On that momentous day October 17, 1981, this Scripture verse became true for me: You will seek Me and find Me when you seek Me with all your heart! [Jer 29:13] I heard, with ecstatic wonder, the Father say, “My child…this day I have adopted you…through birth and by Blood…into My Family. You are now and forevermore My child, and I am forevermore your Father and your God.”
A NEW CREATION
I became Your child by birth and by Blood on that momentous day when Your Divine seed, planted in my heart, was fertilized by the consent of my will in making a solemn vow before You to be the bride of Christ Your Son… https://preservechristianfamily.org/2019/01/21/bride-of-christ/
and an entirely new life was thereby conceived within me. I am an entirely new creation…a regenerated human being…and I bear the characteristics of God my Father; I have Your spiritual DNA embedded in my soul!
My life was never again the same…a wonderful journey into the depths of God ever since! This Scripture became a literal reality: Therefore, beloved, since you are now joined together in a living union of oneness with Christ Jesus My Son, you are a new creation. You are no longer the same person you formerly were… your previous moral and spiritual condition has passed away. Behold, a fresh, new life has begun! Hallelujah!
PURITY, HOLINESS, RIGHTEOUSNESS
My life had been completely transformed by the Living God! And now, the most intense desire of my heart going forward was to be pure, holy, and righteous in living out my every day life…in living out my visible physical life, my unseen physical life, my life in the spiritual realm, and especially my hidden life in my heart…in my mind, my thoughts, my imagination!
AWE-FILLED PRESENCE OF GOD
A few years later, on that late February, 1984, winter night on Long Island, I lay on my bed crying out to God…immersed in deep sadness and sorrow, intense crying and pain, overwhelming grief, loneliness, and broken-heartedness over a deep sense of loss that had just blind-sided my life.
Quite suddenly…out of nowhere…the Lord walked into my room! I didn’t visibly see Him; my room was just as dark as it was before. But I was so filled with His Presence entering into my room and into me I felt like I was going to explode! My physical body could not contain His in-dwelling Presence! I remember exclaiming in awe, “Oh Lord…I can’t bear any more! I feel like I am going to burst!” Not that I wanted Him to leave; I was just expressing how I literally felt… that my human body just could not contain Him for any longer and live! At that moment, it didn’t matter to me whether I lived or died…I was experiencing an eternal weight of Glory beyond all measure, excessively surpassing all comparisons and all calculations, a vast and transcendent Glory and blessedness in His Presence!
The inaccessible Light [ although there was no literal light ] of the Glory of His Presence lasted maybe five or six seconds…but that experience is just as fresh in my memory today as it was in reality those 40+ years ago! At that moment…the heretofore unbearable, debilitating emotional pain I had been feeling did not diminish in intensity, nor was it removed. It just became so insignificant and so meaningless in the light of what I had just experienced, that I literally thought, “Who cares!” Just one second in the inaccessible Light of the Glory of His Presence…a foretaste of Heaven itself…even now here on Earth is more than enough to wipe every tear from our eyes…all of our sadness and sorrow, all crying and pain, all grief and loneliness and broken-heartedness! And from that point on, though the source of the pain was never removed or resolved, it never again mattered to me, nor bothered me. I had seen the Lord; with my own spiritual eyes, I had seen Him! I would never again be the same!
ANOINTING OF PROMISE
On that wondrous day, the Lord granted me His Blessed Promise: the Anointing of Promise. He will grant you the desire of your heart for purity, holiness, and righteousness, because Christ Jesus assured you: “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled” [Mt 5:6] He has assured me that my longing will be completely satisfied, and I will be filled up to the measure of all the fullness of God…to the richest measure of His unclouded Presence, a soul wholly filled and flooded with God Himself!
There was an outpouring of the Holy Spirit upon my life, according to His command, “Keep on continually being filled with the Spirit.” [Eph 5:18]
I was now experiencing the manifestation of the Holy Spirit in my life…singing songs, hymns, and spiritual songs and making melody within my heart to God!
I began experiencing prayer, in accordance with God’s will, moving the hand of God!
I began experiencing the blessings that come from obedience to the leading of the Holy Spirit in my life!
God was continually showing me His Glory; I saw it with my own eyes, and thereby had many occasions to testify to His great Name and mighty Power! Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God! [Mt 5:8] Hallelujah!
RICH ETERNAL TREASURES OF THE SPIRITUAL REALM
In my spiritual babyhood…just 3 years old in the Lord…I never fully realized the incomprehensible magnitude of this precious treasure I had been granted…the Anointing of Promise. If only I had known…I would have been very careful to protect it, to safeguard it! Instead, I began to get careless and complacent with the hunger and thirst I first had for living out my every day life with an intense desire for purity, holiness, and righteousness. Slowly and imperceptively, strongholds began taking root in my heart…besetting sin began expressing itself. Several years went by in this manner…and then, the Anointing left me! And I knew it! When you have the Anointing of God, its manifestation is so obvious… you know you have something special, and everyone who comes into contact with you knows it also! And when you lose the Anointing and no longer have it… you know it, and are painfully and consciously aware you no longer have this precious treasure! And the cry of my heart became, Lord, how do I get it back! It became the consuming desire of my heart to get the Anointing back! Those who never had the Anointing do not have this cry of their heart to even receive it…they have no idea of the magnitude of the blessing they don’t have because they never experienced it…that they would be constrained to long for it with intensity and at all costs!
Over the next 40 years, the Lord began to free me from these strongholds…one by one…so patiently, so purposefully, so persistently, oftentimes so painstakingly…until I was free at last from them all! Except one…my besetting sin. That sin was so ingrained in me…the result of an abnormal emotional development in my adolescent years…that it had become an integral part of my sin-enslaved human nature. When I was not being tempted, I hated that sin with a passion, with every fiber of my being, and vowed to the Lord I would never again allow myself to be engaged in it! Never! I was determined to live a life of purity, holiness, and righteousness; I strived and struggled, made vows, solemn promises, resolutions, commitments, covenants, doubled and re-doubled my efforts! All to no avail! All it accomplished was to guarantee my continual failure! I never fully realized that if I am determined to live my life in what I thought was the Power of the Spirit but still by my own efforts and in my own strength, I will have only guaranteed my failure!
BESETTING SIN
Here is a very important frame of reference concerning a besetting sin. Although we have been gloriously saved, made “partakers of the Divine nature,” and have the Holy Spirit within us, we nevertheless retain an enemy within, in the form of still-sinful and corrupted longings, passions, cravings, and lusts. A deep, strong compelling desire or longing of any kind, good or bad, is an idol and is sin. Even that which is in itself good and honorable can be lusted after for sinful reasons. There is a continuing, repeated, and inescapable reality of the process which occurs when a person is carried away and enticed by his own lust. Every human being is tempted; there are no exceptions.
We can be in bondage to addictions and habits that are in and of themselves sinful…
- Addictions to pornography, sexual indulgence, drugs, alcohol, gambling.
We can also be in bondage to addictions and habits that are in and of themselves neutral and not sinful in nature, but become sin when we have a consuming desire…
- addictions to food, tobacco, television, spending;
- addictions to video games, Internet, social media;
- to habitually watch sporting events and all kinds of other television programming;
- to habitually play rounds of golf or spend weekends on my boat fishing and pleasure cruising;
- to habitually desire, pursue, and engage in the paltry things this world has to offer…things having no eternal value or worth;
- Various other bondages…financial, emotional, social, or spiritual that draw our attractions or affections away from the Lord.
SIN-ENSLAVED HUMAN NATURE
Why would I ever think that the powers of my sin-enslaved human nature would voluntarily choose to deny its own self and put forth effort to give the Spirit free reign over the conduct of my life? Quite the contrary…for my sin-enslaved human nature has a strong desire for its own will to be done and so to suppress the Spirit, and the Spirit constantly has a strong desire for God’s will to be done and so to suppress my sin-enslaved human nature. They are in conflict with each other, so that I am hindered by my sin-enslaved human nature from freely doing what I desire to do in obedience to God. [Gal 5:17]
The problem was when the temptation came upon me, I could not resist. The temptation overwhelmed me, so that I liked the sin, and wanted to engage in it. It wasn’t that I refused to give it up for the Lord; I wanted to give it up, but found that I could not do it…that during the temptation it was impossible for me to resist. It was only afterward that my heart was once-again broken that I had failed the Lord again, and my spirit was crushed and in agony over my sin and failure! And this cycle just kept repeating itself over and over and over again… continually. My constant lament was: What a wretched man I am; who will free me from this body of death?
After so many, many years of this besetting sin and continual failure to overcome, I finally got to the place deep down in the depths of my heart where I literally thought, and actually believed, that if I really had to…if the Lord wasn’t going to come and set me free as I had repeatedly asked Him so very often to do…that I could do it, I could make it, I could set myself free! I could pull myself together, and set myself free if that was the last resort, the last hope, the only remaining option. I found great comfort with this bottom-line thought in the deepest recesses of my heart!
I never realized that this thought deep down in the depths of my heart was the hindrance, the block, whereby the Lord was determined not to intervene and come to set me free! It was my unspoken expression that I really don’t need You, Lord…I can do this if I really had to. It was an expression of self-dependence upon the capabilities, capacities, and faculties of my sin-enslaved human nature…the sufficiency of my own efforts and my own strength. It was an affront to the indwelling Holy Spirit Whom the Father had given His children as a gift when we were born-again…a gift given because we could not, were not able, to do anything that is good, or pleasing, or acceptable to God in our sin-enslaved human nature! It was an affront to the Lord, Who declared, “Apart from Me, You can do nothing.”
I never fully realized, nor embraced, what I had known in my mind, and often written about…that in my physical life maturity is growth from the utter dependence of a baby to the complete independence and self-reliance of an adult. I had also known, and written about, that in my spiritual life, however, maturity is growth from independence and self-reliance to utter dependency upon God. He is most spiritually mature who lives a life of unreserved child-like dependence upon God. Just as a baby opens its mouth and cries whenever it has physical needs, so I open my mouth and cry whenever I have spiritual needs. Just as a baby is utterly and hopelessly helpless to satisfy its physical needs… and will surely physically die if no one hears its cry and comes to satisfy its needs…just so am I utterly and hopelessly helpless to satisfy my spiritual needs… and will surely spiritually die if God my Father does not hear my cry and come to satisfy His child’s spiritual needs!
UNRESERVED CHILD-LIKE DEPENDENCE
It is one thing to know this truth in your mind, but it is quite another to know this truth experientially!
Quite suddenly, out of the clear blue beginning in June, 2020, the Lord allowed Hell’s onslaught to take place in my life. I was tormented and terrorized with overwhelming evil thoughts, images, and imaginations in my heart over continual stretches of time, day and night…beyond anything I had ever experienced before! It became clear that Satan’s intent was to destroy me! My Father allowed me to experience in my soul the inexpressible horror of realizing that unless He came to rescue me…I was surely going to spiritually die! There was absolutely no hope, no chance, not the remotest possibility of my being able to deliver myself or set myself free!
The Lord had to set me free of this self-sufficiency…the thought that if I really had to, I could make it. He had to remove this self-confident stronghold from the depths of my heart. He had to make it crystal-clear that I COULD NOT…beyond the shadow of any doubt, I most assuredly could not! And I was frightened, horror-stricken, and terrified experiencing this reality in the depths of my being for the first time in my life…continually crying out for my Father like a little child: Abba, Father! Where are You! I need You! I can’t continue to live my life this way! If You don’t come to protect and deliver Your child, I am going to [spiritually] die!
I was experiencing something of the emotional agony that our Lord Jesus Himself experienced in the Garden that night when He began to be deeply distressed and troubled at the overwhelming prospect of the cross. The Greek verbs used in the Biblical text describing what took place that night in the Garden described an extremely acute emotion…a compound of bewilderment, fear, uncertainty and anxiety…nowhere else portrayed in such vivid terms as here: shuddering awe; deep distress; overpowering mental distress; full of terror and distress; surprised and terrified; fright and anguish.
CROSSROADS
Down through the ages of time since the creation of Adam, thousands upon thousands…even ten thousand times ten thousand…of believers have been to this crossroads…including many, many high profile Pastors, Church leaders, Bible teachers, and Evangelists…and have chosen to walk down the wide road of Destruction rather than the narrow path to freedom and the Anointing of Promise! Admittedly, the narrow road is steep and intimidating. It is overgrown with thorn bushes and briars. It twists and turns, and has sharp curves, so one cannot see what lies ahead. But it is the only path to the Anointing! Many have caved in, compromised, given up the fight, held on to their pretension and claim to the Name of Christ, yet unwilling to stand steadfast and unmovable with Him… because they were never able to set themselves free! You can read Scripture until your eye-balls fall out, and quote Scripture until you are blue in the face… which I am sure many have done…and were still never able to set themselves free! They never fully realized, never got to the place, never understood, that only the Holy Spirit can set you free. Like a newborn baby, your only hope…but a sure hope…is an utter, absolute, unreserved child-like dependence upon God, Whose ear is attuned to the cries of His child, and will never fail to come to satisfy His child’s needs! If you depend on Him alone…He will most assuredly set you free! If you trust in Him alone…He will most assuredly set you free!
ANOINTING OF PROMISE
It was Thursday evening, July 23, 2020, when the Spirit of God led our weekly Home Disciple Group Meeting into a discussion on Adam’s sin of disobedience against God…concerning the one command given him to test his obedience. The result of his disobedience was the expulsion of Adam and his wife Eve from the Garden of Eden, and the heretofore undefiled human nature as created by God now becoming a sin-enslaved human nature.
As our discussion continued along that evening under the guidance of the Holy Spirit’s leading, we were discussing Scriptures concerning how the Lord Jesus sets a believer free from the bondage of sin…that all human beings by nature have a sin-enslaved human nature, and can only be set free from both the penalty of sin and the power of sin by Christ through His atonement for sin, by virtue of His death on a cross on our behalf. When I am born again, it is as literal and real a birth as was my physical birth…and I become a new creation…a new person, whereby my former moral and spiritual condition has passed away, and all things have become new. I no longer live my life out of my sin-enslaved human nature, but now live my new life out of the Divine nature of God’s Holy Spirit dwelling within me by virtue of being born again. That is why only those born-again can know, and have, and experience, the indwelling Holy Spirit.
During our discussion, the Holy Spirit swept over one of our group members and so opened up his mind and heart to this truth…in a depth he had never seen before…that he literally, visibly, was filled with a fullness of joy! He could hardly contain himself! The Holy Spirit had fallen upon Him! He was totally “wired in the Spirit,” and began to testify with power about what God had done, and was continually doing, in his life! He testified that when he is tormented and terrorized with overwhelming evil thoughts, images, and imaginations in his heart [and he knew nothing about what I was going through], his God and Father reaches down and plucks His child out of Satan’s grasp and into safety, declaring with determined purpose, “No! You can’t have My child; he belongs to Me!” He was anointed…and continued to testify about the utter weakness of his flesh and how helpless he was to resist by his own efforts and strength, and that if he tried to do so it would only guarantee his failure! He testified how the Power of the Holy Spirit in his life was the source of his strength, and apart from Him he could do nothing! He just went on and on, carried away in the Spirit into the heavenly realms for the remainder of our meeting, continually praising God, proclaiming the Word of God with boldness, freedom, and confidence; with spiritual power and authority!
I just sat there and listened, thanking God for how He was so deeply touching this brother whom He was calling, and using, as the “pastor of Walmart!” And it brought to his mind a song that had so touched him…a powerful song with a powerful message…so he pulled it up on his phone and played it for us. The link is below, if you want to hear it. It is not my particular choice in Christian music… but it was the result of the leading of the Spirit…and so I put myself in his place, and could embrace its powerful message as we all listened to it! The song is by CASTING CROWNS, entitled SET ME FREE: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y2HwtWLokSc
I myself was so blessed by the manifest Presence of the Holy Spirit in our meeting that evening that I never realized that God had quietly touched and anointed me as well with the “Anointing of Promise” that I had been desperately crying out to Him for!
Over the past several weeks [actually, for a number of years…but now with an intense desperation] I had been pleading with Him for this Anointing that I had been granted once before, in the Fall 1984 when I was just 3 years old in the Lord as a child of God…an anointing that I had lost because I had carelessly let it slip away, not appreciating in my spiritual babyhood how precious this treasure really was. I was pleading with my Father…that I could not live without it…that I could not serve as His messenger, His ministering spirit, His watchman, His emissary, with boldness, freedom, and confidence, with spiritual power and authority, unless I had this Anointing of Promise! I wasn’t asking for an anointing of privilege; that is God’s prerogative. No; I was asking for the anointing that was promised…that I had been granted once before. I knew what it was; and I knew I no longer had it.
The Anointing of Promise is the full blessing of Pentecost…and it is only granted to those who hunger and thirst for it…to those who are wholly surrendered and have become bond-slaves of the Most High God, wholly given for the blessing and salvation of souls…to those whose lives by faith are wholeheartedly consecrated to “not my will, but Thy will be done, in everything” and thereby abide in the Holy of Holies in the inaccessible Light of the Glory of the unclouded Presence of the Father.
Blessed Jesus, You assured me: “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness…a purity, holiness, and righteousness of my own in living out my everyday life. You assured me that I will be filled…that my longing will be completely satisfied, and I will be filled up to the measure of all the fullness of God, to the richest measure of Your unclouded Presence, a soul wholly filled and flooded with God Himself! [Mt 5:6] That is the Anointing of Promise!
And even more beyond that…You will show me Your Glory; I will see Your Glory with my own eyes: Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God. [Mt 5:8]
MY FATHER HEARS HIS CHILD’S CRY
On that evening God my Father heard the desperate cry of my heart, and quietly, silently, granted me once again the Anointing of Promise. From that evening forward, the evil thoughts, images, and imaginations in my heart still came a number of times expecting to torment and terrorize me as they had always done… but now they had absolutely no power at all, were of none effect, and weren’t even the least bother. The anointing is not just a greater power than what had been coming to torment and terrorize me; no, the anointing completely neutralizes their power so that they are meaningless and have no effect whatsoever. The Anointing of Promise is the second greatest gift granted by God…second only to the gift of eternal life. No child of God should ever be satisfied without having it.
COST O F THE ANOINTING OF PROMISE
There is a high cost to an anointing; the anointing is not cheap. It is a pearl of great value; you will have to sell everything you own to obtain it. The Lord has reserved it for a Godly remnant of the 1% of His children who will not bow down, who will not shrink back, who will not compromise, who will remain steadfast and immovable in their commitment to follow the Lamb whithersoever He goes. God’s holy remnant is called to a life of self-sacrifice and self-denial. You cannot become part of My holy remnant without being willing to sacrifice your desire for anything and everything you own. Child of God…are you willing to pay the price?
BOND SLAVE OF THE MOST HIGH GOD
I am called to voluntarily become a bond-slave of the Lord God Almighty…
which was a choice made in times of old…not out of coercion or gratitude, but out of love. But if the servant…having been released and set free…shall plainly say to his master, “I love my master, my wife, and my children; I will not go free,” then his master shall bring him to God [the judges as His agents]; he shall bring him to the door or doorpost and shall pierce his ear with an awl; and he shall serve him for life. [Ex 21:5-6]
As a bond-slave, there is nothing I have that belongs to me as my own…
- None of my possessions belong to me; they all belong to You. You are free to do what You will with them, for all that I have has come from You; You are free to give and free to take away.
- I have no plans of my own; whatever plans I may have are all subject to Your plans, purposes, and will for me. I am here to do Your will, O Lord.
- I no longer have any privileges here in this world, because I am no longer a citizen here. You have transferred me out of the kingdom of darkness into the Kingdom of Light. All of my privileges are at my home in Heaven, where I am a citizen. There I am privileged to walk the streets of gold, and eat those immortal fruits that grow along the river flowing from the Throne.
- I have no expectations from the people of this world…nothing I expect of them to be or to do, for they continually fail to meet my expectations. All of my expectations are from You, Lord…You have never failed me, and You never will.
- I have no rights here on Earth, because I am not a citizen here; I am a resident alien. Since I have no rights here, there is nothing that anyone can violate. All of my rights are as a citizen of Heaven, and those rights will never be violated.
- I have no honor here among the people of this world, for anything I have done that is worthy of honor was not done by me, but rather by You working through me, with me, and in me. Therefore, all the glory belongs to You alone.
- I have no time of my own; all of the time I have been allotted here on Earth belongs to You. You are free to use my time here as You will.
- I have no desires of my heart for anything this world has to offer; You are Lord of my life. I have only one desire, “I desire to do Your will, O Lord, and to finish the work You have given me to do.”
- I have no purposes of my own for my life, no goals that I cling to. I live wholly surrendered to Your plans, Your purposes, Your will. My only purpose for life is to do the good works that You Yourself have planned in advance for me to do.
- I have no affections for the people of this world, or for anything this world has to offer, that competes with my affection for You. My sweetest, most tender affections are reserved for You alone.
- I have no attractions to the people of this world, or to anything this world has to offer, that competes with my attraction to You. You alone are the choicest, most precious treasure of my heart.
- All of my motives for doing things, my attitude in doing them, and my disposition while doing them, are subservient to You and intended to bring You glory. Enable me, Lord, to have godly motives, a good attitude, and a sweet disposition in all that I do.
- I am wholly Yours, and You are wholly mine…wholly surrendered unto God, wholly given for the blessing and salvation of souls. My heart longs to be inflamed with yearning for God alone…to pour out my soul, my life, my all for You!
RICH ETERNAL TREASURES GRANTED TO GOD’S CHILDREN
It is my prayer that you will feel the leading of the Spirit to seek these rich eternal blessing with all your heart. You will most assuredly experience these same blessings for yourself, and will have this same testimony to share.
Beloved child of God…let My Holy Spirit open your heart, and respond from the depths of your being, “God, once again, use Your church; use Your child. Now…not another time…tonight, let something in my heart respond to Your call.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0vmE2nbVctE [Note: this video opens in the middle of a worship song, which continues to the 2:15 minute mark before Pastor Wilkerson is introduced as the speaker]
I proclaim to you Christ Jesus…the One Who existed from the beginning, from Eternity Past, Whom I have heard with the ears of my own inner being, and have seen with my own spiritual eyes. I have gazed upon Him and have spiritually touched Him with my own hands. He is the Word of Life. His Life is continually being revealed to me; I have seen it and testify to it, and I proclaim to you that He is the One Who is Eternal Life. He always existed with the Father, and is now continually being manifested afresh and anew to me. I proclaim to you what I have personally seen and heard in the depths of my soul, so that you also may enjoy this same fellowship together with us. The fellowship I continually enjoy is with the Father and with His Son, Christ Jesus. I am writing these things so that you also may fully share together with me in this fullness of joy! [1 John 1:1-4]
This is our birth-right as children of the Most High God! Hallelujah!
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Holy:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xcx2O9WXvn8&feature=youtu.be
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