FIVE SMOOTH STONES - The Five Ascension Gifts in the Heavenly Shepherds Bag

FIVE SMOOTH STONES — The Five Ascension Gifts in the Heavenly Shepherd’s Bag

He found the place where it was written: 18 The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me, Because He has anointed Me To preach the gospel to the poor; He has sent Me to heal the brokenhearted, To proclaim liberty to the captives And recovery of sight to the blind, To set at liberty those who are oppressed; 19 To proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord. 20 Then He closed the book, and gave it back to the attendant and sat down. And the eyes of all who were in the synagogue were fixed on Him. 21 And He began to say to them, Today this Scripture is fulfilled in your hearing .” Jesus laid out that His ministry calling included preaching the gospel, healing the brokenhearted, the sick and blind, and proclaiming liberty to set the captives free. He was sent to preach, heal and proclaim. Wherever He did these things there were repeatable results of glad tidings, good news, great joy, physical healings and power exercised over the powers of darkness. There are different words in the Greek translated into our word “to preach.” The Greek word kerusso means to proclaim, publish or herald openly with authority. The other word is euaggelizo from which we get our English words evangelize and evangelist. In Luke 4:18 we see examples of both words, “He has anointed Me to preach the gospel ” (to evangelize euaggelizo). “ To proclaim [kerusso] liberty to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind. ” The NAS New Testament Greek Lexicon states, “Euaggelizo” is a specific type of preaching which is to proclaim good news, to announce glad tidings, in particular the Messianic blessings and especially of the glad tidings of the coming kingdom of God, and of the salvation to be obtained in it through Christ, and of what relates to this salvation.” In the New Testament it was the angels that first proclaimed the glad tidings or good news of Jesus the savior. Luke 2:8 “ Now there were in the same country shepherds living out in the fields, keeping watch over their flock by night. 9 And behold, an angel of the Lord stood before them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were greatly afraid. 10 Then the angel said to them, "Do not be afraid, for behold, I bring you good tidings [euaggelizo] of great joy which will be to all people. 11 For there is born to you this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord .” His evangelism contained power and brought conversion even of entire cities (John 4). When we think of evangelists we generally think of one who brings a gospel of salvation, but Jesus brought more than

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