RIGHTEOUSNESS, PURITY AND POWER_MANIFESTING GREAT POWER
(mr 03/09/18)
OLUBI JOHNSON
The body of Christ must demonstrate godly power! The Greek word for power is ‘dunamis’. About ten years ago, I taught that there are two major ingredients in the things of the spirit. Zoe is the life of God; it is what is inside God that makes Him God (Jn.5:20). It is the ‘raw material’ by which everything God does is accomplished. When we process Zoe, the life of God, through prayer by the power of the Holy Spirit, it is converted to dunamis. It is dunamis that creates. When the Bible says, the ‘power’ of the Holy Ghost shall come upon you, it is referring to dunamis. Now God wants us to have great power, but only in this order: righteousness, purity and then power. It is not power that comes first. The initial enduement of power given by the Holy Spirit is for internal development of righteousness and purity. It is after it has done its work INTERNALLY for righteousness and purity that the power will then manifest OUTWARDLY as healing and prosperity and other miracles. The Church of Jesus Christ has not yet seen the power of God as it should.
In the ministry of the Lord Jesus, the first 30 years, there was very little external demonstration of power, because the power was working on the inside. It was working INTERNALLY to endow a righteousness and purity that is permanent that will never change!
Revelation 3:8 KJV: I know thy works: behold, I have set before thee an open door, and no man can shut it: for thou hast a little strength, and hast kept my word, and hast not denied my name.
Revelation 3:12 KJV: Him that overcometh will I make a pillar in the temple of my God, and he shall go no more out: and I will write upon him the name of my God, and the name of the city of my God,
It is true that the Church has experienced a little of the power of God, but certainly not as much as God desires. In the ministry of the Lord Jesus, for the first 30 years, it wasn’t that there was no power; it was just that it was being used to do a work on the inside. Similarly, in the Philadelphia Church, the Lord said that you have ‘a little strength’ or power (Rev.3:8). Again, it was not external. There was power at work, but the power was working on the inside to wrought righteousness and purity so that the inward righteousness and purity will become permanent! The scripture speaks of the ‘overcomer’ and says that he will ‘no more go out’. We are to become permanently established in righteousness and so be far from terror. Permanent internal righteousness and permanent internal purity will bring about permanent external power! That was what the Lord Jesus achieved when He was 30 years old.
The Bible says in:
Luke 3:22 KJV: And the Holy Ghost descended in a bodily shape like a dove upon him, and a voice came from heaven, which said, Thou art my beloved Son; in thee I am well pleased.
This happened because the Lord had wrought righteousness and purity within Him by using the Word and the Spirit in the preceding years to establish Himself in righteousness and purity; and so the heavens opened and the Spirit of God, in the form of a dove, flutters down and the Bible says, it alights on and remains upon Him! This is not going to be a power that comes and goes but a power that permanently abides.
This man Christ Jesus: was God however the Bible says, ‘How God anointed Jesus of Nazareth’, meaning that the Lord Jesus operated as a man anointed by God when He was on earth. This helps to understand Christianity and how we can become like the Lord Jesus. He was not omnipresent, omnipotent nor omniscient, but was limited in a natural body. The Lord Jesus got tired; He slept; He got hungry and He didn’t walk on water everyday. Most of the time He was on water He was in a boat like an ordinary man. It was only recorded that He walked on water once or twice.
God is not ‘spooky’! We will surely manifest the Spirit without measure, but because we first develop internal purity, we will use it sensibly. The Lord Jesus did not do silly things, and when He walked on water, it was in the middle of the night when there was nobody around to see! It was a functional manifestation of divine power and NOT for show! He had been praying and had sent the disciples ahead. They were rowing and there arose a storm and people were finding it difficult to get to the other side. When He saw that His disciples were in trouble and the ship could sink, He came down from the mountain and walked on the water. Only God knows how long He walked on the water, because the disciples had been rowing for sometime. He just did it quietly in the middle of the night when no one could see Him even with the wind blowing! As He approached the boat, the disciples were surprised and afraid; they thought it was a ghost! The Lord calms them down and gets inside the boat and instantly the boat is transmitted from where they were to the other side (Mk.6: 45-51; Jn. 6:17).
The point here is that this miracle was done without publicity or fanfare. The challenge for us, the Church today is, ‘Can we do the same and not roll out the cameras and iPhones to record and transmit to social media platforms?’ We are going to walk on water because the scripture must be fulfilled (Jn.14: 12). We will walk on air like Philip in Acts 8:39-40 (that is “Philip transportation”) but we won’t be ‘spooky’ in doing so! Because of developed internal purity, we will only use such manifestations of power when God says so, and when it is necessary to be used; not to show off and certainly NOT to take up an offering!
The gross misuse by the Church of the taking of offerings is one of the reasons why God has not released such miracle power into the Church yet! He has not found a people who are sufficiently righteous and pure, hence this message to work on our personal righteousness and purity in order to be trusted with abiding power like the Lord Jesus! His power didn’t come and go; it stayed on Him permanently and so shall it be with His people who develop and maintain by the Spirit, permanent righteousness and purity in their lives.
We see this promise in a scripture that most Christians are unaware of, and if they are, most do not believe it!
John 15:7 KJV: If ye abide in me, and my words abide in you, ye shall ask what ye will, and it shall be done unto you.
This is what the Bible says! We must not over-spiritualise things. The Word says, “If ye abide in Me” (we have done that because we are in the Lord Jesus), “and my words abide in you”, (this is the limiting factor because, it is to the degree the Word is abiding in you; it has to abide in you to the degree of producing permanent righteousness and purity). The next part of the verse says that you can then ask what you will, and it, what you ask, shall be done unto you, instantly. Selah!
The Lord Jesus is our pattern and example in this regard. The scripture says, “My people shall be willing in the day of My power” (Ps.110: 3). It is important to realize that the Lord Jesus did not operate the gifts of the Spirit like we do.
We the Church of Christ Jesus, now operate the gifts of the Spirit “as the Spirit wills” (1Cor.12:7-11). The Holy Spirit gives a word of knowledge and we say, “Someone here is sick,” and the person is healed. The Lord Jesus did not operate like that; He operated with a permanent anointing. Let us look at two examples.
The first is the woman with the issue of blood. This spectacular healing did not take place through a word of knowledge. The Lord Jesus did not even know her condition! It was the abiding power that was resident in the Lord all the time that healed the woman. She obviously had heard that there were people who had touched the Lord and been instantly healed. The news was all over Galilee, Bethsaida and all the cities the Lord was operating in. The only place it didn’t work, however, was in Nazareth because of their unbelief, not because of a lack of power. There is power in a socket as long as there is electricity flowing; but when you put in an insulator like plastic, no current will flow, not because there is no power but because of the material hindering the contact and the flow of electricity into the device that is plugged in. If the plastic is replaced with a metal that is a suitable conductor, instantly the power will flow!
Luke 8:43 KJV: And a woman having an issue of blood twelve years, which had spent all her living upon physicians, neither could be healed of any.
Everybody that had been touching Him in Nazareth was an insulator, because they were touching in unbelief! Faith is a conductor and unbelief is an insulator. If we connect to the Lord Jesus in faith, the power will flow! The children of Israel failed to enter the rest of the Promised Land because they did not mix the word preached with faith (Heb.4: 2).
This woman had heard that this prophet, (many people did not know then that the Lord Jesus was the Son of God; they just knew Him as a great Prophet, like Elijah, that came from Nazareth, so they used to call him the prophet of Nazareth). They had heard the testimony of Him healing a whole multitude at one time!
Luke 6:19 KJV: And the whole multitude sought to touch him: for there went virtue out of him, and healed them all.
We know the Bible does not exaggerate. When a few got healed in Nazareth, the Bible says “He could there do no mighty works”. The Bible did not lie when it was just one man at the Pool of Bethesda; it was just one man healed in the multitude of impotent folk (Jn.5:1-9). The Bible did not say that all got healed; when many were healed the Bible says ‘many’; when all were healed, the Bible says ‘all’ were healed!
This woman had heard people saying that virtue goes out of Him and that sometimes all you just need to do is to touch Him! The Word (the Lord Jesus) is going down to the house of Jairus, the ruler of the synagogue (the Vicar or Bishop, in modern day language), whose daughter was so sick, she was almost dying! Jairus threw away all of his religious tradition and protocol; he ignored all the people and every negative thing they had been saying about the Lord Jesus. He put it all aside because it was his daughter that was dying, not theirs! So he paid them no mind. It took a lot of humility for Jairus to do what he did because he was the ruler of a synagogue and the Jewish leadership did not believe in the Lord Jesus because He was from Nazareth. They said, ‘Can any good thing come out of Nazareth?’ ‘Who taught Him? Gamaliel? He grew up in Nazareth; which Bible school did He attend?’ That was the problem in those days, but Jairus threw all that away because he wanted his daughter healed and knew that this Nazarene could do it, because He too had heard all the reports! So Jairus approaches the Lord Jesus and he did something that was unusual for important men to do: he prostrated! The Bible says that he fell down before Him (Mk.5: 22) and said, ‘Master I beseech You’.
There is a lesson to be learnt here. People will come to bow down to us (Isa.45: 14)! That is why we need the purity of heart; that is why we must have the internal righteousness so such things will not get to our head. When people do such things as coming to bow and kneel down before us, we must be like Apostle Peter who told the man, ‘Stand up, I am a man like you’ (Acts 10:26). When the people saw Paul and Silas, they said, ‘The gods have come down to us’. The Bible records that Paul and Silas tore their clothes in consternation at being called gods (Acts 14:11-15).
The lingering question is; “Can God trust us?” The little power we have had in today’s Church has been abused! Incessant, innumerable taking up of offerings, selling anointing oil, all for the sake of making money! However this is not going to happen in this present, last day move because it will be based on a foundation of righteousness and purity before the power is released by God.
So Jairus went to the Lord Jesus and said, ‘My daughter is sick’, The Lord Jesus said, “I will come!” The Lord Jesus is very compassionate. Remember that Jairus represented the people who criticised Him everyday. But He saw the man was in dire straits; his daughter was sick, the Lord Jesus would not throw that in Jarius’ face. That compassion is the outworking of righteousness and purity. The Lord Jesus agreed to go with Jairus, and as He was on His way, there came this woman with the issue of the blood who had heard of Him. Someone had told her that the Nazarene is walking past and she saw it as her chance to get healed, not caring what anyone thinks, or says, or that she was supposed to shout ‘Unclean’! She determined that the Lord would help her and that she was going to touch this man! She fought her way through the multitude and touched the hem, not the top or the body, but the hem of His garment. It was just a touch, but INSTANTLY she was healed, showing that the power was always present there! It was touched in faith by a ‘conductor’! It was not a delayed reaction but instant! That is the major characteristic of the operation of the Spirit without measure; it produces INSTANT miracles! In contrast, the Spirit with measure produces DELAYED miracles.
This woman with the issue of blood was instantly cleansed (Mk.5: 29); the power entered her body and the woman felt it INSTANTLY in her that she was healed and made whole! Then the Lord Jesus did something many may consider to be terribly upsetting: He stopped and asked, “Who touched Me?” In a crowd where people were constantly pushing and shoving, it seemed very strange that He was asking who touched Him! He said, “I perceive that virtue is gone out of Me”.
When you have divine virtue, the power of God on the inside, you will know when it flows out because it is tangible! The point we are making here is that the Lord did not receive a word of knowledge, otherwise He would have known about woman. He didn’t know that a woman with an issue of blood was determined to touch Him and be healed.
When the gifts of the Spirit are in operation we will receive a word of knowledge followed by the gift of healing to heal a case like this; however, with the Lord Jesus in this case, the healing was not done by the gifts of the Spirit but by the permanent abiding power of the Spirit without measure upon the Master!
Sadly some ‘miracle workers’ today appear to have prior knowledge of those upon whom they will exercise ‘miracle power!’ Sometimes God not give the real power to them and so they have to “fake” it. Some of our ‘miracle pastors’ today would say, “There is a woman here with an issue of blood, but it’s going to cost you $5000; if you want that level of miracle come forward!” What an abomination!
Beloved brethren, please be warned: the spirit of Babylon is going to be overthrown in the church! The purity in God’s servants is what is going to attract the people. The woman came trembling and told Him everything that happened. She thought the Lord Jesus was going to condemn her because He was a rabbi who knows the Law of Moses: that an unclean woman should not go through the crowd and that was why she was afraid. She came to confess, trembling, because she didn’t know what the Rabbi was going to say! The Lord said, “Daughter”; He didn’t call her ‘woman’; He called her ‘daughter’ an endearment: “Thy faith has made thee whole. Go and be healed of thy plague”. This is the simplicity of the Christ life: no fanfare, no special publicity. If it was today, an offering might have been taken up immediately! We ask the question again, “Can God trust you?”
There was righteousness, purity and power in operation: the woman was healed instantly because the prepared vessel was righteous and pure!
This account proves that the power which the Lord Jesus exercised was not as the Spirit wills: it was a permanent anointing.
Another example is the story of the leper in Matthew 8:1-3. The leper came to the Lord Jesus and says, “l know You can heal me if You will” And the Lord says, “I will; be thou clean”, and instantly, the leper was healed!
The scripture is emphatic in:
John 15:7 KJV: If ye abide in me, and my words abide in you, ye shall ASK WHAT YOU WILL, and it shall be done unto you.
If the work of righteousness and purity has been done in us, God will give us power that resides in us permanently and all you have to say is, ‘I will’, so fulfilling the prophetic scripture that says:
John 14:12 KJV: Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that believeth on me, the works that I do shall he do also; and greater [works] than these shall he do; because I go unto my Father.
The purpose and will of God for His Body, the Church at this ‘kairos’ moment is that we grow up to Christ in ALL things, to the measure and stature of the fullness of Christ, speaking the truth in love (Eph.4:15) in righteousness, purity and power.
Selah!
