In Luke 4:18-19 Jesus quoted the words of Isaiah 61:1, saying, “The Spirit of Yehovah is on me, because He has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to set the oppressed free, to proclaim the year of Yehovah’s favor”.
Jesus stood in the synagogue, opened the Scripture, and essentially said, “The Spirit of Yehovah is upon me for you, and you, and you, and you …” There was no other reason the Spirit was upon him except to speak about the coming Kingdom of God, and to be enabled to become a sin-offering sacrifice, in order to reconcile humanity to his God and Father, Yehovah. Jesus’ desire was to bring fallen people into the knowledge of Yehovah, the only true God - John 17:3 - and, ultimately, to show them the way, truth and the life, and give them the light that leads to being with Yehovah for all eternity.
It is impossible to say that “the Messiah is mine, and I am the Messiah’s” yet remain completely self-absorbed. The apostle Paul, writing in 2 Timothy, warned, that perilous times will come. “Men will be lovers of self,” he wrote (2 Timothy 3:2, NASB). That self-love would be the underpinning of everything else he was about to write. Loving ourselves and giving ourselves preeminence in life automatically means that our relationships with others are as a form of religion that lacks the power of God.
Note: When a person enters into the waters of baptism they are dying to self and coming out of the water are new creations in the lord Messiah Jesus with indwelling new age life and the realization that we are bought and paid for by the blood of the lord Jesus, and therefore his slaves and thus slaves to righteousness. Paul ultimately is saying to us, turn away from self-serving religion.
Any faith based on the life of Jesus the Messiah dwelling within us must be lived for the benefit and the sake of other people. We must walk in obedience to his creed, which is to love others as ourselves. (Mark 12:31) We must as members of his body the called-out Assembly live by the words that his God and Father Yehovah gave to him to give to us. Jesus said that the words he spoke were not his, but the Father’s words that He gave to him to speak. (John 14:10)
Note: Under the law of Jewish Agency Jesus was commissioned to act as Yehovah’s agent, and whatever he did as God’s agent, speaking or doing, was as if Yehovah was saying the words or doing the works, thus Jesus said the words that he spoke were not his but those given him to speak forth by his Father.
We can know in large measure the heart Yehovah has for people when we come to understand that Jesus was the outshining of the nature of Yehovah, and all he did was in love for others. Mark 8:23-26 records the story of Jesus leading the blind man away from the village of Bethsaida in order to restore his sight, which I think represents leading people away from a culture that confines and even tries to hijack the love of God and give credit to humankind for the things that God does. The carnal nature is all about me, myself, and I, with no room left for God.
This blind man’s sight was only partially restored at first. It wasn’t until Jesus acting as Yehovah’s agent touched him the second time that he saw clearly. That’s how it often works in our walk with God. He continues to touch our eyes and our hearts as often as needed until we see clearly and love others willingly, sincerely, and genuinely in obedience to His will.
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