When the anointing comes, it will affect every part of your being, “like oil into his bones” (Psalm 109:18). That anointing from on high brings power.
Remember when the Holy Spirit’s power came on the apostles? They became giants for God and took their world for Jesus! So it is today, for the Holy Spirit’s anointing is available so that every day you can live as God wants you to live, so you can know forgiveness, love, and be made alive by His power, and you can have a fire in your soul to serve the Lord with boldness and fervency!
Get ready to receive what He has in store for you! All He wants is your life to be a vessel of honor for Him!
The first 14 years of my life were spent in Israel. It was a landscape filled with olive trees, but only after my conversion did I begin to understand their significance.
God’s touch is symbolized in Scripture by the oil found in an olive. And the growth of the tree is fascinating. Do you realize that olive trees thrive best in extremely rocky ground?
Rocks portray the Church of Jesus Christ:
“To whom coming, as unto a living stone, disallowed indeed of men, but chosen of God, and precious, Ye also, as lively stones, are built up a spiritual house, an holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices, acceptable to God by Jesus Christ” (1 Peter 2:4-5).
Even more exciting is the fact that oil also comes out of rocks: “He made him ride on the high places of the earth, that he might eat the increase of the fields; and he made him to suck honey out of the rock, and oil out of the flinty rock” (Deuteronomy 32:13).
It is still happening. Oil comes out of the rock, either through olives planted in the rock or from the rock itself, and that Rock is Jesus. He is the ointment of the anointing, and if you want to receive the oil, you need to first receive Him.
A Flourishing Tree
Are you grounded in the Rock? If you want to see your tree bring forth oil, plant yourself in Him, among His church:
“But I am like a green olive tree in the house of God: I trust in the mercy of God for ever and ever” (Psalm 52:8).
The Lord wants you to be a flourishing green tree, not a dying, dry one. In Israel, many olives that are harvested contain over 50 percent oil.
The church is described as an olive tree (singular). Christians, however, are described as olive trees (plural)! In fact, we were “grafted” into the olive tree of Israel. Speaking of the Gentiles, the Bible declares:
“And if some of the branches be broken off, and thou, being a wild olive tree, wert grafted in among them, and with them partakest of the root and fatness of the olive tree” (Romans 11:17).
We are now one tree in Christ!
So can you imagine the revival that would take place if half of all churches had a fresh, continual anointing of the Holy Spirit?
The Harvest
The question remains: How do you get oil out of the olive tree? The answer today is much the same as during Bible times.
Every harvest season, the husbandman—the one who takes care of the trees—checks to see if the olives are ripe. Then the harvesters take a long pole and begin shaking the tree, even hitting it with force. Then, when the ripe olives begin to fall, the workers collect the good ones, and discard the bad ones, then they place the olives in large vessels and begin to crush the mounds of fruit with a large, round, smooth rock. Quickly the oil gushes out!
In life, God must do those same things before the oil of anointing begins to flow out of you. First, He will shake you, then He will crush you. And if you are not prepared for that to happen, it is evident that you really do not want the oil to flow.
Do you remember reading that if a tree drops its fruit before it is shaken, it is cursed? Deuteronomy 28:40 states:
“Thou shalt have olive trees throughout all thy coasts, but thou shalt not anoint thyself with the oil; for thine olive shall cast his fruit.”
The oil that falls to the ground without the Lord’s guidance will spoil and be of no value. But when God shakes you, it means He is smiling on you; He is blessing you. That is the only way He can produce oil. When He sees that you are ready, the shaking begins.
Like the olives, we are shaken with a pole, which represents the cross. We are crushed with a rock, which is the Rock, Jesus Christ. And when the anointing comes, it will affect every part of our being, “like oil into his bones” (Psalm 109:18).
The anointing penetrates!
Almighty God not only desires to fill you with His oil, but also to fill you to overflowing!
Where Does the Anointing Begin for You?
Where does the anointing begin? Repentance!
To the crowd that gathered around the apostles as they came out of the Upper Room, Peter said:
Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost. For the promise is unto you, and to your children, and to all that are afar off, even as many as the LORD our God shall call. (Acts 2:38-39)
The steps to Pentecost could not have been clearer. Peter said first, “Repent.” Then “be baptized.” And “ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost.”
What were the last words Christ uttered before He ascended to heaven? They’re very clear as well:
“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).
What a promise—you shall receive power!
Notice, however, that this is a conditional promise. The power does not come until “the Holy Spirit comes on you.” The result of that experience will make you witnesses of Jesus Christ. When you receive the Spirit, you will not rush out to tell the world what you are like. You will tell them what Christ is like. You will have a revelation of Jesus Christ.
The message is not concerning what a miserable sinner you were and what a great Christian you have become. No! The Holy Spirit is given that you will declare what a mighty God, merciful Savior, and great High Priest you serve.
But what is the first step? Repentance.
In Hebrew, the idea of repentance is represented by two verbs that mean to return and to feel sorrow. In the New Testament, the word translated as “repentance” in the English is the Greek word metanoia, which is a compound word meaning “after the result of perceiving or observing,” or, simply, “to think differently after.”
The born-again experience does not mean that you come to the altar, shed a few tears, say, “I’m sorry, Lord!” and then go out the door to continue to live in your sins. That is not repentance. Salvation is a supernatural experience that you cannot accomplish by yourself. It is a gift of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost.
Repentance changes the direction you are going and puts you on the road that leads to the fire of Pentecost. He said, “I promise you power,” which is the destination. But repentance is where you start.
Repentance means confessing and forsaking. It means believing and behaving! You must settle the question of sin—otherwise you will never know the power of the Holy Ghost experience.
