The Anointing
Are you feeling like you are suffering and don’t understand why?
….take a deep breath … we’re diving for deep waters and you’ll need to hold you’re breath for a while …
Why are there so few men and women who are Anointed?
And please note – by Anointed I am not implying someone praying for the sick, working miracles, or having people touched with God’s Fire and Power. I am referring to something infinitely deeper and more Powerful than having people laying on the floor or shaking like a reed. Sadly this is the deepest level of the reality of God experienced by many.
I am talking about those who have come to know God intimately. Those who walk with Him among the seven golden lamp-stands. Those who have come to the place where they have entered into a Heavenly sphere of walking in the Spirit and where their relationship with God are entwined into a Union in The Holy Spirit.
Men who carry other men into the Glory realm of the Spirit, where they come into the Living Presence of a Living God.
Men who bring others into such a realm of reality that they are saturated with the Holy Spirit and with God’s Holy Presence until it would seem as though they would melt and as though the very air they breathe are filled with the Breath of the Almighty!
Why are there so few of these men, who are not show men, but who act and operate in Union with the Father’s will, working through the Power of His Holy Spirit?
Can I tell you why?
Because people are not willing to suffer for it. Suffer for it, you say? Yes, suffer for it!
I have learned through my life that the richest oil of the Holy Spirit is pressed out in the deepest sufferings we endure. You will find it all over the Bible too.
Go and study every man or woman who was truly Anointed and who walked with God and you will find a trail of suffering following them. Suffering is unavoidable if you are to walk with God in the depths of the Anointed life.
That’s why we have so few Anointed people. Because we have so few willing to do what Paul did. We have so few willing to walk where Jesus walked. We have so few who are prepared to carry the cross He commanded we should pick up and “wear” daily.
Oh we have many who are eager to share His royal crown, but few who are willing to bear His cross!
Suffering is the one thing no one wants to hear about. We don’t want to believe in that. No, we want to believe in prosperity!
Yet suffering is the very first requirement God calls us too, if we are to join Him as His disciples!
“Unless,” He says, laying down the requirement, “a man is willing to pick up his cross daily and follow Me, he cannot be My disciple!”
Maybe you don’t understand your suffering? Maybe you’re going through tough times and you don’t know why? Because what you’ve been taught, does not allow for your present experiences?
Maybe you’re crying out — “God why? Why does it seem like others are having such an easy time and life seems so hard and unfair towards me? Why do others seem blessed and not me?”
Let me help you out! Nothing is wrong, so long as you are living in Christ!
I’m not talking about the devil attacking you with sickness and demonic attacks upon your life. Obviously that’s not the suffering God had in mind for His children, because that’s what He sent His Son to destroy!
I’m talking about the hardships of life pressing and leaning against you. I’m talking about persecution and difficult circumstances for which you have no reasonable answers
Let me help you out and say that God is preparing you! That the Anointing is being formed in you to be given Life through you. That God is teaching you to become an over-comer in all things by the Power of His Son in you!
This kind of suffering is also the thing He promises we will receive Power to overcome as a result of the Holy Spirit coming to indwell us.
That’s right, the Holy Spirit did not come so you could “talk in tongues” and have a “party” rolling around on the floor.
He came to do something! What?
Let’s get it straight from Jesus –
“But ye shall receive power, after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you: and ye shall be *witnesses unto me both in Jerusalem, and in all Judaea, and in Samaria, and unto the uttermost part of the earth,” Acts 1:8.
See the word “witnesses” which I highlighted in there? Do you know what it means?
Most have been taught that it means going around talking to others about Jesus. And that’s good to do that also, but that’s not what it means here and in this context at all!
What it means here is that you will demonstrate the Christian Life in the Power of God’s Person living inside of you, expressing Himself through you by His Holy Spirit indwelling you!
Do you know what the original text is and the real word Jesus used that has been translated as “witnesses” in our Bibles in this verse?
It is Martys – when translated directly into English, it is the word MARTYRS! He would come to empower us to Live “Alive to Christ” while dying to the world everyday.
The Holy Spirit came to empower us to live the Christian Life as those in whom and through whom Christ might be magnified and seen in the Anointing of His Holy Spirit.
Those reflecting the very Life and Person of Christ. In whom He would breathe the Breath of God Himself through you and me, amidst a world in rebellion against Him and walking in hatred towards His Name.
You were called to walk in the Power of Heaven amidst an evil and wicked generation. To walk victoriously against all odds. To present the Living Christ, not a message ‘about Him’ – But HIM ALIVE, in the demonstration of His Person and the reality of His Power, to a world who is lost in sorrow, covered in darkness and clothed in despair!
That’s why the Holy Spirit came and still comes!
He is given to us so we can walk on on “thorns” without being hurt, to step on scorpions and not to be stung. To trample snakes without being harmed. To walk in the Spirit and not be affected by the realm of sufferings we will endure in this natural world, but to go out and to demonstrate the Power of the Living Christ and the reality of His Life among all men!
Where does this become a reality to us? When it becomes a reality in us! When does it become a reality in us?
When we are prepared to build an altar and to lay our lives down upon the cross, to become “one with Christ in His sufferings” and in His resurrected Glory and Power also.
When we enter the realm where Paul lived and walked and moved and had his being. In Christ and Christ in Him!
Why do we have so few Anointed ones today?
Because most seek the trophies, without wanting to compete in the race to win them as the prize. Most want the spotlight and the stage lights and the cheers! None want the jeers!
Because people have settled for so little, we have so little! We love to quote from the Bible, but when we have to live between its pages, it becomes a costly affair! When it becomes difficult we rather bail out for the ear ticklers and the warm and cozy soft pews where we are pampered and feel snugly and cared for.
The Anointed of the LORD knows no such comforts! What does Paul tell young Timothy? “You’re at war young man! Never forget that! Never become cozy! Never settle down! Don’t get yourself entangled with the besetting things of this life! Focus! You’re a soldier of Christ called to war! Fight a good fight!”
This from the lips of the Anointed of the LORD himself, sharing from a life of experienced service, rendered faithfully unto God and now awaiting his crown.
How many today can expect such a crown? My, for doing what? Most are already wearing their own man-made ones, crowned with the comforts of the world and laden with earthly treasures.
The thing most people flee from and which the flesh wants to avoid at all cost, is the very thing which ushers us into the Glory of God and into His Anointed Life!
The willingness to lay our lives down for His Life and to wear the martyr’s crown in this world, being crucified with it and to it and being alive to God!
Suffering is the shame of the world. The scorn of the world. The failure in the world. It’s Lazarus at the gate. It’s Jesus on the cross. But suffering is the trophy of a life lived in Christ in Heaven. There it is Lazarus in the comfort of the everlasting arms of the God, Whom he loved and served and freely gave his life for.
What begs for alms in this world is crowned in Glory in the next.
The glory of this world fades away and passes by. It is only what is done for Christ, in Christ and by Christ through us, which will one day await us in glory.
From which cup are you drinking? Are you sharing the Master’s cup of suffering? Or are you feasting from the cup of pleasure in the world?
The Anointing comes through our willingness to share His cross, not to run from it! In which direction are you running?
God is busy preparing His latter day Anointed Army! They will be prepared to pay the price and they will fill the whole earth!
Get ready to feel the Anointing in your hands, in your feet, in your mouth, in your heart and all over you, as you receive His cup and take His Word!
Here is the encouragement for those who will truly come to walk with god in this hour and as the days grow darker, will find themselves burning brighter!
Don’t despair in sufferings. Don’t feel lost and forsaken. Begin looking inwardly and you will discover something which all of the world’s riches could never afford to give you.
The anointed one with his anointing will walk in you, empowering you, to work mightily through you!
~ Johann van der Hoven
Johann van der Hoven is in South Africa. He has been serving the Lord in ministry since 1991 and has hosted numerous apostolic revival meetings in South Africa and in South America. He also currently pioneers a organic church planting movement across South Africa. For more information about him and his ministry visit www.sonsofsovereignty.com or Revival.
Thank you!!!
Amen!!! I receive this in Jesus name…thank you for a timely seasoned word oh Lord!!!