The Anointing (Part 2 of 6) - Hunger And Thirst For The Anointing
Anything that you want in God, requires something from you. “Deep calls unto deep”. He tells us that “if we draw nigh to Him, He’ll draw nigh to us.” We must press into that anointing at all cost. There is a lost and dying world which is dependent on you and I taking the anointing of God to them. Let’s not complicate it. He already told us to go, to preach, teach, cast our devils, and lay hands on the sick. It’s time to get the job done. This is the year of jubilee. It is finished! The Bible says “out of our innermost being shall flow rivers of living water”. It tells us “on my servants and handmaidens, I’ll pour out of my spirit”. It’s time to do the works of Jesus.
We are blessed to be a blessing, not just to receive a few goose bumps and go out and live in the natural. The anointing has come to take over our lives and change everything. We are anointed to step into dimensions and posses things that we could never do before.
Why do people get more hungry than others and why does hunger dissipate in some?
Hunger is something that must be developed. We have to pursue God. It’s not that God has blue-eyed favorites but He puts His anointing on people who won’t take no for an answer. They say like Paul in Phil. 3:10-14 "That I may know Him, and the power of his resurrection, and the fellowship of his sufferings, being made conformable to his death; 11 if by any means I might attain unto the resurrection of the dead. 12 not as though I had already attained, either were already perfect, but I follow after; if that I may apprehend that for which also I am apprehended of Christ Jesus. 13 Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended, but this one thing I do; forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before, 14 I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling in God in Christ Jesus.
Sometimes you have to press in whether anyone understands or not. You may have to take a few days to lay your cell phone and Facebook down, retreat, and say, “It’s only you and me, now God.”
For as long as I can remember, I have been hungry for God sometimes, more than others. As a child, I longed to hear my grand-parent’s stories of the anointed meetings they had attended. I would ask them to repeat the stories of miracles over and over again, until I had them memorized. In fact, I would say, “Tell me again, Grandma, about the blind eyes that came open.” I longed to see those kinds of miracles in my own generation. I read the accounts of the Acts of the Apostles and realized that Jesus is the same, yesterday, today, and forever. I knew there was more available. I would not be content to say that was for another time, or that I just had to hang on and wait for the rapture. I had a goal to operate in great anointing. My grandmother went home to be with Jesus last year at the age of 101. Before she died, she asked me to tell her again, about the blind eyes that came open in my meetings. It pays to press into the anointing.
I had the privilege of teaching at the River Bible Institute in Tampa, Fl., for several years. I heard the stories of students who had been at the Lakeland Revival many years before as young children. They had experienced anointing and glory to such proportions that they could never be the same. They had to come to Bible school to learn the ways of The Spirit and the anointing.
I know what it is like to realize that your mere flesh cannot get the job done. In and of ourselves we have nothing, know nothing, and can do nothing. In Him however, we have all things, can do all things, and know all things.
I was asked to speak in chapel at Open Bible College in Des Moines, Iowa, my freshman year. I found out that I was the first female and the first freshman to be asked to preach. I was trembling. On the day of the preaching engagement, I found out that a young man who did not believe in women preachers, had organized two rows of students to protest my preaching. They sat together, arms folded, and glared at me. Upon seeing the professors in the front row and these students in the next row, my knees began to buckle. I asked for Holy Ghost help, under by breath. I received it. That anointing began to flow, students and teachers began to weep, and people ran to the alter. After the service, that young man came up to my apartment and apologized. He said that he still didn’t understand it and would have to study, but could recognize the anointing when he saw it.
That anointing has always made a way for me, and it will for you too. I have been a white woman missionary to the Alaskan bush. Usually, only native people were accepted there, but the anointing made way for me. I was a divorced, Rhema graduate, going into primarily Assembly of God churches for many years. Everyone told me that was impossible, but the anointing made way for me. I have stayed with the vice-president and his wife in Burundi, Africa. The anointing made way for me. When I was interrogated by communists in Vietnam, the anointing enabled me to preach to them and I was set free. I almost died from a saddle pulmonary embolism that filled both lungs. As I was being flown by helicopter to the trauma hospital in Tampa, I could hear them discussing my case. They all agreed that I could not live, but I removed the oxygen mask off my face, gasped, and told them that I had a big God and would live, and not die. That anointing coursed through my body and I was healed. It was the anointing that made room for me to speak at Madison Square Garden and Royal Albert’s Hall in London, England, as people were running and dancing, saying that they didn’t even know a woman could carry the fire. It has been the anointing that called me forth to speak in Lakeland, Florida ,and later, in St. Louis, Missouri, in front of thousands of people. There were more notable ministers in the audience, some of whom were quite famous. The anointing separated me from the crowd and called me forth.
I never want to take that anointing for granted. I must have it today to get the job done, as I have always needed it to get the job done. In our lives and ministries, anything that the devil tries to put on us will be destroyed because of that anointing. It will cause damage to the devil’s kingdom. We are not ministering to intellect but to hearts. So, we must have a continual stream of that anointing.
When people take their eyes, heart, and mind off of God, they get caught up in themselves and they lose hunger. They try to fix their own problems. The anointing should not come and go. It’s a continual stream to carry living water to the world. We have a choice. The prophet Ezekiel talked about a river that was ankle deep, waist deep, or over your head. You choose. God will let you make the choice. We choose by hungering for it, keeping our doctrine pure, and not settling for religion or getting flaky in some swamp water. We must continually be in anointed meetings and rub shoulders with anointed people. The anointing is tangible and transmittable.
We can learn some things from Elisha, who wanted the double portion so much that he refused to give up and quit. He was not satisfied with a “little dab will do you” kind of anointing. He knew where the anointing was, pressed in, would not be denied, asked for more, and would not stop until he had it. Then he used what he had to get more. He used the mantle and made a demand on God’s ability. God will always give more when we use what we have.
We have to be careful to not let offense cause us to lose that anointing. It is one of the greatest killers of the anointing. Nothing is worth forfeiting His presence. I know. I almost let it happen about four years ago. I got hit with triple assaults from the enemy in this area and almost let it take me out, when nothing else could before. When the offense becomes greater than the hunger level, you and I are in trouble.
Do not become full of the report of the world, God is calling you to know the glory of His anointing. Sometimes we have to change to have more anointing. We have to change our priorities, our life-styles, and our hunger level. We have to walk in purity and have right motives to bring glory to God.
The anointing is a yoke destroyer. The only alternative to not being bound is to be anointed. So, we must press into God and desire more. The church has been asking God to do what He has already done. It is time to walk in the reality of it by walking in the anointing.
Matt 5:6
“Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be filled”.