-5-
The Spirit without measure
|
I
|
Inthe previous chapter I was emphasizing the fact that we can all experience thelimitless power of God if we can only believe. Yes, that’s true because all
things are possible if we can operate by faith. I highlighted that without a
special anointing or gift for healing you can still lay hands on someone and
the healing can manifest. This is accomplished by faith in God even when you do
not have the actual gift or anointing for healing. Conversely, even if a person
has the special anointing the person still needs to have faith for that anointing
to work. Anointing will never work if there is no faith, but faith can work out
a manifestation without you having a special anointing. I know what I’m talking
about.
I’ve
seen a lot of manifestations of the Spirit when I didn’t even felt an anointing.
I knew that I didn’t possess some of the special gifts or anointing, but I
would usually witness their manifestation when I had faith. The Holy Spirit
always wants to manifest His ability, but we limit Him because of our small
thinking. All things are possible when we operate in faith.
However,
a person who will be operating under an anointing or gift will always produce
greater results than the one who will be using simple faith alone. You will
produce greater results if you operate under a spiritual gift, an actual
anointing.
You
might think that I’m now contradicting what I said in the last chapter, but I’m
just telling you the higher dimension of being used by God. Everything I said
in the preceding chapter is all true; you can use your faith without a gift and
witness the manifestation of the Spirit- but if God gives you the gift you will
produce far much greater results than you do when you are using simple faith
alone. Some people are given some special anointing in specific areas because
it’s part of their calling and ministry. I Corinthians 12:28 tell us this:
And God hath set some in the church, first
apostles, secondarily prophets, thirdly teachers, after that miracles,
then gifts of healings, helps, governments, diversities of tongues.
(I Corinthians 12:28)
Operating
under a spiritual gift is called operating under an anointing. Operating under
an anointing is a higher level than operating by faith alone. It is a greater
blessing to function under an anointing. It is an advantage to the one who has
the gift.
However,
the Holy Spirit doesn’t give the same gifts and anointing to everyone. Each
member in the body of Christ has got his/her own unique gift or grace that was
never given to anyone else. Until the Day that the Lord Jesus Christ comes each
one of us will still be having some gifts and anointing that will be lacking in
us. They were never given to us but to others in the body of Christ.
Someone
may say, “Ah pastor Soka you lie, God gave me all the nine spiritual gifts”. You
can have all the nine spiritual gifts operating through you, but you don’t have
all the anointing and grace following your gifts.
Let
me say it like this: If I take the way your gift of working of miracles
operates, and compare it with the way the same gift functions in someone else,
you will notice the difference. What makes the gifts to differ in their
function is the unique anointing and grace that each one of us was granted by
God.
We don’t
have an account of Paul’s shadow performing miracles, but we do have an account
of him performing miracles through handkerchiefs and aprons. Neither do we have
an account of Peter executing miracles through handkerchiefs and aprons, but
the miracles through him were carried out through his shadow. It was the same
gift that was working through Paul and Peter but the grace that followed their
gifts was not the same. It was the same gifts of prophecy that worked through
Ezekiel, Isaiah, Jeremiah, and the rest of the prophets, but when you read the
bible you will notice how they differed in their execution of the same gifts.
The
difference is in the grace and levels of anointing granted them by God. You
always yearn for more grace and more anointing isn’t it? Even those preachers
who are highly gifted always yearn for more grace and anointing. That’s an
indication that each individual doesn’t have all the anointing of God.
All
of us do not have the same gifts, same anointing, and grace from God. There is
some anointing that we will continue to lack as individuals until the Lord
comes back. Because of that lack of some anointing as individuals, each one of
us is quite limited in his/her ministering.
The
purpose of this book is not to show you how limited you are in terms of
anointing or gifting. Its purpose is to show you how you can break the limits
off. I mentioned in the commencement of this chapter that I will be talking
about how an anointing can be transferred from one individual to another. An
anointing or a gift of the Spirit can be borrowed. Did you know that? The
transfer of an anointing from one individual to another is called impartation.
An individual who holds a certain anointing can impart it to those who do not
have it and they can begin to function in it. I like to term that transfer ‘the
borrowing of an anointing’, that is, the anointing will continue to be
identified with the person to whom it was first given by God.
In
the bible, the anointing of God that was on Elijah was transferred to Elisha.
Nonetheless, it was still labelled ‘the spirit of Elijah’. It was a borrowed
anointing.
We
read the account when Moses transferred the anointing of God that was in him to
the seventy elders. The bible tells us that it was God who took some of the Spirit
that was on Moses and placed it into the seventy elders. The seventy then
received the prophetic anointing of Moses as a result. Paul imparted a certain
spiritual gift when he laid his hands on Timothy. It was a gift of God that
Timothy received, but it never fell from heaven. It came through the laying on
of the hands of Paul.
Why impartation
You
might ask, “But why do I need to get an anointing from a human being? Why does
God take some of what is in another man and place it in another man? Can’t He
just manufacture it in heaven and throw it down on me without me having to
borrow it from somebody?” Such are the questions some people ask. They don’t understand
the power of impartation and that’s why they suffer. The anointing and gifts
are no longer in heaven.
About
2000 years ago, on the day of the Jewish Pentecost, the owner and giver of the
gifts, the Holy Spirit, left heaven and came down to this earth. He came to
embody the believers, the human beings, who are the church of God. He is now
living in us. He then distributed all His gifts to the individuals or the
members of the Body of Christ. Each member was given a unique gift and
anointing. The book of Hebrews reveals that the Holy Spirit distributed His
gifts to everyone as He willed. The ESV Bible renders Hebrews 2:4 in this
fashion:
while God also bore witness by signs and
wonders and various miracles and by gifts of the Holy Spirit distributed
according to his will.
(Hebrews 2:4) [ESV]
He gave the Spirit without measure
John
the Baptist had been told about how Jesus was baptizing and making more disciples
than him. In his reply, he told the Jews that Jesus was greater than him and he
gave a reason for this in the following scripture:
For he whom God hath sent speaketh the words
of God: for God giveth not the Spirit by measure unto him.
(John 3:34)
About
Jesus, John the Baptist said that God never gave Him the Spirit by measure. John
was trying to show the Jews how great this Jesus was to him and he pointed out
the fact that God never gave Jesus the Spirit by measure. That was the reason
why Jesus was greater than John- Jesus had the Spirit without measure.
In
other words, John was admitting the fact that he himself had the Spirit by
measure. The surprising thing is that John the Baptist is known as greater than
all the former prophets and yet he had the Spirit by measure. This reveals that
John didn’t have all the anointing and gifts of the Holy Spirit. He had the
Spirit by measure.
The
only person who didn’t have the Spirit by measure was Jesus Christ. The phrase
‘the Spirit without measure’ means that all the anointing and gifts of the Holy
Spirit were on Jesus. He had all the spiritual gifts and all the ministry
gifts. There is not any anointing that Jesus lacked. He was never limited. Jesus
was the only person who had all the anointing of God. He had the Spirit without
measure.
Contrariwise,
each member in the body of Christ has got the Spirit by measure. Each of us does
not have all the anointing of God. Each has the Spirit by measure. If I say the
Spirit by measure, I’m not saying that each of us has less Holy Spirit. No,
that’s not what I’m talking about. I’m not talking about the person of the Holy
Spirit, but about the gifts, graces and anointing of the Holy Spirit.
The
Holy Spirit is a person and cannot be said he is less or more. The Holy Spirit
is a person, get that. He is God Himself. But the only things that can be said
are more or less are the gifts and anointing that He gives to people.
The
Holy Spirit in you is the same Holy Spirit who is in the believer next to you.
What differ between the two of you are the gifts, graces and anointing given
you by the same Holy Spirit who dwells in you. The difference in terms of your
gifts and anointing is what the bible calls ‘the Spirit by measure’.
Nonetheless,
if we combine each believer in the body of Christ together to make one body, we
will begin to witness the power of the Spirit without measure. The body of
Christ collectively doesn’t have the Spirit by measure. On the body of Christ
as a unit the Spirit was given without measure. This is because the body of
Christ is Jesus Christ Himself and Jesus Christ was never given the Spirit by
measure.
All
the anointing, graces and gifts of the Holy Spirit have been distributed on the
body of Christ as a unit. But on each individual member of the body there is
just a fraction of those gifts and anointing. If only these individual members
could unite we will witness the power of the Spirit without measure. Paul
understood this mystery and wrote about it in his letter to the Ephesians along
the following lines:
With all lowliness and meekness, with
longsuffering, forbearing one another in love; Endeavouring to keep
the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. There is one body, and one Spirit,
even as ye are called in one hope of your calling;…….But unto every one of
us is given grace according to the measure of the gift of Christ.
(Ephesians 4:2-4, 7)
If
you can notice, Paul on Ephesians 4 there reveals the very truths that I have
been sharing with you so far. He exhorts the believers to have unity among them.
He then explains to them the importance of unity as he talks about the truth
that we are one body, and we have one and the same Spirit.
As
the believers get to recognize that he then tells them that each member of this
one body was given grace by measure. The Spirit is one and the same in us, but
the grace is not the same. The grace was given to us by measure.
Don’t
forget that Paul is still explaining the importance of unity in the body of
Christ. In this chapter Paul wants to teach the church how to access the power
of the Spirit without measure. So he tells the church about the virtues that
can catapult her to higher dimensions of anointing as she contacts the power of
the Spirit without measure.
Paul
goes on to disclose to the church how an anointing can be transferred from one
member in the body of Christ to another. The following verse reveals how these
anointing and graces flow from one member to another if there are two virtues
among the believers- love and unity.
From whom the whole body fitly joined together
and compacted by that which every joint supplieth, according to the
effectual working in the measure of every part, maketh increase of the
body unto the edifying of itself in love.
(Ephesians 4:16)
Every
joint or individual member should supply something to the body of Christ. If
only there would be love and unity among the believers, the whole body of
Christ should have been witnessing higher intensities of the operation of the
gifts of the Holy Spirit than what we are seeing today. An impartation can come
through the laying on of hands, but greater impartations will come on us if we
are going to have love and unity amongst ourselves.
It’s
an error to have some churches on fire while others are very cold. In any local
church, if the believers could love one another, submit to one another, forgive
one another, bear one another’s burdens, intercede for one another, and do so
many acts of love, the limitless power of the Spirit without measure will be
witnessed. Revelations in terms of the knowledge of the word of God will
increase, the sick will be healed, creative miracles will begin to take place,
the prophetic will increase, and the glory of God will manifest each time they
will worship.
A church
with love and unity is a place where the anointing dwells. Even dry churches
should connect to those churches where the anointing is. Dry preachers should
do the same- Connect to where the fire is.
The secret behind tithing
The
book of Malachi reveals that tithing can release an open heaven on the tither.
The Lord Jesus received the Spirit without measure after He was baptized by
John the Baptist. The bible tells us that the heavens were opened and the
Spirit of God descended. The Spirit without measure is always shadowed by an
open heaven. If there is the Spirit without measure then there is an open
heaven. If you have the Spirit without measure then you have an open heaven.
Jesus always operated under an open heaven because He had the Spirit without
measure.
If
tithing can bring an open heaven on someone then it means the person has to
tithe where there is the Spirit without measure. The Spirit without measure is
on the body of Christ. The book of Hebrews teaches that our father Abraham gave
his tithe to Melchizedek- the king of Righteousness.
We as
Christians should bring our tithes to the same king of Righteousness- the Lord
Jesus Christ. The church is the body of Christ. So if you bring your tithe to
the church you will be connecting to the power of the Spirit without measure. Look
around at the churches that do not believe in tithing and see how dry those
churches are. They do not know how to connect to the Spirit without measure; hence
they cannot experience open heavens.
