Our church had a training session for the alter ministry workers on Saturday. It covered all sorts of helpful things regarding alter ministry at our church. The training seminar started at 1 PM and went to 5:30 PM. I got a hankering for a candy bar about 2:00 PM and starting hoping the break would come soon so I could sneak out to a near by store and buy one. I spent over an hour trying to ignore the cravings of my sweet tooth because we did not get our break until a little after 3:00 PM. I was ready to dart out to the parking lot, hop in my car and run to get the candy bar. But I decided to stop by the church kitchen first and get a cup of coffee. To my surprise and delight, there were refreshments in the kitchen.. veggies and chips and cupcakes and cookies. My sweet tooth dived for a cup cake. It was yummy. I hadn't eaten anything all day, so I was really hungry. Instead of eating wisely, I had another cupcake and some cookies. You know how it is.. when you don't eat for a long time, you feel hungrier than you really are, so you eat really fast. And when you've had enough, you don't realize that you are full so you eat more than you mean to. I unwisely did this with cupcakes, cookies and chips.
The session started again, and I began to feel the kind of sick you get from eating a bunch of sweets on an empty stomach. I sat in my seat and tried to pay attention. The last subject Rodney taught on that day was God's anointing. He talked about things I consider basic fundamentals, things that are very good to review and think about from time to time.
A quick overview of the teachings is: the anointing for effective comes from the infilling of the Holy Spirit. Jesus was our role model. Even though He was God incarnate, He put aside His "God powers" while He walked on the earth. Instead of using His own power, He was empowered by the Holy Spirit.. the same Holy Spirit that He has sent to indwell and anoint each of us. In other words, we can do the same things Jesus did (John 14:12-14) because the same Holy Spirit empowers us that empowered Jesus. Jesus commanded us to be filled with the Holy Spirit. We do not believe this is only a one-time experience, but that God is willing to continually refill us. Rodney put it this way... "We leak, so we need to be refilled." (If my summary of this teaching bothers you and violates you personal theology, sorry. Rodney did a thorough teaching developed carefully from scripture. His teaching might be easier to understand/receive than my quick summary of it.)
I knew a ministry time would be coming where our pastor would pray for each of us for an anointing/infilling. I felt so sick that I was almost tempted to leave early and go home even though I knew we were going to have this ministry time... and I love this sort of ministry time. I decided to "hang in there" and stay. At one point Rodney said it was time to put down our notes, stand up and prepare to receive from God. I was one of the first to stand up. Even before Rodney began to pray over us as a group, I closed my eyes and put up my hands in the typical "I receive" position. I silently invited the Lord to fill me, assuming He would do it when Rodney laid hands on me. But the instant I prayed that silent prayer, I felt God's presence wash over me. The feeling of sickness was instantly gone and I was enveloped in His wonderful presence. It felt SO good! I could hardly stand up, the Lord's presence was so strong. I was amazed at how fast He came on me. I was amazed at how the sickness washed off of me as His presence came.
Rodney began to pray over the group, that God would fill and anoint each of us. I knew that is what God was doing on me. My hands began to tingle, as if I was holding a vibrator or something. This sometimes happens to me when God is anointing me. His presence seemed to increase over me so much that I could hardly stand it. I could sense His love and His approval, His goodness and His nearness.
When Rodney finished praying over us as a group, he invited those who want personal prayer with laying on of hands to come up front to be prayed for. I love receiving that kind of prayer, so I really wanted Rodney to pray for me. And I was already seated in the front row, so it was not far to go. But God was on me so heavily that I did not want to move. I remember silently praying.. "Lord please work it out.. show me when You want me to go up there. Until then I will just stay where I am and get as much of you as I can."
I am not sure of how much time elapsed. It felt like it was only a few seconds later. Rodney walked up to me, laid hands on me and began praying for me. I was the first person he prayed for individually. The Lord was all over me as he prayed... I had a strong sense that God was anointing me for ministry. The prayer Rodney prayed over me was very prophetic and it ministered to me a lot. I know the Holy Spirit was showing Him what to pray. I felt so blessed.
Rodney left me and moved off to pray for someone else, but God did not leave me. After a little while, I went to kneel at the altar. Gradually my sense of His presence began to diminish. I could still sense His presence but it was not nearly as strong. I prayed, "Oh Lord, please come and fill me again, I love Your presence." I was reminded of Is 40:31, which talks about waiting on the Lord. So I waited, hoping God would flood my senses again. He did not make me wait very long. When the "second wave" of God's presence began to wan, I invited Him again. Again there was a short wait and then again the sense of God's presence around me increased. Needless to say, the ministry time at the Saturday training session was wonderful. I could hardly wait for service the next morning, where I expect that God would again meet me in the same way.
The Lord's presence has been incredibly powerful during our past few Sunday services. He has always "shown up" at our services, but the past few weeks have been at a "higher level" than before. So, Sunday morning I could hardly wait for worship to begin. I expected God to meet me in wonderful ways.
The worship began, but it did not go as I expected. I found that I was distracted and could not seem to enter into worship. My mind kept wondering to other things. I could tell, by glancing around the room, that the Lord was present in the room and was meeting a lot of people. But it did not feel like He was meeting me. I tried to concentrate and press in, but I could not really sense God's presence like I had the day before. I did everything I knew to do to enter in. I even kneeled down to face my seat so that I was not distracted by anything else. As I would try to press into God, a couple of old issues would come up. I had mostly dealt with them before but here there were coming up again. I remember apologizing to God for being distracted by them and not being able to enter in to His presence. He said something really surprising to me. "Teresa," He said, "This is My presence. This is what it looks like today. This is what I am doing in you today."
So I stopped trying to get lost in worship and I let the Lord speak to me about the two areas that had come up. It was not really all that deep of emotional surgery.. it was more like becoming aware of a need for God to touch me in these areas. He explained some things to me about them that were very helpful. My worship time did not go the way I wanted it to go. I did not get to feel the wonderful sense of His tangible presence and be lost in His goodness like I wanted. Instead it was more like a inner healing ministry time, where God was dealing with some stuff. God wanted to get some things out of my life that head me back from going further with Him. Almost as in confirmation to what He did in worship, the sermon was about "What must I leave behind to go all the way with God?" (God does have a sense of humor, doesn't He.)
So when ministry time rolled around, I was not feeling like ministering to anyone. I was still pondering how God's presence/anointing during worship had the effect of allowing old issues to rise up a bit. I planned to go get some prayer myself and let those who felt "anointed" go minister to people.
"Teresa," God said, "I want you to go up there and pray for someone."
"You're kidding, right Lord?"
"No, I want you to go up there and pray for someone. I have been preparing you all week to minister to her."
Several thoughts ran through my mind at once. I reviewed what I had been doing all week.. I had been working a lot on editing a teaching series on setting people free from enemy oppression. Then I thought about my own rather deflated worship time and how I was considering going up for ministry myself. I did not think I should be ministering, so I told God so.
"Lord, I don't feel anointed. I don't feel capable of ministering to anyone just now. Did you forget how worship went for me this morning, Lord? I am not really in shape to minister to people."
"Teresa, anointing is not a 'feeling.' Now go up front to minister."
Have you ever been convinced that God was being unreasonable, but you don't dare disobey Him because of John 14:15? That was how I felt. I obediently stood up front. No one came up for ministry at first, and I was sort of relieved. I was a bit concerned that whoever I ministered to might get a bit short-changed because I was not feeling "keen" for ministry.
A little later, a lady came up to me. As she began to share her prayer needs, God began giving me some specifics. It was as if a veil had been lifted and I could see so clearly in the spirit. I won't go into the details of the ministry because that is private/personal for this lady. But some enemy strongholds that had caused her much grief were torn down. The Holy Spirit seemed to show up with more than enough anointing for the job. I did not have time to think about it or analyze it at that moment, I was busy ministering. But the truth is that God's anointing is not an emotional state. We do not have to feel "good" to be anointed to minister. We merely have to be obedient and to allow God to be the one to supply the anointing and do the ministry. After I finished ministering to her, the Lord gave me prophetic words for two others, and there was a fair amount of power/anointing in those as well.
That night the Lord began to speak to me about it. We can't expect things to go a certain way when God shows up. When we enter into His presence, we enter into His light. Some of the time we will have those fun experiences where we are lost in His love. Other times, God will expose areas of our lives/thinking that He wants to transform. Sometimes God's presence comes with joy. Sometimes it comes with fear or pain or even repentance. But whatever is on His agenda, you can be assured that it is good, because He is a good God.
Similarly, anointing is not an emotional state. You don't have to feel primed, ready or confident. You don't have to be filled with His joy. You don't have to have a strong tangible sense of His presence to be anointed. What you need is to listen to what He is saying and obey Him. Another way of putting it is that you have to see what the Father is doing and do it with Him.
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