The Acceptable Year of The Lord
The gospel is both good news and bad news. If we look at the news of world around us, if it bleeds it leads. The world focuses on death, destruction and devastation. As it says in Ecclesiastes 3,, For everything there is a season and a time for every purpose under heaven. There is a time for purging… a time where God will unburden us of the things we thought were important. As mother Theresa said, God works best with nothing.
Luke 4:16-31 was Jesus’ inaugural address…. His public announcement of his mission “to preach the acceptable year of the Lord” that had been foretold in the scroll of Isaiah:
16 And he came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up: and, as his custom was, he went into the synagogue on the sabbath day, and stood up for to read.
17 And there was delivered unto him the book of the prophet Esaias. And when he had opened the book, he found the place where it was written,
18 The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor; he hath sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised,
19 To preach the acceptable year of the Lord.
20 And he closed the book, and he gave it again to the minister, and sat down. And the eyes of all them that were in the synagogue were fastened on him.
21 And he began to say unto them, This day is this scripture fulfilled in your ears.
Jesus was quoting from Isaiah 61. He said today I have come to fulfill this prophecy…. To preach the acceptable year of the Lord.
Jesus was not anointed and appointed by a missionary commission or a church nominating convention…. He was called by God himself who empowered him with His Holy Spirit. Jesus had said, I always do my Father’s will. He followed his Father’s direction…. He had his spirit attuned to God’s Holy Spirit.
He came to preach the gospel to the poor: blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. To receive anything of God requires that we empty ourselves of ourselves…. Then God can fill us with his Holy Spirit. When we mourn over the sin that separated our hearts from God’s heart, then when we turn from ourselves and unto him he can deliver us from our own sin nature.
He came to set the captives free. We are all born captive to sin. We inherited the sin nature from Adam. Ye are slaves to whom ye obey. We could not help but sin… to miss the mark of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus. Jesus Christ came to set us free from the bondage of sin.
He came to bring light to them who sat in darkness… to heal those who were born spiritually blind… those who pray, open my eyes that I may see… glimpses of truth thou hast for me. For Jesus Christ himself is the way, the truth and the life. He is the light of the world…. He is the great physician whom God called to heal us and open the eyes of believers in him who were born spiritually blind.
He came to preach deliverance to those who were oppressed…. Without the light of the truth, we were oppressed by the power of darkness… the power of sin… we were under the dominion of the devil, the god of this world, whose eyes he has blinded lest the light of the glorious gospel of truth should shine unto them. Jesus Christ has delivered us from the grip of sin that had separated us from the word of God, the love of God and the light of truth.
Through Jesus Christ, God gave us the spirit of life in him…. He has delivered us from the power of darkness and given us spiritual life…. He said, today is the acceptable year of the Lord.
The bad news is in Romans 3:23 and 6:23… for all have sinned and come short of the glory of God…. And the wages of sin is death. The good news is that the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. According to 1 John 5:13, we can know beyond the shadow of a doubt that we are saved… that we are children of God and heirs of God.
Looking at the world around us, there is so much deterioration, devastation, death and destruction. However, the Lord will restore the years that the locust has eaten…. The power of God through his son is greater than the power of sin that has separated our hearts from God’s heart.
Jesus Christ’s purpose was to declare the acceptable year of the Lord. Now is the acceptable year…. Today we can receive deliverance from the darkness of the evil one and the powers of this fallen world. The deliverance is through Jesus Christ himself…. For greater is he that is in you than he that is in the world.
Deliverance, salvation, and the gift of Holy Spirit are on God’s terms, not ours. To come to Jesus requires meekness and humility…. To approach God’s throne of grace through his son, we must first forsake our selfish selves. To come to Christ is to renounce my self centered lordship to confess Jesus is Lord. I’m no longer my owner… he is.
For I was Crucified with Christ, nevertheless I live, yet not I but Christ liveth in me… and the life that I now live I live by faith in the son of God who loved me and gave himself for me.
When we walk in the light as he is in the light, the blood of Jesus Christ will cleanse us from all unrighteousness. 1 John says, These things have I written unto you that ye may have fellowship… communion, joined to God in the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace…. For we have been called unto fellowship one with another… and truly our fellowship is with our Father and with his son, Christ Jesus our Lord.
Now is the acceptable year of the Lord. God has called us to the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace through our Lord Jesus Christ…. He died, arose, ascended that our lives may all be blended, in one family rejoicing with our God…
That we may ever live to the praise of the glory of His grace..
Your brother in Christ,
Michael
