The Holy Spirit And Healing Anointing

You might be wondering why I am teaching about the Holy Spirit on a healing school where you expect to read lessons about praying for the sick. I haven't wandered off course, there really is a very good reason why I am doing this.

Many people talk about "the anointing" for healing -- they seek the anointing, they see greater miracles and more healings when "the anointing" is present. We think of anointed healing evangelists where people fall out in the spirit when they get in close physical proximity to them and they get up healed. And of course, each of us desire to move in that type of power and anointing too. We would like to know what the person's secret was to get "the anointing." We want "the anointing" on our own life and ministry.

But what is the anointing that we are seeking, and how does the Holy Spirit enter into the equation?

In order to answer that question, I am going to spend the next two lessons sharing some things that God has told me personally and some things that I have heard from a few of the "big name" healing evangelists.

Let me share one of my first experiences learning about the anointing with you. It was at my first exposure to a Benny Hinn meeting. This was not his usual large crusade, but it was a "live" broadcast of Benny Hinn being interviewed and ministering on a Christian TV show. And I was invited to be in the studio audience, which was maybe 400 people. During the show, Benny talked about "the anointing" and he showed a video on it. The video documented how incredible things happened when the anointing was present... and it showed several medically documented healings and people being saved. As I watched that video, I found myself wanting that anointing. So I began to ask God for it. His answer surprised me, "Teresa, the anointing is not some impersonal force, it is the person of the Holy Spirit." There was a pause, and I began to ask God for more of the Holy Spirit. Then the Holy Spirit spoke directly to me, and said, "Teresa, if you want more of Me operating in your life, then you must give Me more of yourself."

At the time, that was a new concept for me, so I began to ask God to teach me more about the Holy Spirit and to show me how to give more of myself to Him so I could receive "more" of Him.

The first thing God showed me was that "More" of the Holy Spirit was not getting a larger measure of Him inside of me -- that He has resided inside of me in His fullness since I became a believer and invited Jesus into my heart. Rather "more" was learning to be more yielded to Him, learning to cooperate better with Him, so that He might release more of His power in my own life and walk. Jesus only did what the Father was doing, and if I wanted to see the Holy Spirit's power released in my life, then I needed to put aside my own agenda and take up God's, just like Jesus did. God Almighty needed to be Lord and boss of my life. I had already learned a lot about making Jesus Lord of my life, but I did not know what it meant to make the Holy Spirit Lord as well. I was getting the idea that the more I submitted to the Holy Spirit's lordship in my life, the more He would allow me to see His power and His anointing released in my life. So I asked Him to teach me of Himself and to draw me into a deeper relationship with Him.

Not long after that, I was driving home from the shopping center and I was taking a city street to the freeway entrance. At the time, it was poorly laid out with two stop signs 1/2 block apart, with two intersections where a lot of cars all tried to get to the freeway entrance. As a result, there was always gridlock and it always took a long time to get through that section and get on the freeway. (They have since fixed it by replacing the 4-way stop signs with synchronized traffic lights.)

As I was stuck in the gridlock I began to think about the Holy Spirit. I remembered the verse admonishing us not to grieve the Holy Spirit. How do we grieve Him? I guessed the answer was through sin and disobedience. My mind began to drift to the role of God in human history. I am not sure this was theologically correct, but my thinking at the time was that God the Father worked with the nation of Israel in the Old Testament. He is the one who called Abraham, the one who led the children of Israel out of Egypt, etc. He had His difficulties with the stiff-necked and rebellious people who were called by His name, but that ended when Jesus came to the earth. God the Father had finished His work with us. Then Jesus came and He lived among us and suffered for our sins and died and rose again. He ascended into Heaven and His work on earth was done.

Then He sent His Holy Spirit to come and dwell inside of each and every believer and finish the work of God among men. I began to realize that He was stuck in us and many of us were not very eager to obey Him or put God first in our lives. I began to think of the number of carnal Christians I knew who were pursuing their own interests instead of God. I saw the Holy Spirit living in each person and being grieved by many of them. I was struck by what I realized that I said out loud, "Holy Spirit, you have a raw deal!" It must not be all that pleasant for Him. Jesus and the Father are both up in Heaven, having completed their work, and here is the Holy Spirit stuck here on earth with us in sinful and rebellious people who have very little intention of honoring and obeying Him. I felt very sad for Him.

Then my awareness of His role began to personalize. I became aware of some of the times I'd personally grieved Him. I thought of sins I committed since I'd been saved. I thought about times I'd pursued my own interests instead of God's. I thought about the times I'd intentionally ignored what He said to me so I could have my own way. I realized how poorly I had been treating the Holy Spirit, and I felt stricken by it. I was now only about one or two car lengths away from the final stop sign. I was driving on auto pilot, and my thoughts were strongly on the Holy Spirit. I felt so bad about how I'd been taking Him for granted, ignoring Him, grieving Him and so on.

I found myself saying out loud, "Holy Spirit, I would like to be someone that You could enjoy living in. If You help me and change me, I will do my best to cooperate with You in that process. Will you please change me into someone who You enjoy living inside of?"

Then I got to the stop sign and turned left, onto the freeway on ramp. As I drove down the on ramp, the Holy Spirit said to me, "Teresa, did you really mean what you just prayed?"

I said, "Yes, Lord."

Then He said, "OK, let's make a covenant of it. My part is to transform you into someone who I enjoy living in and working with. Your part is to submit and cooperate with Me in the process."

I said ok, just as I was merging onto the freeway.

Just like that, I entered into a covenant with the Third Person of the Trinity, the Holy Spirit. And the Holy Spirit began to speak to me about Who He is and what He likes and dislikes, about what pleases Him and what displeases Him. He did not show me everything at once, but gradually over time and I am still learning about Him.

One of the big evidences of this covenant in my life has been God's "character reform" program that He has been putting me through -- where He examines not only my actions, but my motives and my desires. At times I have felt like I am under His microscope and will never get out of that place of needing to be perfected. But I am also getting to know the Holy Spirit personally, spending time with Him, and seeing more and more of His power and anointing manifesting in my life. I have seen Him do some spectacular healings and I have heard Him teach me things of Himself.

This has been a "high cost" covenant for me in terms of refiner's fire, being put in situations where I must obey Him, etc. But it has been well worth it. In fact, I am very grateful that the Holy Spirit has been working in my life and teaching me of Himself! I recommend that everyone ask the Holy Spirit to teach them how to work with Him and become someone who He enjoys living inside of and working through. We will talk more about this in our next lesson.