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Mar 05 2015
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What is the Anointing

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“Now he which stablisheth us with you in Christ, and hath anointed us, is God;” II Corinthians 1:21

I would have to say that one of the more misunderstood and misrepresented topics in the Bible is that of the anointing of the Spirit of God. Some Christians don’t really know what the anointing is and how to have it. Others have been introduced to a counterfeit anointing, or even an anointing of the demonic kind which has caused fear and doubt in a segment of the body of Christ. Though I can’t give you a brief concise answer on what the anointing is, I do understand some things about the anointing I can share with you. I have experienced the anointing of God through the years. I can tell you, it is real and God still anoints His people.

The first thing we must understand about the anointing is that we cannot be effective for the Kingdom of God without it. Far too often I have taken the anointing for granted, and because of that I have lacked it and have been far too ineffective. The church today seems to have little effect here in America. This testifies to her lack of anointing. God’s ingredient to reach a fallen world is still the same as He ordained back when the church was birthed. It is the combination of Spirit filled believers preaching Jesus Christ and Him crucified.

We desperately need the anointing of the Spirit in our generation. We have had our fill of men’s techniques, talents and tricks to try to introduce a society, which is deceived by sin and loves sin, to the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. Have you ever considered the story we preach? It is a story that says, a God, who created all there is, came in human form to die for those that hated and rejected Him. That is an irrational, illogical message that cannot be believed or understood by pure human reasoning and intellect. We, who have been commissioned to preach such a message, need help of the supernatural kind. That help comes in the form of the anointing.

Too often, men’s abilities and achievements are mistaken for God’s anointing. Therefore, many Christians think they are anointed because they have graduated Bible College, or have great natural abilities and talents. Our generation has forgotten that the anointing is something that comes from God and is given to all that ask for it. The anointing comes with the baptism of the Holy Spirit and fire. Jesus said, “If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children: how much more shall your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to them that ask him?” (Luke 11:13). The anointing is not something someone can receive apart from the Holy Spirit. The anointing is in the person of the Holy Spirit. If He is not present, the anointing is not available. If the Holy Spirit is downplayed, so will be the anointing. Paul preached, “Jesus Christ and Him crucified,” but he never did it without a “demonstration of Spirit and power.” The anointing doesn’t make us smarter or more talented, it makes what we say and do more powerful.

Some Christians, flat out, don’t believe there really is an anointing of supernatural proportions. Though they cannot deny the power and authority that was given to the early church, they have somehow concocted a reasonable argument why our generation is not privileged to demonstrate such power. All I can say is, well thought out arguments on why the anointing that the early church had is not for our day does not rebuke doubt, it caters to it. When unbelief rises up in us, we need to ask God to help our unbelief, not come up with a teaching to support our unbelief.

Another thing that has happened to us Christians here in America is we have grown so accustomed to being a self-sufficient people, that we think we really don’t need any help. We have our workshops, seminars, and oodles of books, along with plenty of money to accomplish anything we want for God, so we think. That self-dependency has also resulted in some Christians becoming skeptics of our God’s supernatural power. They conclude that since some things are being accomplished for the kingdom of God through the efforts of the flesh, then that is all that should really be expected. They then go on to be satisfied with a church that has lost her supernatural effect that has very little impact on society.

Salvation is not just a person changing their mind, salvation is a genuine miracle. It makes a saint out of a sinner in an instant. It makes a person a brand new creature. No workshop or book or clever presentation can accomplish a miracle. Only a supernatural God can bring forth such increase. When Christians get back to depending on God, then the anointing will be there to accomplish supernatural conversions.

Then we have those that have turned the anointing into fanaticism. They make the anointing out to be something it isn’t. The false signs and wonders they do, they say are from God, and that they do them by the anointing of God. Therefore, many Christians have grown so fearful about the anointing that they would just as soon avoid the whole topic. That is exactly what the devil wants. You can be sure if there is the fake, there is the real. Don’t let the false talk you out of the real. The Christian that is anointed is who the devil fears the most.

If you have that anointing, it is important to remain devoted to God and not be overcome by sin if you are going to remain anointed. Sin and disobedience to God rob us of God’s anointing. His anointing is something that must be maintained on a daily basis by seeking after God. Careless carnal living promotes the carnal life, not spiritual life

Some Christians may think that someone has the anointing only when the results of their preaching is positive. I know at one time I thought that when I say something, and it is rejected by men, I was therefore lacking the anointing. However, there was no one with as great of an anointing as Jesus Christ, yet many rejected Him, even after great displays of power. Jesus ministered to thousands, yet after His resurrection there was only 120 in the upper room. Jesus never once lacked the anointing. Jesus said, “The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me, because He hath anointed Me to preach…” (Luke 4:18). This Spirit filled anointed Jesus pierced the hearts of all who heard Him with the two edged sword of truth. He never let up, even when attempts were made to kill Him. It might be that many of us really don’t want this anointing after all.

Finally, the anointing is like any other attribute, quality and fruit of God; it must grow in us. It is not one dose and you’re ready to go. You may be ready to go for that moment, but as I said earlier, the anointing must be maintained and allowed to grow in the true man and woman of God. I have found myself getting comfortable in the pulpit to such a point that I didn’t realize I had developed confidence in myself. This can happen to any preacher; so preacher, be on guard. I know the saints in my church aren’t coming to hear what I have to say, they are coming to hear “thus saith the Lord.” Without the anointing it is “thus saith” Terry Fischer.

Jan 30 2015
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Believe The Whole Book

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“For I testify unto every man that heareth the words of the prophecy of this book, If any man shall add unto these things, God shall add unto him the plagues that are written in this book: 19And if any man shall take away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God shall take away his part out of the book of life, and out of the holy city, and from the things which are written in this book.” Revelation” 22:18-19

We believers, can have a rather proud attitude sometimes when we proclaim that we believe the whole bible. We can talk as if we are so grounded and unmovable when it comes to the entire word of God, but saying you believe something is not proof of actual belief. It is a very disturbing thing to have millions of Christians, including whole denominations insisting that they believe the whole bible, yet there seems to be a thousand differing and divisive beliefs that they all claim the bible teaches. How is it that Christians, who all have the same book, and claim it is their final authority, are so divided? Well, it isn’t the fault of God’s word; the problem lies with man.

Because our human nature hates correction and self-denial, it isn’t hard to understand why man at times will resist the bible and even teach the scriptures in a way that accommodates the lifestyle of man. There are those who water down scripture and even teach a false view of scriptures for convenience sake. Those who do that are called false teachers. They do this for a variety of reasons. Some do it to justify their sinful life style, some do it to form their own brand of religion, some do it to please man and some do it to scare or rule over people. Some will try to make the scriptures say less than they do, while some try to make them say more than they do. I have often said, “The bible has enough rules already without someone adding more to it.” Whatever the motive is, it is of the highest offense against the kingdom of God to carelessly and falsely handle the word of God.

I want to address something of great concern, which has to do with this subject of mishandling the word of God. What makes it such a great concern is that this mishandling that I am going to talk about is widely accepted in the Christian church. Since it is so accepted, few see the danger of this violation. What I am talking about is what we all agree is forbidden to do, and that is, “take away from the words of this book.” No, it isn’t that a publisher has printed bibles with some of the words missing, it is that some of the words and verses have been marked as obsolete by some of the most popular bible teachers of our day.

I can give you two strong examples of what I am talking about. The first example has to do with the ministry. Let’s look at Ephesians 4:11-13. “And He gave some, apostles; and some, prophets; and some, evangelists; and some, pastors and teachers; 12For the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ: 13Till we all come in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ:” You can see that I highlighted the words, “till we all come.” This simply means that there is a time that we will no longer need, apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors and teachers, but now is not the time. The time is when we all come into “the measure of the stature of the fullness in Christ.” Kind of sounds like heaven to me. Have any of you come to be a “perfect man?” If so, has the rest of your brethren? If not, then you still need ministers in your life. Has the church come into “the unity of the faith?” This is highly unlikely, since we have hundreds of denominations and different doctrines that separate us. It is plain to see that we need ministers in our life. Well, you may say, I believe we have pastors and teachers, others may say, we have pastors, teachers and evangelists. I will not disagree with them, but we also have prophets and apostles. However, we have those today that say we no longer have prophets or apostles, and that they died off in the first century. Just because we don’t have men anymore that can pen us scripture does not mean that we don’t have apostles in our day. I think some of the problem is that we over spiritualize the office of an apostle. Apostles were simple men like you and me that God used to establish and oversee the body of Christ. We still need that done today. Therefore we still need apostles.

Another example is the gifts of the Spirit. It is amazing to me how widely accepted it is that some of the gifts aren’t for day. The spiritual gift that is most commonly refuted is “speaking in tongues,” but it doesn’t stop there. I know of Christians that don’t believe that divine healing is for today. When I first heard that as a young believer, I just shook my head in disbelief. I have come to find out that this teaching is more widely accepted than I thought. All I can say is that Jesus said, “let it be done according to your faith.” If you don’t believe in speaking in tongues, you aren’t going to receive the gift. If you don’t believe in divine healing, you are never going to pray for someone to be healed.

The thing that is the most disheartening about the claim that not all of the gifts are for today is the desperate attempt to find scriptures to support that belief. One of the more common scriptures is I Corinthians 13:8-9. You would never come to the conclusion that this scripture is telling us these three gifts, “prophesies,” “tongues” and “knowledge” will cease during this church age. The bible experts that believe that, violate the principles of bible study by not reading that passage in context and not reading the verses around it. In fact, just read verse 10 and it will clear up the whole passage. The “perfect” that verse ten is talking about is obvious, it is heaven, and it is our completeness in Christ.

So we have prominent teachers and church leaders that tell the church that there are no longer apostles or prophets today. They tell us that some of the gifts have ceased, but there seems to be confusion and disagreement about which gifts have ceased. So I end this article with this immensely important question: Who has such authority today to tell us what offices and gifts are not for today? Who has the authority to make the final decision for all of us on these matters? Simple respect for God’s word tells us that the safest ground to be on is to just believe it all for today. Do you really want to get into trying to pick and choose what is for today and what isn’t? I don’t know about you, but the scares me to death.

“But He answered and said, It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.” (Matthew 4:4)

“But the word of the Lord endureth for ever. And this is the word which by the gospel is preached unto you.” (I Peter 1:25)