BVOV Magazine 2013 - present

The word gospel means “good news.” It wouldn’t have been good news if Jesus had come preaching that God wants to judge people and send them to hell. It wouldn’t have been good news if Jesus had told folks God would bankrupt them and leave them sick, so they would get closer to Him. So obviously, that wasn’t Jesus’ message. His message was, “The kingdom of God is at hand.” In other words, “His kingdom is right here! You don’t have to wait anymore to get in on it. You can partake of its power, benefits and blessings right now. So, repent (or change your thinking) and believe.” Jesus, the Disciples and You “Well,” someone might say, “I think Jesus was just talking about spiritual benefits when He said that. He didn’t promise people that the kingdom of God would produce any natural blessings in their lives.” He most certainly did! You can see that in Luke 4. It spells out in more detail what Jesus preached. When He announced to them the good news about God’s kingdom, He quoted scriptures from the book of Isaiah and said: "The Spirit of the Lord [is] upon Me, because He has anointed Me [the Anointed One, the Messiah] to preach the good news (the Gospel) to the poor; He has sent Me to announce release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to send forth as delivered those who are oppressed [who are downtrodden, bruised, crushed, and broken down by calamity], to proclaim the accepted and acceptable year of the Lord [the day when salvation and the free favors of God profusely abound] "(verses 18-19, "AMPC"). Those verses are full of benefits—both spiritual and natural—and after Jesus quoted them He told people, “This day is this scripture fulfilled in your ears” (verse 21). In other words, He said, “I’m here, and I’m Anointed! So, poor, you don’t have to be poor anymore! Captives, you don’t have to be captive anymore! Oppressed, you don’t have to live under the burden of that sickness, or that depression, or those crushing negative circumstances the devil has put on you. You can receive God’s kingdom, be delivered from those curses and be BLESSED!” Jesus didn’t just preach that message, either. He demonstrated it. He operated in the dominion of God and took authority over the evil spirits that had bound people. He prayed for people, and the Anointing of the Holy Spirit that was on Him, came upon them by the thousands to heal them, produce miracles in their lives, and set them free. Most of those people had been in the same situation, before Jesus came along, that a lot of people today are. They’d been sitting in churches hearing the letter of the Law, but they’d never understood the spirit of it. They didn’t know that God is a good God, who wants you well and is disposed to show favor. They might have read it in the Old Testament in Psalm 145. But their eyes had been blinded to it by religious tradition and the devil. When they heard Jesus preach the gospel of the Kingdom under the anointing, however, their spiritual eyes were opened. They saw it…and they received! That’s what happened to blind Bartimaeus. He heard what Jesus preached about the blind not having to be blind anymore. Faith rose up in him and when Jesus came his way, he acted on it. He called out to Jesus and told Him he wanted to be able to see. “And Jesus said unto him…thy faith hath made thee whole. And immediately he received his sight” (Mark 10:51-52). The same kinds of miracles happened when Jesus’ disciples ministered. They went out, like Jesus said, and told people, “The kingdom of God has come close to you,” and because they preached the same message Jesus did, they got the same results. His Anointing flowed through them, the sick were healed, and the disciples “returned with joy, saying, Lord, even the demons are subject to us in Your name!” (Luke 10:9, 17, "AMPC"). As believers today, we should be having the same experience! We should be stepping out boldly in the power we received when we were baptized in the Holy Spirit, and carrying on Jesus’ ministry just like those first disciples. We should be sharing the gospel of God’s kingdom and being witnesses for Jesus, not because witnessing is the religious thing to do, but because we have some good news that people around us don’t know. And when we tell them about it, the anointing comes and demonstrates it to them. What is the anointing? you might wonder. It’s the manifested presence of God. It’s His tangible power that comes and, as Isaiah 10:27 says, destroys the yoke of bondage. The anointing can flow through you and change people’s lives without you even realizing it at times. As you just love them and follow the promptings of the Holy Spirit, His power will affect them like it did a woman who attended a service I preached in a prison. She was one of the employees there. I didn’t get to talk to her personally very much, but she was at the meeting and when I saw her, my heart went out to her in love. After the service, as I was leaving I had an unction to give her a hug, pray for her and just bless her. I wasn’t thinking about a yoke being destroyed. I was just listening to the Spirit of God, and doing what He led me to do. I found out later she’d been an alcoholic for many years. And the moment I hugged her and prayed for her, she was instantly delivered. I didn’t even know she needed deliverance. Yet anointing went into her, destroyed that yoke and set her free. This is our job, Church! And you don’t have to be a fivefold minister to do it. You just have to be a believer, because according to Jesus, “these signs shall follow them that believe; In my name shall they cast out devils; they shall speak with new tongues…they shall lay hands on the sick, and they shall recover” (Mark 16:17-18). Those are the words of the Master. So, go ahead and step out on them by faith. Tell people about what God has done for you. Live your life here on earth as an ambassador of God’s kingdom and the power of that kingdom will manifest through you! V 30 : BVOV

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