David Diga Hernandez - A Preaching Anointing

The scripture says in Luke 4:18–19, «The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, for He has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim that captives will be released, that the blind will see, that the oppressed will be set free, and that the time of the Lord’s favor has come.» The preaching of the truth, the declaration of the Word of God, sets the captives free. When you declare the Gospel of Jesus Christ or any of the truths found in His Word, you are speaking into existence the liberation of those around you. The preaching of the Gospel, backed by the anointing of the Holy Spirit, is the most powerful force in the world that can transform hearts, minds, and, because of that, the entire world. I believe that God has anointed you to preach. Now, you may say, «But I’m not an evangelist, I’m not a pastor, I’m not a teacher.» And though you may not hold one of the offices of the five-fold gifts mentioned in Ephesians 4:1, I believe you are still called to preach the Gospel. This message is for both those who are called to the public declaration of the Word in ministry from pulpits and various media platforms, and for those of you who simply want to see the anointing of the Holy Spirit back your declaration of His Word in your everyday life. You may sometimes feel that when you preach His Word, something is missing, and that is the anointing. We must rely on the anointing of the Holy Spirit to back the preaching of the Word. When we proclaim this Gospel, we participate in God’s agenda for the ages; we are engaging in a global evangelism effort and participating in Kingdom expansion. The anointing of the Holy Spirit will literally back your words as you speak and declare. I believe there is tangible power carried by the sound waves that come from your voice, so we need to be people who declare the Word with the anointing of the Holy Spirit if we want to see those around us liberated. I want to read another verse to you. 1 Corinthians 1:21 says, «Since God in His wisdom saw to it that the world would never know Him through human wisdom, He has used our foolish preaching to save those who believe.» God uses preaching; He uses declaration. We just read in Luke 4:18–19 about the declaration of the Word, the declaration of the truth. Let’s examine those verses again very slowly: «The Spirit of the Lord is upon me.» Remember, that’s the anointing, the Spirit’s work within you and through you. «For He has anointed me to bring good news to the poor.» The purpose of the anointing on your life is the declaration of the good news, or the Gospel. «He has sent me to proclaim that captives will be released, that the blind will see, and that the oppressed will be set free.» What’s amazing to me is that this simple proclamation—that the captives will be released, that the blind will see, and that the oppressed will be set free—is what liberates them. Jesus said, «And you shall know the truth, and the truth shall set you free.» The truth is the liberator of the souls of men. Now, how do we receive the anointing? How do we live in such a way that we make ourselves available to the anointing of the Holy Spirit? How do we act in a way that will cause us to be backed by the anointing of the Holy Spirit when we preach? Well, I’m going to give you five keys to anointed preaching. These are very practical, but I believe that practicality and simplicity bring about true depths of the Spirit. So, number one: The first key to anointed preaching is passion for the Word. We need to have a hunger, an appreciation, an adoration, and almost an obsession with the Word of God. This is what transformed my life when I was first entering the ministry. I recognized that there was this hunger stirring in me for the Word, and the way to develop and cultivate the hunger for the Word is through reading it. It does take discipline to initiate receiving the Word in your life, but once this happens, your appetite for the Word begins to grow, and your appreciation for it will also expand. I want to go to John 6 and read a few verses from there. This is powerful teaching from Jesus. He says in John 6:61-68 that, while those verses may not all be Jesus speaking, they set the context. So, I will go to verse 61. Jesus was aware that His disciples were complaining, so He said to them, «Does this offend you? Then what will you think if you see the Son of Man ascend to Heaven again? The Spirit alone gives eternal life; human effort accomplishes nothing, and the very words I have spoken to you are Spirit and life.» But some of you do not believe me, for Jesus knew from the beginning which ones didn’t believe and who would betray Him. Now, I’m going to pause here for a moment before continuing to read that context. Jesus is presenting a teaching to His disciples and a crowd of onlookers that is very difficult for them to accept. In fact, some were almost offended by the words He was declaring, and instead of backing down or rephrasing, what Jesus does…