Another time I woke up one morning with a terrible pain in my neck. What was the cause of it neither I nor my friend, Peter, knew. I asked Peter to pray for me. As he began to look to the Lord for instructions, the Lord told him to take oil and anoint me and ask for my healing. After he anointed me with oil and prayed for me the pain went away and I was able to move my neck around freely without pain.

Was there some magic in the oil itself? No. The magic was in his obedience to the Lord’s instructions as to how he wanted him to pray for my need. Jesus said in the Gospel of John,

"He who has My commandments, and keeps them, he it is who loves Me; and he who loves Me shall be loved by My Father, and I will love him and will disclose Myself to him." (John 14:21). Since we are no longer under Old Testament ritual Law, the commands Jesus is talking about here are not in relation to this Law. The commands are first His teachings through the apostles and second His personal individual instructions to our lives through the ministry of the Holy Spirit, the ministry work of Jesus, taken in the context of Section 4. When we obey Jesus’ instructions through the Holy Spirit as to how to approach a problem, Jesus promises to manifest Himself to us concerning the need and give us what we ask for. This is because whenever we ask Jesus for something according to His will, His Word promises that it is ours. The Apostle John states in the first Epistle of John,

"And this is the confidence which we have before Him, that, if we ask anything according to His will, he hears us. And if we know that He hears us in whatever we ask, we know that we have the requests which we have asked from Him." (1 John 5:14-15).

Does this mean that obedience is the key? Obedience to Jesus’ instructions through the Holy Spirit is not a key in itself concerning the answers to our needs, it is just that only Jesus Himself knows what the root of our problems are. It is also that Jesus takes advantage of every situation to teach us something and conform us more to His image and His plan and purpose for our lives.

When Elisha told Naaman, captain of the army of the king of Syria, by the instruction of the Lord, to dip himself in the river Jordan seven times so that he would be cured of his leprosy, it was not because the Jordan river had any healing virtue of its own, but God wanted to teach Naaman a lesson of humility.⁴⁷ The Jordan river was a filthy muddy river. God did not just want to heal Naaman physically, but spiritually as well. Therefore God took advantage of Naaman’s need physically to bring about a spiritual healing as well. When Naaman, against his pride and as a result of his servant’s encouragement, obeyed God’s instructions for his need, he got a complete healing physically as well as spiritually.

My friend Peter was just learning how to depend on Jesus in praying for people’s needs. Jesus instructing Peter to anoint me with oil had no virtue in itself, but Jesus wanted my friend, Peter, to learn to obey only His instructions in praying for others and so He took advantage of the situation by having him pray for my need in a specific way. Oil is symbolic of the Holy Spirit, and when my friend obeyed Jesus’ instructions through the agency of the Holy Spirit as to how to pray for my need by applying oil first, not only was my neck healed, but my friend was blessed and learned that when he prays for a need the way Jesus instructs him to through the agency of the Holy Spirit, he will not only see people miraculously healed and their needs met, but will see Jesus glorified through his life in great and mighty ways. "Truly, truly, I say to you, he who believes in Me [Jesus], the works that I do shall he do also; and greater works than these shall he do; because I go to the Father." (John 14:12). Jesus wanted my friend to learn this lesson so that he would not unintentionally hurt people in ministering to them in the future by claiming something out of his own reasoning, through his soul, as to the reason for their lack of healing that would only drive them further away from the solution and root of their problem rather than to the solution which only Jesus has.

Jesus said in the Gospel of Matthew, "Truly I say to you, unless you are converted and become like children, you shall not enter the kingdom of heaven." (Matt 18:3). Jesus is the way, Jesus is the truth, and Jesus is life. Only Jesus knows the intimate complexity of man’s constitution and the root cause of all our problems. Therefore if we are to help people with their needs, we must look to Jesus and Jesus alone for the answer no matter how it appears on the surface. Jesus said, "Do not judge according to appearance, but judge with righteous judgment." (John 7:24). Only as we look to Jesus, the answer to all our needs mentally, physically, and spiritually, can we be sure of applying the right cure in the right way to a person’s needs. Jesus is the answer to man’s needs, not we ourselves. The Lord said through the prophet Isaiah,

"For My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways My ways, declares the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways, and My thoughts than your thoughts." (Is 55:8-9).

Jesus’ thoughts about a situation are based on all the facts involved because He and He alone is able to see the whole situation objectively as well as subjectively as it is in truth. All we can see is what is on the surface which is many times a camouflage or symptom hiding the real root issue. Therefore, if left to our own thoughts and reasoning, we can only fall into error and more greatly complicate the problem, not bring about a real solution. It is for this reason that the ministry work of Jesus in the anointing called the Baptism of the Holy Spirit is an absolute necessity for any Christian who wishes to be a true representative of Jesus and a true channel of His love, forgiveness, and healing to a fallen world. Without the Baptism of the Holy Spirit, one does not have the tools or the means to get to the true root of a person’s problem or to the true solution to the person’s need whether it be spiritual, mental, or physical. Without the tools that accompany the Baptism of the Holy Spirit, a person is left to presumption, since he cannot see the subjective side of the situation without the Baptism of the Holy Spirit, and this only leads to strife. The writer of Proverbs states, "There is a way which seems right to a man, but its end is the way of death." (Prov 14:12). "Through presumption comes nothing but strife, but with those who receive counsel is wisdom." (Prov 13:10). "There is one who speaks rashly like the thrusts of a sword, but the tongue of the wise brings healing." (Prov 12:18). Finally Jesus said recorded in John 6:63, "It is the Spirit who creates-life, the flesh profits nothing."

When we try and minister to the needs of man without looking to Jesus through the Holy Spirit and through the gifts of the Holy Spirit, we are ministering out of our souls, not our spirits. The soul has no ability to minister or create life. The soul cannot see into the heart of man or the physical anatomy of man or into man’s mind or heart. The soul cannot see into the heart and mind of God. Since God’s will is that we minister out of the motivation of the Holy Spirit through our spirits, to not do so is sin. It was Eve acting out of the motivation of her soul and Adam acting out of the motivation of his flesh that led to the fall and destruction of man. Anything we try to solve through the wisdom and motivation of the soul first will only lead to destruction. For this reason I do not believe God wants us trying to minister to any need until we have sought His council first through the Holy Spirit through our spirit through the gifts of the Holy Spirit. His gifts are complete and sufficient and everything that is needed to meet the needs of man. Since they come from Him, they are never in error and always hit the mark. They will always lead to the right diagnosis of our needs. Anything that we try to minister to one another that does not originate from heaven first is earthly, from the soul, demonic. James writes,

"This is not that wisdom which comes from above but is earthly, from the soul, demonic." (James 3:15)

James makes plain that, that which does not originate from heaven, whether our ideas or not, is in league with demons. God’s will for man was never for man to act independently of His council. To do so, according to God’s Word, is to be in league with demons.

If we are to be successful in ministry outreach and release we must submit to the ministry work of Jesus. The ministry work of Jesus is the Baptism of the Holy Spirit which is an anointing of power through the Holy Spirit to free us of our bondage to the motivation and control of our soul and flesh so we will instead be led, motivtion and controlled through our spirits through the Holy Spirit. The Baptism of the Holy Spirit frees us from acting or speaking out of our own initiative so that we will only speak and act out of Jesus’ initiative through the Holy Spirit. The Baptism of the Holy Spirit also equips us with our prayer language which is our means to Jesus’ heart to get to the root of our problems whether it be in relationship to Jesus, ourselves, or others.

The Baptism of the Holy Spirit also equips us with the nine manifestations of the Holy Spirit: Wisdom, knowledge, faith, healings, works of power, prophecy, discerning of spirits, and various kinds of tongues with interpretation of tongues. These manifestations of the Holy Spirit make us able to be adequate ministers of Jesus’ total redemption in any capacity of need. They are available to any Holy Spirit Baptized believer when manifested by Jesus through the Holy Spirit to meet the need at present for everyone’s common good.

The Holy Spirit in the form of the Baptism of the Holy Spirit is the ministry work of Jesus and the key to effective ministry outreach and release through our lives to others. The next question is, how do we receive the Baptism of the Holy Spirit? This will be the discussion of Section 6 titled, "Receiving the Ministry Work of Jesus."