Prophetic Anointing

"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."

When I enlisted in the military, I was issued a weapon. I had never held one before, never loaded or fired one. But they made me practice. Load, fire, clean, load, fire, clean. Eventually, my weapon became an extension of myself. It did exactly what I wanted it to do every time, reaching farther than I could reach with power far greater than my own.

Anointing is a little like that. Of course, I didn't understand that until I got saved.

I was prophesied over at the very beginning of my journey into the Kingdom of God. The pastor who prayed over me said I was called in the manner of Jeremiah. Of course, I had no idea who that was or what it meant.

I began to pray and study the prophet. I searched Scripture and learned how God's anointing establishes his purposes for us.

"Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I set you apart; I appointed you as a prophet to the nations."

"Alas, Sovereign Lord," I said, "I do not know how to speak; I am too young."

But the Lord said to me, "Do not say, 'I am too young.' You must go to everyone I send you to and say whatever I command you. Do not be afraid of them, for I am with you and will rescue you," declares the Lord.

"I have put my words in your mouth. See, today I appoint you over nations and kingdoms to uproot and tear down, to destroy and overthrow, to build and to plant."

When I began to have faith that this was true for me and asked the Lord to show me what my anointing looked like, the flood gates burst open. I was overwhelmed by dreams and the people and places I saw. This, he told me, was just a glimpse of the people and even nations that would be touched by the anointing I carried.

It was mind-blowing! It was hard to imagine someone like me—so damaged, such a bad person—being used by the Lord to represent his kingdom in such a profound way.

"Okay, Lord," I said after lots of prayer, "if you want to anoint me and use me for this, well, I don't know what it will cost me, but I'm willing." And so, it began. I saw things and asked him what to do with what I saw.

"Pray!" he would say. And a few days later, what I saw happened.

I met people, saw their problems, knew what they needed to do and asked the Lord to have them ask me to pray for them. When they did, I was able to share the solution. It was surreal! I knew things in the natural that I had no ability or education to know.

One night, at a ministry event, I stood before a man who was big and muscular.

"What could his problem be?" I thought. "He looks great."

He asked for prayer, and the Lord showed me he had suffered a head injury when he was a boy. It had left him with depression, a damaged nervous system and a tendency to go into rages. I asked him if this was true. He said yes, and tears began to flow. He told me this had become such a problem that he was thinking about ending his life.

I prayed, and the Spirit of the Lord flowed into him like molten fire. The Lord told me to pray for his autonomic nervous system, and he later wrote and told me he was completely healed and was enjoying life with his wife and family. His wife said he was a totally different man.

That's what the anointing is sent to do.

God anoints us to do things we've never done before, so we have to practice. The more we practice, the stronger our gift becomes, like doing supernatural pushups.

Practice also gives us some amount of control of our gift, but not as much as with a weapon because a spiritual gift is mostly controlled by God. If he doesn't share a prophetic word with me, I have nothing to share with anyone else.

Over the past four decades, the prophetic gift has become an extension of myself because I pushed past my failures. Mostly, though, it has become an extension because I pushed through my obstacles, through barriers that stood between me and God.

I spent more and more time with him, and we got closer and closer. The deeper our intimacy grew, the stronger my prophetic gift became. Over time, I also began to understand that the apostolic gift is even stronger than the prophetic gift in my life.

Even so, I generally begin with an empty slate. I walk into a meeting or conference trusting the Lord to share things with me that will guide, strengthen or correct others. I never know that he will, but I always trust that he will. And if he doesn't, I simply ask him what he's saying through his silence.