The Holy Spirit And Healing Anointing

There are two schools of thought about what "the anointing" is. Some teach that the anointing is a special grace of God, independent of the Person of the Holy Spirit, that God sometimes releases for physical healing. They get this from Luke 5:17, which says, "One day as He was teaching, Pharisees and teachers of the law, who had come from every village of Galilee and from Judea and Jerusalem, were sitting there. And the power of the Lord was present for Him to heal the sick." Proponents of this theory take this verse to mean that the power to heal is separate from the Person of the Holy Spirit who dwelt in Jesus all of the time. They consider the "power ... that was present to heal the sick" as an impersonal force that God released at that time for physical healing. In other words, God wanted to heal the sick at that meeting, so He released a special grace over the meeting to do what He wanted to do, and Jesus merely tapped into that grace to heal the sick. They feel this empowerment for healing is not personal, and therefore it is not based on personal relationship with God or with the Holy Spirit. They feel it is based on God's sovereign desire to heal people and His willingness to release a special empowerment to do so from time to time.

The other school of thought holds that the anointing to heal is not some impersonal force, it is a manifestation of the Person of the Holy Spirit. A key verse in this theory is Acts 10:38, which tells us, "God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and power, and how He went around doing good and healing all who were under the power of the devil, because God was with Him." This school of thought sees the power on Jesus to heal coming from the Holy Spirit Who indwelt Jesus. According to this school of thought, if you want to move strongly and regularly in this healing anointing with the Holy Spirit, you need to develop a personal and intimate relationship with Him. The empowerment or anointing arises out of that relationship with the Holy Spirit and a commitment to obey and honor Him as He does what the Father is doing.

I believe that God spoke to me directly and told me that the anointing is the person of the Holy Spirit. So, I hold to the second theory -- that if we want more of the Holy Spirit's power and anointing to operate in our lives, we must give Him more of ourselves and develop more of a personal relationship with Him.

I am not alone in this viewpoint. I have heard both Benny Hinn and Todd Bentley publicly say in their meetings that their anointing comes from the Person of the Holy Spirit, and that they must be very careful to honor and obey Him.

Benny Hinn has written a few books about the Holy Spirit, including Good Morning Holy Spirit and The Anointing. I borrowed one of those books when I was staying at a friend's house. And in that book, he draws a close tie between his personal relationship with the person of the Holy Spirit and the strong healing anointing that he moves in. He even tells a story in his book about the worst meeting he ever had. He was holding a crusade in an area where some relatives lived and he wanted to go visit them and have dinner with them before the meeting. The Holy Spirit asked him to spend the time with Him instead, in prayer and worship. This particular time, Benny Hinn choose to go visit his relatives and have dinner with them. He had a wonderful time at the dinner, but when he got to the meeting, it was dead. There was no power or anointing present to heal the sick. The meeting seemed to drag on forever, and Benny Hinn said it was one of the worst experiences of his life. When the meeting was over, he debriefed with God and God basically told him that He did not anoint the meeting because Benny put his relatives above his relationship with the Holy Spirit. He said he learned his lesson and will never do that again -- he will always give the Holy Spirit first priority in his life and he will always honor his personal relationship with the Holy Spirit.

Have you noticed that many of those who are strongly anointed for healing talk about getting to know the Holy Spirit better? Many of them claim to personally spending hours daily talking to and fellowshipping with Him. Why do they do that? They do it because they are building a personal relationship with Him. And their powerful anointing comes out of their deep personal friendship with the person of the Holy Spirit.

I attended Todd Bentley's first ever healing school, in California, which lasted four days. Todd spoke about his personal relationship with the Holy Spirit multiple times during those four days of intensive training. He said that He spends personal prayer time daily with the members of the Trinity, and that it is not uncommon for him to spend up to four hours a day in prayer to the Holy Spirit. Todd teaches that his "anointing" for healing arises out of his deep and personal relationship with the Holy Spirit. This is not a peer relationship, the Holy Spirit is God and He is clearly the boss, but it is a deep and personal friendship where Todd has gotten to know what pleases and what displeases the Holy Spirit.

Todd also teaches about the dunamis power of the Holy Spirit. The Greek word "dunamis" means "the mighty strength or power to make the impossible possible." It also means "the virtue for mighty miracles in abundance." It is the root word from which we get the English word dynamite -- e.g., explosive power. That is the word that is used in Acts 1:8, where Jesus Himself makes a direct link between the Person of The Holy Spirit and the power or anointing to be His witness. We get this anointing from the Person of the Holy Spirit.

And the Person of the Holy Spirit is just that -- a person. He is not some impersonal force. He is cognizant and has self-awareness. He has purpose and intent. He has emotions and feelings -- for instance it is possible to grieve Him through disobedience (Eph 4:30), it is possible to offend Him through blasphemy (Matt 12:31-32), it is possible to anger Him through wickedness and willful rebellion, and it is possible to cause Him joy be yielding to Him and cooperating with Him.

Some very anointed people like Benny Hinn and Todd Bentley tie their anointing to their personal relationship with the Holy Spirit. They have developed a friendship with Him, and their strong ability to heal the sick arises out of that.

But the Holy Spirit is not exclusive, He is willing to build a personal friendship with any believer if that believer is willing to approach Him on His terms. He must be boss, or Lord, of that relationship, and we must have a strong commitment to obey Him and cooperate with Him as He works in our lives. We must be willing to set aside our agendas and desires and give Him a priority. It takes an investment of time to build any personal relationship -- and our relationship with God is no exception. If we want to build a personal relationship with the Holy Spirit, we must be willing to spend time with Him, to get to know Him, to wait on Him, to make Him a very high priority in our busy schedules.

The Holy Spirit began to convict me that I was not as sincere in my friendship as He wanted me to be. I am a very busy person, and I tend to pray constant little "flash prayers" during the day, as well as have a morning and evening dedicated prayer and devotion time. But He felt that He was not getting a priority on my premium time. As I waited on Him to clarify His wishes, He showed me that He wanted me to set aside a dedicated half hour of Holy Spirit prayer time somewhere in the middle of My day.

So I started doing this. I take a half hour out of my day sometime during the late morning or early afternoon.. except one very busy day where it came out of my evening time. I use this time to connect with Him. During this time, I stop my activity and I draw aside to a quiet place and I put on worship music and I commune with Him. I set a timer to assure I give Him the full half hour. This is His time. I don't set the agenda, I let Him set it. So, the way it passes varies depending on what He wants to do with this time.

Sometimes He makes me wait on Him, where it is a struggle to keep my mind focused on Him instead of drifting. Sometimes He teaches me of Himself. Sometimes I just worship Him. Sometimes we fellowship together. Other times I ask Him questions and He answers them, like "Holy Spirit, how do you feel about ____?" One time I watched a TV documentary on sexual abuse of children. During my Holy Spirit half hour, I asked Him how He felt about it. Suddenly I could feel His rage and it really scared me. Then He explained that He was not mad at me, He was showing me how He felt about people who sexually abuse children. It was a very sobering experience.

There are also times when He comes on me in power and I spend My half hour shaking under His power. And there are times when He comes with the joy and I end up drunk in the spirit. And there are times when I pray something along the lines of, "Dear Holy Spirit, please let me move with You in Your dynamite explosive power. Please show me what it would take to get there, what changes do you want in Me."

Now, I don't move at the level of healing anointing that Todd Bentley or Benny Hinn move at. But I find that as I have been building relationship with the Holy Spirit over time, I have seen greater levels of that healing anointing in my own life. I believe that there is a direct correlation between the increased personal relationship with the Holy Spirit and the increased anointing to heal the sick. So I encourage you to actively work on building and developing your personal relationship with Him.

One of the best ways to start building that relationship with Him is to study the bible to get a good idea of Who He is and what He is like. So we will spend our next few lessons looking at what the Bible shows us about the Holy Spirit.