Making the Anointing Your Own

I want to invite you to turn to—there are so many texts we could use—but one of them is found in the Book of Zechariah, chapter 4, verse 6. It is such a well-known passage, just one verse, that I want to use as the starting point for my meditation. Zechariah 4:6 says: “Then he answered and spoke to me, saying”—that is, the Spirit of God speaking—saying: “This is the word of the LORD to Zerubbabel.” Zerubbabel was one of the leaders of the nation of Israel. “Not by might nor by power, but by My Spirit, says the LORD of hosts.”

“And who are you, O great mountain? Before Zerubbabel you shall become a plain. And he shall bring forth the capstone with shouts of: Grace, grace to it!” Not by might nor by power. Say it with me: Not by might nor by power, but by My Spirit, says the LORD. And that is what this is about. This is the third meditation I want to bring you concerning the fullness of the Holy Spirit, seeking the power and the anointing of the Holy Spirit. And as I have said to myself and to you, I want to review once again those foundational truths of the Christian life: that we are a people who depend not on our own strength, not on our cleverness, not on our financial capacity or on the number of people we have, but on the power of the Holy Spirit—the power and the anointing of God.

The day we lose the anointing of God, we might as well close the doors and go home. That will never happen, but unfortunately there are churches where I believe the Spirit of the Lord left a long time ago—and I do not say this critically—and they simply carry on with the whole apparatus of worship, but they have forgotten to seek the anointing of the Holy Spirit.

That happened to the Jews, by the way; it happened to the Israelites. Do you know that when Israel had so deeply offended the Holy Spirit through its idolatry, its sin, its disobedience, and its arrogance, there came a point—there is a passage in one of the Major Prophets that says this—when the Holy Spirit departed, gathered His things, and left the temple sanctuary? And yet the Jews continued worshiping and doing all their usual things, but what they had by then was an imitation of a truly spiritual life. They had the external apparatus, the ritual, the customs, the building, and the garments, but the essence of God was no longer there. And that often happens to congregations; it can also happen in our lives.

When a person neglects the presence and the anointing of God in his life, he simply depends on the ritual of coming to church. Sometimes even raising our hands can become a ritual like any other, you know? We sing hymns and choruses, but our lives are no longer animated by that sense of God’s active presence within us.

I tell you: every time I come to church, I have to renew again—if you will pardon the redundancy—renew my sense of the presence of God. Every time I sing those choruses, I have to ask again: What am I singing? What am I saying? We say, “There is no God as great as You”—that chorus, right? We sing it, but many of us are already singing, “There is no God as great as You,” while looking at our phones and thinking about what we are going to do when we leave church, and this and that. No. When I say, “There is no God as great as You,” I have to ask Him: Lord, renew that message within me. What does it mean? And I have to sing it again as though it were the first time.

Congregations, brothers and sisters, depend on every person in the service actively straining and paying attention to what he is singing and what he is confessing, because that is how you will receive the nourishment contained in what you are confessing. If you simply do it routinely, repetitively, because you already know it, and you go on autopilot, you will not feel the same blessing from God; you will not receive the same thing. And that is how it must be in the churches: the presence of the Holy Spirit and the cultivation of the Holy Spirit must be continuous in our lives. We cannot depend on yesterday’s blessing; we have to renew the anointing, like the manna. How often did God give the manna in the wilderness? Every day.

Why did God do that? Was it because there were no preservatives at that time and He did not know how to can and preserve it? If He preserved the Hebrews’ shoes—the Bible says they never wore out—and the clothing they had was miraculously preserved while they were in the wilderness, could He not also have preserved the manna for a few days? But I believe He wanted to instill in the Hebrews a daily, continual dependence on God’s provision in their lives.

Every day when they went out into the field to gather it, it was an exercise of faith, of having to receive from God all over again. And that is what God wants for our lives as well. If you depend on yesterday’s blessing, or the day before yesterday’s, or your grandparents’ blessing, do not even get dressed, because you are not going anywhere. You need a fresh anointing.

We sing a chorus that says: “Yesterday is gone; I need You today. Holy Spirit, breathe on me,” right? Yesterday is gone. The time you spent praying yesterday there in the corner of your home was lovely and very good, but today you need a fresh anointing. Every day we have to seek God’s anointing again, and that is what we are talking about. That is what I want to impress upon us during this time. I am going to continue until the Lord tells me, “Okay, that is enough.” I want to go deeper, and we have done so in the past, but we have to do it again precisely because it is so easy for us to fall into a routine and forget that we are a people who depend on the Holy Spirit.

And that is what God told the prophets here in the Book of Zechariah. It concerned the construction of the new temple—not the first one, because it had already been torn down and the temple had to be rebuilt. Zechariah is also a prophetic book that speaks about the construction of the temple in the last days. How many of you know that there is still another temple to be built in Jerusalem? It is the temple that Jesus will come and occupy at His Second Coming. Solomon’s temple was destroyed, and the second temple was destroyed by the Roman Empire, but Zechariah speaks of a temple that will be built at the end of time.

Zechariah is a book that moves between the time in which the prophecy is being given and the end times as well. And it seems that even at the time when the Hebrews were rebuilding the temple that had been destroyed, they thought it was a tremendous task, too great for the strength they possessed. They did not have sufficient resources; they did not have enough people, and they had postponed rebuilding the sanctuary. And the Lord told them: Look, that is why your country’s economy is being affected—because you are building your own houses while neglecting Mine. Build Me My House, and do not complain that it cannot be done and that the task is too great, because it is not by the sword, nor by might nor by power, but by My Spirit that you will do it. And you will do it with shouts of: “Grace, grace to it!”

That part is very interesting, isn’t it? Verse 7 says: “Who are you, O great mountain? Before Zerubbabel you shall become a plain. And he shall bring forth the capstone”—the cornerstone of the temple—“with shouts of: Grace, grace to it!” Brothers and sisters, do you know how the great building projects of the people of God are accomplished? With a word of grace, a prophetic word, a word that declares the power of God. How do we build? By declaring what God has already said in His Word.

Do you know that we are a prophetic people and that we must declare what God has declared over us? It is one of the great secrets of Pentecostal life: learning to use our mouths to declare God’s truths, to confess what we do not see with our eyes, but to declare it.

When Paul says, for example, “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me,” he is declaring a truth that he knows, but he is also saying: This will be the governing rule for the rest of my life—that I can do all things through Christ Jesus. And we must be a people who confess the truth of God with our mouths. With our mouths we say: I can do it; this city can change; Boston can become a city that serves Jesus Christ.

Through our prayers, our worship, our verbal confession, and our prophetic word, we can change the spiritual temperature of a city and a nation. It may seem impossible, but what is impossible for human beings is easy for God, brothers and sisters.

I wonder: if the Lord were to continue working in this church and filling us more and more each day with the power of the Holy Spirit—even the children—and if even the person who came today for the first time and does not know the Lord well were filled with the power of the Holy Spirit, and we came in here as a great, well-uniformed, well-balanced army, united in our faith, this city would fall at the feet of Christ in an instant, brothers and sisters. The potential power here is incredible—not because of us, but because the power of God is looking for someone, a group, a body upon which to land and through which to manifest itself and do great things.

It may seem impossible for a city like Boston to change, just as the construction of the temple seemed impossible, but nothing is difficult for God, much less impossible. Everything depends on how strongly we believe that we can do it. I know that at this stage of my life, I put nothing beyond the Lord; God can do anything.

There is a passage here in this Book of Zechariah—which is one of my favorite prophetic books—that says the thing will be done in one day, the miracle will happen in one day, and it will happen quickly. I would like to look for it, but I do not have time right now. It is in the Book of Zechariah. Many times we believe things must take years and years and years, but sometimes God can do a work in an instant. And I believe that, as far as God’s time for the United States and the nations of the world is concerned, we have not yet seen everything God can do and is going to do. But it requires a people of faith, filled with the Holy Spirit—a people who declare the Word of God with their mouths and who know how to use the tools and weapons of the Holy Spirit.

The Bible says that our weapons are not carnal but mighty in God for the pulling down of strongholds, and we have to understand this in order to do the work of the Lord. It is not by the sword, nor by might nor by power, but by My Spirit.

You know, brothers and sisters, the Christian economy is an economy based on power. The currency with which we conduct transactions, make exchanges, and accomplish things in the economy of the Kingdom is the currency of power. It is not that it does not include other elements, as I have already said.

Last Sunday we talked about Paul telling Timothy: God has not given us a spirit of cowardice, but of power, love, and self-control. And we talked about how those three elements—power, love, and self-control—contain a balance that makes the power of God very beautiful and harmonious. I therefore understand that many things are required for there to be harmony and effectiveness among the people of God, but we cannot forget that one of the foundational elements of the Christian life is possessing the power of the Holy Spirit. Every day, in our lives and as a congregation, we must cultivate the power of the Holy Spirit. And the power of the Holy Spirit does not simply come by inertia or automatically; it requires us to fan into flame that power which is already within us.

And I have told you many times, brothers and sisters, that for me the challenge facing the church and many Christians is not necessarily for them to receive the baptism of the Holy Spirit or to have the Holy Spirit, because God has already visited many of you with His power. He has touched you. You have already received it, perhaps without realizing it, at a moment when God touched you and you thought it was merely something emotional or an isolated experience. But the Lord has already visited you; He has already touched you. What you need now is to put into practice that gift of the Holy Spirit which you have already received but have instead neglected, because it has not yet dawned upon your understanding that the Holy Spirit must be sought every day, like the manna. He must be cultivated each day. We must be filled with the Spirit, as Paul tells the Ephesians in Ephesians 5:18, and that requires work; it requires effort on our part.

I have spoken to you about my past experiences concerning the Holy Spirit. About four or five days ago, I called a sister, Sister Rosa—I cannot remember her last name right now. Rosa has just turned 90, an elderly Puerto Rican woman, a prophetess, a woman with a marvelous prophetic anointing. She lived in New York for many years when my family and I lived in Brooklyn. And Sister Rosa—a woman filled with the Spirit, one of those Pentecostal women who wore her hair in a bun at the back of her head—was a woman anointed and filled with the power of the Holy Spirit.

When I came here to study at Harvard in ’81 or ’82, I was working on my doctorate, and Sister Rosa sent me a cassette. How many of you remember cassettes? Let’s see—confess it, confess it! (laughter). In fact, I still have it somewhere, in the little envelope in which she mailed it to me. And in that recording she sent me a prophetic word.

I had not yet entered the ministry, nor do I really think that—actually, I think I was already on the scene; I don’t think—no, no, she sent that to me when I was already in my second year at the university, I’m almost sure, and God was doing something in my life. He was moving powerfully, changing a great many things in me, and I was in a time of revival after many years of living as a mediocre Christian at a distance, and I was surrendering my life to the Lord, and I believe that was part of what the Lord was doing in my life.

And that recording from Sister Rosa arrived with a prophecy that had been given during a day of prayer, at a meeting they held somewhat like Acts chapter 13: a group of prophets and elders gathered and began to pray, and there they recorded the prophecy that she sent me. I had not seen Sister Rosa for years. In it, she spoke to me and called me to move in the Spirit, to serve the Lord, saying that God had a calling for my life, that there was a special anointing from God upon my life, that I had to take that anointing and move in it, and many other things that she prophesied, which I remember and which marked my life, because sometimes, when prophecy and the Word of God are released, when they are cast upon you, they open things up in your life if you receive them in faith, because that is the power of the prophetic Word. What you see here are declarations of “Grace, grace!” It is what raises things up and builds things in the Kingdom of God.

And in that prophecy, then, she spoke about how God had called me, how there was an anointing upon my life, and I called her on the phone and was talking with her. I think we even went to visit her in New York some time later. I had not yet entered the ministry; there are things I am compressing here. And so she said to me, “Roberto, you know that God has called you to the ministry.” My desire was to enter the academic world and work instead as a university professor and write; that was my inclination. As I have told you before, it was not to become a pastor. And when she said to me, “Roberto, God has called you to serve Him,” also implying a pastorate, I told her, “Well, Sister Rosa, you know that my life is surrendered to the Lord. If He calls me, I will go.” She spoke to me with that Pentecostal authority.

And she said to me, “He has already called you. Now what you have to do is get moving.” What she meant was that He did not need to tell me anything else. You already know that He has called you; now simply move in what God has told you. And that is what happened. For various reasons, we began to work in ministry and serve the Lord. I began asking the Lord to work in my life. When I saw a newspaper announcement about that work that was opening up, I went there, because we have to be diligent. God gives us the anointing, but we have to do our part.

And when I began to move in ministry, to make decisions, and to serve Him in prayer, with the young people in Sunday school, helping the pastor and serving as his right-hand man in many things, the Spirit of the Lord began to manifest Himself within me and to vibrate within me. And look at me more than 30 years later—you poor people here, suffering through my ministerial experiments, but serving the Lord (applause). I could still be waiting for God to send an angel to grab me here by the neck and put me in place, but no. God calls you and you receive by faith, and when you move, God uses you in the process. That is the power of the Word; that is the power of God working through faith that makes the difference.

That is why power is the currency that enables us to do things, and faith is that by which we receive. Every action in the Christian life depends, to one degree or another, on power and on cultivating the power of God.

For example, in the Old Testament we know that kings, priests, and prophets—three very important figures in the life of Israel—had to be anointed in order to enter their office. Kings were anointed, for example, as Samuel anointed Saul and as he anointed David, because they knew that kings needed supernatural power. When God appeared to Solomon in a vision, Solomon said to Him, “Lord, I am young, and I have a very large and mighty people to lead. Endow me with Your anointing.” And the Lord anointed him with wisdom; He anointed him with prosperity and peace. All kings were anointed into their position.

The prophets were also anointed with oil as a sign of the descent of the Spirit of God upon them, and the priests, too, were anointed as priests in their priestly role. Why did they need to be anointed? Because each of them had a great and important task to carry out, and that anointing, through the laying on of hands and oil upon their heads—a horn of oil poured over them—signified the descent of the power of God upon their lives so that they could perform the tasks of their ministry.

How many know that we are kings and priests before God? How many know that we have been called to prophesy like the prophets, also in the Christian life? How many know that God has poured out His gifts upon His people and that we need to ask the Lord, “Lord, fill us with that power; manifest Your power”? We have to activate and fan into flame the power of God in all its manifestations: tongues, prophecies, healing, signs and wonders, wisdom, knowledge, interpretation of tongues. All these are gifts that God has declared over His people, and now we have to take them, appropriate them, make them our own, and move in them as though we already possessed them.

Do you know that right now there are—if we had eyes to see, we would see waves of every kind passing through this place like a network: electronic internet waves, subsonic sound waves that we cannot hear but that are there, all kinds of rays, ultraviolet rays, and other things that are in the air. Our senses cannot process them, but they are there, and there are mechanisms, machines—for example, a computer, an internet device, or whatever—that can pick up those waves, activate them, and manifest them so that they become useful. Do you understand what I am saying? They are there in potential form, but an instrument is required that can process them and turn them into sound, as with this microphone, or into images, or whatever else.

In a sense, the world, the universe, is full of blessings that God has declared over His people. Do you see where I am going? Say, “Wow, the pastor is so profound.” The air is full of blessings, brothers and sisters. The Bible says that God has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, yes or no? It does not say that He is going to bless us; He has blessed us—in the preterite, in the past tense. That means that God has already bestowed all the blessings needed for us to be a powerful and effective people.

Now, do you know what is missing? The antennas that can take that blessing, make it present, and turn it into something real for your life and for my life. And that requires you to believe, to remain in communion with the Lord, to know what rights you have, and then to say, “I receive it in the name of Jesus.”

Do you know that the word receive is an active word? It is not a passive word. We Christians have to be taught to receive, but to receive as though we were doing this (makes a facial expression of receiving with pleasure and gratitude). It is like receiving Christ as Lord and Savior, and it means that you open your will and invite Him to enter into you; you enter into interaction with Him. And that is also how it is with the gifts of the Holy Spirit: we receive the Holy Spirit by faith, we believe that we have Him, and then we put Him into action. Then we become antennas that take the potentiality of God and turn it into something active and present in our lives. Amen?

And I ask the Lord, “Father, make me an antenna, so that when I pray, I may believe that I can receive from You, that my battery is being filled through my connection with Your Holy Spirit.” And then, when you rise from that place of prayer and you have asked the Lord for something, do not keep asking Him for it because you doubt whether God heard you or not. Everything depends on your saying, “You know what? I presented my request to the Lord; I have it, and now I move as though it were within me.” And then, as you begin to move in that anointing which you have claimed as your own, God begins to activate it and make it real in your life.

Begin to roar like a lion even though you have the body of a mouse. Roar as loudly as you can, and soon you will find yourself roaring like a lion. Do not wait until you are a lion to roar; use your roar to become a lion. Do you understand what I am telling you? Everything depends on what you confess with your mouth and what you undertake with your spirit. Gifts are exercised through use, my brothers and sisters, through confession and the activation of faith. “Lord, You have blessed me with every spiritual blessing, and now I make it my own in the name of Jesus. You have declared it in Your Word, and I will live within it.”

Many of the things that I and my fellow leaders do are not done because we feel great, but because we know that the God who is within us is great. And many of the things one does are sometimes done in weakness, in fear and trembling, as the apostle Paul says: “In great weakness,” Paul says, “I came to you.” Sometimes, you know, I have my doubts about those super-apostles one sees out there, who always present themselves as great giants who know everything, can do everything, never have a bad thought, are never afraid, and always have their cell-phone batteries one hundred percent charged. And I say, where is the confession that we are often weak but are powerful in Christ Jesus?

We have sinned, but the grace of the Lord covers us, raises us up, and strengthens us. We sometimes feel sad and discouraged, but we come before the Lord, receive new strength, and press on in ministry. I believe that the Christian life often means recognizing that we are poor in spirit, but that the Spirit of God who is within us enables us to do great things and mighty deeds in the name of the Lord, because it is the power of God within us.

We are kings, priests, and prophets, and we have to flow with the anointing of the Holy Spirit that we have received from God. And many times, that anointing will not become manifest in us until we begin to use it and declare it.

So we are kings, prophets, and priests who depend on the Holy Spirit. And what about Jesus Christ? Jesus Christ, in His incarnate human form, also depended on the baptism and filling of the Holy Spirit. You remember that in His first public appearance in a synagogue, the Lord, it says, opened the Book of Isaiah and spoke the following words, Isaiah 61:1 and 2: “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because the Lord has anointed me, and He has sent me to preach good news to the afflicted, to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim the year of the LORD’s favor, and the day of vengeance of our God; to comfort all who mourn.” The Lord has anointed me, prepared me, and sent me.

He was making that Word His own—a Word about an anointing that came from on high to equip Him for His ministry. It is no coincidence that He used that Scripture at the beginning of His ministry. The Lord Jesus Christ, in His human form, depended on the anointing of the Holy Spirit. And at the first moment of His public walk, when He went to John the Baptist to be baptized in water out of obedience, the Bible says that the Holy Spirit appeared in the form of a dove, and it was like an impartation of the power of God that came upon Him. And God validated Him there and said, “This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased; listen to Him.” It was an impartation of power and authority upon Jesus Christ.

And then, full of the Spirit, it says—as a consequence of that impartation of the Holy Spirit there at that moment—it says that He was led by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tested in preparation for another important moment in the development of His ministry.

So we see that He needed that anointing, that filling of the Holy Spirit—even He did. And if you analyze the different moments in Jesus’ life, the Holy Spirit is there, present at every moment. His birth came through an impartation of the Holy Spirit upon His mother, and at various moments the Lord was filled with the Spirit to declare certain things. And in the Gospel according to Saint John, He speaks about the Holy Spirit whom He is going to send. There is a very great intimacy between Jesus and the Holy Spirit. Why should there not also be such intimacy within us? How could we not need that filling of the Spirit? How are you going to be an effective and productive person in the things of the Lord if not by depending on the power and the filling of the Holy Spirit? You have to go to the waters again and again and again.

My brothers and sisters who work in worship, I know that I am not telling you anything new. You consume great amounts of spiritual energy and need that filling of the Holy Spirit. Our leaders, pastors, ushers, and elders of the congregation, those who work in the congregation’s various ministries, those who teach, those who work with children—they need it; we need it. Do not dare go teach the children without first spending time seeking the anointing and the power of God.

And schoolteachers out there—even if you say, “Oh, I am not a pastor or a priest”—in order to minister to and teach those children out there in the classrooms, in that demonized world out there, you need the power of the Holy Spirit. If you are a homemaker, a wife, a taxi driver, or a factory worker, you need the power of the Holy Spirit. Do not dare leave your house without having committed your life to the Lord and sought something of His anointing in your life, because we need it.

We even have to renew our own awareness of the supernatural, because otherwise our awareness becomes immersed in what is merely human. If I am not careful, before long my ministry turns into a purely mechanical task: administering, governing, preaching, doing this, doing that; and I become like Martha, busy and anxious, but I do not have the presence of the Holy Spirit within me. I need to be like Mary and seek that anointing of Christ, because that is the best part of all; and, like the Lord Himself, we need the anointing of the Holy Spirit.

The Lord told the disciples, the first Apostles, “Do not leave Jerusalem until you have been clothed with power from on high.” Why did they need power from on high? Because they had an impossible task to carry out, like the building of the temple in the days of Zechariah—these first disciples.

Imagine a small, insignificant country isolated from the world. Israel was merely a tiny province in the days of Jesus when He told them, “Go into all the world and make disciples of all nations,” including Rome, including the Aztecs who were over there in North America without knowing what was happening in the Middle East, and the Caribbean Indians who were living within their primitive culture, and all those things. And over there in the Middle East, in the isolated land of Palestine, there was a rabbi telling His disciples—a little group of ignorant, illiterate, uneducated disciples—to go and make disciples of all nations, without the internet, without cars or airplanes, without telephones or cell phones, without LED screens. Nowadays, if that screen goes out, we panic because we do not know how to sing; if the microphone goes out, the pastor trembles with panic because he does not know what is going to happen. Those people had none of that. It was all done with the sheer power of their lungs and on foot, wearing sandals, walking over rocky ground, crossing the mountains of Turkey, Rome, and Spain, carrying the Gospel. And the Lord tells them, “Go and preach the Gospel, and make disciples of the nations.” How were they going to do it except through the Holy Spirit?

That is why the Lord told them, “Do not go away; do not leave Jerusalem before you have been clothed with power from on high, because the task you have is very great.” Even in the Great Commission He told them, “All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth. Therefore, go and preach the Gospel,” meaning, “I have the power; I delegate it to you, and now you can go and proclaim the good news to the nations.” We need the power and the anointing of God.

That is why I believe, brothers and sisters, that so many churches today have so many electronic resources, very good and informative preaching, radio programs, and a host of other things, yet the world remains the same. In fact, it gets worse every day. I believe that the Church is lacking that anointing of God. When the anointing of God fills the Church, so much technology will not be necessary. That is why we must ask the Lord every day, “Father, make us hungry and thirsty for the anointing of the Holy Spirit.” I hope you are listening to me—not merely listening, but also making a resolution in your life. When you leave here, you are going to begin putting this Word into practice, if you are not doing so already. You are going to begin living with a white-hot faith.

Brothers and sisters, I want you to tell me, “Pastor, as a result of these messages, I find myself praying more; I find myself fasting more. I am asking the Lord to sanctify my life more. I am cleansing my life. I am devoting more time to prayer and to studying the Word of the Lord. Pastor, I am going to come to church more often on Wednesdays.” Say amen, if only to make me feel good.

Listen, one looks at this congregation and, brothers and sisters, one sees the number of people who come on Wednesdays, and forgive me, but I often feel bad because, once again, we give to the Lord in very limited measure. “Oh no, I already punched my time card on Sunday, and the pastor took fifty minutes to preach.” Ah, but let there be a Red Sox baseball game or whatever, and we sit there for three or four hours and do not want the game to end. The longer it lasts, the more you enjoy it. And then we measure out the things of God with a teaspoon. We even come with our watches, take them off and hold them in our hands, and motion like this to the pastor when he takes too long preaching. (Laughter.) Amen?

Brothers and sisters, I urge you in the name of the Lord: if this remains nothing more than a sermon and preaching at you, what good is it? If you do not take it and put it into practice in your life, do not be a leaky sack, the Holy Spirit tells you. Put into practice what you are hearing.

Right now, bow your head there, if you dare, and say, “Father, I know that I have been stingy with You, and I commit myself to giving You more time in prayer.” Do you dare pray that prayer? “I commit myself to giving You more time in prayer, and I am going to set aside at least three or four hours of my week to fast more before You and to ask You for more anointing in my life.”

“Father, I am going to read Your Word more. I am going to meditate more on Your Word, Lord. I am going to get up a little earlier. I am going to bed a little earlier so that I can get up a little earlier in the morning and devote some extra time to You. Father, I know that I have been stingy with You, and I need to give You more. I commit myself to seeking more of the anointing of the Holy Spirit in my life. Help me with Your power. With Your help, Lord, I am going to do it. And I am going to be a radical Christian, not only in the Church, but I am also going to clean up my home. I am going to leave the television alone for longer and seek more of Your Word, Lord. I want to be a man, a woman, of the Holy Spirit, and I commit myself to You, Spirit of God, in the name of Jesus, Father. Amen.” Father, make this a Church filled with the Holy Spirit, a powerful Church that devotes time to You. Begin with the one standing here at the front. More, Lord; may we give You more, and may I give You more so that You may have more of me.

And one final thing, brothers and sisters, about the Holy Spirit. We see that Zechariah says the temple will be built by the power of God. Kings, priests, and prophets depend on the anointing of God. Jesus Himself, in His incarnate form, depends on the power of God. The disciples seek the power of God. And do you know the final thing we see in the Bible? It is not literally the final thing, but in terms of the Holy Spirit, it is that when those disciples became Apostles and became the authority in Jerusalem, from which the ministry of evangelism flowed into every region—Palestine, Rome, everywhere—they made sure that whenever someone was converted, that person was filled with the Holy Spirit.

Do you remember the story of Samaria, for example? It is found in Acts chapter 8, verses 14 and 15. It says that when the Apostles heard that Samaria had received Christ and that there was a revival in Samaria, they sent Peter and John, two of the Apostles, there, “who, when they had come down, prayed for them that they might receive the Holy Spirit”—that they might receive the Holy Spirit.

Here again we are dealing with the minutiae and subtleties of language, but notice something. The Apostles who were leading the Church from Jerusalem realized that there were people who had received Christ as Savior in that city of Samaria, which was a pagan city. You know the history of the animosity between Jews and Samaritans. When they determined that people were receiving Christ, they immediately dispatched Peter and John to go there with apostolic authority and lay hands on those believers, who already knew Christ but had not yet received the baptism of the Holy Spirit, and to pray for them so that they might receive it. And that is something we have lost in the Church over the centuries.

As the Church developed its governmental and administrative structure, and as the Apostles, pastors, evangelists, and elders began to fulfill their roles, and the Church began to undertake new initiatives to go throughout the world preaching the Gospel, I suspect that this passion and sense of commitment to ensuring that every Christian who came to know Christ immediately received the baptism of the Holy Spirit gradually became somewhat obscured. One can see in Scripture itself how what happens in the Book of Acts is still seen in other books, although not with the same insistence. We do see Paul saying in Ephesians, for example, to be filled with the Holy Spirit. But I suspect that what happened was that as the Church grew and became increasingly distant from that nuclear explosion that was the day of Pentecost, over time the sense of urgency that every Christian be filled with the impartation of the Holy Spirit was lost. That is why we must renew it in our lives every day.

If the Church does not do this continually, before long we simply become watered-down evangelicals here. We come, stay for a while, do something, and then go back home, continuing with the same old routine. What I want is to encourage us to have that same passion.

If there is any doubt in your heart about whether you have been baptized or filled with the Holy Spirit, my advice to you is to seek it. Seek it. At the end this afternoon, those who wish to come forward may do so, and we are going to pray that we may receive a fresh infilling of the Holy Spirit. Amen? Those who have to leave, do not worry; we bless you right now in the name of the Lord. But if you want to seek a fresh anointing of the Holy Spirit, in a moment I am going to invite you to come forward. And I ask my brothers and sisters and the leaders of the congregation—the pastors and elders—to come forward, and let us pray for you to receive a fresh anointing. Your part will be to receive, our part will be to declare, and your part will be to receive.

Say, “I receive the infilling of the Holy Spirit in my life.” Then open your mouth, and if God gives you a new word in tongues, a word of prophecy, or words of praise, open your mouth. Do not worry about the husband or wife who is watching you. It is more important for you to engage with and process what God is doing in your life. And you must continue seeking it. Later, when you are at home, ask for more, more, more of the infilling of the Holy Spirit in your life. Refresh me every day, because this is renewed day by day. Hallelujah.

How many are receiving from the Lord this afternoon? Amen. Bow your head right now. We are going to listen to some music. Bless the congregation and receive from the Lord right now. Begin to receive. If you want to come forward, let us seek that infilling of the Holy Spirit. Come over here for a little while. José, you who are standing there, come here; and others, take courage. Come here, and we will pray for you this afternoon as the Lord gives you freedom, and we will seek that infilling of the Holy Spirit. Amen?

God wants to touch your life. God wants to sanctify you. Come all the way to the front; there is time. Your beans are not going to burn, so do not worry. The Lord will preserve them automatically if you left the stove on. Let us seek the Lord. Let us have a celebration in the Spirit here, brothers and sisters. There is room over there—look at all that space. The Spirit is so fully present here that if you stand over there, it is the same as standing here at the front. Let us spread out; there is room. Everything will depend on your faith and on what you want to do in your life.

Perhaps there will not be enough room for everyone to be touched or anointed, but it does not matter; you can receive it. Right there, wage war, move, and travail in the Spirit. Come all the way forward. Move closer together; do not worry. Move in closer here so that everyone who wants to come can do so. If you are hungry, God will fill you. Hallelujah.

All our visitors, if you want to pray for the people as well, we would love to have you minister too. We are all simply going to move. We are going to pray for the anointing of the Holy Spirit in our lives, that we may receive a fresh visitation of the Holy Spirit. Do not worry; there is no obligation to do anything except that we pray and declare the anointing of God over God’s people.

In the name of Jesus, cry out to the Lord, cry out to the Lord, cry out to the Lord. Say, “Holy Spirit, fill me with Yourself. Holy Spirit, fill me. Spirit of God, I need You. Baptize me, anoint me, saturate me with Your Spirit, Lord. Make me pregnant with Your power as You did with Mary so that she might conceive the life of God within her.” You need to be impregnated with the fullness of the Spirit. Do not worry if they cannot reach you; it is all right where you are. The Lord is moving.

Hallelujah, hallelujah. Open your mouth, prophesy, and declare the virtues of God in your life. Worship the Lord; worship Him freely. Do not worry about who is around you. Right now, it is just you and God; that is all. Hallelujah, hallelujah. We praise You, Lord. Holy Spirit, You are here. Hallelujah. Thank You, Lord. We worship You, Jesus. Oh yes, Lord, You are here. You are moving, Father, among Your people, and we thank You. Oh, we bless You, we bless You. People of God, worship the Lord. Oh, glorify the name of the Lord. He is here.

Holy Spirit, we cry out to You, Lord; we cry out to You, Holy Spirit. We desperately need You. Move with power among us, Father. Do not leave without feeling that this mighty Christ has touched you this afternoon. Hallelujah, we worship You, Lord. There is time to seek that Presence of God. Thank You, Lord. We praise You, God; we praise You, Lord; we bless You, God. Hallelujah, hallelujah, we bless You.