Foundation Scriptures: Luke 4:14-19The anointing—in many church meetings being held nowadays—as one preacher said, “is as scarce as hen’s teeth.” You need a magnifying glass to find it. There is little or no anointing present, yet many people claim to be anointed and to have the anointing! One of the first lessons that we need to learn about the anointing is that the anointing is not hype. In some church circles there’s a lot of Hollywood. There’s a lot of hype. At these meetings, you might expect that at any moment they would bring on the wrestlers and have a tag team match in the church. They have fleshly preaching, praying, singing, and dancing—a lot of hoopla—but very minimal, if any, results at all. The anointing is not about who can make the biggest noise—it is about changed lives. We live in a day and age of never-ending entertainment, where people want to come and sit in beautiful, air-conditioned auditoriums and be entertained and impressed on a Sunday morning and night. A minister can stand in the pulpit and scream and jump around or he can look dignified and professional, but if the touch of God is not on the minister’s life, he can forget it—lives will not be changed.
Are You Tired of Hype?
I have attended some large charismatic meetings, where the “who’s who in the charismatic zoo” have been present, and yet the anointing was not manifest. It’s almost like some ministers are afraid that if the Holy Ghost showed up, they might not know what to do. So instead of displaying their spiritual ignorance, they would rather close the meeting down or get into some fleshly works program such as loudly binding the devil or hyping up a service some other way. Then at least the starving sheep might feel that they were dished up something, even if that something was really nothing at all, other than stale doughnuts.
In some Bible schools, they endeavor to teach students how to preach with formulas, but in my estimation that’s equivalent to teaching a pig to sing! You can be taught all the theory concerning the art of preaching, but if there is no anointing or touch of God on your life, it will just be hype.
Some people think that shouting is the anointing, or being professional in your communicative ability is the anointing. However, just stirring people’s emotions, will not bring change. God wants fat hearts -not fat heads. The Gospel is not an intellectual thing it is a spiritual thing.
There are many people who profess to be theologians, but they do not even believe in the virgin birth, the blood of Jesus, or the cross, etc. What good is theology if you don’t believe in God? The Apostle Paul said in 1 Corinthians 2:1 -5, “And I, brethren, when I came to you, came not with excellency of speech or of wisdom, declaring unto you the testimony of God. For I determined not to know any thing among you, save Jesus Christ, and him crucified. And I was with you in weakness, and in fear, and in much trembling. And my speech and my preaching was not with enticing words of man’s wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power: That your faith should not stand in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God.”
The scripture says, “Not by might, nor by power, but by my spirit, saith the Lord of hosts” (Zechariah 4:6). I told the Lord in the first part of my ministry, that if He was not going to do anything—I was not going to do anything. He told me that it was a case of Him waiting on me—not me waiting on Him. And He said if I would just give Him an opportunity to move, He would move. If we want to be anointed, we must firstly preach the truth of the Word of God with power, not hype.
Secondly, we must neither do nor say anything unless the Lord directs us. We must move when He says move and stop when He says stop. These are lessons that take time to learn, but if we will be patient and put our flesh under and allow our spirit to rise up, we will see the results in our lives. We need to shut our head up and let our heart lead.
When we rest on the Spirit of God, He will anoint us and His anointing will be on us at all times, in all situations, with no hype, but only the genuine article.
