A. Live a Holy life
I will sing of your love and justice; to you, O LORD, I will sing praise. 2 I will be careful to lead a blameless life--when will you come to me? I will walk in my house with blameless heart. 3 I will set before my eyes no vile thing. The deeds of faithless men I hate; they will not cling to me. 4 Men of perverse heart shall be far from me; I will have nothing to do with evil. 5 Whoever slanders his neighbor in secret, him will I put to silence; whoever has haughty eyes and a proud heart, him will I not endure. 6 My eyes will be on the faithful in the land, that they may dwell with me; he whose walk is blameless will minister to me. 7 No one who practices deceit will dwell in my house; no one who speaks falsely will stand in my presence. 8 Every morning I will put to silence all the wicked in the land; I will cut off every evildoer from the city of the LORD.” (Ps 101:1-8 NIV)
“Make every effort to live in peace with all men and to be holy; without holiness no one will see the Lord. 15 See to it that no one misses the grace of God and that no bitter root grows up to cause trouble and defile many.” (Heb 12:14-15 NIV)
Personal holiness is important to our relationship with God. When something or someone is "holy" they are set apart for God's usage. Old Testament law does not allow us to mix "holy" items with common items or with sin. Therefore, to be holy before God means to be set aside for Him, to be under His control and not under the control of sin. We are not perfected yet, so we may live in holiness and occasionally stumble or fall into a sin. That is when the blood of Jesus covers us and washes us clean. But in general we choose to intentionally live for God and behave in accordance with His way of doing things. Our motivation is to be close to God and pleasing to Him, to be His servants and to be set aside for His plans and purposes.
When we choose to live for ourselves instead of living for God, we are not walking in holiness.
Even if we don't do any of what the Bible explicitly calls a sin (lust, fornication, stealing, lying, etc) we are still not walking in holiness because our goals and motives are not to please and serve God, to be set aside for His plans and purposes. When we are self-serving, we are not serving God. We must choose to pursue His agenda instead of our own.
B. Pray the Gethsemane prayer
42 "Father, if you are willing, take this cup from me; yet not my will, but yours be done." 43 An angel from heaven appeared to him and strengthened him. 44 And being in anguish, he prayed more earnestly, and his sweat was like drops of blood falling to the ground. (Luke 22:42-44 NIV)
C. Carry YOUR Cross Daily
“Then Jesus said to his disciples, "If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. 25 For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will find it.” (Matt 16:24-26 NIV)
The message of the Cross will always offend the lost because it is only through Jesus, and His shed blood, that a person can enter heaven, and it will offend the "Born-Again Christian" because it demands holiness ... crucifying the flesh ... putting the old nature to death by esteeming others more highly than ourselves, and bowing our knee in humility and obedience before the mighty and majestic creator God of the universe.
“I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, and so, somehow, to attain to the resurrection from the dead.” (Phil 3:10-11 NIV)
“You can die without the anointing, but you have to die to receive the anointing.”
D. Develop a Insatiable Hunger and Thirst for God
God is trying to get our attention, “Ho! Everyone who thirsts, come to the waters and you who have no money, come, buy and eat.” (Isa 55:1)
You who are thirsty come to the waters and buy, but not with gold and silver. God is saying to the church “you have to be thirsty. If you're not thirsty, you're not going to come to get a drink.
How do you get this anointing to increase in your life? You get thirsty and come to the waters and purchase the anointing, not with money but with your life.
We have to give our time in prayer. We have to give our time to fasting and studying the Word. This is how you give your life.
You make a decision that you're going to become interdependent with God and lay your life down line upon line.
You begin to spend time in prayer. Prayer is for most Christians who haven't done it to any degree. For those who pray for hours upon hours, it becomes easy. They don't understand why it's hard because it becomes their life. It's the ability of you to commune with the Father, to commune with the Holy Spirit, and begin to know Him more intimately.
That's how you increase in this anointing. It's like any relationship. If you want to know someone, you get with them. If you see someone once a year, you will know them on that basis. If you see them daily, you will know them on that basis; but if you see them hourly, you will know them on that basis.
Not everyone will be impacted that same way. God impacts different people in different ways. One person is impacted because of a call, and their life is gone instantly. Other people are impacted as they grow into it, and begin to get desperate for God as they start praying for a half hour, then an hour, and maybe the Holy Spirit will direct them to get up early and pray for two to three hours, or more!
The Apostle Paul walked in such a powerful anointing that even his shadow, when the sick came into the presence, they were healed. Greater things than this shall we do!
We must know that we are created by God to be His hands to hold and His shoulder to cry on. We must experience a new revelation of the Cross. We have known the Cross from the standpoint of Jesus dying for us, but it is time to willingly move into a deeper revelation of what “crucifying the flesh” means. If we don't walk in humility, then we can't move into a deeper supernatural anointing. That's why it is conditional to walking in humility, laying down our pride, and then, the power begins to take place in us and through us.
The word ‘anointing’ in the Greek means ‘a smearing - rubbing down or endowment.” It is an endowment of the inherent characteristics, qualities, and virtues of the Holy Spirit. It gives us the power to carry out the call. It gives us the power to move the provision of the Word into reality. It gives us the power to go from produced faith to prevailing faith. If you have produced faith from the Word and it's not empowered, then you can't carry it out. But if you have the endowment of the Holy Spirit smeared upon you, then it changes you from who you ARE to WHO He is.
When the Holy Spirit gets the whole person who is given to what the Holy Spirit is wanting to do in them and through them, then He begins to bring the transformation to walk mightily in the supernatural anointing of God.
Without the supernatural power of the Holy Spirit, we are a church operating in the natural realm. Without the anointing of the Holy Spirit, we cannot move in the supernatural realm. If we operate in the natural realm to fight the enemy using the Word without the anointing, then we cannot overcome our spiritual enemy.
If you “draw near to God” and allow the power and presence of the Holy Spirit to come upon you, then you can say “that greater is He that is in the world.” It doesn't say that you are greater. That's why it says “draw nigh unto God” to receive the anointing of His presence into you, to empower you so that when you go into the enemy's camp and you resist him, he must flee.
The anointing is God's power in us to get results in our life. It's God in us, the hope of glory. It's the fire of God in us.
Remember - The anointing is not for us. The reason we draw in His presence is not so we can have it, although we are to possess it, but you either use it or lose it.
People will lose it when they have not exercised the presence and power of the Holy Spirit through doing what God has called them to do.
The purpose of the anointing is to produce victory in your life so God may be glorified.
“constantly operating in a form of Godliness, but denying the power therein.” (1 Tim 3:5)
E. Conclusion - The Divine Exchange
We must come to a place where we make an exchange for the anointing. What you must do is empty out your life daily. It's like a pitcher of water. You can't pour something into it when it's already full. When it's full of us, where is the room for God to pour in? When we make this exchange, we are pouring out some of us, so He can begin to pour in a measure of Him.
We pour out through rightly dividing the Word and giving of ourselves and our time so we can begin to receive what God has. We need to make the exchange for the anointing so the anointing will begin to increase. The more you give, the more you get.
Remember this: there are two things that bring the divine exchange of your life for His great power, and that is prayer and fasting. They are the most difficult, but when you combine those two together, it makes the great exchange easier.
Prayer and fasting are not designed to move or change God. They are designed to move and change you. And bring you into a place where you can begin to hear what God is saying. It increases your hearing so you can receive with great power what God has.
“…solid food is for the mature, who because of practice have their senses trained to discern good and evil.” (Heb 5:14)
Part of the reason for having the anointing and the power and the presence of the Holy Spirit through the prayer and fasting process is that we begin to train up the senses. You start praying for a few hours, and then you increase it as train the old nature to receive the things of the Spirit through humility. The gifts come through the anointing of His presence and they begin to flow through us, and will move us from the natural to the supernatural.
Are you ready to let God take you to a higher place?
Are YOU ready to make the exchange?
Let’s pray!!
