...............................................................................................................................................................
Are You Dripping With the Spirit's Anointing?
.
God wants His church to be
dripping with the Holy Spirit's supernatural power - God wants you to be filled
to overflowing with His anointing. To receive the Spirit's infilling, you must
display childlike faith - you must be willing to break free from denominational
tradition. If you want to be filled with the Spirit, you must be willing to
open the closets of your heart and invite God's holiness into every dark corner
of your life - God is looking to fill hearts that have been emptied and
surrendered. Only the fully yielded can experience the fullness of His power. Empty
your heart and prepare for your own personal Pentecost - God wants to pour the
anointing oil on you until you are overflowing
Author
J. Lee Grady
Fire
in My Bones
If you could
go back in time and visit the tabernacle of Moses, one thing would immediately
catch your attention.
You would
smell the strong fragrance of anointing oil.
Everything
inside the tent would have been dripping with this sweet-smelling compound,
which was made of crushed cinnamon, myrrh and other spices mixed with olive
oil.
God told Moses
to pour the anointing oil on everything in that holy place.
The Lord said
the tent itself should be anointed with oil, as well as the ark of the
covenant, the table of showbread, the lampstand, the incense altar, the laver
and its stand, the altar of burnt offering and every utensil used during
worship (see Ex. 30:26-28).
God also
commanded Moses to anoint the priests (Exodus 30:30).
It wasn't
enough for the structure and all the furniture inside to be covered with the
holy anointing.
Anyone who was
permitted to enter that sanctuary had to be anointed.
The church
today should be the contemporary counterpart of the ancient tabernacle.
In this age of
the New Covenant, God wants His church to be dripping — not with physical oil
but with the Holy Spirit's supernatural power!
That isn't
what we see in most churches today. God told Moses to prepare the anointing oil
in hefty, 1 1/2-gallon containers.
Today, the
tiny vials of oil we keep on our church altars are an accurate reflection of
our low level of anointing.
We have become
satisfied with little or no oil. We are dry and powerless.
Ephesians 5:18
(NASB) has been a life verse for me since I was filled with the Holy Spirit as
a young man.
It says: "And
do not get drunk with wine, for that is dissipation, but be filled with the
Spirit."
God wants you
to be filled to overflowing with His anointing.
Why be dry
when you can be saturated?
Here are six
things that often cause us to limit the Holy Spirit in our lives:
1.
Doubt or intellectual pride. Because
I travel so much internationally, I've noticed that people in less-educated
cultures are more eager to embrace the Holy Spirit's power.
They also
receive the gift of speaking in tongues more easily. Intellectual people rely
on their reason.
But spiritual
experiences cannot be figured out with the mind!
To receive the
Spirit's infilling, you must display childlike faith (see Matthew
18:2-4).
2.
Religious tradition. I knew an
Episcopal priest who was filled with the Holy Spirit in the 1970s in New York
City.
But when he
shared his testimony with his bishop, he was told he was crazy!
Religious
people who are locked into "the way we've always done it" find it
hard to receive the anointing of the Holy Spirit.
You must be
willing to break free from denominational tradition.
3.
Fear of the supernatural. Some
Christians grew up in denominations that taught against the infilling of the
Holy Spirit.
They were told
that Pentecostals are all fanatics who go into trances, speak mindless
gibberish and swing from chandeliers.
Actually, the
first disciples in the New Testament spoke in tongues and experienced miracles —
yet their faith was not strange.
They were
modeling biblical faith for all of us! People who are afraid of God's
supernatural power will struggle to receive it.
4. Unconfessed sin. The Bible tells us that
the Holy Spirit can be "quenched" as well as "grieved"
(1 Thessalonians 5:19, Ephesians 4:30).
This is why
it's so important for us to walk in constant communion with God and to be
willing to repent quickly when we know we have sinned.
If you want to
be filled with the Spirit, you must be willing to open the closets of your
heart and invite God's holiness into every dark corner of your life.
5.
Emotional wounds. Some people are just too
burdened with emotional baggage to be filled with the Spirit.
Some have been
abused, others are weighed down by anxiety, others are grieved or depressed.
They need healing first.
Like Lazarus
on the day he was raised from the dead, they are bound by the grave clothes of
the past, and they need to be unwrapped before they can experience God's full
anointing (see John 11:44).
Healing is
often needed before a person can receive the blessing of Holy Spirit baptism.
6.
An unyielded spirit. You
cannot be filled with the Holy Spirit if you are full of yourself.
Some people
are too willful. They have not surrendered their plans, finances, relationships
or time to God.
They have
their lives planned out and they don't want God interrupting their agendas.
Yet God is looking
to fill hearts that have been emptied and surrendered. Only the fully yielded
can experience the fullness of His power.
If you have
not received the baptism of the Holy Spirit, or if the flow of the Spirit has
been blocked in your life, empty your heart and prepare for your own personal
Pentecost.
God wants to
pour the anointing oil on you until you are overflowing.
J.
Lee Grady
is an ordained minister, and conference speaker, and editor of Charisma
magazine. Lee directs The Mordecai Project, an international ministry that
confronts the abuse of women and challenges the church to release women in
ministry.
No comments:
Post a Comment