Justice in the Anointing - David Mitts
"For
I, the Lord, love justice; I hate robbery for burnt offering; I will direct
their work in truth, And will make with them an everlasting covenant.” (Isaiah
61:8 NKJV)
We have been living in the revelation of the anointing of
God. The Hebrew word for anointing is
the same word used for Messiah. Yeshua
is the anointing; or, if you will, the anointed one. When the Scripture speaks of being “in Christ,”
it is speaking of abiding in the anointing.
So then, what is the anointing that He is, and that we abide in?
It is always a good idea when we have such a question to allow the
Word of God to interpret itself.
Listen to Justice in the Anointing
In the letters of John the Apostle of Yeshua, He spoke of the
anointing this way:
“But you
have an anointing from the Holy One, and you know all things.” (1 John 2:20
NKJV)
The anointing then is the source of “knowing.” This means that the anointing gives us the
Mind Of Christ about something.
A little further in the same chapter John adds:
“As for
you, the anointing which you received from Him abides in you, and you have no
need for anyone to teach you; but as His anointing teaches you about all
things, and is true and is not a lie, and just as it has taught you, you abide
in Him.” (1 John 2:27 NASB)
Wow! How powerful! The
anointing is what lives in us. The
anointing teaches us. The anointing is
truth. The anointing is what allows us
to abide in Him!
So, the anointing could be seen as our link-up to the Kingdom of
Heaven and it’s link-up to and through us.
Yeshua, as the anointed One, declared of Himself in Luke 4:18:
"THE
SPIRIT OF THE LORD IS UPON ME, BECAUSE HE ANOINTED ME TO PREACH THE GOSPEL TO
THE POOR. HE HAS SENT ME 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." (Luke 4:18-19 NASB)
When we read this, we see that the anointing is for a “because,” or
for a purpose; a vision contained in the mind of the Lord that requires an
intervention, which is the function of the anointing. As one person said it, we have an unction
(anointing) to function.
This scripture is a quote of Isaiah 61, which contains a full
description of the anointing and the mind of Messiah in each area. Last week
John looked at the double portion blessing which counters the attitude of
shame!
“Instead
of your shame you will have a double portion, and instead of humiliation they
will shout for joy over their portion. Therefore, they will possess a double
portion in their land, Everlasting joy will be theirs.” (Isaiah 61:7 NASB)
The anointing is the power to exchange shame for a double portion
of the anointing, to exchange humiliation for joy! This is not circumstantial joy which we call
happiness. Instead this is a
transcendent joy that comes from the inside.
Happiness is from without; but true joy is from within, and so it is a
quality of the abiding reality of the anointing. Listen to John’s message from
last week online.
This week I want to look at the next verse, verse 8, of chapter
61.
“For I,
the LORD, love justice, I hate robbery in the burnt offering; And I will
faithfully give them their recompense and make an everlasting covenant with
them.” (Isaiah 61:8 NASB).
This is another profound reality of the anointing. Justice versus robbery in the olah. What exactly is the burnt offering in our
lives? What does the distinction between
robbery and justice mean?
Well, first let’s ask the question of “why was the offering burned
at all?” What is fire in the offering process?
The Hebrew word for fire is “ESH.”
The Hebrew word for man is ISH.
Both words share
So … man is fire with God added. When you bring a burnt offering,
the burning removes the man and reveals the God in the equation.
Now the anointing reveals when there is robbery in the brunt
offering and contrasts that with justice.
Robbery or violence is an attitude of the heart. This is contrasted by Yeshua in John 10:10:
“The thief
does not come except to steal, and to kill, and to destroy. I have come that
they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly.” (John 10:10
NKJV)
Robbery is the domain of the enemy and it is an inside job. When stealing controls our hearts, it means
we will use the ends to justify the means.
Our motives are tainted by our desires.
We want something to happen so bad that we will do whatever it takes to
get it. The energy movement in this is
towards us.
In the burnt offering, the energy movement is away from us. We sacrifice our needs for God’s best. So robbery in the burnt offering is when we
lose trust in the anointing of God and put our trust in our own schemes.
God is always sifting the motives of our hearts. The anointing is the inner voice in our heart
that leads us. The other voice is the
voice of our past, which is rooted in the fear of failure or loss what the
bible calls condemnation.
The only way out of our past, the way we “know” ourselves, is
through the eye of the needle. This is
the anointing. The anointing is the eye
of the needle. It is that precise place
where God’s voice meets with our lives.
The Scripture tells us that the Lord loves justice. Justice is ‘mishpatim’ in Hebrew. The court is called the House of Justice, Bet
Ha Mishpat. This is the place where
decisions are rendered when there is conflict.
Why would the Lord say He loves justice?
Isn’t there a cry in our heart for justice? Isn’t that what alienates people from
God? Don’t people question, “how can
there be a God with so much injustice in the world?” God clears away all of the confusion when He
declares that He loves justice.
This means He is bothered by crime and injustice, even more than
we are! He loves justice! He hates robbery in the offering! This is a picture of perverting the way to
God. The offering is the pure worship.
Robbery in the offering is the use of ministry for personal gain. This is so easy to fall into. God wants our offering, our worship to be
pure! The anointing is on pure worship.
What has happened with the industry called Christian music
contains the potential for robbery in the offering. Can you see it?
But it isn’t just the commercialization of worship. It is also anytime we take advantage of our
Christian witness to “steal” the glory from God. We need to surrender our agenda to Him.
Then He promises in this verse that He will: “I will direct their
work in truth.” You see, God wants us to
prosper. But He wants to direct our work
in truth. The word truth is the word ‘emet’. 3 Letters, aleph, mem, tav. Aleph is the first letter. Mem is the middle.
Tav is the last. This is the complete
alphabet. So, the Lord is promising to
direct our work by His Word, His Truth.
This is a powerful dimension to the anointing. It means He is literally promising to become
our partner in work. He cements this
promise with the last part when He declares oneness in covenant. The Hebrew is so beautiful here. Brit
Olam. An eternal covenant; an eternal
circumcision of the heart.
The Lord is making our work His love, His truth, His
covenant. All we have to do is trust Him
in that.
This means we turn from the robbery in the offering: our
schemes. Instead, we surrender it all to
Him and listen for His guidance.
Activation: Faith
works by love. He loves justice. Justice is relational. People are just or unjust towards each other.
God is always just. We have to be in the
Spirit to be just. Today we are going to
practice allowing Him to become our main partner in our “work.”
We are going to press in for a corporate word. A corporate or a group word is just as easy
as an individual word. To review, you
may be a visual person, what we call a seer, and you may see a picture. Or you may be auditory and “shema,” or hear,
a word for the group. Or you may feel something for the group.
One caution: God will NOT give you a corrective word in this
setting. If you sense something like that, assume it is not God, and ask again
for an edifying or encouraging word.
The goal here is NOT for you to minister to the group. Rather the
goal is to practice hearing and delivering.
The goal is to build confidence in His voice, in the anointing.
Prayer: Dear
Lord, in the name of your Son, Jesus Christ, I come before your throne. I believe
that Christ lives within me, and that I am washed by the blood. Not in part,
but in my whole being. I now bring every thought of my mind and soul into
captivity to the mind of Christ within. I will be open to be led by the Holy
Spirit to receive a prophetic word from You for this group, my "corporate
Church.” I will gladly share just what you show me, without adding my own
interpretation to it. I will not doubt it, nor question it, I'll just be
willing to give it. I am a believer, and I expect to receive. I thank You for
giving me a word from the throne. Amen
Now, stir yourself up in the Spirit, however you have learned to
do that. For some of you it is by speaking in tongues. Others it may be by
being still. There is no one right way.
God knows your heart. He will speak to you.
Imagine yourself in the worship portion of a meeting in your local
church. You feel you hear the Lord quickening something in your spirit for the
church body as a whole. Will you have the faith to believe that you can hear
accurately enough to be willing to share what you hear with the congregation?
Will fear become a deterrent to your being willing to be a vessel for
delivering a corporate word? Review the scripture in 1 Cor. 14:26, "What
then shall we say, brothers? When you come together, everyone has a hymn, or a
word of instruction, a revelation, a tongue or an interpretation. All of these
must be done for the strengthening of the church." Do you see yourself
fitting into this pattern as the scripture directs? How much more alive in the
Spirit would our meetings and gatherings be if instead of coming together to
get spiritually what we can from others, we all came together to share what the
Lord had already given us for the benefit (overall strengthening) of the Body?
One word of caution on giving corporate words - if any of us are
still harboring wounds that "need" to draw attention to ourselves,
the enemy will try to work through our wounding to use this type of setting to
draw to us instead of pointing toward the Lord and giving Him glory. This is
the robbery in the offering we have spoken about. The safeguard to this is to
always be willing to submit anything you receive for the corporate body to the
church leadership and allow them to make the determination as to how the word
fits into the flow of the service. Always resist using this type of word to
direct the flow of the service or groups in the church unless the church
leadership gives you release to publicly speak such a word (provided you
received this type of word from the Lord to begin with).
Listen to and receive Prophetic Blessing from today's activation
Listen to and receive Prophetic Blessing from today's activation
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