When we talk about the
laying on of hands we are not just talking about the act of one person laying
their hands on another person in prayer, we are talking about the concept, the
realm of personal ministry.
We are talking about what happens in personal
ministry and how God works through the ministry of one person to another.
Basically we are talking about the authority that God has given to mankind and
more specifically to the believer through the Holy Spirit.
Every Christian is called
to personal ministry. This is not just for the super saints or for the leaders.
It is for all believers. And it is crucial to our personal growth and
development as believers.
Laying on of hands is not
magic. There is nothing special about one person putting their hands on another
person. It is a ceremonial action just like water baptism or taking communion
or confession of sins. None of those actions have any special powers in and of
themselves. What empowers each of those actions is the faith behind them. The
faith that drives us to do the actions. That is the key.
The laying on of hands
isn’t what makes things happen. What makes things happen is faith. Laying of
hands facilitates and creates an opportunity for what you are believing to
occur in your body or in your life. It is a tangible avenue by which you avail
yourself to experience the power of God manifest in you and for you. It is a
way of yielding to the Holy Spirit to minister to us by His power and
anointing.
Luke 4:14-44
Here
we see Jesus baptized with water, then baptized with the Holy Spirit and going
into the wilderness where He spent 40 days and was tempted by the devil. After
overcoming He returns and goes to the synagogue to begin His public ministry.
And
He begun by announcing that the Holy Spirit was upon Him and had empowered Him
to do several things which included bringing financial success and abundant
life to the poor, healing the sick, delivering the bound and so forth.
He
continued to preach with incredible power and authority so that everyone
marveled at His words. However, Jesus wasn’t all talk. He also demonstrated the
things He talked about. He cast out devils, healed the sick, and did many signs
and wonders.
In
verse 40 it says that ‘Now when the sun
was setting, all they that had any sick with divers diseases brought them unto
him; and he laid his hands on every one of them, and healed them.’
Jesus
healed every single person that was brought to Him. How did He do that? By what
means did He heal them? By laying His hands on them.
Was
there something special about His hands? No. did He have some sort of special
power or anointing in His hands? No. was it because He was the Son of God? No.
Jesus
did all of this because He had the Holy Spirit in Him and upon Him. He was a
man full of the Holy Spirit. Earlier He had announced that the Holy Spirit was
upon Him and had anointed Him to do these things. He was simply yielding to the
Holy Spirit who was in Him and upon Him. Laying His hands on people was a way
for Him to release the life, power and anointing of the Holy Spirit that was in
Him unto these people who needed to be healed or delivered or whatever they
needed. Laying of hands was a way for Him to take what was in Him and releasing
it upon these people who needed it. And it is the same with us.
As
we discussed in a previous lesson, being filled with the Spirit has nothing to
do with getting more of the Holy Spirit or having a lot of the Holy Spirit in
you. The Holy Spirit is a person and when you received Him you received Him in
His fullness. Being filled with the Spirit has to do with coming under the
influence of the Holy Spirit. It has to do with yielding more and more of
yourself to Him.
In
Ephesians5:18 Paul admonishes us to “be
not drunk with wine, wherein is excess; but be filled with the Spirit”
He
compares being filled with the Spirit to being drunk with wine. When you are
drunk with wine your stomach is not filled with wine and neither are you having
more of wine. You could even take just a very small glass of wine which cannot
even occupy a tenth of your stomach and still be drunk.
What
happens is that you yield to the wine. Your mind, will, emotions and body all
come under the influence of the wine. You say and do things that you wouldn’t
when you are sober. And if you drive a car and are arrested you will be charged
with driving under the influence. (DUI)
This
is the same thing with being filled with the Holy Spirit, albeit in a positive
sense. When you are filled with the Spirit, you are intoxicated with the Holy
Spirit. And you do this by yielding more and more to His influence through
prayer, fasting, acknowledging Him, by being aware and paying attention to Him,
by worshipping, by speaking in tongues and several other ways.
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