Two Anointings

There is only one anointing but for the purpose of this book, there are two 'types' of
anointing: the Grace anointing and the Personal/Fruit anointing.

“Anointing” in scripture is the Spirit of God. It is also referred to as the ability or special
power that God gives His people for service or imparting revelation.

But the anointing which ye have received of him abides in you, and ye need not
that any man teach you: but as the same anointing teaches you of all things,
and is truth, and is no lie, and even as it hath taught you, ye shall abide in him.
1 John 2:27

How God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Ghost and with power: who
went about doing good, and healing all that were oppressed of the devil; for God
was with him. Acts 10:38

And he gave some, apostles; and some, prophets; and some, evangelists; and
some, pastors and teachers. Ephesians 4:11

The Grace anointing comes with corporate worship or within a person who has a “gift” to
bring forth the glory of God or revelation of Christ. Jesus gave this grace to the seventy
when He said,
"Go and preach and when you preach lay hands on the sick and cast out devils".

These people had not yet been “born again” as children of God and yet Jesus gifted them
with special ability to preach the good news.
He also gives a gift of ministry or anointing to those who are called to build up the body of
Christ or to proclaim the Gospel to the lost. These gifts are many in number, but most
people have heard or been taught about the five-fold ministry gifts that God gave to the
Church for the perfecting or maturing of the believer. These gifts of faith or ministry are
given without cost or reward for a person's faithfulness or holiness. So then, the grace
anointing prepares the way for personal anointing. It is intended to produce the lasting fruit
for the believer to go deeper and find the second type of anointing, the Personal anointing.
Grace anointing is the taste and see; Personal anointing is the fruit of our relationship with
God, and when we do, we gain the, "Well done," of God.
He that hath my commandments, and keepeth them, he it is that loveth me:
and he that loveth me shall be loved of my Father, and I will love him, and will
manifest myself to him. John 14:21
If ye abide in me, and my words abide in you, ye shall ask what ye will, and it
shall be done unto you. Herein is my Father glorified, that ye bear much fruit; so
shall ye be my disciples.
John 15:7, 8

With intimacy and alignment to the Father's will, comes Glory. As we are yielded to the
Father and obedient to His guiding, He fills our life with His Word and Spirit. Those who are
filled, need to continually be-being filled by separation, death to self, and radical obedience
to His whispers. When we go deeper and deeper into this death to self, we find more and
more of the revelation of His Son and the next measure of Grace to enable us to hold fast to
His dealings with us. In this season, we hear and see things in the spirit, many of great
wonder and encouragement, but then comes the test and the death required to self to see it
realized.

Always bearing about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life also
of Jesus might be made manifest in our body. For we which live are always
delivered unto death for Jesus' sake, that the life also of Jesus might be made
manifest in our mortal flesh. So then death worketh in us, but life in you. 2 Cor
4:10-12
Many who have this pruning or purging work being done in their lives, stop at the pain and
retreat to more comfortable places. The retreat does not remove the call or the anointing or
the Glory from our giftedness, but does remove the next step in Glory in our personal life. If
retreat continues, it can cause such a withdraw in our souls that God is not actively working
in the fiery press with us.
Now the just shall live by faith: but if any man draw back, my soul shall have no
pleasure in him. But we are not of them who draw back unto perdition; but of
them that believe to the saving of the soul. Hebrews 10:38

The Gift is to Produce Relationship

There are times when we gather together with others to worship or whenever a gifted
teacher teaches, we feel the presence of God, but during private times He seems far off.
The corporate anointing is God's grace to call His people to sanctification or surrender to His
will. Without personal surrender, there is no personal anointing and the scripture is fulfilled,
"Ever learning, never coming into the knowledge of the truth".
The scripture tells us God has no fellowship with darkness and if we will hold compromise or
darkness in our hearts, He will not dwell there. This is one of the cries of today's ministers;
they are curious why the presence of God is so strong when they teach, but absent from
their homes. The gifted minister many times does not realize this truth and assumes the
anointing on his ministry is an endorsement of his life, when just the reverse is true; the
lack of personal anointing should be a great concern and a warning that our life is not
measuring the call.
But be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves.
James 1:22

There is widespread deception in the world right now as most church-goers lead lives of
compromise and sin, living standards of worldliness that even unbelievers 50 years ago
would not allow. Many of us do religious things and half-surrender our lives, just enough to
feel better, but go back to comfort and pleasure as soon as we can. This is about to change.
There is a call going forth for the church to rise, to begin to pray and to put off sin.

No Little Foxes

"...The little foxes, that spoil the vines".

Jesus taught it was the little things in our life that most of us miss and keep our hearts from
being pure before God. Since it is only the "pure in heart" who will see Him, it is time we
put off our laziness, cast down our fleshly imaginations, live repentant lives, and continually
surrender our hearts and hands to live in radical surrender. Though it may take years of
training, growth and grace to grow up or to master our tongues and flesh, a surrendered
heart takes only moments and is the first call of every believer for every day that he lives.
Pure Heart / Clean Hands

The Grace message has been watered down so far that it has become an excuse to sin in
some circles, rather than the power of God to live free from sin. Many churches and
Christians use grace doctrines to make room for their weaknesses rather than for its true
purpose--to empower us to be holy and free from all bondage, lies, and darkness. The bride
is beginning, all over the world, to take holiness and relationship seriously. There is an
increase in prayer and abiding and we as believers are going to be given great power if we
will move into what God is doing.

Prayer Time

My house shall be called a house of prayer. We, the house of God, need to begin to pray -
not more prayer but continual prayer. There is a scripture that says we should "pray without
ceasing". This is abiding prayer, where our life and words and deeds are all prayers... where
we no longer do anything without our leaning, listening and subjecting our lives to His will.
Abiding prayer, intercession, fellowship with God is a topic worthy of its own book.

Two Trees

One of the foundations of the Christian faith is repentance from dead works. This is not the
same as repentance from sin. Repentance from dead works brings us all the way back to
our fall in the garden. When we, in Adam, took from the wrong tree - we died. Our death
came as deception in our life, sin in our nature, and no longer being allowed to eat of the
tree of life. The cross, the blood, and the resurrection gave us redemption from this curse
and yet many still minister and live from the wrong tree.

The tree of knowledge of good and evil presents us with the impossible task of making God
happy with works... as if we could ever cross the line of doing enough good to counter the
evil we have done or continue to do. This is a never-ending cycle of hopeless pursuit, but
we still hear most sermons and much of today's counselors teaching from the wrong tree.
We hear the rules of the church or the requirements for holiness taught from a backwards
place. The obedience required from a Jesus-life is based on Love, Relationship and
Revelation not dead rules and obedience to the letter. We have a NEW AND LIVING WAY to
please God and it's by loving Him, doing works based on love, through the power of our
relationship with Him, by the power of His grace in our life. We are now changed into the
likeness of His Son by "beholding" Him, not becoming good people through obeying the
Book.

With hearts turned toward God in absolute surrender, obedience to His leading and
separation from sin based on faith and love, we are transformed into those whose nature is
like God instead of obedient followers of a religious order. Now, instead of practicing
patience, we become patience or instead of resisting lust, we become God-minded and stop
lusting as we see His heart and are changed into His children.

The new covenant declares we have a new and LIVING way. This means the life we now
live, we live in reality and life. We ALL behold Him, we ALL encounter Him in reality not just
in blind faith. This new life is a supernatural life based on Jesus opening the Holy Place for
all of us to go in and meet with God. New life obedience comes from a heart of Love and
Faith, not fear and rules. We must always offer the RULES of faith tied directly to
relationship and the power of Christ in our lives to empower and keep us. The guides of
what is sin and what is right in the New Testament have become to many individuals, the
same as Old Testament laws. What we should do rather than hold people to the Book is hold
them to the cross and apply the Scriptures as a guide to see if the cross is real in their lives.

In many cases, we find the tree of knowledge of good and evil is propagated and promoted
through systems of control in our organizations and in many cases we call this "church". It
is time we redefine church to help people find their way to God instead of finding their way
to a system or organization or more rules.

Two Churches

Though there are many definitions and distinctions of the local church, for the purpose of
this book, there are two churches. The first is the visible church, the organizations with
names, titles, buildings and service times, sound equipment, songs and prayers,
memberships and rules, and statements of faith. I need to first begin by saying, I am very
much involved in our local church and believe God is a God of order, structure, and
government. I in no wise, or ever, recommend tearing down the buildings or dismantling
churches so as to find its glory. I will be referring to this as the local church. With that out
of the way...

There is a second church; this church is made up of people, all of them alive unto God. This
is the church God talked about that would not be built by hands, but is the habitation or
dwelling of God on the earth. This church is visible and invisible. This church is both in the
local church and outside the local church. Only God can know fully who is and who is not
part of this Church. Some who we would think are mighty members of God's church never
entered the gates of salvation. Some who we see struggle on the fringes are some of God's
faithful warriors. Membership in this Church is through faith and "real" surrender to Jesus.

In many ways, the two churches are working together, helping each other; and in many
ways, they oppose each other, warring against the will of God. When the organization is
seen as a tool and its order is led of God, it promotes freedom of worship, personal growth
and activates individuals to radical faith and the work of God. If it is not ordered of God, it
intimidates the very people it is supposed to inspire making ministry an office, exalting
people, rules and ideals above service, and empowerment. It offers rules for control and
manipulation with fear as part of everything it does. I do not know a person or church who
is not guilty of some of this and we all need to see it as a cultural and historical curse that
we all need to repent from until we are all free.

Some of the things we do as tradition are rooted in control and propagated by fear. Many of
today's doctrines are not true doctrines and need re-evaluation. There is a new hunger
rising in the leaders of God's people to see things change, but that change needs to begin in
us. How radical are we willing to be to have our doctrines, our beliefs, and our control
messed with to see God move in the masses?

This is part of a book called power of an endless life.