Before Undertaking Anything, We Need to Seek the Anointing of the Holy Spirit

Every child of God needs the energy and power that come from the Holy Spirit. When God calls us to the Christian life, He calls us to receive power from on high and to carry out everything He wants us to do in His power, not in our own strength.

One of the greatest challenges we face as children of God is learning to move not in our own strength but in the strength that comes from the Holy Spirit—to shift our actions to that source, to change the engine, so to speak, that drives the way we act in life, so that the primary energy, the driving force behind our actions, is the strength of the Holy Spirit and not our own fleshly, human energy.

We noted in our last message that references to the movement of the Holy Spirit and to the world’s need for the strength of the Holy Spirit are not something that arises only in the New Testament, or in the Book of Acts, as some people think, where all these powerful movements of the Holy Spirit are shown. Rather, from the very beginning of creation we see that the Holy Spirit is the source of all creativity.

We noted that in the first chapter of Genesis we already see the Holy Spirit hovering over the waters, over that earth that is bare and without order, preparing to turn all that potential into something ordered, something beautiful, something that sustains life. And we have said that, in the same way, our lives are like that empty, disordered, bare universe when we enter the ways of the Lord, and the Holy Spirit is there waiting for us at the entrance to God’s ways to transform our gifts and our potential, which we have often been unable to use in a creative and orderly way. And the Holy Spirit wants to turn that potential into something beautiful and ordered that gives birth to the life of God.

And so we see that in the Book of Genesis, in chapter 1, that Spirit of God who moved over the face of the waters—which are like the potential, the raw power, the raw material of creation—then begins to create things. And we see that in verse 3 God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. Later, God commands the waters to separate and for there to be order among the waters. All these things are done through the Spirit of God, who is the creative source, and in the same way we need that power to turn our chaos, our disorder, our emptiness into creative life that carries out God’s purposes. So we see that from the very beginning—even before creation, we might say—the Spirit of God is already playing that important role.

There is another passage I want to discuss with you at greater length, and there we see how that Spirit of God is already moving in the Old Testament in the lives of the men and women, prophets and kings whom God would use to carry out His works in the life of God’s people.

One of the most dramatic examples of the movement of the Holy Spirit in a man’s life is found in the life of King Saul. It is interesting that Saul was a very imperfect man. We know that his life ended in disaster because he did not obey the will of God; he did not let himself be guided by God, who wanted to direct his reign. But when God calls him, He does so for mysterious reasons, because God must have known that Saul would fail in the end. Yet let us remember that there was a dispute between God and the people of Israel, who simply wanted a king because all the other nations around them had kings; well, they wanted to keep up with the times. And God felt that this was a direct rejection of Him, because He wanted to be King over His people.

And God told them: I will give you a king, but know that those kings will be very imperfect men. They will abuse you, they will make serious mistakes, and they will put the nation in difficult situations, but I will grant your request. And I think part of what was happening here was that God was also dealing with that dispute, and He said: Well, you want kings? I will give you a king just the way you want him: tall, strong, and handsome, as Saul was, but it will cost you dearly. There is something here of the mystery of what God was doing.

But it is interesting that when God commissions Saul, the first thing He does is ask Samuel, the prophet, to anoint Saul and impart to him the anointing of the Holy Spirit. All the great kings of Israel were anointed with oil as a sign of the Spirit of God who would rest upon them to equip them to carry out the things God wanted them to do. Being king was a very serious, very demanding task, full of danger, and therefore these kings needed the anointing of the Holy Spirit.

We see in chapter 10 of First Samuel that when Samuel calls Saul, it says: “Samuel took”—verse 1, chapter 10—“a flask of oil, poured it over Saul’s head and kissed him, and said to him: Has not the LORD anointed you ruler over His people Israel?”

We see, then, that the first thing Samuel does is anoint Saul so that he can carry out his work as king of Israel. And the first thing we must do when we want to undertake something in the name of the Lord is make sure that we have the anointing of the Holy Spirit, that our lives are filled with that power that comes only from God. Without God’s power, we cannot begin to do anything.

Saul needed that special anointing. Imagine what would have become of Saul, with all his flaws of character, if he had not had that anointing of the Holy Spirit. We see, however, that the anointing of the Holy Spirit is not everything; other attributes, other things that complement it, are needed. But that fullness of the Holy Spirit is definitely the foundation of the Christian life.

Samuel anoints Saul and in that way sets him on the course he must follow. We, too, when beginning our projects in life, our ministries, need to seek that anointing of the Holy Spirit. We will continue our study later.