The Holy Spirit And Healing Anointing

When the Holy Spirit is at work in any believer's life, He leaves clear and visible evidences of His activity in them. In short, you can watch a person over time and see changes that prove the Holy Spirit is at work in them.

You will see overt changes in a person's behavior as the Holy Spirit transforms their heart and thinking. They will stop doing certain behaviors that grieve or offend God because these things start to interfere in their relationship with Him. If they are involved in sexual sin, they will stop. If they are into addictive substance, they will stop. You will even see changes in how they spend their leisure activity. When they were unsaved, their idea of a good time might have been going to a nightclub or bar to drink socially, dance and meet members of the opposite sex. As the Holy Spirit changes their life, the nightclub scene becomes less appealing and they find other leisure activities to fill their time.

Sometimes the behavior change is instant, but sometimes it is gradual over a period of time as the Holy Spirit convicts them one step at a time. For instance, a person who used to go to X-rated-movies might stop doing that and limit themselves to R-rated movies. Some time later, the R-rated movies start to become offensive to them, as they see things in the movies that offend God. The Holy Spirit will often lead us out of a sinful behavior step by step, as we grow in our faith and in our relationship with Him.

Other times the changes are instant. He simply says, "Stop doing this," and we stop. The stopping might be hard at first, it might require a very deliberate act of our will to obey. But after a while, it is easy to stop that behavior because something inside of us changes and we don't want to do it anymore.

Let me tell you about one of the big changes in my behavior when I first committed myself to Jesus' Lordship in my life. It had to do with the celebration of Halloween. As a teenager, I really loved dressing up and I would go to great lengths and I spared no expense to make elaborate costumes. I would go to a costume party every year -- some years I would get together with a friend or two to actually throw the party. I would also get very elaborate in decorating the house -- carved pumpkins, fake spider webs, black and orange streamers, rubber skeletons hanging in the coat closet, etc. What started in high school stuck with me through my adult life. I would dress up in my costume early in the morning and wear it all day. I would also buy candy and hand it out to whoever I met during the day. Halloween was my one big thing of the year. It was my favorite holiday -- I loved it.

Then one year, I discovered that Jesus wanted to be my Lord, not just my Savior. I entered into a deeper and more personal relationship with Him, and I began to learn to hear His voice and I began to develop intimacy with Him. When Halloween rolled around, He told me, "I don't like Halloween and I don't want you participating in it anymore." Whoa, that was a big one for me! How about if I dress up as a bible character, God? But He would not budge. He told me that He did not want me observing a holiday that was dedicated to the devil. If I belonged to Him, I was not to take a day out of the year to honor His enemy the devil. He presented me with a choice -- Honor the devil or honor Him, and He wanted to know which it would be?

So on that Halloween day, for the first time since I could remember, I did not put a costume on. I did not carry candy with me during the day to pass out to whoever I met. I did not go to a party that year and it felt really strange to me. However, God had made it clear to me that my celebrating Halloween offended Him, so I stopped doing it. The first two or three years, it was hard for me. But over time something changed in me and the very idea of celebrating Halloween was no longer appealing. I stopped missing it, it was not important to me anymore.

The change in my behavior was instant, but the change in my heart and motivation took a bit longer to "catch up" to my behavior change. God had worked on me from both ends, telling me to stop doing certain behaviors and at the same time, changing me on the inside so that those behaviors stopped appealing to me. And that change is the transformation of the Holy Spirit in our lives.

Lots of good things start happening in our lives as the Holy Spirit transforms us. Our personal devotions come alive, God speaks directly to us and shows us things as we pray and meditate and read His word. Our personal intimacy with God increases. We find ourselves getting free from the bondages of the past. Besetting sins stop besetting us. The power of rejection or condemnation or fear or worry or anxiety gradually decrease over time until they are no longer an issue in our lives. We begin to have a sense of joy and fulfillment as we cooperate with God in His plan for our lives. The fruit of the spirit begins to manifest in our lives -- love, joy, peace, patience and the whole package.

We are gradually changed over time as the Holy Spirit transforms us. The change is in our behavior, in our thinking and even in our emotions and feelings. We become more and more like Jesus. This is supposed to be normal for all believers because the Holy Spirit dwells in each of us. And He is at work in each of us to change us and to grow and mature us in Christ.

Along with that, the Holy spirit begins to release spiritual gifts in our lives, and we start to develop and grow in whatever gift He has given to us. We start to see some of God's anointing on us as we begin to do with God what He is doing.

What Happens When We Make The Holy Spirit Lord?

The things we have discussed so far in this lesson happen in believer's lives whether or not they choose to develop intimacy with the Holy Spirit. So you might wonder, "Why bother developing that intimacy? What do I get out of it if I put in all that extra time and effort that it takes to develop a personal relationship with the Holy Spirit? Jesus is already My lord, so why should I try to make the Holy Spirit Lord as well?"

There are some really good reasons to do this. First, Jesus commands us to receive the Holy Spirit in John 20:22. What do you think He meant by this? The word "receive" is "lambano" in Greek (Strong's #2983). It is the same "receive" that is used in John 1:12, "But as many as received Him [Jesus], to them He gave the right to become children of God, to those who believe in His name." So receiving the Holy Spirit is like receiving Jesus.

Lambana is not a passive verb, it does not mean, "to be handed something as yours and then to set it down somewhere for safe keeping." It means that you "take what is one's own, to take to one's self, to make one's own," or to "appropriate to one's self," or "to receive a person, give him access to one's self." It is the same type of receive as "to receive a very important house guest." For instance, if your favorite sports hero or singer or movie star came to stay with you at your house, how would you receive them? Would you tell them to have a seat because you are busy and you will be with them when you can get around to it? Or would you put everything else aside and give them your undivided attention?

Likewise, we don't receive the Holy Spirit the way we'd receive a letter from the post office -- take it home and set it aside until you have a chance to read it. Instead, you receive Him like you would receive an important house guest -- where you give them priority and preference and see to their comfort.

It is also the same "receive" that is used in Matthew 25 in the parable of the talents. You remember the story -- the master was going away and he gave five talents to one servant, three talents to another and one talent to a third. The ones who received five and three talents were pro-active with them. They worked with them and they invested them, and they made a profit and doubled the investment. And their master was pleased with them. However the one who received only one talent, set it aside in a safe place and did not work with it. When his master came back, he was mad at him for not investing it. Likewise, Jesus expects us to be pro-active with the Holy Spirit, to work with Him so that His presence, power and influence increase in our lives.

In short, the more we work with the Holy Spirit, the faster and more complete of a transformation He can do in our lives. That gets us to the place where God can use us more, because we are more committed to His agenda instead of to our own.

There is another reason why we should develop a personal relationship with the Holy Spirit. Jesus talks about what His work in our lives will look like in John 16:5-15 and also in John 14:25-27. The Holy Spirit plays several important roles in our lives. The more we develop relationship with Him and the more we cooperate with Him in these areas, the greater His affect can be in our lives. He is our Helper (verse 7) -- He helps us to be successful in our day to day lives. If you want God's help with something, then it is the Holy Spirit who actually comes and helps you -- so it is a very good idea to get on good terms with Him for that reason alone. He is our Guide (verse 13). He tells us about things that are going to happen to us, preparing us and giving us insights into how to handle the situation. He tells us what Jesus wants us to know (verse 14). He also teaches us what we need to know (John 14:26). And He reminds us (literally "brings to our remembrance") things Jesus has already told us (verse 26). He gives us peace and He takes away our fears (verse 27).

Don't you think those are good things? Doesn't it make you want to cooperate more with the Holy Spirit, just to get a greater measure of those things in your life?

And there is another reason. As we have covered in previous lessons, the Holy Spirit is the one who empowers us to do what the Father is doing, He is the one who gives us anointing. The anointing is not some impersonal force, it is an increase of His manifest presence with us and an increase of His working in our lives. Jesus was empowered by the Holy Spirit for all the miracles and signs and wonders and prophecies He did when He ministered on earth. Jesus promised us we would do the same things as He did (John 14:12-14), by giving us the same Holy Spirit that empowered Him (John 20:22, Acts 1:8). Jesus cast out demons and healed the sick, and He did this through the Holy Spirit's anointing (Acts 10:30). Then He commanded us, in the great commission to do the same things: proclaim the gospel, heal the sick, cast out demons. But when He gave the commission to the disciples, He told them to wait (or tarry) until they were empowered by the Holy Spirit to do this (Acts 1:5).

So, how did they wait? They waiting by praying and seeking God very intently. Acts 1:14 tells us "These all continued with one accord in prayer and supplication" -- about 120 of them according to Acts 1:15. Acts 2:1 tells us that on the day when the Holy Spirit came to empower them, they were all meeting together with one accord, praying and seeking God. The Holy Spirit came on them in a new dimension and released the power that Jesus had promised in Acts 1:8. They were empowered to speak real languages that they never had learned (Acts 2:4-6). And they demonstrated signs and wonders on a regular basis, filled with the Holy Spirit's power (Acts 2:43). And the rest of the book of Acts is filled with accounts of how they moved in God's power -- how they healed the sick, cast out demons, did signs and wonders and saw many come to know Jesus.

Note that the empowerment did not come instantly, the moment Jesus ascended into heaven. They had to wait, they had to seek and they had to spend a lot of time in prayer and supplication. In other words, they had to build and develop their relationship with the Holy Spirit before they "got more" of Him and were able to move in the miracle power. I think their experience demonstrates the pattern that God expects most of us to follow: if we want to see more of the Holy Spirit's power and anointing in our lives, we need to seek Him, pursue Him, build a relationship with Him and learn to yield control of our lives to Him. Our next lesson will talk about how to do that.