Thoughts for Life: #86 The Spirit's Anointing Enables You Mentally

Dr. Wesley L. Duewel: 2. The Spirit's anointing enables you mentally. The Holy Spirit can add alertness, aptness of expression, creativity, and the ability to say with unusual clarity what God wants said.

Jesus promised that the Holy Spirit would bring to your remembrance the things He had told them (John 14:26). this special enablement of memory was not reserved for the apostles and the writers of Scripture. (Google image, Preaching: Behind the scenes)

It is available to everyone who ministers in Christ's name to bring Scripture passages, the exact words needed, expressions, and illustrations to your memory even while you are on your feet speaking or while you are writing. It is God's special touch on your mind for your ministry.

Bounds, in trying to describe how the Spirit's anointing benefits one mentally, said, "It clarifies the intellect, gives insight and grasp, freedom and fulness of thought, and directness and simplicity in expression."

3. The Spirit's anointing touches your emotions. The Spirit can so pour God's love into your heart and mind (Rom. 5:5) that you are given a special tenderness as you seek to express the love, comfort, and heart of God reaching out to the unsaved, the hurting, and those who grieve.

The Spirit can give you a ministry of tears when God sees it will add effectiveness your pleas in His name (Acts 20:31; 2 Cor. 2:4; Phil. 3:18). This anointing with tears is available not only for your messages, personal evangelism, counseling, and writing as Paul experienced it, but it can add special strength, intensity, tenderness, and power to your ministry of intercession, especially in your private intercession (Rom. 9-3; 10:1).

The Spirit, on the other hand, can add special firmness, solemnity, holy boldness, or righteous indignation when you as a prophet of the Lord preach against sin. "But as for me, I am filled with power, with the Spirit of the LORD, and with justice and might, to declare to Jacob his transgression, to Israel his sin" (Mic. 3:8).

Isaiah shows that the Spirit of the Lord can anoint you to proclaim God's judgment and vengeance as well as God's comfort (Is. 61:1-2). It was such an anointing that enabled Old Testament prophets to thunder the justice, holy anger, and judgment of God against sin.

Any minister who preaches only the blessings and beauty of God's grace and love and never proclaims the holiness, justice, and anger of God against sin and injustice is neither fully biblical nor fully anointed.

Jeremiah, "the Weeping Prophet," clearly presented God's alternative when God's mercy was refused (Jer. 4:4). The Spirit's anointing then made him "a fortified city, an iron pillar and a bronze wall to stand against the whole land—against the kings of Judah, its officials, its priests and the people of the land" (Jer. 1:18).

He could say, "I am full of the wrath of the LORD, and I cannot hold it in" (Jer. 6:11). Such an anointing was on Peter when he faced the Jerusalem crowd (Acts 2:23-24) and the sullen and angry Sanhedrin (Acts 4:8-12).

Paul stated the balance between the two types of ministry clearly: "Consider therefore the Kindness and sternness of God" (Rom. 11:22).

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Used by permission of the author and Duewel Literature Trust, Inc., Greenwood, Indiana. Creative reading style by Jean.

Ablaze for God
#86 The Spirit's Anointing Enables You Mentally
by Dr. Wesley L. Duewel
(pp. 260- 262) ZondervanPublishingHouse

Praying for an answer from God

Father, it is our desire that Your Spirit bring to our remembrance the things we've read in Your Word, and the things You've told us personally to share with others.
Clarify our minds, give insight and help us grasp what it is You're directing us to do. May we have the freedom and fulness of thought and directness in simplicity to express ourselves.
Help us not only share the blessings and beauty of Your grace and love, but to make it known that You are holy, and that You demand justice, and are angry against sin and injustice all around us.
Thank You for Your Holy Spirit's working in and through us. May we be open to Your leading us to be faithful witnesses of Your kindness as well as Your sternness.
We ask this in Jesus' name. Amen.

Today's Bible verses-

1 Peter 5:6, 7 (NKJV) "Therefore humble yourselves
under the mighty hand of God, that He may exalt you
in due time, (v.7) casting all your care upon Him, for
He cares for you."

Col. 4:5-6 (NKJV) "Walk in wisdom toward those
who are outside, redeeming the time (v. 6) Let your
speech always be with grace, seasoned with salt,
that you may know how you ought to answer each one."

Matt. 10:20 (NKJV) "for it is not you who speak, but
the Spirit of your Father who speaks in you."

Today's quote-

Charles Spurgeon- "We could praise God much more if we threw more of His praise into our common conversation—if we spoke more of Him when we are out and about or when we sit at home. We could praise Him more and more if we fulfilled our consecration and obeyed the precept, "Whether therefore ye eat, or drink, or whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of God." (1 Cor. 10:31).

(p. 421 of Spurgeon on PRAYER & SPIRITUAL WARFARE).

Upcoming post:

A New Unction of the Holy Spirit
8th- Saturday's post by Lois Stucky

(After Saturday's post, I'll not be posting for a while. I hope to create a FaceBook page to show my crafts for sale, and, hopefully fill orders. I hope to take some time to rest from writing and posting 3 drafts each week, and possibly get some projects done!

My next planned posting: