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Peggy Joyce Ruth, aka "the Psalm 91 Lady" is author of a variety of Psalm 91 book titles with over six million copies in print. She taught a weekly Adult Bible Study for more than 35 years in her church in Central Texas as she shared how to make God’s Word your final authority. Known for her easy-to-understand style of communicating the Word of God and warm storytelling, Peggy Joyce's heart is that her books and teachings will bring you into the same freedom from fear she experienced and help you put God's Word to work in your life.
Well, this is our first session now in our Spiritual Anointing series and we're going to be talking about the anointing of God and how to walk in that anointing. Now, under the old covenant, there would be times when the Holy Spirit anointing would come upon maybe a prophet or come on a priest or a king or a leader, and they would come for a portion of time to do a specific purpose, a specific thing, but it didn't necessarily always come on that person and stay there constantly. It was more like for a specific purpose because the Holy Spirit had not yet been poured out on all flesh. And God did not directly deal with many individuals in the Old Testament. Usually, would deal with a prophet or He'd deal with a priest or a king, and they would get God's direction, they would get His anointing, and then they would go and share it with the people.
Speaker 1:They were more or less God's go between that they had in the Old Testament. Now, the general population didn't know much about the anointing, except that they observed that the spirit of God was not inside of them yet. They didn't have the Holy Spirit guiding them like we have under the new covenant. But there came a time that something happened that separated the old way from the new way, and that something now that happened was the coming of Jesus. With that, everything was going to change, including the Holy Spirit anointing.
Speaker 1:Now, when Jesus was 30 years old, before he even started his earthly ministry, he was baptized in water by John the Baptist, and when he came up out of the water, the Holy Spirit came on him in the form of a dove, and the anointing of God was just released from heaven on him, and the Holy Spirit began to do something that had never been accomplished before. Jesus was baptized in the Holy Spirit. Now, unlike the Old Testament, when the Holy Spirit anointing would come and go, this time there was an immersion on the inside and it was like a clothing now of the Holy Spirit that came on the person. Some people don't know why Jesus needed the baptism of the Holy Spirit. They say, Why?
Speaker 1:He was the Son of God. But, it was because He had come to earth as a man. God didn't pick a man and make him a god to come to earth. No, God picked a part of the Godhead and made him a man because Jesus actually emptied himself of his godly authority. He emptied himself of his godly power and ability in order to come as a man, and then He had to receive all of that authority and all that power and anointing.
Speaker 1:He had to receive it through the anointing of the Holy Spirit for His time on earth. So, this was a completely different time of all history, And when Jesus was on earth, He needed that baptism just like we needed. And at His baptism, He received the Holy Spirit without measure. And because He received the Spirit without measure, we can receive Him without measure as well. Literally opened the door for us.
Speaker 1:Now, I'm going to give you some valuable information from the Word concerning the Holy Spirit anointing that Jesus made available to us, and He did it right at this time when He came earth. Now, I'm going to give you four principles or four reasons for the anointing. The number one principle or the number one reason for the anointing, I want us to look at the story in the Old Testament, and it will help us to understand this. God had chosen Moses to be the leader of the people in the Old Testament, but the work was way too strenuous for one man. And so, in Numbers eleven sixteen and seventeen, God told Moses to gather 70 men, 70 men that he knew from the elders of Israel, and they were to come together and make their stand with Moses.
Speaker 1:And in verse 17, then, God said that he would come down, he would take his stand with Moses, he would take of the Holy Spirit that was on Moses, and he put it on the 70 elders now who were there with him. And then God said that they would bear some of the burden of the people along with Moses, so that Moses didn't have to carry the whole thing. He was under a lot of pressure. You can imagine to have millions of people that he was in charge of having to hear God, so there was a lot of pressure. This was so that he would not have to bear this burden of all these people alone.
Speaker 1:So, these 70 elders came and God took some of the spirit now that was on Moses and he put it on them so that they could help bear the burden. Now, that didn't mean that Moses had any less of the spirit. The spirit of God is not limited. It's kind of like love. The more you give away, the more you're going to have.
Speaker 1:And then what happened was there became a corporate anointing now, and that's what God is wanting from us today, for there to be a corporate anointing of all of his people to do the work of the ministry. Now, Moses was obedient, and we find that when God did take of spirit that was on Moses, He put it on the 70 and the first thing that happened, they began to prophesy. Okay, now that's really important. Old and New Testament, whenever anyone received the spirit, it almost always said that they prophesied. Now, it doesn't say that they immediately started doing miracles, but as soon as they received the Spirit, they would always prophesy.
Speaker 1:Now, remember, prophecy means to spread words of edification, words that build up to each other. Now, since prophecy is a very natural occurrence with the coming of the anointing of Holy Spirit, that is obviously one of the main desires of the Holy Spirit, to build each other up and to edify one another. Now, that's not talking about flattery or that's not talking about fleshly edification. That's talking about building up one another spiritually. Each of us are responsible for helping to build up every other Christian that we're around.
Speaker 1:Now, Moses was under a very heavy burden, so God anointed 70 more men to help bear that burden and build up Moses, and they were building up each other together. And I thought that's such a wonderful gift of God that we can build each other up. And Moses needed some support. Now, when God anoints men and women to help bear the load, prophesying is going to be a part of that anointing. Now, that includes the speaking to one another by the Holy Spirit to keep each other and keep the leadership built up and encouraged and listening to God and encourage one another to move on in God.
Speaker 1:Now, that's a part of the anointing. So, principle number one: With the anointing always comes prophecy. In other words, with the anointing always comes the building up, the edifying one another. The Holy Spirit anointing never tears down. So, you can know, if you're flowing in the anointing, you can know by asking yourself, Do I build up or do I tear down?
Speaker 1:We know. We need to ask ourselves, Am I one that builds up the body that helps and does things that help, or do I tear down? Do I hold people back or do I help them to move forward? Every Christian is responsible and every Christian should be asking himself that question. Okay, number two.
Speaker 1:The second principle that I want to show you from the Word is the anointing that you receive from association. That's the word I want you to remember. In Exodus 3three 11, the Lord would speak to Moses, and He would speak to him face to face just as a man speaks to a friend. Then, when Moses returned to the camp, Joshua, the young man, would not depart from his tent. He would stay right there in the tent with him, and I can almost see Joshua just hanging on to every word now that came out of Moses' mouth, and he was so excited to hear everything that had happened to Moses up on the mountain for forty days with God.
Speaker 1:Now, Joshua built that experience vicariously through Moses over and over. He lived that experience, and he did it by association. Now, Numbers 11 verse 28 says that Joshua was Moses' attendant from the time that he was a youth. He attended Moses. He helped Moses.
Speaker 1:He actually protected Moses. Now, God will have attendants around the leadership in every area of service, and He has them there to attend to and help and serve and even protect the leadership. And in doing all that, Joshua was being groomed for his leadership role. He was constantly drawing from Moses' anointing by association. Now, another example of receiving the anointing by association was Elijah and Elisha.
Speaker 1:In two Kings two:one, when the Lord was about to take Elijah, who was quite old at this time and he was about to take him up in a whirlwind into heaven, Elisha stayed right there with Elijah, and he was called to be Elijah's successor, and he didn't want to miss a thing, so he just stuck right with him. And in verse two, Elijah tried very hard to make Elisha stay back. He kept telling him to stay back, you know, I've got to go someplace else. But Elisha said, As the Lord lives and as I live, I'm not going to leave you. I'm going to be right with you.
Speaker 1:So, Elisha went on to Bethel with Elijah. Then, Elijah tried again to get Elisha to stay back, but he refused again. He was doing everything. Stay back. Stay back.
Speaker 1:Something's fixin' to happen. And then they said to Elisha, Do you even know that God is going to take your master away from you today? And Elisha said, Yes, I know it. Just be still. He knew all that.
Speaker 1:And this went on until finally Elijah said, What is it that you want from me? And when he asked that in two Kings two verse nine, Elisha said, Let a double portion of your anointing be on me. And it came about. Now, Elisha had stuck very close to the anointing, and he received it through that close association, and he was not going to give it up. This lets us know that if we want more of God, then this association with God is what we have to have.
Speaker 1:The more we want of God, the more we want to be associated with God. And so, he's telling us right here, he's giving us a prime example. He had taken every step that Elijah took. He had observed by association, and he was absolutely not going to settle for less. In fact, he wasn't even going to settle for the same amount.
Speaker 1:He was determined he was going to get a double portion of that anointing that Elijah had. And so in two Kings two verse 14, he took the mantle that fell from Elijah and he struck the water and he said, Where is the God of Elijah? Where are you? And when he struck the water, they divided and Elisha crossed over. So, he realized the anointing had come upon him.
Speaker 1:Now, you've received the anointing from people you're around. You've received anointing from your parents, maybe people with whom you've associated, and sometimes it's been a godly anointing that you've received, and sometimes it was a perverted anointing when you got it from someone who wasn't following God. So, we're going to get the anointing from people. We have to decide, Who do I want this anointing from? We make that decision to whatever ministry God may be leading you.
Speaker 1:Get with someone who is operating successfully in that anointing and draw from that anointing by association. God is saying, It's up to you. You make this choice. And we get it, literally, by association. What do we want?
Speaker 1:Do we want to be with God closely enough that we're willing to make that association? Because that's how we're going to receive it. And you say, Can some of the anointing really be transmitted? Is that possible? Of course it can.
Speaker 1:God has said, I'll take of the spirit that's on you, Moses, and I'll put it on the 70, because they associated with him. They came to him. We never question that fact in the natural. When someone has the flu, their fever is raging, we're very careful not to associate with him because we know that virus germ will be transmitted to us by association. We know that.
Speaker 1:In the days of polio, quarantined the victim. Even though we couldn't see the germ with the naked eye, we knew it was there, and we knew it could be transmitted. We knew that. Okay, it's the same way in the spiritual realm. The power of God, the anointing of God, you know, the wisdom of God, it's even more tangible and much more real and it can be not only can be transmitted, but it is transmitted and it will last through eternity and it does transmit by association.
Speaker 1:The word is association. Just as a perverted anointing can be transmitted by association, you've heard the old adage, One bad apple can spoil the whole box of apples. Well, if there's a bad apple in the box, it's by association laying next to all those other good apples that it literally destroys the good apples with that one bad apple. It's by association. Jesus' 12 disciples were with him for three years, and they got the anointing by association, by living with him three three and a half years.
Speaker 1:Luke stuck like glue to Paul and he received that association. Now, I'm not talking about being a nuisance or a weight down where you just think, Oh, just stick to him like glue. No, it's not that. It's by the power of the Holy Spirit that God lets you be with them enough and hear them and listen to them and take what they're saying, what they're doing, and appropriate it. Every example that I've given was on the job training.
Speaker 1:That's basically how they get it and how we're to get it. They worked as an assistant. They protected and helped and served one another who was over them. Now, choose to be around godly people. Choose to be around people who talk the word, people who pray.
Speaker 1:Don't spend time with people who gossip and gripe and talk the problem and complain and grumble and cause dissension, even if they're doing it in a subtle way. Some people do those things, but they do it very subtly. But, if you'll watch, you'll know that if you stick around that person, you're going to draw what's inside of them. Just like you receive a good anointing by association, we receive those bad anointings in the same way. You'll also receive the perverted anointing by association, and the sad part, it can be so subtle that it comes on as a deception.
Speaker 1:Now, the third principle that I want to show you from the Word of God is the anointing that's down on the inside of you from your new birth, and it just has to be unleashed. It has to be brought out. Now, the anointing needs to be stirred up. It needs to be let out. We need to prime the pump.
Speaker 1:Now, praying in tongues primes the pump for the anointing. I've heard so many people say, Well, I don't pray in tongues that much because I really don't understand what I'm saying and I really don't feel any different. Well, no one said that we'd understand it or that we would necessarily feel it, but God's Word says, number one, that when you are praying in tongues, you're speaking mysteries to God. It tells us, number two, that it builds you up spiritually you do it. Tells you, number three, that it builds you up in your most holy faith.
Speaker 1:It tells you, number four, that you're praying according to the perfect will of the Father. You're not praying wrong things. Number five, it tells you that it gives you the mind of Christ where you understand the things of God. Number five, it causes all things, then, to work together for good, for God's purposes. Wow!
Speaker 1:That's enough reasons to be willing to pray in the Spirit all the time. We may not feel it always. We may not know what we're saying, but God tells us that all these things start happening to us when we pray in the Spirit. That makes it worth it. Choose to believe by faith that these six things are happening when you pray in tongues Because God says so.
Speaker 1:It literally stirs up the anointing on the inside of you, and it's that anointing now that breaks the yoke. So, begin to speak to your mind, begin to speak to your emotions, and begin to say, The anointing of God is on the inside of me. God hasn't left. The anointing abides in me and it's always inside of me. Therefore, I'm going to walk in it.
Speaker 1:I'm going to do great exploits today for God by His Spirit. Now, the amount of anointing that flows will be in direct proportion to our seeking after it and our seeking after God. How badly we want it is how much we're to go after it. Now, the amount of anointing that flows will be in direct proportion to the time that we spend truly meditating on God, meditating in His Word, praying and fellowshipping with Him, and all of it is a choice. No one is made to do it.
Speaker 1:No one is coerced into doing it. God just says, this is available. You can have it if you want it. And God made the holy spirit anointing available to every one of us in an unlimited measure. So, it's up to us how much we want.
Speaker 1:You don't have to convince your spirit man to flow in the anointing. That anointing is already down on your inner man. We just have to get to the place where we know it's there, and as we do these things that God tells us to do, we bring it up and we bring it out, and then it affects our outer man. It affects what we do, where we're living. Your spirit man is complete.
Speaker 1:Your spirit man is already knowledgeable of God. It just needs an outlet, and that outlet is when we give it permission. Okay, the definition of anointing comes from the same Hebrew word that myrrh comes from. It means to apply sweet perfumed oil, and, boy, when we get in the presence of God, it is like a sweet perfumed oil. In the Old Testament, when they anointed, they poured oil from a horn.
Speaker 1:Now, the ram's horn that was holding the oil represented power and authority and dwelling together in unity, and unity is compared now to the anointing of the Holy Spirit. So, that fourth principle now from the word is unity. I'm giving you some words that are very important to remember. And unity and anointing now go together. In fact, the key to the anointing is unity, and the simplest definition of unity is the opposite now of strife.
Speaker 1:If you want unity, just know it comes by the opposite of strife. The Scripture draws these two things together: unity, which is the opposite of strife, and it joins with the anointing of the Holy Spirit. Now, you can't have one without that. The unity of the Holy Spirit and the anointing of the Holy Spirit go together. Okay, let's read the scripture now with some other synonyms from the Hebrews.
Speaker 1:In Psalm 130 three:one, it says: Behold how good it is, and how pleasant it is for brothers to dwell together in unity. It's fun sometimes when you're doing a special study of a particular word. Go through the Word of God and every time you find that word, unity, for example, every time you find the word unity, circle it and keep circling. And then, go back and see. I mean, when you start reading the scriptures that have to do with that particular word, I mean, it just opens you up to know what God wants for you and how you can receive it.
Speaker 1:To dwell, to remain in a secret place permanently. Unity, as in the Godhead, when you think about the Godhead, there's never been an argument, there's never been a lie toed between them or gossip. Never has the Father pulled the Son aside and said, Oh, did you hear what the Holy Spirit did today? You know, no. In the Godhead, there's never been a standoff.
Speaker 1:There's never been a division. There's never been a split. And that's our example. That's what God wants for us. Now, I've heard people say, Well, church splits are not so bad.
Speaker 1:That's how God gets new churches started, new churches start up. No, that's deception. Anything that comes out of strife is never of God. God doesn't cause strife or even permit strife to accomplish His work. When someone takes over a church that was started in strife, the leadership needs to fast and pray until the strife is done completely away with.
Speaker 1:They need to take it on as something they do before they even get the church going. Early on, there was a church started completely in rebellion. Finally, one by one, the leadership fell away, and finally there was no one left in the church that had been a part of all the rebellion. But the people that were left there, God began to tell them something they needed to do. Every person that had been a part of that rebellion was gone, but then the ones that were left actually had to do a service and a prayer and a repentance for the strife that had been in the leadership that had started the church.
Speaker 1:And most of the ones left in that church didn't even know about the spirit of strife under which the church had started. But, after that surface of prayer and repentance, that church began to grow and blossom in unity. It was amazing. Disunity, strife, rebellion these are all an abomination. There's no justification for it.
Speaker 1:It slows down and destroys the work of the ministry. We're going to find out that only in unity is the work of God able to be accomplished. In Psalms 130 three:one, people need to memorize this, it says: Behold how sweet and how agreeable it is for brothers to remain permanently in a place of unity. That's God's will for us, to remain permanently in a place of unity, just like the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Okay, in Psalm 131 verse three, May the Lord bless you, it says.
Speaker 1:It's like the dew of Hermon coming down upon the mountains of Zion, for there the Lord commanded the blessings lie forever. He didn't just give us the blessings, He commanded the blessings when we get in the place where we need to be, where we're believing Him. No wonder Satan's main tool is to start problems and bring up dissension because it destroys the unity and it gets people murmuring. It gets them finding fault with one another. And, of course, that's Satan's biggest trick: finding fault, talking the problem.
Speaker 1:His tactic is to dwell and put a wedge between us as the body of believers. He's always trying to bring a wedge between you and your mate. He's trying to bring a wedge between you and people in the body because when there's no unity, there is no anointing. There will never be anointing there's just disunity all the time. No blessing.
Speaker 1:Now, what was the one thing that kept the children of Israel out of the Promised Land? Well, lot of people will say, Well, of course, it was the giants that kept them out of the Promised Land. No, it really wasn't. When you read carefully, you find it was the complaining and the grumbling that kept them out of the Promised Land. Those are the ones that actually died, you know, because the grumbling was keeping them from going where God wanted them to go.
Speaker 1:So, when I see an individual get into a lot of grumbling, as sure as I know that day follows night, I know that if that grumbling and that murmuring isn't stopped and repented of, their anointing will begin to dwindle. I've seen it happen over and over and over again, and you have, too. Every time I've been tempted to grumble and complain, I ask myself, Is it worth losing the flow of the anointing? That's what we, as Christians, need to ask ourselves. You know, we want to see something that we don't like and we want to grumble, we want to complain about it, but we need to just stop and say, Okay, is it worth losing the flow of the anointing?
Speaker 1:We're all going to have a bad day and we're going to feel a little irritated at times. You know, we've all even going to see things that could have been done differently. That's human nature. But it's where we go from there. It's the decision we make from there that makes all the difference.
Speaker 1:If we continue to meditate on our differences of opinion and we keep arguing about the differences of opinion, it's going to begin to show up in our attitude. And it won't be long until we begin to voice that disagreement. And do you know why we voice it? We're voicing it because we want to see if somebody else agrees with us. We're wanting some other agreement, some others to stand with us.
Speaker 1:And that's Satan's trick because when that happens, we're on a Slippery Creek Bank and we're going down fast. The anointing will immediately begin to wane. Now, I'm not saying that you can't go in love to a person with whom you're in disagreement and share what you think God has given you. But, it's not something that we can go out and spread and bring dissension. There's a way to go and handle disagreements, and there's a way not to do it.
Speaker 1:Stay in the protection of the submission and move on. Then it becomes God's problem, and there will be no dissension when God's taken care of it, and it won't destroy the anointing. No one is immune from ever making a mistake, but God honors the office of the leadership. Therefore, when we submit, when we support, and when we honor that office, then the decisions that are made by the leadership, it becomes God's responsibility. It's just so good when there's problems that need to be taken care of to be able to go to God and let Him show us exactly how to take care of it, rather than running and taking care of it ourselves.
Speaker 1:There has to be unity for the anointing to flow, and if the leadership is in sin, if they're in error, God will give direction on how to handle the correction His way, because He does have a way, because each individual anointing is designed to fit into the body for the good of the whole body. And that's what God is wanting for us to fit together. And away from the body of believer, that anointing is going to die. It's kind of like an arm that's been severed from the body. It's going to eventually wither and fall away.
Speaker 1:Have you ever noticed when somebody is offended or angry and they pull away from the body, they're going go downhill fast. I've seen it happen many times. They become immobile. Only for a very short time will the Holy Spirit anointing continue to function as it should away from the body. One of two things are going to happen: the anointing is going to dwindle and it's going to become perverted unless we stop it.
Speaker 1:God's told us the way to keep all those things from happening, but if we don't do it, then the anointing will dwindle and it will all become perverted. And that's why Paul says that we are fitted and joined together by what each joint supplies. And when we flow that way, as God tells us, it always brings unity. Now, in Luke four sixteen-nineteen, that same anointing that rested on Jesus rests on us. He has anointed us to do the work.
Speaker 1:Now, our anointing may manifest in different ways. Some may be in a ministry that goes out and takes the Gospel outside of the church. There may be some that teach in the church, in the body. Some teach the children. Some are in the music ministry.
Speaker 1:We all have different jobs, but we flow together. When we flow together, we're going to see unbelievable things happen in the ministry. But, the objective of any ministry is to accomplish God's purposes. And, again, what are God's purposes? Well, he makes it very clear.
Speaker 1:Jesus said, The spirit of the Lord is upon me because he anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind. He has sent me to set free those who are downtrodden and proclaim the favorable year of the Lord. Okay, this is God's purposes. This is what God wants for us.
Speaker 1:That, in a nutshell, are our marching orders. God's directions are so simple and it's the anointing that makes the difference. Now, we're not talking about some mystical thing, nothing weird or strange. It's just the ability that's been placed on the inside of each one of us to supernaturally do things on this earth to accomplish God's objective. And when we do it under the power of the Holy Spirit, it is going to be supernatural, but it will be by the power of the Holy Spirit bringing it about.
Speaker 1:Now, Paul told Timothy not to neglect the spiritual gift that had been bestowed upon him in I Timothy, and then, in his second letter to Timothy, Paul said, Stir it up. Stir that gift up. Some translations say, Rekindle it. So when these things start waning and pulling away, we need to stop right then and do exactly what God's telling us to do. Come back into His presence.
Speaker 1:Stir it up. Know, rekindle it afresh. And that's what God intends us to do, to stir up the gifts, submit to God and to His Word, and determine to walk always in His anointing in unity. Father, we thank you. You've made it so easy.
Speaker 1:You've given us things that help us make it happen and and make it happen so easily if we do it your way. Father, you want that unity there. You want us to to come to the place where we flow together. You want us to come to the place where we each have a job to do and we do it together, holding hands, moving forward. And, Father, we've seen it happen enough when it's being done Your way that we know it can be wonderful, it can be unbelievable.
Speaker 1:We've also seen it happen where it falls apart. Lord, we want to be a part of your body that flows in your spirit. We want to be a part of your body that does it your way. We thank you for that, Lord. We can see what could be accomplished if we just do it your way.
Speaker 1:So, Father, that's what we're asking. We're asking, Father, that you'll help us not only to do it ourselves, but to teach others and to be a part of the answers that you have, Father, for your church. We love you, Lord. We want to be a part of that. In Jesus' name, Amen.