Walking In The Anointing

Opening illustration: At a remote underground church in the Middle East, our meeting started with exuberant worship. Many raised their hands, fell on their knees and faces, and sang joyously to the Lord. We witnessed many women crying out and weeping to God. After the sermon, as I stood behind the podium, I experienced a physical trembling and thought I was going to topple over. Quietly, I stepped down and summoned Brother Ebenezer to preside over the meeting. He seemed to experience the same thing, so he came back to stand in the pews. God had surely showed up and presided over the meeting. The Holy Spirit overwhelmed me and gave me prophetic words for many, revealing the ailments of different people and assuring them of complete healing and recovery.

A month later, when I returned to the same location, I heard the testimonies of the prophetic words and physical healings that had taken place during our previous meeting. I had never experienced or used these spiritual gifts before in my life. My mentor tapped, discerned and guided me how to move in the anointing.

Introduction: There is a mantle of power that God puts upon His people. There are special tasks that require an anointing or unction from God to perform these feats. Maybe someone needs to be physically healed - there is an anointing for that. Maybe someone needs delivered from demonic power - there is an anointing of the Holy Spirit for that. It can also be to preach the gospel, the good news.

The Anointing does not point to the believer, but to God who empowers the believer. However, Jesus is the Anointed One, and you are a conduit for His power. When you walk in the anointing you have power to heal the sick, cleanse the leper, raise the dead and cast out demons in His Name.

The anointing is upon you by the Spirit of God, teaching you what Jesus said and leading you further into the Scriptures. The anointing of the Spirit guides you as you read and consume the Scripture, loving the Lord, hungering and thirsting in desperation for His righteousness.

How do we WALK in the POWER of the ANOINTING?

1. Deep union and daily walk with Jesus (one page with Christ) - INTIMACY

What happens when we walk with someone? Imagine that you and a close friend are enjoying a walk down a country lane. You are in close proximity. You talk, laugh, listen, and share your hearts. Your attention is focused on this person to the exclusion of almost everything else. You notice the beauty around you or an occasional distraction, but only to point it out to your companion. You share it together. You are in harmony, and you both enjoy the peaceful camaraderie.

Walking with God is like that. When we enter into an intimate heart relationship with God through faith in His Son (Hebrews 10:22), He becomes our heart's greatest desire. Knowing Him, hearing His voice, sharing our hearts with Him, and seeking to please Him become our all-consuming focus. He becomes everything to us. Meeting with Him is not an activity reserved for Sunday morning. We live to fellowship with Him. A. W. Tozer states that the goal of every Christian should be to "live in a state of unbroken worship." This is only possible when we walk with God.

When the Bible speaks of "walking," it often refers to a lifestyle. We can walk in the ways of the world as well (2 Kings 8:27; Ephesians 2:2; Colossians 3:7). In the New Testament, walking with God is often called "walking in the Spirit" (Galatians 5:16; Romans 8:4). To walk with God means we choose to glorify Him in every way we can, regardless of personal cost. And there is a cost.

It is not difficult to identify people who walk with God. Their lives are a stark contrast to the world around them, like stars in a nighttime sky (Philippians 2:15). They produce the fruit of the Spirit (Galatians 5:22) rather than the fruit of fleshly desire (Galatians 5:19-21). In Acts 4:13 Peter and John had been arrested for preaching and were brought before the authorities. "The members of the council were amazed when they saw the boldness of Peter and John, for they could see that they were ordinary men with no special training in the Scriptures. They also recognized them as men who had been with Jesus." When we walk with God every day, the world cannot help but recognize that, despite our imperfections and lack of knowledge in some areas, we have been with Jesus.

2. Heed (listen + do) to the voice of God (literally and through His Word) - OBEDIENCE

Acts features a different Philip than the one named among the original twelve (John 1:43-46). Although we don’t read as much about him as Peter and Paul, we do know that he was full of the Holy Spirit, wisdom and faith (Acts 6:3,5). He was chosen to be one of the seven men distributing food to the poor widows during the explosion of growth in the Jerusalem church (Acts 6:1-7). Then, when believers in Jerusalem were persecuted and many scattered to Judea and Samaria, Philip went to Samaria. There he performed signs and wonders leading to new converts (Acts 8:1-13). When the Jerusalem church heard about Samaritans accepting God’s word, Peter and John traveled to witness and report on this significant event. (Jews saw Samaritans as unfaithful to their heritage since the Samaritans had erected their own temple and worshipped other gods during their history.) As Peter and John were returning to Jerusalem, Philip was called away from this successful harvest field and had an unusual encounter with the Ethiopian eunuch (Acts 8). The last thing we know about him is that he went to Judea, by the Holy Spirit, and spent the next 25 years in the area spreading the gospel and raising four daughters who prophesied (Acts 8:39-40, 21:8,9) (Knapp, p. 834).