READ: Luke 6:12-19
“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor…“: – Luke 4:18
The first sermon that Jesus preached was about the anointing. The first thing that he said when he began his ministry was that he was anointed. In fact, Jesus did not attempt any form of ministry until he was anointed. Jesus knew that the ministry depended on the anointing.
I recently visited a large beautiful church. The pastor himself was not around so the janitor took us around the building. The main hall had hundreds of beautiful mahogany pews. It was a beautiful building with two huge pipe organs and surrounding balconies. I asked the janitor how many people the building seated and he told me it seated at least eight hundred and eighty people.
Then he told me that only a few people actually attended services there. “About twenty, with a maximum of thirty people.” He added, “Only old people attend church now. The young people don’t come to church anymore.”
I thought, “How sad. Such a large church has been reduced to a fellowship of twenty old and dying people.”
Obviously there was no life. But that was not all. The janitor continued, “From this month onwards, the services are being held every two weeks instead of every week.”
I thought to myself, “We hold church services on almost everyday of the week. What a contrast!”
The ministry depends on the anointing