Prayer For A Fuller Understanding Of The Meaning Of The Cross

Understanding The Significance Of The Olive Tree And Anointing Oil | Joseph Prince Ministries

In the Old Testament, God ordained the anointing oil to bless His people. But what can new covenant believers use it for today? Joseph Prince shares from the Bible how the anointing oil speaks of Christ and His finished work. Understanding this will give you access to God’s supernatural provision of health, wholeness and supply!

The Bible mentions in many places the grain, wine and oil. For years, I had wondered why the Lord always mentions these three items together. So I asked the Lord and I thank Him that the search is over.

Through the grain, wine and oil, we can receive by grace, not by accomplishing or striving, all the benefits of Jesus. Man ate his way into trouble in the Garden of Eden. By the same token, you can eat your way back into God’s blessings today.

Seeing Christ In The Grain, Wine And Oil

The grain and wine represent the Holy Communion, which speaks of the broken body of Jesus and the blood that He shed. To make bread, you take the wheat or grain, then crush and beat it to make dough. Then, you punch the dough and put it into the fiery heat for it to become bread. That’s what happened to our Lord Jesus on the cross—He became our Bread of Life.

To get wine, the grapes not only have to be plucked, they also need to be crushed and trodden upon. wise, our Lord Jesus was trodden upon by the judgment of God and He became new wine for all of us.

Olive oil comes from the olive fruit. But when you press the fruit real hard, you won’t find oil, only a white sap. Also, the fruit tastes very bitter.

In the same manner, Jesus was crushed under the burden and weight of our sins, and under the judgment of a holy God. He was crushed to become the anointing oil that heals us today.

Ordained By God

God is bringing the church to a place where we see the importance of the holy anointing oil. God’s way is always for us to act on what we can do in the natural, and He will accomplish in the supernatural what we cannot. Using the anointing oil is biblical and ordained by God. So don’t let people tell you that you are superstitious for using the anointing oil.

James 5:14–15
Is anyone among you sick? Let him call for the elders of the church, and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord. And the prayer of faith will save the sick, and the Lord will raise him up. And if he has committed sins, he will be forgiven.

It was a practice in the early church to use the anointing oil on the sick. So when the elders of the church visited the sick, they anointed the sick person with oil in the name of the Lord.

“And the prayer of faith will save the sick” shows us clearly that this is not a superstition, but something done in faith. How do you have faith? “…faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.

” (Romans 10:17) So once you have a revelation about what the Bible teaches on a subject, faith for that area will come.

Fresh Oil Of The New Covenant

Let’s look at Psalm 92, a psalm for the Sabbath. In verse 10, it says, “But my horn You have exalted a wild ox; I have been anointed with fresh oil.” God expects us to have fresh oil because when oil gets stagnant, it becomes stale.

The word “fresh” in Hebrew is raanan which means “green”. Notice that extra virgin olive oil is green. Green speaks of newness or youth. So the oil has to be of the new covenant because the oil of the old covenant is stale.

The old covenant tells you that you must obey God before He can heal your body. Some people believe that and their faith becomes stale. They will slowly stay away from God because of wrong believing.

But do you know that the new covenant doesn’t teach that? It teaches that despite your failures, God will heal you. As seen earlier in James 5:15, even if a person has committed sins, he need not feel disqualified because God will forgive his sins through the prayer of faith. Once sin, the biggest hindrance, has been removed, what is there to stop us from receiving from God?

After we have prayed over the olive oil, it becomes holy anointing oil. “Holy” means set apart for God’s purposes. It also means “separated from”—darkness into light, lack into abundance and sickness into wholeness. Thus, the anointing oil is no longer just natural oil. The next verse says:

Psalm 92:11
My eye also has seen my desire on my enemies; my ears hear my desire on the wicked who rise up against me.

When you are anointed with green or fresh oil, it’s going to affect your eyes and ears. Your eyes will see victory and your ears will hear victory. So “the wicked” or your enemies will not prosper, but you will!

Before you read the Bible, you can tell the Lord, “I am anointing my eyes, Lord. Let me see You afresh in the Scriptures.” Then, you will find that the Bible comes alive for you. You are relying on the Holy Spirit to give you revelations, to guide you into all truths, and not trusting in your own intellect.

Yokes Destroyed, Burdens Lifted

Isaiah 10:27
It shall come to pass in that day that his burden will be taken away from your shoulder, and his yoke from your neck, and the yoke [satanic bondage] will be destroyed because of the anointing oil.

Sometimes, you feel stressed and are full of worries. After a quarrel or moment of strife, you sense a weight on your shoulders. The word “his” in the above verse refers to the Assyrians, Israel’s enemies then.

Today, it represents the spirit of the anti-Christ or the devil who seeks to oppress you. An ox has a yoke around its neck to pull the cart. wise, the devil wants to put a yoke on your neck to pull you wherever he wants you to go.

For instance, if you are addicted to nicotine, the devil tells you, “You cannot but smoke. I’ve got you where I want you.”

Notice that the yoke will be “destroyed” and not “broken”. There is a difference between these two words. When something is broken, it can be repaired. But when something is destroyed, it is beyond repair. God’s anointing oil will destroy every satanic bondage in your life beyond repair!

Restoration Of Time And Family Life

When the devil wants to attack you, one of the ways he comes against you is to steal from you. In Deuteronomy 28, there is a very interesting principle to observe under the portion of the curses.

Deuteronomy 28:38–40
“You shall carry much seed out to the field but gather little in, for the locust shall consume it.

You shall plant vineyards and tend them, but you shall neither drink of the wine nor gather the grapes; for the worms shall eat them.

You shall have olive trees throughout all your territory, but you shall not anoint yourself with the oil; for your olives shall drop off.

The “seed” here refers to grain and in the “vineyards”, you have wine. Notice that the devil is out to consume your grain and wine, so he sends the locusts and worms. He is also out to consume your oil.

Let’s look at the next verse to find out why the devil wants to take away these things from your life.

Deuteronomy 28:41
You shall beget sons and daughters, but they shall not be yours; for they shall go into captivity.

Whenever there is a lack of the grain, wine and oil, your family life is affected. You may have children whom you love deeply, but when they grow up, you lose them. Mixing with bad company, they become captive to drinking, partying and drug addictions.

But God has prepared a way out for you.

Joel 2:23–24
…for He has given you the former rain faithfully, and He will cause the rain to come down for you—the former rain, and the latter rain in the first month. The threshing floors shall be full of wheat, and the vats shall overflow with new wine and oil.

The “former rain” in Hebrew refers to a teacher of righteousness. The reason God gives you a teacher of righteousness is so that the church, your home and your workplace will be full of grain, and overflowing with new wine and oil. And the next verse says:

Here, the “chewing locust” refers to the worm. The King James Bible uses the word “palmerworm”. When your life is full of the grain, wine and oil, God will restore to you the years that the locusts and worms have eaten. Some of you may say, “Pastor Prince, once the years have passed, they are gone.” But the Creator of time says that He will restore to you the years that have been wasted!

Revealing The Beauty Of The Olive Tree

When you study the olive tree, you will be blessed because every part of the tree has a meaning. Today, when you go to the Garden of Gethsemane in Israel, you will find really old olive trees with gnarled trunks. Interestingly, the trunk of an olive tree is hollow un most trees.

Why is the olive tree trunk hollow? The olive tree represents each of us and God wants us to remember always that we are created by God with this purpose—to contain Him only, not ourselves or the devil.

People who don’t fulfill or refuse to accept God’s purpose for them will feel empty inside.

They can do many things to fill themselves up—live for pleasure, earn lots of money, get whatever they desire—but they will end up feeling empty. You can even see the emptiness if you look real close into their eyes.

But when you look at those who are full of God, there is a fire in their eyes and a spring in their steps everywhere they go.

In the Bible, God describes His people Israel as the “Green Olive Tree”. (Jeremiah 11:16) We, who were formerly Gentiles, have been grafted into this olive tree. (Romans 11:13–25) The olive tree lives long, so expect to live a good, long life. Have you wondered how the olive tree lives long?

Benefits Of The Olive Oil Released Through The Cross

A few years ago when I was in Capernaum, the hometown of Jesus, I saw an olive press. The guide explained that olive berries were put in the press and crushed with a huge millstone.

The first press produces extra virgin olive oil, which is used to light the Jewish temple.

The oil from the second press is used for medicine, while the oil from the third or last press is used for making soap.

The light makes you see what others—your competitors, professors, scientists—cannot see in the natural. It is the Holy Spirit that gives you spiritual enlightenment.

For instance, people saw David as a shepherd boy. But Samuel, under the anointing of the Holy Spirit, saw a king in David. So the anointing oil will cause you to see how God sees.

And when you see how He sees, you will enjoy what He enjoys.

The second press took place after Jesus was brought from Gethsemane and scourged. Jesus is our “medicine” because “by His stripes we are healed”. (Isaiah 53:5)

A member in our church told me that he had eczema on his left thigh for some time. He had applied all kinds of medication on his thigh, but the eczema did not subside. When I first preached about the anointing oil, he bought some olive oil and prayed over it. Then, he started applying the oil on a daily basis for a week. Today, he is healed of eczema!

The last press, in which the oil is used for cleansing, happened at the cross. Jesus was crushed under the fiery indignation of a holy righteous God, suffering the judgment and penalties for our sins. His blood has cleansed us of our sins.

Olive oil in the natural has no effect on you unless you eat or use it. But when you pray over your bottle of natural olive oil in Jesus’ name, God sets it apart and it becomes holy anointing oil. Use the oil for God’s glory and see His miracles, provision and restoration in your life!

Prayer For Anointing Oil

You may approach a pastor or leader in your local church to pray over and consecrate your oil for you. As a king and priest in Christ (Revelation 1:6), you can also pray over the oil and set it apart to be holy. Here’s a prayer for blessing and sanctifying your oil:

Dear Father in heaven, in and of itself, this bottle of oil is just oil. But I ask You, Father, in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, anoint this oil I hold in my hands. Anoint it and set it apart for Your holy purposes. Make it holy anointing oil.

Use it for Your glory, Father. According to Your Word in Mark 6:13 and James 5:14, use it to make those on whom it is applied healthy, strong, and youthful, with sickness and disease far from them.

Father, I thank You that this bottle of oil is now holy anointing oil. In the name of Jesus I pray, Amen.Looking for more grace-inspired articles? Check out the rest of them.

Источник: //www.josephprince.org/blog/articles/understanding-the-significance-of-the-olive-tree-and-anointing-oil

The Passion of Christ

Christ on the cross ©

The Passion of Christ is the story of Jesus Christ's arrest, trial and suffering. It ends with his execution by crucifixion. The Passion is an episode in a longer story and cannot be properly understood without the story of the Resurrection.

The word Passion comes from the Latin word for suffering.

The crucifixion of Jesus is accepted by many scholars as an actual historical event. It is recorded in the writings of Paul, the Gospels, Josephus, and the Roman historian Tacitus. Scholars differ about the historical accuracy of the details, the context and the meaning of the event.

Most versions of the Passion begin with the events in the Garden of Gethsemane. Some also include the Last Supper, while some writers begin the story as early as Palm Sunday, when Jesus entered Jerusalem to the applause of the crowds.

The Passion is a story about injustice, doubt, fear, pain and, ultimately, degrading death. It tells how God experienced these things in the same way as ordinary human beings.

The most iconic image of the Passion is the crucifix – Christ in his last agony on the cross – found in statues and paintings, in glass, stone and wooden images in churches, and in jewellery.

The Passion appears in many forms of art. It is set to music, used as a drama and is the subject of innumerable paintings.

Spiritually, the Passion is the perfect example of suffering, which is one of the pervasive themes of the Christian religion.

Suffering is not the only theme of the Passion, although some Christians believe that Christ's suffering and the wounds that he suffered play a great part in redeeming humanity from sin.

Another theme is incarnation – the death of Jesus shows humanity that God had become truly human and that he was willing to undergo every human suffering, right up to the final agony of death. Another is obedience – despite initial, and very human, reluctance and fear, Jesus demonstrates his total acquiescence to God's wishes.

But the final theme is victory – the victory of Christ over death – and this is why the Passion story is inseparable from the story of the Resurrection.

The elements of the Passion story are these:

• The Last Supper
• The agony in the Garden of Gethsemane
• The arrest of Jesus after his betrayal by Judas
• The examination and condemnation of Jesus by the Jews
• The trial before Pilate during which Jesus is sentenced to be whipped and crucified
• The crucifixion of Jesus

The Last Supper

Jesus and the disciples share a last meal together either during Passover (Synoptic Gospels) or on the eve of Passover (John's Gospel).

The Last Supper was a Passover meal ©

During the meal Jesus blesses and breaks bread, which he gives to the disciples saying “Take, eat; this is my body which is given for you; do this in remembrance of me”.

After the meal Jesus blesses some wine and gives it to the disciples saying “Drink ye all of this; for this is my blood of the new covenant, which is shed for you and for many for the forgiveness of sins. Do this, as oft as ye shall drink it, in remembrance of me”.

During the meal Jesus predicts that he will be betrayed by one of those sharing the meal with him, and that another of the disciples will disown him.

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The agony in the Garden

After supper Jesus goes with the disciples to spend the night in prayer in the Garden of Gethsemane.

Jesus asks God if he can escape his fate…”Father, if you are willing, take this cup from me; yet not my will, but yours be done.”

Despite this prayer he willingly submits to God's will and continues to prepare himself. God sends an angel to give Jesus strength for the ordeal.

Jesus continues to pray and his distress is such that 'his sweat was drops of blood'.

The disciples who Jesus asked to wait with him fell asleep; even his closest friends left him to suffer alone.

Jesus is betrayed by Judas and arrested

Judas betrayed Jesus by kissing him ©

A group of armed men, sent by the Jewish authorities, arrives in the Garden to arrest Jesus.

Judas betrays Jesus by identifying him with a kiss – the signal he had arranged beforehand.

Peter, one of the disciples, takes a sword and cuts off the ear of one of the arresting party. The disciple believes that he is trying to protect Jesus, but by doing so he abandons Jesus' teaching against violence.

Jesus forbids further violence and heals the injured man.

The disciples run away and Jesus is taken away.

Jesus is tried by Jewish officials

Jesus is questioned in front of a group of Jewish religious leaders. The Gospels give different accounts of this, and of who is present.

Caiaphas, the Chief Priest of the Temple wanted to destroy Jesus before he caused a rebellion that would bring down the comfortable world of the Temple and enraging the Roman authorities.

During questioning Jesus says enough for the Romans to see him as a rebel, and the Jews to regard him as a blasphemer.

Modern Christians do not blame the Jews for the death of Jesus.

The Jewish authorities had several reasons for being angry with Jesus:

• Jesus had challenged their authority – earlier in the week Jesus had gone to the Temple and protested against the moneychangers, as a symbolic denunciation of all the injustices the Temple stood for.
• Jesus was reinterpreting Jewish Law
• Jesus was breaking the laws concerning the Sabbath
• Jesus claimed to be the Messiah, a claim which the authorities thought blasphemous
• The claim to be Messiah suggested that Jesus was preparing some sort of rebellion – probably against the Roman colonial government. Such a revolt would endanger the relationship between Roman and Jewish authorities. (In those days the Messiah was expected to be a royal figure who would defeat the enemies of God and cleanse or rebuild the temple, and perhaps also bring God's justice to the world.)

Jesus is tried by Pilate

Jesus is tried by Pontius Pilate, the Roman governor, on a charge of treason. The Jewish authorities were not authorised to execute people, so they needed to transfer the case to the Roman authorities.

Pilate is not convinced that Jesus is guilty of a capital crime and suggests that it would be sufficient to flog him.

The crowd objects to this and demands that Jesus be killed. Pilate gives in and sentences Jesus to be flogged first and then executed by crucifixion.

Although the Gospels paint Pilate as a weak man who ignores justice rather than stand against the crowd, other sources say that he was tough and authoritarian, and unly to have been pushed around by anyone.

Purple was a royal colour, so the robe and crown mocked the claim that Jesus was King of the Jews ©

Pilate was eventually ordered back to Rome and tried for the cruel way he treated the people under his government.

There is a Christian tradition that Pilate and his wife eventually converted to Christianity.

The crucifixion

Jesus is whipped and then, to mock the claim that he is 'King of the Jews', given a crown of thorns and dressed in a purple robe. Jesus carries his cross to the place of crucifixion, helped by Simon of Cyrene.

The crucifixion takes place at a location called Calvary or Golgotha.

Jesus is stripped and nailed to the Cross. Above his head is placed a sign that says 'King of the Jews'. Two criminals are crucified alongside him.

After some hours the soldiers check that Jesus is dead by stabbing him in the side. Blood and water gush out.

Jesus' body is taken down and buried.

The Passion of Christ has featured in Christian liturgy since the 4th century.

From the 7th century the service on the Wednesday of Holy Week featured the St Luke Passion, and from the 10th century the Roman Catholic Church used the St Mark Passion on the Tuesday of Holy Week.

From quite early the Passion was chanted in a dramatic way, with the reader representing the different voices in the story: the Evangelist as Narrator, the voice of Christ, and other speaking parts. Very often the words of Christ were chanted while the rest was spoken.

The texts were originally chanted by a single person, but from around the 13th century different voices took the different parts.

The first polyphonic Passion settings date from the 15th century.

As music became more sophisticated various forms of Passion were developed, ranging from straight narratives with music through to oratorios anchored to a greater or lesser extent in the text of scripture.

The St Matthew Passion of J S Bach is probably the best-known of the musical settings of the Passion.

The Passion in drama

'Passion plays' have been staged since the 12th century. The earliest play (so far) is one found at the Benedictine monastery of Monte Cassino in Italy. Two 13th century German passion plays are known, and Passion plays were more popular during that century and the one that followed.

The Passion of Christ was also portrayed in the English 'cycle plays'.

Passion plays often give a detailed portrayal of Christ's physical suffering and many of them include explicit dramatisations of the beating and execution of Christ.

There were at least two reasons for this: since all Passion plays emphasise the humanity of Christ and identify this with his physical experiences, a realistic Crucifixion brought the point home to the audience. Secondly, making the action as realistic as possible demonstrated to the audience that the death of Christ was a real historical event.

The most famous Passion play is the one that has been staged at Oberammergau in Upper Bavaria in Germany since 1634.

The Oberammergau Passion play is particularly notable for involving the participation of the most of the villagers, with over 800 people in the cast.

The Passion in art

The Passion is one of the most common subjects in art. Paintings of the Crucifixion were much in demand for church use.

Detail taken from the Isenheim altarpiece ©

The earliest paintings of the Crucifixion date from the 5th century.

Among the most famous paintings is the Isenheim altarpiece (1515) by Mathias Grunewald. The painting of the Crucifixion is gruelling in both its detailed treatment of the physical anguish of Jesus, and the visual language used.

The Crucifix as a sculpted cross with the figure of Jesus dates from the 10th century (the Gero Cross of Cologne Cathedral).

In many churches a Crucifix stands on the choir screen, in the arch between the nave and the chancel. These are often known as 'roods' and the screen as a 'rood screen'. Rood comes from the Saxon word for a crucifix.

The Passion in plants

In this radio programme, Paul Morrison, a naturalist, explores the symbolism of flowers and plants in the crucifixion story. He goes in search of the plant the soldiers may have used to make Jesus' crown of thorns.

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Источник: //www.bbc.co.uk/religion/religions/christianity/history/passionofchrist_1.shtml