Primary Lens to view things of God differently

Anointed

Anointed

The third part of this tridimensional dynamic is the anointing. The anointing of the Holy Spirit upon us is what gives us purpose in life and ministry. The great prophet Isaiah gave us a perfect example of how the anointing affects us when he wrote, “The Spirit of the Lord GOD is upon me, because the LORD has anointed me to bring good news to the afflicted; He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to captives and freedom to prisoners” (Isaiah 61:1).

Did you notice that the anointing was for a purpose? The anointing will always be associated with something to do—a purpose, a divine commissioning and/or a supernatural mission. I also want to point out here that the anointing is directly related to the Holy Spirit being “upon me.” The Holy Spirit is in every believer, but He comes “upon” believers to instill them with purpose.

Paul said, “The gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable”

(Romans 11:29). This means that God never retracts or takes back the gifts He has given us or the calling He has put on our lives. The anointing, however, is different. It ebbs and flows with our relationship with the Holy Spirit. We all know people who have a great call on their life and who are extremely gifted, yet have no motivation. This is often symptomatic of someone who has relationally lost touch with the Holy Spirit. The apostle John directly relates the anointing to abiding in Him:

As for you, the anointing which you received from Him abides in you, and you have no need for anyone to teach you; but as His anointing teaches you about all things, and is true and is not a lie, and just as it has taught you, you abide in Him.

Now, little children, abide in Him, so that when He appears, we may have confidence and not shrink away from Him in shame at His coming.

1 John 2:27–28, emphasis added

We really need to read the entire book of 1 John to get the full impact of John’s revelation, especially since it includes an entire chapter about false prophets. But John’s point here is clear: The anointing is directly related to abiding in relationship with God.

Gift versus Office Summary

What follows is a simple chart that summarizes the difference between the gift of prophecy and the office of the prophet and prophetess.

The Office of

The Gift of Prophecy Prophet/Prophetess

It is a gift of the Holy Spirit. It is a gift of Christ.

It is something you do. It is something you are.

Every believer is exhorted to seek to prophesy. God chooses prophets; it is not our choice.

It is for edification, exhortation and comfort. It is to direct, correct, warn, govern and equip.

Prophetic ability is the gift. The prophet himself (or herself) is a gift.

The person is classified as a saint. The person is called as part of the fivefold team.

The gift is for life. The calling is for life.

There is much more to learn about the gift of prophecy and how it functions in the life of a believer. I have written extensively about prophecy in two other books, Basic Training for the Prophetic Ministry and Developing a Supernatural Lifestyle (both Destiny Image, 2007). If you are a prophet or prophetess but have had very little experience with leading people who have the gift of prophecy, you will want to do a more extensive study after finishing this book. In the pages here, my purpose is to teach and train prophets and prophetesses, so I have briefly provided an overview of the gift of prophecy as a means of clarifying the difference between prophecy and the office of the prophet or prophetess. You can delve deeper into this subject, though, in some of my other materials.

Warning, Correction and Judgments

It should be clear by now that the gift of prophecy is for edification, exhortation and comfort. On the other hand, someone who holds the office of a prophet or prophetess may sometimes have another purpose. Those with a prophetic office are sometimes called by God to warn and correct people. A great example of this role in the New Testament is the prophetic warning that the prophet Agabus gave to the apostles concerning a famine:

Now at this time some prophets came down from Jerusalem to Antioch. One of them named Agabus stood up and began to indicate by the Spirit that there would certainly be a great famine all over the world. And this took place in the reign of Claudius. And in the proportion that any of the disciples had means, each of them determined to send a contribution for the relief of the brethren living in Judea.

Acts 11:27–29

Agabus was a seasoned prophet who had a good relationship with the apostles, and he also had a reputation for giving accurate prophetic words. The first thing that comes to light in examining Agabus’s prophecy is that his prophetic warning was not related to a consequence for sin. In other words, he did not call for a famine because of the sin of a certain nation or the failure of a particular person. It is hard to imagine an Old Testament prophet missing an opportunity to use a famine as a prophetic judgment against sinful people. Yet the New Testament prophet Agabus simply warned the people about a coming natural disaster. He did not call for anyone’s repentance because he did not think the famine was punishment for sin.

There is an important difference between prophetic warnings and prophetic judgments. Since there are several definitions for the word judgment in the Bible, it is important to understand that the context the word appears in determines its definition. For example, we all have the right and responsibility to judge between right and wrong, or good and bad. When people do something bad, evil or wrong and we point it out to them, we have made a judgment. And often, when we call attention to someone’s destructive shortfall in that way, they will respond with the old line, “Judge not, lest you be judged!” But they are wrongly using Jesus’ words and taking them out of context, because knowing right from wrong was not the kind of judgment Jesus was referring to when He made that statement about judging not. He was talking about people who judge others in the sense that they want the person punished for wrongdoing. We do not have the right to ask God to punish people for their sins, since we ourselves have been forgiven of our sins. (We talked at length about that in chapter 3 when I compared the Old and New Testament dispensations.)

Here is a vital distinction we must understand: Judgment in the context of delivering a prophetic word is always directly related to being a consequence for someone’s sin. Warnings, on the other hand, are entirely different. Warnings are derived from prophetic foresight into a future crisis. The goal of a prophetic warning is to divert a crisis or to save people from the consequences of the crisis.

You can call prophetic words warnings, but if they are in any way given to punish people who have sinned, or if sin is the cause of the crisis, then they are really prophetic judgments and not prophetic warnings. Warnings are not judgments, because God is not trying to punish people into purity or scare people into righteousness through them.

I have already made it clear earlier that as New Testament prophets, we do not have the ministry of judgment; we have the ministry of reconciliation. Yet God also has empowered His prophets and prophetesses to warn people of an upcoming crisis or disaster. People who desire to proclaim judgment on others often like to point out that Jesus judged three cities and several people. This is true, of course, but you are not Jesus, and neither am I.

“Wait a minute,” you protest, “aren’t we supposed to do the works of Jesus?”

The answer to that question is yes and no. Yes, we are supposed to love the unlovely, forgive the unforgivable, heal the sick, raise the dead and cast out demons. And no, we are not the Savior of the world, we did not create the universes, neither people nor angels should worship us, we do not have perfect discernment, we do not know people’s hearts and we are not the Judge of the world.

Let me restate the obvious: Jesus is the Savior of the world, He is the creator of the universe, He never sinned, He knows the heart of every person and He is the Judge of the world, to whom all judgment is given. There are things that Jesus did, is doing and will do that we simply will never do. Jesus is the Judge, not you or me. Paul affirmed it like this: “I solemnly charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who is to judge the living and the dead” (2 Timothy 4:1).