How to Position Yourself to Walk in Your God-Given Anointing by BRANDON A. COX for Charisma News
That word—”anointing”—is tricky.
If you grew up in a Pentecostal/charismatic environment, you might associate the anointing with a particular ecstatic experience, or with the practice of anointing the sick with oil and prayer or perhaps with the preacher delivering a particularly powerful message.
If you grew up Catholic, Orthodox or in another liturgical tradition, you probably think of the anointing as referring to those individuals set aside for a particular full-time priestly ministry or a particular sacrament or ritual.
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And if you grew up Baptist, like me, you don’t say the word “anointing” because you don’t want people to think you’re one of “those” Christians (see above).
Regardless of how you grew up or what your experience has been with this concept of the anointing of God, I have some good news for you.
If you have turned from your sin in repentance and put your trust and hope in Jesus Christ alone, then you have the anointing of God on your life whether you knew it or not.
But that doesn’t mean you’ve learned to experience or enjoy His anointing.
The apostle Paul wrote:
“Now it is God who makes both us and you stand firm in Christ. He anointed us, set his seal of ownership on us, and put his Spirit in our hearts as a deposit, guaranteeing what is to come” (2 Cor. 1:21-22, NIV).
Paul indicates that the anointing has to do with the indwelling presence of God’s Holy Spirit, who takes up residence in the life of every believer. But the anointing is more than just having the Holy Spirit. The anointing has to do with what the Holy Spirit does in our lives.
And John wrote:
But you have an anointing from the Holy One, and all of you know the truth … As for you, the anointing you received from him remains in you, and you do not need anyone to teach you. But as his anointing teaches you about all things and as that anointing is real, not counterfeit—just as it has taught you, remain in him (1 John 2:20, 27).
John gives another example of how the anointing of God is more than simply the presence of the Holy Spirit. The anointing of God includes the teaching ministry of the Spirit. His anointing helps us to distinguish truth from error.
I’ve come to believe that the anointing is something that every single believer in Jesus Christ possesses, by virtue of being God’s child and being the recipient of the Holy Spirit. But our experience of the anointing is more than simply having Him. It has to do with enjoying the deep relational work He does on the inside of us.
