We must stop being mediocre believers and then we must become faithful believers who depend on the presence of God in our lives. Why is this important that we as believers do it? The main reason is because the presence of God in our life is what gives us victory in moments of trials and processes; there is also another reason; then let’s study the word of God that says The Spirit of the Lord is upon me.
(Isaiah 61:1-3) “The Spirit of the Lord the Lord is upon me, because the Lord anointed me; he has sent me to preach good news to the dejected, to bandage the brokenhearted, to publish liberty to the captives, and to the prisoners the opening of jail; to proclaim the year of the good will of Jehovah, and the day of vengeance of our God; to comfort all mourners; command that the afflicted of Zion be given glory instead of ashes, oil of joy instead of mourning, cloak of joy instead of the anguished spirit; and they will be called trees of righteousness, the plantation of Jehovah, for his glory.”
Isaiah lived when God’s people were divided into two kingdoms; Israel was the northern kingdom and Judah was the southern kingdom. The northern kingdom had sinned greatly against God, and the southern kingdom was in the same direction.
1. The Spirit of the Lord is upon me.
Life has ups and downs. We suffer experiences that are negative but also positive. We usually go up to the heights and then we go down to the valleys. We experience sad and happy moments. Because that is life. Jesus’ life was no different than ours. Well, he also suffered negative and positive experiences. In the Gospel of Matthew we can read that when Jesus was baptized, the Spirit of God descended on him in the form of a dove and the voice of God was heard when he said:
(Matthew 3:17) “This is my beloved son, in whom I am well pleased..” a glorious moment in the life of the Lord. Immediately after this glorious event, the same Spirit took him to the desert to be tempted by the devil, forty days and forty nights. A very difficult time! However, the Lord Jesus overcame the temptation and returned victorious from the desert.
Through this reading, Jesus declares that the Spirit of God is upon him. As a confirmation of what God said about him. God the Father for he was pleased with Jesus. A sign of power, authority, holiness and dominion, Jesus teaches us that, whether on the top of the mountain or in the valley of shadow and death, as long as we are directed by the Holy Spirit, we will please God, we will be more than winners.
The road of life has many downs but also many ups, and what really matters is that we let the Spirit of God take control of our lives and all our circumstances. The church needs believers with authority, with spiritual power, self-control, active and militant.
This class of Christians arises when we allow the Holy Spirit to descend upon us and take full control of all our circumstances. That in bad or good times, in the valley or on the mountain, we have full assurance that; God is in control of our life.
We invite you to read: God’s Hands Are Upon Those Who Seek Him
2. Because he has anointed me to give good news to the poor.
Jesus came to a poor town that was in need, surrounded by problems and calamities. People were discouraged, disappointed, and desperately looking for a way out, for someone who could feed hope for him. Well, this time is very similar to the times of Jesus, since we live in a society full of conflicts and scandals.
Negative things are like a river that overflows and drags with everything in its path, it floods our lives and sometimes we feel like we are drowning. But notice that in this passage the message that Jesus Christ gives us is a message that shows us that The Spirit of the Lord is upon me.
In this time, people need to hear a message that gives them hope, a message that illuminates the darkness, that encourages us from discouragement and spiritual apathy. A message that restores and heals our sick soul that is contaminated with iniquity and sin.
3. He has sent me to heal the brokenhearted.
People in love aren’t the only ones who are brokenhearted. The brokenhearted are all those that iniquity has been in charge of destroying, those that it has impoverished, disfigured, and has completely stripped. What today has led them to a spiritual death, has not felt the desire to live, nor to have goals and objectives in life.
Today human depravity and corruption has reached very alarming levels. Since many have abandoned moral values and the fear of God, man seems to have disappeared. Humanity is completely disfigured and scarred, Isaiah says that it is a rotten sore.
But the Lord left us surprising revelations to apply at all times, the Bible tells us that Jesus sets us free, that he heals our pain and forgives our sins. Isaiah said: (Isaiah 53:5) “but he was wounded for our transgressions, crushed for our sins; the chastisement of our peace was upon him, and by his stripes we were healed.”
The key and the power of the church are in the blood of Jesus. If you feel brokenhearted? Do you find yourself discouraged? Has someone broken your heart? But you must let the blood of Christ cover your soul and cleanse your being. Because: (1 Corinthians. 5:17) “if anyone is in Christ Jesus, he is a new creature, old things have passed away and, behold, all things have become new.”
You could also read: In Jesus’ Name: Greater Works Will Do − A Promise from God
4. To proclaim liberty to the captives.
One of the most horrible evils of humanity is to live in slavery. God created man with the gift of free will, and when he deprives himself of that freedom, man does not remain passive in the matter. Today we continue to fight against an oppressor, who gives us spiritual slavery, this is the worst of all dictators and the worst oppressor of humanity, iniquity.
Iniquity has all the people of the world enslaved, since this is the root of sin. Paul in Romans 7 describes for us the power of sin over humanity. But our hope is that Jesus promises us that we can be freed from the oppressions of iniquity and also from the number one enemy the devil.
Many times we cannot understand what is happening to us, because we fight to be free and we want to be faithful to God, but we cannot, our very sinful nature, contaminated with iniquity, prevents us from doing so.
Let us recognize that only the power of the Holy Spirit can free us from this condition. Let God fill our lives with his purifying and sanctifying power, may he take us from glory to glory and from power to power.
5. And sight to the blind.
Today with so much knowledge, we remain blind to spiritual things. We have not yet understood that we are spirit. However, God continues to make an effort to teach us what his will is and also how much he loves us.
When Christ dwells in our hearts, we are people with spiritual vision. Our days are bad and we need to be like never before a church with vision in the supernatural, we need to be leaders with vision, children of God who can see beyond the adversities and the material and economic possibilities that are presented to us in this world.
Illustration: The prophet Balaam.
One of the enemy’s weapons is to blind us to the reality of our spiritual condition, to confuse us so that we are limited in the things that God wants to give us. An example in the bible is Samson. He hadn’t realized that he had already failed until he was already held captive, until his eyes were gouged out, and they had him as a beast of burden grinding wheat. Until he was humiliated and the God of him was mocked.
We must be very careful. Open the eyes of the spirit wide, and let us be sensitive to the works that God wants to do in our lives. We have to let God give us a clear vision. We need to open our eyes of understanding and see that the enemy makes war on us. If we don’t do it to him, he doesn’t do it to us. For this reason, we must make war and always seek the will of God and for this we need the power of the Holy Spirit through complete sanctification.
6. To set the oppressed free.
We live in a world where the devil uses anything to keep us oppressed. In Christ there is hope for all the oppressed, and it is that the poor will prosper, the hungry will be satisfied, the cold will be comforted, all the sick will be healed, the kingdom of heaven belongs to the poor. (Matthew 5:3) We must not be intimidated by the threats of the devil, Christ died to give us both spiritual and material abundance. The Bible says that: “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.” (Philippians 4:13)
So what you should do is trust God, he prospers us. But we are also the ones who decide to get out of the enemy’s state of oppression. If you are sick? Trust that Jesus will heal you and that the Spirit of the Lord is upon you. God through his Holy Spirit can free us from all our situations, from the condition in which we find ourselves, from the current circumstance, however difficult it may be. God can do this and you just have to declare that ” the Spirit of the Lord is upon me ”.
The kingdom of God is a kingdom of design and action, since religion will never be able to eliminate poverty, it will not be able to satisfy the spiritual hunger of the hungry generations that moan for the power of the Spirit, it will not be able to give love to the orphan and warmth to the cold. . But Jesus, together with the true children of the kingdom, can do it through the perfect love that Christ has placed in the hearts of those who seek him, through his Holy Spirit.
7. To preach the acceptable year of the Lord.
The kingdom of God that Christ established not only has a past aspect, but also a future dimension. The good news of the gospel of Jesus. It is not just history, but it speaks of the glorious future of the church, which we must establish here and now; to lower those designs of God from heaven to earth.
There is a glorious future for God’s people! Better days will come, in which we will enjoy the wonders of God, but we only have to work to obtain it, everything has sacrifices, and what we can obtain easily vanishes.
We have a hope for our humanity, for the Lord’s church, for our nations, for our home. God has already left us answers to all our problems in the word, he believes and acts that it is already done, and you can begin to receive the promises that God has established for you. Do not limit the power of God and decree this word in your life the Spirit of the Lord is upon me.
We recommend this important post: Iniquity; The body of sin in the life of the believer and the unconverted.