Lesson 11
HOW TO RECEIVE AND FLOW IN THE ANOINTING
It took the pains of childbirth for a person to be born into this world. It took the pains of Jesus suffering on the cross for a person to be reborn into eternal life. You have no choice to be born in the physical, but you do have the choice to born spiritually and this causes a change in your life and for the God of Heaven to become your Father.
As you need a heart in order to breath in the physical realm, you also need the Holy Spirit to breath in the eternal realm. Breathing brings life into your body and without breathing you die. The Holy Spirit brings eternal life into your spirit and without the Holy Spirit, you are spiritually dead.
From the moment a child breaths, he will grow up into the natural realm in the world. Likewise from the moment a person is born of the Holy Spirit, he or she can grow up into Christ in the supernatural heavenly realm of the universe.
Now, as any person has within him or her natural gifts to develop and use in life, so too we are given supernatural gifts to grow into and use in the spiritual realm. In the natural realm we need training to develop our gifts, which may become our life work. So too with the supernatural, we need much time in the presence of God daily to develop our spiritual gifts. When we do this, then we receive our anointing from God for the specific task that He has prepared for us.
Finding this anointing and calling from God is the essence of life and brings to us our complete fulfilment, as we have found the very thing that God has created us for, and to become.
Let us go a little deeper and see what the scripture says. After Adam and Eve had sinned, God spoke: ‘To the woman He said, “I will greatly multiply your sorrow and your conception. In pain you shall bring forth children,…” ’ (Genesis 3:16)
It is amazing that the same number chapter and verse (3:16) appears in John’s Gospel to show the pain and suffering Jesus went through to enable us to be reborn to eternal life
‘For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.’
Genesis 3:16 shows us how, in choosing the Knowledge of Good and Evil, Adam and Eve brought pain into the world. And John 3:16 shows us Jesus enduring pain on the cross to deliver us from the dominion of evil.
In the dictionary, pain means bodily or mental suffering, and suffer means to be subjected to pain by choice or for a reason. Jesus suffered pain for us.
'But we see Jesus, who was made a little lower than the angels, for the suffering of death crowned with glory and honour, that He, by the grace of God, might taste death for everyone.’ (Hebrews 2:9)
What does this mean for us?
‘For to this you were called, because Christ also suffered for us, leaving us an example, that you should follow in His steps.’ (1 Peter 2:21)
We are called to follow in Christ’s footsteps.
‘Therefore, since Christ suffered for us in the flesh, arm yourselves also with the same mind, for he who has suffered in the flesh has ceased from sin, that he no longer should live the rest of his time in the flesh for the lusts of men, but for the will of God.’ (1 Peter 4:1-2)
We are called to think like Christ and to die to our human passions.
‘who Himself bore our sins in His own body on the tree, that we, having died to sins, might live for righteousness – by whose stripes we were healed.’ (1 Peter 2:24)
We are called to die to sin, to die to the old man, to die to the desires of the flesh, to our wants, to the world in spirit, soul and body and then take up our cross and follow Him, as also in Matthew 10:38:
‘And he who does not take his cross and follow after Me is not worthy of Me’
Mark 8:34-36:
‘When He had called the people to Himself, with His disciples also, He said to them, “Whoever desires to come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever desires to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake and the gospel’s will save it. For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world, and loses his own soul?” ’
In Luke 14:26-27 Jesus says that we should so love God that our love for Mum and Dad and brother and sister should seem like hatred compared with the love we have for the God who gave those loved ones to us. It is a measure of relative disregard, not an excuse to break the fifth of the Ten Commandments to honour your father and mother etc:“‘If anyone come to Me and does not hate his father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, and his own life also, he cannot be My disciple. And whoever does not bear his cross and come after Me cannot be My disciple.”
John 19:17:
‘And He, bearing his cross, went out to a place called The Place of a Skull, which is called in Hebrew Golgotha.’
Jesus went all the way for us. Should we not then be prepared to go full out for Him for the rest of our lives? If Jesus only went half way for us, then salvation would not have been possible. But the result is that Jesus rose from the dead and this result is the same for us as well.
Romans 6:8-11:
‘Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with Him; knowing that Christ, having been raised from the dead, dies no more. Death no longer has dominion over Him. For the death that He died, He died to sin once for all, but the life that He lives, He lives for God. Likewise you also, reckon yourselves to be dead indeed to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus our Lord.’
When we have taken that step to die to self, to die to the world, to die to everything we hold dear, to take up your cross and follow Christ, something wonderful happens. BY PUTTING GOD FIRST, YOU NO LONGER LIMIT HIM. The Lord cannot work through the flesh that wants to do its own thing. He cannot work through people who put other things before Him. He cannot work through a sinful nature. All these things limit Him.
God can only work through a person who has died to these things and is surrendered to Him in willing obedience. This person will not limit God but be an open channel for God to work through in power. ON THIS PERSON THE ANOINTING OF GOD WILL DWELL.
But someone asked, ‘If these are all free gifts from God, how can you now earn or deserve them?’ But consider a Learjet; it would be useless as a free gift to you unless you learnt how to fly it, obeyed the rules of physics etc Our Bible is our instruction manual for the anointing which the Lord has given to us. And you have to put fuel into the fuel tank. Then you have to have faith for the jet to take off into the air. So with the anointing, you have to put much prayer in, if you want to take off in the Holy Spirit and fly in the anointing. Yes, we are given free gifts but it takes faith and action to move in them, for God’s power is only released as we walk in Him in obedience and faith, having first drenched our task ahead in prayer. Then we will see results, for the anointing God gives to us is far more valuable than a Lear Jet
What will the results be?
1. We can become an instrument of God to the nations. Let’s see what God says to Cyrus:
“Thus says the Lord to His anointed, to Cyrus, whose right hand I have held – to subdue nations before him and loose the armour of kings. To open before the double doors, so that the gates will not be shut. I will go before you and make the crooked places straight. I will break in pieces the gates of bronze and cut the bars of iron.” (Isaiah 45:1-2)
When we receive the anointing of God and obey Him, God can do anything He wants through us. We will suddenly see success in all He tells us to do and He will do more through us than we can think or imagine. I am speaking to you, not just from the Bible but also from my own experience. I was just a children’s riding teacher for thirty five years, yet when I died to self to follow Jesus wholeheartedly, doors began to open and the next thing I knew, I found myself becoming an international evangelist, writing books, going on television and people were wanting to hear me preach. Now, let me tell you, I cannot preach, but I do hear God so I simply speak what He gives me to say! It is His words that bring results; it is His words that people want to hear!
2. We see other results of the anointing in 1 John 2:27:
‘But the anointing which you have received from Him abides in you, and you do not need that anyone teach you, but as the same anointing teaches you concerning all things, and is true, and is not a lie, and just as it has taught you, you will abide in Him.’
The anointing of the Holy Spirit teaches us everything we need to say. I have been to Bible College and received much good teaching but, in comparison with that, I have to say that what I have received from God in prayer is of another dimension, a dimension which brings results far beyond my own ability! When whole churches respond to the message, I too bow down with them to receive from our wonderful, almighty God, for the words I preach are not my own but those which He has commanded me to say. It is His words that bring such results; they are not my words.
3. 1 John 2:20:
‘But you have an anointing from the Holy One, and you know all things.’
When the Lord teaches us, He also gives us understanding. He opens our minds to His knowledge. He enables us to communicate His truths in a way that people can understand easily. We do not need to get any teaching second hand, we only need to come to Christ to let Him show us what to say.
4. Psalm 105:15:
“Touch not my anointed ones, do my prophets no harm.”
The Lord also protects us from the enemy.
5. 2 Corinthians 1:21-22:
‘Now He who establishes us with you in Christ and has anointed us is God, Who also has sealed us and given us the Spirit in our hearts as a guarantee.’
We can step out in faith, trusting fully in Christ alone.
6. Matthew 11:30:
‘For My yoke is easy and My burden is light.’
This comes into effect as we totally trust Him and have His abiding peace within, for then God’s work gets done without much effort from ourselves. We obey what God tells us to do and He simply does the rest. He does what we cannot do. He moves in power and authority. He moves in the supernatural when healings and miracles simply happen. Suddenly we are moving in this higher realm in Him, trusting in Him alone.
Do you want to move in this realm? Are you prepared to die to self in order that God can use you? Let us pray:
Dear Lord, I come to you, search my heart. Forgive me when I have gone wrong. Highlight in me the areas where I must die to self. I choose to die to self that You may live in me and anoint me to do your work here on earth. I yield myself to you right now. Thank you Jesus. Amen
Now carry on praying and Jesus Himself will minister to you.
Some Questions to Think About
1. How did pain come into the world and what did Jesus do about it?
2. Explain how to be born into eternal life.
3. Why must we die to self?
4. What does the anointing enable us to do?