WCTLC

The Holy Spirit is your plan for bringing the life and ministry of Jesus into your life and ministry.

We All Start Out Only Being Concerned With Our Physical Needs

Matthew 7:7 doesn’t tell us what to ask for, what to seek, or what doors to knock on. It just tells us to do these three things and we will receive, find, and the doors will be opened. If all the asking, seeking, and knocking are controlled by us, most of it would consist of physical, relational, emotional, and financial needs being met. If our asking, seeking, and knocking comes under the direction of God, a lot of it would involve spiritual needs being met.

Luke 4:40-41 (NIV) When the sun was setting, the people brought to Jesus all who had various kinds of sickness, and laying His hands on each one, He healed them. Moreover, demons came out of many people, shouting, “You are the Son of God!” But He rebuked them and would not allow them to speak, because they knew He was the Christ.

Mat 15:30-31 (NIV) Great crowds came to Him, bringing the lame, the blind, the crippled, the mute and many others, and laid them at His feet; and He healed them. The people were amazed when they saw the mute speaking, the crippled made well, the lame walking and the blind seeing. And they praised the God of Israel.

Jesus’ Ministry Addresses Our First Concern

The first part of Jesus’ ministry is to take care of people’s physical needs. He uses His supernatural power to demonstrate God’s love, concern, and generosity. He allows them to understand what their heavenly Father is like by showing them His physical provisions. For all who had faith, He gave them great manifestations of miracles. Those who were suffering were brought by those who loved them and God cared for them in a miraculous way. He is saying to them that He WILL be their loving provider.

Mat 15:32 (NIV) Jesus called His disciples to Him and said, “I have compassion for these people; they have already been with Me three days and have nothing to eat. I do not want to send them away hungry, or they may collapse on the way.”

It isn’t God’s intentions to keep multiplying bread and fish for the rest of our lives. It isn’t His intentions to use us to keep giving clothes, food, help, and care for people so they can be lazy and not work. God wants us to see people at times when they can’t help themselves and for us to be there for them. Then when they can be brought to a place where they can start taking care of themselves, God will show them how to put their trust in Him. He will teach and provide them with ways of working together with Him so they can get their own needs met.

Jesus’ Supernatural Ministry Draws Large Quantities Of People To Him

Mat 4:24 (NIV) News about Him spread all over Syria, and people brought to Him all who were ill with various diseases, those suffering severe pain, the demon-possessed, those having seizures, and the paralyzed, and He healed them.

In Matthew the last part of chapter four and the beginning of chapter five, we will be able to see how Jesus wants to start working through us to bring people into salvation. We first see Jesus working in a God-sized way to heal, deliver, and bless the people with the provisions of God.

Mat 4:25 (NIV) Large crowds from Galilee, the Decapolis, Jerusalem, Judea and the region across the Jordan followed Him.

As God continued to work with their physical needs, people began to trust, believe in, and love God for helping them. Large crowds started coming to Him to receive all His physical help.

Jesus’ Physical Ministry Turns Into Spiritual Ministry

Mat 5:1-2 (NIV) Now when He saw the crowds, He went up on a mountainside and sat down. His disciples came to Him, and He began to teach them, saying:

This is the moment when Jesus starts the Beatitudes and then goes into the rest of His sermon on the mountain. This is where He takes advantage of the people’s developed trust and starts ministering to their spiritual needs. Previously, they could only see their physical problems. Gradually Jesus helped them see their spiritual issues. It was easy for them to see and understand their need for healing from diseases. They could see clearly that they needed deliverance from demonic possession. But they didn’t realize they needed a Savior from all their sins.

As Jesus starts working on our relationships with others, we begin seeing another aspect of our problems. Sin is best revealed by us ministering relational requirements to people. As we teach them the kind of attitudes they need to have, and as we explain to them what kind of relationships God requires of them, they soon see their inability to live up to the requirements of God. Some who see this inability (Romans 7:15-25), will start looking to God to help them get spiritual change in their relationships.

Jesus Teaches That Blessings Are For Giving

Luke 12:16-21 (NIV) And He told them this parable: “The ground of a certain rich man produced a good crop. He thought to himself, ‘What shall I do? I have no place to store my crops.’ Then he said, ‘This is what I’ll do. I will tear down my barns and build bigger ones, and there I will store all my grain and my goods. And I’ll say to myself, “You have plenty of good things laid up for many years. Take life easy; eat, drink and be merry.” But God said to him, ‘You fool! This very night your life will be demanded from you. Then who will get what you have prepared for yourself?’ This is how it will be with anyone who stores up things for himself BUT IS NOT RICH TOWARD GOD.”

Most of the people in Jesus’ day would have considered themselves totally blessed by God, if they became wealthy. They would have thought that they had become something or done something that had impressed God and CAUSED Him to pour out special blessings on them. Jesus, on the other hand, is changing their heart and philosophies on this concept. He is showing them that God expects them to take these physical and financial blessings and use them to share with those who have needs.

Mat 16:26 (NIV) What good will it be for a man if he gains the whole world, yet forfeits his soul? Or what can a man give in exchange for his soul?

What a financial blessing it would be, if we ended up owning the whole world. We would have the ultimate in financial resources. We would have ALL the money, possessions, positions, power, popularity, prestige, and authority. To the person who is only seeing things from a earthly perspective, they would have felt like they had accomplished the ultimate in success. They would have felt like they had reached the top and fulfilled their greatest dreams. But, Jesus shows them that they have failed in a total way.

Spiritual Growth Is Gradually Made A Priority

Mat 11:20 (NIV) Then Jesus began to denounce the cities in which most of His miracles had been performed, because they did not repent.

Why is our final exam, that is explained in Matthew 25:31-46, going to be on whether or not we fed and gave drink to the hungry and thirsty, welcomed strangers, clothed those who needed clothing, ministered to the sick, and visited those in prison? Jesus wants us to show the world how much God cares for their physical needs. He knows they have to see His love and generosity through those areas of their physical need. As we love them with the life and ministry of Jesus, they get cared for and blessed physically.

This opens their heart to trusting us to give them help with their human relationships. As they fail to improve in those relationships, we are able to bring salvation, and spiritual growth into their lives. This opens their eyes to their need for spiritual healing and provisions. They are moved from only having an earthly, temporal perspective to obtaining an eternal perspective. For all those who fail to transition from only caring about the physical realm, it then becomes your responsibility to reprimand them. This becomes a warning to them that they are making an eternal mistake.

The Life And Ministry Of Jesus Must Keep Spreading

Luke 4:42-44 (NIV) At daybreak Jesus went out to a solitary place. The people were looking for Him and when they came to where He was, they tried to keep Him from leaving them. But He said, “I must preach the good news of the kingdom of God to the other towns also, because that is why I was sent.” And He kept on preaching in the synagogues of Judea.

Even though Jesus is going to put His major emphasis on how well you helped people physically, He still wants it to lead to spiritual issues. However, the good news message is first going to be presented by us living out the good news. The first aspects of reaching our generation and the people of our world with the good news is for us to bring healing, deliverance, and physical blessings to all we preach to.

Luke 9:1-2 (NIV) When Jesus had called the Twelve together, He gave them power and authority to drive out all demons and to cure diseases, AND He sent them out to preach the kingdom of God AND to heal the sick.

Mark 16:15 -18(NIV) He said to them, “Go into all the world and preach the good news to all creation. Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved, but whoever does not believe will be condemned. And these signs will accompany those who believe: In My name they will drive out demons; they will speak in new tongues; they will pick up snakes with their hands; and when they drink deadly poison, it will not hurt them at all; they will place their hands on sick people, and they will get well.”

The Four Stages Of Jesus’ Life, Ministry, Message, And Methods

There are four parts to Jesus life and ministry that flow in and through us. The supernatural manifestations of God’s healing, delivering, and blessing power, the good news message, our loving and generous sharing of our physical supply with others, and the Holy Spirit using us to help Christians with their spiritual growth so they can do the same type of ministry in and through others. All the members of the body of Jesus will get involved to reaching out to all these physical and spiritual needs (1 Corinthians 12:4-11; 28-31; Ephesians 4:11-12; Romans 12:6-8).

Jesus’ Life, Ministry, Message, And Methods Are A Group Performance

No one person will do all of it. 1 Cor 12:4-6 (NIV) There are different kinds of gifts, but the same Spirit. There are different kinds of service, but the same Lord. There are different kinds of working, but the same God works all of them in all men. The Holy Spirit will be empowering some to bring healing, and other supernatural manifestations to a community, city, or other geographical area. Jesus will choose some of the members of His body to share the good news message while others are working with the new and untrained Christians.

Each mentor and minister will have special assignments from the Holy Spirit, Jesus, and our heavenly Father. But, through all of these people working together, all four parts of Jesus’ life and ministry will be accomplished all around the world. Then when we all stand before Jesus on the judgment day, we will have all seen to it that the hungry and thirsty, strangers, poor, sick, and imprisoned have had all their physical and spiritual needs cared for. All of Jesus’ life and ministry will have poured through all of us as a body.