Jesus said that the first will be last and the last will be first. I feel the same way about this particular post. We are in the section on Spiritual Power and talked about revealing the glory of God which is best seen in the character of Christ as he walks the way of the cross and dies for the sins of the world. In Christ the justice of God was fulfilled by the love of God and the result is a new relationship with God via confession, repentance, forgiveness and reconciliation.

We talked about the three truths of holiness; how normal it should be but how dangerous it is not to have it. And what is that holiness? First and foremost, it is “relational” holiness not mere morality, and certainly not perfection. That’s just not possible and makes the whole message of the cross without sense.

So, we have gone from glory to holiness and even talked about spiritual conversations which is how we share what we are going through with others. Now we are going to talk about the anointing. The anointing is not just about signs and wonders but about effective ministry. We need to redefine our concept of ministry success. There is far too much emphasis on triumphalism and prosperity theology. It simply isn’t true. Effective ministry happens in the context of suffering for the gospel. Anointing comes not just on individual preachers or evangelists but upon groups of Christians and churches that are walking together in spiritual unity in the way of the cross.

In the next few posts, we will talk about what that means. The way of the cross is about confession, repentance, forgiveness, and reconciliation but it must be done in a particular way with the cross of Christ always central to the process. After you read those posts, it would be good to come back to this one to pull it all together and keep the focus right. This is spiritual warfare after all, and the Devil will do his best to distract us from the essential truths of the gospel.

When people think about what a successful ministry looks like, I often hear stories about signs and wonders. It is spectacular of course and they are a joy to hear about. God certainly does signs and wonders even today, no doubt. But that isn’t necessarily an effective, anointed ministry in my opinion.

The Israelites witnessed firsthand the ten plagues that fell upon Egypt but didn’t touch them in the land of Goshen. They saw the pillar of cloud by day and the pillar of fire by night. They saw the Red Sea open before them and destroy the greatest army available at that time. They saw the daily provisions of God for water and mana every day and their shoes and clothes did not wear out. They saw the fire of God on the mountain of Sinai and heard his voice. And yet most of them died in the desert without ever seeing the Promised Land.

There are many other stories throughout the Bible of that same blindness and deafness that stop these signs and wonders from actually changing the heart. Even Jesus witnessed that stubborn unbelief not just in the Pharisees and Sadducees but in the very ones he had healed. Ten lepers were healed but only one came back to worship and thank him. He raised Lazarus from the dead and the leaders of Israel determined that he should die and Lazarus as well…. again.

Signs and Wonders may get your attention, but they don’t change your heart. That’s the truth. We are impressed by anything “magical-looking” that gives us immediate benefits, but this isn’t about the external but rather the internal, the heart. It is a new relationship that is necessary, a hard heart turned into a heart of flesh that responds to the love behind the signs and wonders and worships the giver and not just desiring the gift.

Isn’t that true of any relationship? Are you in your marriage for the benefits or because of the person that you want to be with? Isn’t that why our wedding vows say, “in sickness or in health, for richer or for poorer”? It’s about the person, not the benefits. The same is true for our children. One of the great breakthroughs in our relationships with our children is whether they can accept a “no” answer and still prioritize the relationship instead of what they want. It is a necessary and important step in their relational maturity.

Signs and wonders are not a sign of effective ministry. Transformed hearts are what matters. But even that is not enough. For the anointing to come on your life ministry (and I am talking to all of us), it needs to include our personal witness and testimony as one who is walking the way of the cross together with Christ and in companionship with others as a church community. It doesn’t matter if it is only two or three or the entire church. Jesus said that were two or three were gathered in his name, he would be there as well. That is also church.

At the end of my post on The Heat of Battle, I was talking with my brother about the favor of God, and it was an interesting discussion. On the one hand, we have the favor of God just because we are Christians, don’t we? Yes, we do. We need to make sure that there is evidence for the presence of the Holy Spirit in our lives and the best evidence is that we are daily picking up our cross and following Him on the way of the cross. But yes, we have the favor of God upon us just because we are His children.

But we are still here on this earth for a purpose otherwise he would just bring us home. We have work to do. Each of us has a life ministry that combines our creational gifts with our redemptive spiritual gifts and our life ministry always focuses on the redemptive in the context of the creational. How each of us actually accomplishes that is up to us and our particular circumstances and strategies. But what does it mean that we have God’s favor on our life ministries?

We’ve talked about Matthew 7:21-23 where Jesus warns us that not everyone who says “Lord, lord” will be accepted or even saved. One of the most difficult verses in the Bible in my opinion especially when he describes people who throw out Devils and have signs and wonders accompanying them. I’m not anywhere near that level of ministry and most of us would consider those people to have effective ministries but Jesus says, “I do not know you.”

Pretty harsh, no?

Well, it depends. It is certainly a severe mercy that Jesus prioritizes our relationship with him over any form of ministry that we do. Certainly, God may still use us but we, ourselves, may be lost. And I am not just talking about those pastors and evangelists who got caught with their pants down or their hands in the cookie jar. All of us are susceptible to this particular deception.

Yes, a severe mercy.

God may in fact discipline us with exposure, with disaster, with a loss of reputation and income if we do not do ministry from a place of anointing. Or not. Many go on their merry way doing ministry as a career, maintaining a social status and reputation that becomes a tower of deception almost impossible to break. Too much is at risk and the tower is built slowly and almost without you being aware of it.

My own feeling is that many pastors have a three to five-year window when they first start their ministries in which they either conform to the expectations of their elders, their ministry team, their church leaders, and major donors or not. That conformity is the basis of this tower of deception that allows you to preach and minister to others without being right with God yourself, without practicing the way of the cross, without confession, repentance, forgiveness, and reconciliation as a natural, normal, daily part of your walk with God. Can you imagine? How dangerous that would be in most churches today.

But that is what Christ expects.

To follow him may lead to poverty, to a ministry outside the walls of the church, to a bad reputation among those who think that they know what being a Christian, or a Pastor, is all about.

I made a lot of mistakes in my first three years as a Pastor even though the Lord was blessing my ministry with growth and new believers. But I was not prepared for the politics in the church, and they truly thought they knew best about what it means to be a Christian, a pastor and a church. I kept trying and making mistakes and confessing my sins until they told me bluntly that I confess my sins (sometimes the same ones) too much. Just stop it. After all, if you were sincere your repentance would not allow you to sin the same sin again. Really?

My heart withered within me.

Obviously, I didn’t last very long. You will hear some of my story in the next few posts but suffice it to say that God’s severe mercy gave me enough rope to hang myself several times over until I learned that he was more interested in me than my ministry. Until I got my relationship right with him and worked through my spiritual and relational issues, there would be no ministry, no recognition, no income, nothing that would normally be seen as a pastoral ministry. It wasn’t about that.

Does that mean that I did not have God’s favor?

Not at all. In fact, it was because I did have God’s favor that I had so many problems and was destroyed in terms of ministry and relationships until he broke me down to a place of dependence on him completely. I am still in that process but at least now I can see the broad outlines of what he is doing and that gives me some peace and gratitude that he didn’t abandon me to my own ego-driven ministry goals.

So, when I was talking about all of this with my brother about the favor of God on our lives as Christians, on our tentmaking ministry efforts, on our evangelistic efforts, it was a moment of enlightenment. We need to redefine what we mean by success in ministry and in our Christian walk.

After all, if we are supposed to be following Christ then just look at where it brought him to be broken before God as the second Adam in the Garden of Gethsemane, and then to determine to obey and follow his Father and trust him even though it would lead him into the jaws of hell.

Where did his anointing lead him as he walked the way of the cross?

It led to the most effective ministry possible. Far more effective than anything he had done up to that point. It led to a deep and profound suffering for the gospel that was his true and faithful witness and he was anointed by God for the salvation of the world.

So, if it was true for Christ, why would it not be true for us?

If we are to suffer with him in order to be glorified with him, why do we assume that anointed effective ministry is anything but suffering for the gospel?

Paul’s forty lashes minus one, five times over in his ministry. His captivity, his beatings, his imprisonment. In between and around the actual suffering, he was able to preach all over Asia Minor and for two years in the Hall of Tyrannus, but the context was always his true and faithful witness as he suffered for the gospel. That was his witness and his anointing. Why should it be any different for us?

The three things go together. Glory, Holiness, and Anointing. We have the favor of God on us first and foremost because we are his children. Ministry must be an overflow of that walk in the way of the cross. And it will get us into trouble. It will humble us. It will overwhelm us. But it is the necessary prerequisite for anointed, effective ministry even though it may look like a disaster to us and others around us. We reveal the glory of God by imitating Christ as he walks the way of the cross. It is a relational holiness rooted in the cross that can only create his character in us as we confess, repent, forgive, and reconcile and are involved in the ministry of reconciliation in one way or the other.

That is the missing link.

We grow in the character of Christ in the context of our life ministry focused on the ministry of reconciliation. But we cannot have an anointed, effective ministry of reconciliation if we are not walking in the way of the cross ourselves. And it is dangerous. It hurts. We shy away from it naturally rather than embrace it enthusiastically. It goes against what most people think ministry is, what church is, what it means to follow Christ.

But so be it.

We tend to throw ministry leaders under the bus rather quickly if they break with our expectations of what a “godly” ministry is all about. I agree that sin is sin, but I am more interested in what they do with it afterward. Not in order to keep their positions or ministries. Maybe in many cases, they need to be removed. That depends on the particular situation. I would certainly encourage a period of separation so that any confession, repentance, forgiveness, and reconciliation is not an excuse for recovering their former position. Better to start something new from a place of genuine brokenness.

But that doesn’t mean that they should be abandoned. They still need their community of believers and fellow broken travelers to walk with them, show them the way, help them along the way, and pick them up when they fall down. They are now under the severe mercy of God and have a far more powerful level of favor on their lives than ever before and anything can happen.

That is the power of anointing that is hard to find in the church but when it comes, effective ministry, signs and wonders and transformed hearts are the result without sacrificing the ones doing the ministry on the altar of our immature expectations and understanding of how God gets things done.

The essential issue that the church needs to face is that God's way of bringing anointing to a ministry is messy, upsetting, scary and difficult. Just like war. It isn't just a formal career choice. It is in the crucible of the ministry that God breaks us down (all of us including our leaders) in order to build us up and if the church can't stand the heat, they should get out of the kitchen.

Perhaps that is why the most effective anointed ministry is often outside of the church where there is freedom to fail and confess the failure. Where there is a community that walks together in repentance on the road to the cross. Where forgiveness and reconciliation is the way leaders are healed instead of exposure and dismissal.

If the local church is truly the salvation of the world, it has a lot of growing up to do yet.

The Desert Warrior