, in distress, oppressed or are troubled. Jesus loved the least one of these and always went out of His way to care for them. He showed us this in the Bible and He is still doing that today. What have we to gain by helping the least one of these? We get to see God glorified. We are serving Him. We
are walking the straight and narrow. We are working out our salvation. It has nothing to do with us or building our congregation or membership, but simply, we are doing it unto Him that He be glorified in what we say and do. We become His extension, His instrument to convey and express His love.
Jesus came as the great physician to heal the sick.
“When Jesus heard it, He said to them, “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners, to repentance.” (Mark 2:17, NKJV, Nelson)
When I was lost and dead in sin, Jesus came to me and mended my broken heart and my broken soul. He healed me and gave me new life. He gave me a new purpose. He showed me that I am called to do the same for others for the rest of my life. One way to show my love to God is to help His people. Jesus is all about fending for the poor, the blind, the lame, the lonely and the outcast. As Moses was called to lead the Israelites out of bondage from Egypt, we are called to minister to the immigrant Chinese people in Hawaii. Many are deep rooted in their culture. They are poor, wretched and blind to the god of their ancestors that they live for money, power and prestige.
In mending those who are brokenhearted, there is no room for selfishness. I am a servant to God and He is my master. I follow the prompting of the Holy Spirit. I must seek God’s wisdom to identify the least one of these. God did not call me to help everybody, but He said to help the least one of these. Jesus reached out to the broken hearted. He did it selflessly. He has called me to do the same because they are defenseless.
● Are we serving the Lord or are we serving ourselves?
● Are we reaching out to the least one of these or are we looking out for our own needs only?
● What did Paul caution us? He gave us a warning against living for the flesh.
“Brethren, join in following my example, and note those who so walk, as you have us for a pattern. For many walk, of whom I have told you often, and now tell you even weeping, that they are the enemies of the cross of Christ: whose end is destruction, whose god is their belly, and whose glory is in their shame—who set their mind on earthly things.” (Phil 3:17-19, NKJV, Nelson)
● How can a person who is in gluttony represent Jesus Christ? Is it not obvious that he is serving his belly as oppose to serving God?
● How can the anointing of the Holy Spirit use such a person who is bringing shame to the Lord Jesus Christ by his uncontrolled appetite for food and other things?
● Who are the least one of these in our sphere of influence?
For the Spirit to be upon the speaker clearly meant in the Old Testament that the speaker was controlled (filled) by the Holy Spirit—his message was the message of God breathed out by the Holy Spirit through the person. That means when I am speaking, what I say must be of the Holy Spirit and not of myself. I must pray to be filled with the Holy Spirit daily so that I am controlled by the Holy Spirit. So that all that I say and do is from Jesus, God breathed and God inspired.
To be born again and baptized in the name of Jesus Christ to receive the gift of the Holy Spirit is to operate in the supernatural. Jesus Christ is the Spirit of God. We need the Holy Spirit to execute God’s will. Without the Holy Spirit, the words we say is nothing but the world’s wisdom and not God’s wisdom.
“He has anointed me” and “He has sent me” mean that the believer was set apart for this mission and endorsed by God.
The “poor” are those who are destitute, in a distressed condition, poor in every way.
To mend the broken hearted is to bring revival to the contrite and the lowly.
To proclaim liberty for the captives is to bring freedom and liberty to those who are bound spiritually or emotionally or physically.
To release those who are in prison is for the opening of eyes and ears. There are many who can see with their physical eye and hear with their physical ears, but are blind and deaf to the truth. They are in bondage to their own sins and unable to hear and understand the truth of God’s word. They are blind and unable to see the true wretched, iserable condition of their heart and mind. They either don’t know that they are in bondage to their sins or they have no clue as to how to get free from such bondage.
Jesus made the blind to see—but that by His own explanation was also a symptom of release from the bondage of sin, for there were many who saw but were blind spiritually and still imprisoned by sin. (Ross)
So the ministry of Isaiah 61 is a ministry of God’s anointed as a healer and messenger of freedom and comfort. (Hayford)
Thus, the description of the Messiah and His anointing elates directly to his mission on earth. For Jesus to fulfill his ministry, He needed to be anointed by the Holy spirit.
The following fourfold purpose characterizes the ministry of the Lord Jesus Christ that will continue to be fulfilled by the church. So we, the body of Christ, must make Jesus Lord, and the head and the leader, which is the anointed one that He anointed his church to continue the work that He started.
“Most assuredly, I say to you, he who believes in Me, the works that I do he will do also; and greater works than these he will do, because I go to My Father.” (Jn.14:12, NKJV, Nelson)
“But you have an anointing from the Holy One, and you know all things” (1Jn. 2:20, NKJV, Nelson)
The four purposes are:
(1) preaching the gospel to the poor, meek, afflicted;
(2) healing and binding up the spiritually sick and broken hearted;
(3) breaking the bonds of evil and proclaiming from sin and satanic dominion; and
(4) opening the spiritual eyes of the lost that they might see the light of the gospel and be saved.
(Stamps)
This ministry is in place to open the blind eyes of him who is dead in his sin, to mend the brokenhearted, to proclaim the good news to them who do not know Jesus, to expose darkness to those who are have chosen to embrace evil (living for the sole purpose of gratifying their lustful appetites), and to set free those who are in bondage to their own sins (i.e. addictions, wrong thinking, self-righteousness).
In conclusion, true freedom comes in executing God’s will in our lives. For us, it is in fulfilling our high calling in Christ Jesus which is the ministry of Isaiah 61. And this is only possible through the baptism of the Holy Spirit.
So he answered and said to me:
“This is the word of the LORD to Zerubbabel:
‘Not by might nor by power, but by My Spirit,’
Says the LORD of hosts. ” (Zech 4:6, NKJV, Nelson)
Work cited:
Stamps, Donald, C., The Full Life Study Bible King James Version, Zondervan Publishing House: Grand Rapids, 1992.
Hayford, Jack, The Spirit Filled Life Bible New King James Version, Thomas Nelson Publishers, Nashville, 1991
Nelson, Thomas, The Open Bible, Thomas Nelson Publisher, Nashville, 1985.
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