“If you’re going to measure anything in your church, let it be the things that really matter both here and on into eternity.”

Matthew 25:34-36

“Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.’

THE CHALLENGE FOR PENTECOSTALS

Isaiah 61:1, 2
The Spirit of the Sovereign Lord is upon me,
for the Lord has anointed me to bring good news to the poor.
He has sent me to comfort the brokenhearted
and to proclaim that captives will be released and prisoners will be freed.
He has sent me to tell those who mourn that the time of the Lord’s favour has come

“If Jesus used Isaiah 61 as his missional mandate how can we park ourselves at the anointing and not move on to the very reason that the anointing is given, reaching the poor and the oppressed?”

If the alleviation of poverty and injustice doesn’t feature prominently in your teaching and practice in your local church you’re in danger of becoming a Pharisee, and not the good type, the type that Jesus saved up his greatest condemnation for.

“Could it be that the only true justification we have for the anointing of God’s Spirit is when we’re engaged in Jesus’ mission to the poor? That maybe it’s not a lack of passion and desire for the gifts but rather a lack of obedience to reach our communities through our good deeds that is keeping us from seeing the miraculous that was so evident in Jesus’ ministry?”