Be holy, for I am holy.
O Thou, who art the Holy One, I come to Thee now for the renewed anointing. O Father! this is the one gift Thy child may most surely count on—the [p269] gift of Thy Holy Spirit. Grant me now to sing, ‘Thou anointest my head;’ ‘I am anointed with fresh oil.’
I desire to confess with deep shame that Thy Spirit has been sorely grieved and dishonoured. How often the fleshly mind has usurped His place in Thy worship! How much the fleshly will has sought to do His work! O my Father! let Thy light shine through me to convince me very deeply of this. Let Thy judgment come on all that there is of human willing and running.
Blessed Father! grant me, according to the riches of Thy glory, even now to be strengthened with might by Thy Spirit in the inner man. Strengthen my faith to believe in Christ for a full share in His anointing. Oh, teach me day by day to wait for and receive the anointing with fresh oil!
O my Father! draw me and all Thy children to see that for the abiding in Christ we need the abiding anointing. Father! we would walk humbly, in the dependence of faith, counting upon the inner and ever-abiding anointing. May we so be a sweet savour of Christ to all. Amen.
1. I think I know now the reason why at times we fail in the abiding. We think and read, we listen and pray, we try to believe and strive to look to Jesus only, and yet we fail. What was wanting was this: ‘His anointing teacheth you; even as it taught you, ye abide in him;’ so far, and no farther.
2. The washing always precedes the anointing: we cannot have the anointing if we fail in the cleansing. When cleansed and anointed we are fit for use.
3. Would you have the abiding anointing? Yield yourself wholly to be sanctified and made meet for the Master’s use: dwell in the Holiest of all, in [p270] God’s presence: accept every chastisement as a fellowship in the way of the rent flesh: be sure the anointing will flow in union with Jesus. ‘It is like the precious ointment upon the head of Aaron, that went down to the skirts of his garments.’
4. The anointing is the Divine eye-salve, opening the eyes of the heart to know Jesus. So it teaches to abide in Him. I am sure most Christians have no conception of the danger and deceitfulness of a thought religion, with sweet and precious thoughts coming to us in books and preaching, and little power. The teaching of the Holy Spirit is in the heart first; man’s teaching in the mind. Let all our thinking ever lead us to cease from thought, and to open the heart and will to the Spirit to teach there in His own Divine way, deeper than thought and feeling. Unseen, within the veil, the Holy Spirit abideth. Be silent and still, believe and expect, and cling to Jesus.
5. Oh that God would visit His Church, and teach His children what it is to wait for, and receive, and walk in the full anointing, the anointing that abideth and teacheth to abide! Oh that the truth of the personal leading of the Holy Spirit in every believer were restored in the Church! He is doing it; He will do it.