Liberty in the Anointing - David Mitts

"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)

Proclaim liberty to the captives. Captives are those who cannot come home. Liberty is coming home, living in the Shabbat, peace of God. Captives are wanderers.

Listen to Liberty in the Anointing

We have been looking at being fruitful and multiplication in results. We looked at the 3 unfruitful states of heart and mind as described by Yeshua in Mark 4.

1. Adversarial, judgmental 
2. Shallowness, unrootedness without covenant 
3. distracted , mammon centered relying on works and self alone 

Next we began to look at the heart conditions that produce the 30-60-100 fold return. This is having and living in the Mind of Christ. Christ means the anointing, so it is by having anointed thoughts that we begin to manifest from the seed of God’s Word and promises the reality of the Kingdom.

Let’s look at Isaiah 61:1-4 and see how the anointing manifests mind sets and heart conditions that create the atmosphere of the Kingdom in our lives."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; To proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord, And the day of vengeance of our God; To comfort all who mourn, To console those who mourn in Zion, To give them beauty for ashes, The oil of joy for mourning, The garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness; That they may be called trees of righteousness, The planting of the Lord, that He may be glorified." And they shall rebuild the old ruins, They shall raise up the former desolations, And they shall repair the ruined cities, The desolations of many generations. (Isaiah 61:1-4 NKJV)

1. The first thing we saw is that the anointing, the mind of Messiah, is the power to preach good news to the poor. Good news to the poor is that they don’t have to be poor. Poverty is a mindset and is independent of resources. It is the perspective of lack. You can have lots of great things in life and feel lack. The root of lack is an unthankful heart. The anointing is the mindset and heart space of counting the good in our lives and this is the secret to ending poverty. What we lose appreciation for, leaves our lives. The key scripture for turning poverty around is:


Not that I speak in regard to need, for I have learned in whatever state I am, to be content: I know how to be abased, and I know how to abound. Everywhere and in all things I have learned both to be full and to be hungry, both to abound and to suffer need. I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. 
(Philippians 4:11-13 NKJV)


2. The second dimension of the anointing is binding up the broken-hearted. We saw that the key to binding up something is having a clear vision of whatever is wounded being restored to its original intent before the wound. If we have a physical injury, to effectively bind it up we need to know what uninjured looks like. The heart gets broken wounded through the impact of our lives and our responses and beliefs about ourselves or life that results. In the Ancient Paths seminars we come to experience these responses and beliefs as lies. What they are is the stuff of broken-hearts and then broken lives. The anointing is the heart and mind condition of a transformed life. When we are born again, we are transformed past-present and future. We looked at Yeshua’s first miracle of turning water to wine as a picture of our salvation. Wine, especially good wine is already aged. It comes with a past built into it that fits its new reality. It cannot remember being water. It is now wine. We in a similar are transformed by the new birth and our redemption includes our whole lives. Like the wine, we don’t actually have our old past anymore! The binding of our broken hearts is complete! We actually are a new creation, new wine, in new wineskin. We can be whoever the Word says we are! This is how we bear 30-60-100 fold return on the seed of the Word!
I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. (Galatians 2:20 NIV)


3. OK, now we are going to look at third dimension of the mind of Christ, the anointing; proclaiming liberty to the captives. First let’s look at the word “proclaiming”. There is power in proclamation! 

The word in Hebrew is “qara” which means to call or to summon someone. A summons implies a purpose for the summons, for example if you receive a summons to go to court it means you are being sued by someone and the court is asserting it has the power to hear the case.

In that sense, a “summons” contains an authority decide a change of state. In the lawsuit example, you can lose property, or boundaries, or money. In the case of the anointing you are losing being bound in captivity. What I want to emphasize first is that the anointing carries an authority for legal change.

In the case of the anointing the legal change is into our calling. WHo is being sued here is the enemy. He has held back through the captivity of sin our destiny our inheritance. The anointing comes to free us into our calling. We are called by the anointing out of captivity to sin, into liberty of our destiny.

Now liberty in this sense is NOT liberty to do what we want, but liberty to become who we are called to be.

There is in that anointing a liberty to actually be bound again but in this case to our true destiny. You see we were never created to be alone.

The LORD God said, "It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him." (Genesis 2:18 NIV).

We are created to be in oneness with another, to be in covenant.

Turn with me to Ephesians 4 and we’ll see the anointing works to proclaim liberty to the captives.


4. As a prisoner for the Lord, then, I urge you to live a life worthy of the calling you have received. (Ephesians 4:1 NIV) 

Paul describes himself as a captive or a prisoner of the Lord. He has been called out of captivity to sin, which is self-centered life rooted in experiences with conclusions based on lies, a broken-life with a broken-heart. AND he turns to the Ephesians, who are One New Man and tells them to live lives worthy of their calling, the proclamation, the summons that leads them. Next He describes the Mind of the Anointing in this pursuit of the 30-60-100 fold return.


5. Be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in love. Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace. (Ephesians 4:2-3 NIV) 


Humility or focus on the calling our purpose if key. Pride is the opposite of humility and it is rooted in a focus on the past. When I am prideful, I am defensive. I am identified with my “way” of the past. I am defensive because I live with the fear of doing something wrong and messing up. In this place I am sensitive to the accuser. I become judgmental. Even if I seem non-judgmental by pretending to accept everyone, I live in a framework of having to judge right and wrong, good and evil. It is the nature of identity to do that. Humility is just the opposite. Humility focuses on what I am becoming in the anointing, my calling. I don’t need to judge myself because I realize that I am a work in progress. I am free to make mistakes as part of my growing process. I am calling focussed NOT identity driven.

This focus allows me to be patient and gentle with others. I am secure in where I am going and I can be kind to my fellow Believers. The result is an atmosphere of love. In the pace of true love, consecrated by the CALL, there is a unity of the Spirit which is actually a recognition of diversity. We are united because we are different. Our uniqueness is celebrated not just tolerated because it doesn’t irritate another because we are secure in who we are and what we are called to. We are yielded to the Spirit and realize He is BIG enough for all of us!


6. There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called to one hope when you were called; one Lord, one faith, one baptism; one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all. But to each one of us grace has been given as Christ apportioned it. (Ephesians 4:4-7 NIV) 


Each person has a grace that is uniquely theirs given by the anointing. The anointing is the guarantee of uniqueness. No 2 musicians are anointed the same, no 2 artists, no 2 doctors.


7. This is why it says: "When he ascended on high, he took many captives and gave gifts to his people." (What does "he ascended" mean except that he also descended to the lower, earthly regions? He who descended is the very one who ascended higher than all the heavens, in order to fill the whole universe.) (Ephesians 4:8-10 NIV) 

The proclamation to the prisoners of liberty is the giving of their unique gifts which now binds them to their gift. Another word could be compelled. As we discover in the anointing our calling we come into a greater surrender and in that surrender we learn the secret of our calling.


8. So Christ himself gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the pastors and teachers, to equip his people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ. (Ephesians 4:11-13 NIV) 

This is the true purpose of the ministry to facilitate the calling, the proclaiming liberty to the prisoners to become new prisoners of their calling.


9. One final scripture, 2 Cor 3:17-18 

Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. And we all, who with unveiled faces contemplate the Lord's glory, are being transformed into his image with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit. (2 Corinthians 3:17-18 NIV)

You see the anointing of His Spirit in us is calling centered. He has gifted us with spiritual gifts for divine purpose.

Activation:
Most people know the answer to life’s questions if they would just answer them.

Next time you say, “I don’t know,” ask yourself, “If I did know…what would I say?”
Every person who has asked that question is batting 99% on coming up with an answer.
You know the answer, but we are afraid to say it.
Preconceived notions about ourselves keep us from making critical life decisions. We say things like:

I can’t do that; it’s too grand.
I’m not supposed to be rich.
I’m not supposed to be an author.
Here is the exercise to get past the fear and discover what is in your heart:

• Sit down with a blank page with nothing else on your mind except the question, “What is my purpose?”
• Get in a peak state of excitement by playing music that makes you happy, creating motion, jumping up and down, hallaling, etc.
• Set a timer for 15 minutes and start writing anything and everything that crosses your mind. Do not stop until the 15 minutes is up.
• When the timer goes off, look at what you have on the page. Half of it or more will not be usable, but the parts that are will be things that will either cause you to find extreme joy or cry. You will find intense truth.