As Christians we are always looking for the next new thing, the freshest revelation, the latest prophecy. I think this is because we live in a world that is evolving so quickly and we have to run to keep up. I mean just look at technology – just when you have managed to save enough money to buy an iPad, the iPad 2 comes out and who would buy an iPad 1 – that is soooo last year!
We are the same in the spirit. We always want a new word, but God is the Ancient of Days. He does not change and His ways do not evolve. He has been and always will be. His Word is unchanging in an ever-changing world. This frustrates us many times. When we are looking for answers – very often His solutions are old-fashioned – to our minds. We want to grow in God and He directs us to meditate on the Word. So yesterday… I mean who meditates these days? Only the buddhists and the New Age people. Surely there must be an app to just ‘get’ the Word into you! Sadly – NO! God’s ways are all about process and it takes work and perseverance to get a result. There is no modern, shorter way to learn His ways.
I need to repent because so often I want to skip the process of God, and just have the power and anointing. I look at more mature people in the Body of Christ and want what they have and I think that if they could just pray for me – I’ll get it. I had a revelation the other day – you cannot ‘get’ an anointing by someone laying hands on you. Anointing only comes through the process of crushing in your life. Olives are crushed to get oil. Dr Richard Heard has an excellent book on this – The Process of the Anointing. I am not sure where I got the idea that if I could just get the right people to lay hands on me, I would get the anointing in my life. NO, it comes through trials and tribulations and dealing with conflicts and issues! It takes lots of blood, sweat and tears.
If you want the oil of the anointing to flow in your life, you have to be crushed. You must embrace the process. But there are some keys that will help you…
HONOUR
We have all seen people that we look at and wish to have something of what they carry on their life, but we must recognise and acknowledge that they paid a price for the anointing they carry. We cannot GET what they HAVE. Even if they lay hands on you and pray for you, you can only receive what you have capacity to carry .Your capacity is measured by the amount of crushing and dying you have done in your own life. We cannot get their anointing, but we can receive wisdom from them.When we honour the sacrifice of their lives, we open the door to receive from them. Without honour we cannot receive anything, we have to fight for it. (Just have a look at South African politics of late!) So this could technically be classified as a shortcut… honour your mothers and fathers – in the natural and in the spirit. Honour those who have gone before us – read up about their lives and honour what they did. People like Hudson Taylor, John Wesley, William Wilberforce etc. Learning about their lives will help us to lay down our own.
DISCIPLINE
There are foundations that need to be dug in your life – and no one can dig them , but YOU. Fasting, Bible study, prayer, meditating on the Word, holiness, sexual intergrity – all of these are disciplines that we have to learn. And that just seems like hard work compared to the thrill of the prophetic and getting new revelation about God and the galaxies! Laying foundations always seems unexciting because you cannot see anything happening at the surface. But the depth and solidity of the foundation determine if you will be a 1 storey building reduced to rubble at the first storm or a skyscraper that will stand for many years.Rather take the time while you are young to dig deep and establish a lifestyle of discipline – in body, soul and spirit.
Many of us completely miss God because in our quest for the new and the unknown, we fail to find His ancient paths that lead to life. If we want to be a generation that affects the future, we must learn the unchanging ways of God while seeking new horizons in the Kingdom. I think that Jesus said it best:
He said to them, “Therefore every teacher and interpreter of the Sacred Writings who has been instructed about and trained for the kingdom of heaven and has become a disciple is like a householder who brings forth out of his storehouse treasure that is new and treasure that is old [the fresh as well as the familiar].
Matthew 13:52 (Amplified)
