What Is the Anointing?

Before we can walk in the anointing, we must understand what it is. The word “anoint” in the Old Testament comes from the Hebrew word mashach, which means to smear or rub with oil, to consecrate, or to set apart for divine purpose. This is where the title Messiah originates — it simply means the Anointed One. In the New Testament, the Greek word is chrio, from which we derive the name Christ.

This remarkable verse, spoken first by Isaiah and then claimed by Jesus in the synagogue at Nazareth (Luke 4:18), defines the anointing in its clearest terms. The anointing is the Spirit of God resting upon a person for a specific, divine purpose. It carries within it everything needed to fulfill that purpose — power to heal, authority to deliver, wisdom to teach, and grace to transform hearts.

Three Dimensions of the Anointing

Throughout Scripture we see the anointing operating in three primary dimensions. First, there is the anointing upon — the external resting of God’s Spirit for power and authority in ministry. Second, there is the anointing within — the indwelling of the Holy Spirit that brings regeneration and the gifts of the Spirit. Third, there is the anointing that flows through — when a believer becomes a channel through which God’s power is released to others.

John makes it unmistakably clear: every born-again believer has received the anointing. You are not waiting to get what God has already given. The question is not whether you have the anointing — the question is whether you are yielding to it, cultivating it, and walking in it.

The Presence IS the Anointing

Many people seek the anointing as though it were a separate thing from God Himself — a power to acquire or a force to harness. But Scripture reveals something far more glorious: the anointing is not a commodity. The anointing is the presence of God. When God shows up, the anointing shows up. They are inseparable.

Moses understood this with perfect clarity. He did not ask for power. He did not ask for miracles. He asked for presence. He knew that the presence of God was the only thing that distinguished the people of God from every other nation on earth. Without His presence, nothing else mattered. With His presence, nothing else was needed.

This is the secret that transforms ordinary people into instruments of extraordinary power. When Peter and John healed the lame man at the Beautiful Gate, they declared, “Silver and gold have I none; but such as I have give I thee.” What they had was the presence of the risen Christ, and it was enough to change everything.

Peter’s shadow carried healing. That is presence-saturated ministry. Peter had spent so much time in the company of Jesus that the anointing had become so real in his life that even his shadow became a conduit for God’s healing power.

Practicing His Presence

Every revival in church history can be traced to a company of people who made the presence of God their supreme pursuit. The Welsh Revival of 1904 began with Evan Roberts spending months in private prayer. The Azusa Street awakening began with believers who fasted and hungered for God until heaven broke open. The presence of God is never the result of human effort — it is the response of a holy God to holy hunger.

Spikenard — The Costly Perfume

Spikenard was among the most expensive substances in the ancient world. Extracted from the Nardostachys jatamansi plant that grew in the high elevations of the Himalayan mountains of India and Nepal, it was transported thousands of miles along ancient trade routes before arriving in the markets of Jerusalem. A single pound of pure spikenard was worth approximately three hundred denarii — a full year’s wages for a common laborer.

It was stored in sealed alabaster containers — small, elegant flasks carved from a soft stone that preserved the fragrance perfectly. The only way to fully release the perfume was to break the container. This detail is not incidental. It is prophetic. The fragrance could not be released without the breaking.

When God chose to fill Scripture with the imagery of spikenard, He was saying something profound about the nature of worship and devotion. True love always involves sacrifice. True worship always involves cost. The most beautiful things in God’s kingdom are not cheap. They require something precious.

The Sacred Anointing Oil

God gave Moses precise instructions for compounding a sacred anointing oil for use in the tabernacle — made of myrrh, cinnamon, calamus, cassia, and olive oil. All costly, aromatic substances. This oil was so sacred that God forbade it from being placed upon any common person. It was holy unto the LORD.

The fragrant anointing oil was not decorative — it was consecrating. Whatever it touched was set apart, made holy, designated for God’s exclusive use. This is the picture of what God’s anointing does to a human life — it consecrates you, sets you apart, and designates you for His purposes.

The Anointing in the Song of Solomon

The Song of Solomon is one of the most unusual books in the entire Bible. On its surface it reads as a love poem between a bride and her beloved king. But for thousands of years, the greatest Jewish and Christian interpreters have seen in its pages a picture of something far deeper — the love relationship between God and His people, between Christ and His bride, the church.

The scene is breathtaking. The king is at his table — a picture of fellowship, communion, and rest in the beloved’s presence. And in that atmosphere of intimacy, the bride’s spikenard releases its fragrance. This is a portrait of worship. The closer we draw to the King — the more we sit at His table, commune in His presence, linger in His fellowship — the more the fragrance of our devotion rises naturally around us.

Notice that the bride does not work to produce the fragrance. She simply draws near to the king, and the fragrance flows. This is a critical truth about the anointing: it is not manufactured through striving. It is released through intimacy.

Here the beloved himself is described as fragrant — his very name is like ointment poured forth. The name of Jesus carries an anointing. When the name of Jesus is lifted up with faith and love, there is a release of divine power and presence that cannot be explained in natural terms. The anointing is in His name.

The Anointing Upon the Priests

One of the most dramatic scenes in all of the Old Testament is the anointing of Aaron and his sons as priests of Israel. After months of painstaking work to construct the tabernacle exactly as God commanded, Moses gathered the people, dressed Aaron in his priestly garments, and poured the holy anointing oil upon his head.

The anointing oil ran down from Aaron’s head, over his beard, and down to the hem of his garments. King David later immortalized this image in Psalm 133. But the deeper truth is this: Aaron could not approach God’s presence, offer sacrifice, or intercede for the people without the anointing. The anointing was not optional for a priest. It was essential.

The New Testament declares that believers are now “a royal priesthood” (1 Peter 2:9). We have been anointed and set apart to bring the sacrifices of praise, intercession, and worship into the holy presence of God. The anointing upon the Old Testament priesthood was a shadow and a type of what the Holy Spirit now does for every believer who comes before God through the blood of Jesus Christ.

The Oil Did Not Run Out

Throughout Israel’s history, the priestly anointing was passed down through the generations. This pattern points to a staggering truth: the same Holy Spirit that anointed Jesus at the Jordan River is the same Holy Spirit that filled the disciples at Pentecost — and is the same Holy Spirit available to every believer in every generation until Christ returns. The oil does not run out.

Kings Anointed by God

When God decided to raise up a king for Israel, He did not hold an election or select the most qualified candidate by human standards. He anointed. The anointing was the mark of divine authority — the seal of heaven upon a human life, the declaration that a person was chosen, consecrated, and commissioned by God Himself.

Saul — The Anointing Rejected

The first king of Israel, Saul, is one of the most tragic figures in Scripture. He began with a powerful encounter with God’s anointing. But Saul made one fatal mistake — he began to disobey the voice of God while still expecting the anointing to remain.

The anointing cannot coexist long with a life of disobedience. Saul lost the anointing not because God was cruel, but because Saul chose his own will over God’s will. The Spirit of the LORD departed from Saul — one of the most chilling statements in all of the Old Testament.

David — A Man After God’s Own Heart

God’s next choice was not the most impressive by outward appearances. God corrected Samuel with a word that has echoed through every generation: “The LORD seeth not as man seeth; for man looketh on the outward appearance, but the LORD looketh on the heart.” (1 Samuel 16:7 KJV)

David was anointed three times — first privately by Samuel, then by the tribe of Judah, and finally by all Israel. Each anointing represented a new dimension of the divine commission upon his life. David’s heart for worship, his psalms of praise, his unwillingness to touch God’s anointed — all of these were the fruit of a life saturated in the anointing of God.

Prophets and the Anointing

The prophets of Israel were the most anointed voices in the ancient world. They stood before kings without flinching, called down fire from heaven, raised the dead, and proclaimed things that would not happen for centuries. They did all of this under one power: the anointing of the Holy Ghost.

Elijah — The Anointing That Confronts

Perhaps no prophet demonstrates the raw power of the anointing more vividly than Elijah. He appeared suddenly from obscurity to declare drought over the nation. He was fed by ravens in the wilderness. He raised a dead boy to life. And then came the great confrontation on Mount Carmel — one anointed man of God against eight hundred and fifty false prophets.

The anointing does not need a majority. One person standing in the anointing of God is a majority. The fire fell not because of Elijah’s eloquence but because of his obedience — and the anointing vindicated him before the entire nation.

Elisha — The Double Portion

When Elijah was taken up to heaven in a whirlwind, Elisha made one bold request: a double portion of Elijah’s spirit. This was not arrogance — it was hunger. The Bible records twice as many miracles under Elisha’s ministry as under Elijah’s — including one that happened after Elisha was already dead and buried.

The anointing was so concentrated in Elisha’s bones that even after death, it raised a dead man to life. The anointing is permanent, powerful, and able to work even beyond what we can imagine or contain.

The Anointing of Jesus Christ

Every anointed king, priest, and prophet in the Old Testament was a shadow pointing forward to One who would come — the Messiah, the Christ, the Anointed One par excellence. In Jesus of Nazareth, the fullness of God’s anointing was concentrated in a single human life. He was not merely anointed with oil — He was anointed with the Holy Ghost and with power.

The public anointing of Jesus was witnessed by heaven and earth simultaneously. At the Jordan River, as John baptized Jesus, the heavens were opened, the Holy Spirit descended upon Him like a dove, and the voice of God the Father thundered from heaven: “This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.” (Matthew 3:17 KJV) The entire Trinity participated in the anointing of the Son.

What the Anointing Looked Like on Jesus

In the synagogue at Nazareth, Jesus unrolled the scroll of Isaiah and declared that this scripture was fulfilled in their ears that very day. The anointing upon Jesus was purposeful — it had a specific assignment: to preach, to heal, to deliver, to proclaim liberty.

Jesus never ministered without the anointing. He never healed without the anointing. He never taught without the anointing. Even His death upon the cross was an anointed act — He gave Himself as a fragrant offering to God (Ephesians 5:2). The entire life of Christ was fragrant with the anointing of God. And now, this same Jesus — risen, ascended, and glorified — has sent the same Holy Spirit to rest upon His church.

Mary of Bethany — Pure Devotion

Of all the people who surrounded Jesus during His earthly ministry, few understood Him as deeply as Mary of Bethany. Three times the Gospels record her in His presence, and three times she is in the same posture: at His feet. Mary was a student of the anointing. She had spent enough time in the presence of Jesus to know who He truly was. And that knowledge produced in her an act of worship so profound that Jesus declared it would be remembered forever.

One pound of pure spikenard — worth a full year’s wages — poured out entirely, unreservedly, wastefully by the world’s standard, upon the feet of Jesus. Not dabbed. Not sprinkled. Poured out. This was total surrender. This was the language of worship that goes beyond words.

Her Hair — Her Glory Laid Down

In the culture of the ancient Near East, a woman’s hair was her covering and her glory. For a woman to loose her hair in public was an act of deep social vulnerability. But Mary used her hair to wipe the feet of Jesus. She laid her glory down at His feet. This is the posture of every true worshiper: surrendering your own glory so that His may be magnified.

Jesus Defends the Worshiper

Judas Iscariot spoke up in false concern: “Why was not this ointment sold for three hundred pence, and given to the poor?” (John 12:5 KJV). The other disciples murmured in agreement. But Jesus replied with a declaration that has echoed across every generation since:

Fragrance, Fire & Sacrifice

From the earliest pages of Scripture, God connected fragrance with worship and sacrifice. When Noah stepped off the ark onto dry land after the great flood, his first act was to build an altar and offer burnt offerings to God. And God’s response to that worship is one of the most tender statements in the entire Bible.

God “smelled” the sacrifice. He detected the fragrance of Noah’s worship. The Hebrew word nichoach means a soothing, settling, restful aroma. Noah’s worship brought rest and peace to the heart of God after the devastation of judgment. Your worship today carries this same power — it moves the heart of God.

Incense — The Fragrance of Prayer

In the tabernacle of Moses, an altar of incense burned continuously before God. The smoke and fragrance rose perpetually upward — a living picture of unceasing prayer. Revelation 5:8 reveals the heavenly reality: “golden vials full of odours, which are the prayers of saints.” Your prayers are stored in heaven as fragrant offerings before the throne of God.

Every intercession, every cry of the heart, every praise that rises from your lips is detected in the throne room of God as a sweet-smelling aroma. “We are unto God a sweet savour of Christ.” (2 Corinthians 2:15 KJV)

The Broken Alabaster Box

The alabaster box had to be broken. This is not merely a narrative detail — it is one of the most important spiritual principles in all of Scripture. The fragrance locked inside the stone container could not be released any other way. There was no lid to remove, no stopper to pull out. The only way to release what was inside was to break what was outside.

God has been working this same principle throughout redemption’s story. Every vessel He has used greatly was broken first. Moses spent forty years in the wilderness — broken of his Egyptian pride — before God appeared in the burning bush. Joseph was thrown into a pit, sold into slavery, and imprisoned unjustly before God lifted him to the right hand of Pharaoh.

David wrote these words after the most devastating failure of his life. He had discovered something profound in the ashes of his broken life: God does not despise brokenness. In fact, brokenness is the only sacrifice that cannot be counterfeited by human effort. You cannot fake a broken heart before God.

Broken But Not Destroyed

God breaks vessels not to destroy them but to release what is inside them. When Mary broke the alabaster box, the box was finished — but the fragrance was just beginning. When God allows brokenness in your life, it is not the end of your story. It is the beginning of your greatest release.

The Yoke-Breaking Anointing

Isaiah 10:27 contains one of the most electrifying promises in all of Scripture: “And it shall come to pass in that day, that his burden shall be taken away from off thy shoulder, and his yoke from off thy neck, and the yoke shall be destroyed because of the anointing.” Every word of this verse is laden with meaning for the believer weary under the weight of the enemy’s oppression.

A yoke in the ancient world was a wooden frame placed over the neck of an animal to control its direction, limit its movement, and compel its service to another. Every person who has not been set free by the power of Christ walks under a yoke — perhaps the yoke of addiction, of generational sin, of sickness, of poverty, of fear, or of spiritual bondage.

The anointing does not merely ease the yoke. It does not merely help you carry the yoke. Isaiah declares that the anointing destroys the yoke. The Hebrew word chathath carries the idea of something being shattered, broken in pieces, demolished. The anointing is not a therapeutic tool — it is a demolition force.

The Divine Exchange

Jesus did not say, “Come to Me and I will help you manage your yoke.” He said, “Take my yoke upon you.” There is a divine exchange in the anointing — the heavy, crushing yoke of sin and bondage is traded for the easy, light yoke of walking in intimate obedience to Christ.

The Cost of the Anointing

There is a dangerous teaching in some circles suggesting the anointing can be obtained quickly and cheaply. The Bible does not teach this. The greatest anointings in Scripture were always forged in the furnace of prolonged seeking, deep sacrifice, and costly devotion.

King David expressed this principle with unmistakable clarity when he refused a free gift from Araunah the Jebusite — a threshing floor on which to build an altar to the LORD. David’s response has become one of the great declarations of the worshiper’s heart:

Worship that costs nothing is worth nothing. This is not a harsh statement — it is a statement of love. When you love someone deeply, you want to give them your best. You want to give them something that represents real sacrifice, real devotion, real cost.

The Price Jesus Paid

Before we speak of what the anointing costs the believer, we must first marvel at what it cost God. The anointing available to every believer was purchased at an unspeakable price — the blood, the suffering, the death, and the resurrection of the Son of God. Every drop of anointing that flows from heaven has been paid for by the precious blood of Christ.

Protecting the Anointing

The anointing is not automatic. It can be quenched, grieved, and lost through carelessness, disobedience, and the contamination of sin. Every anointed person in Scripture who lost their anointing did so through the same root causes: pride, disobedience, moral failure, or the love of the world. Samson is perhaps the most heartbreaking example.

Samson was consecrated to God from his mother’s womb as a Nazirite — set apart, anointed, separated for God’s purposes. The Spirit of God would come upon him mightily, and he would accomplish supernatural feats that no natural man could perform. Yet Samson had been playing near the world’s edge for years before the final betrayal came.

The most chilling phrase in Samson’s story: “he wist not that the LORD was departed from him.” The anointing had slipped away so gradually through repeated compromise that when it was finally gone entirely, he couldn’t tell the difference. This is a solemn warning for every believer.

How to Guard the Anointing

Paul gave Timothy specific instructions about guarding what God had placed on his life. “Neglect not the gift that is in thee.” (1 Timothy 4:14 KJV) “Stir up the gift of God, which is in thee.” (2 Timothy 1:6 KJV) The anointing must be actively cultivated, not passively assumed.

Guard your thought life. Guard your associations. Guard your integrity in private, because the anointing lives in your private life long before it manifests in your public ministry. What you do when no one is watching determines what God does when everyone is watching.

The Anointing and Healing

One of the most consistent demonstrations of the anointing throughout both Testaments is physical healing. The anointing that rests upon a believer is not merely a spiritual experience — it is a tangible, demonstrable power that confronts sickness and disease with the authority of heaven. Jesus healed every kind of sickness and disease, and He did it under the anointing of the Holy Ghost.

The word “virtue” here is the Greek word dunamis — power. Power was flowing out of the physical body of Jesus like a river. It was the anointing in its most tangible form. And Jesus declared this same power would continue through His disciples: “He that believeth on me, the works that I do shall he do also; and greater works than these shall he do.” (John 14:12 KJV)

The Elders and the Anointing for Healing

The Epistle of James gives the New Testament church its clearest instruction about anointing for healing. The pattern is straightforward — call for the elders, anoint with oil, pray the prayer of faith, and trust God for the healing. The oil is not magical — it is symbolic of the Holy Spirit whose anointing carries the healing power.

The anointing for healing has never expired. The same God who healed blind eyes, cleansed lepers, straightened bent spines, and raised Lazarus from the dead is the same God who is alive and anointing His people today. There is no sickness stronger than the anointing.

The Anointing and Prayer

If there is one discipline more closely connected to the anointing than any other, it is prayer. Every anointed person in Scripture was first and foremost a person of prayer. The anointing is not maintained in public — it is maintained in private. The public demonstration of God’s power is always the overflow of private communion with God’s person.

Jesus, though He was the Son of God and carried the fullness of the anointing, still maintained a rigorous commitment to private prayer. It was His habit — His customary practice — to withdraw to lonely places and pray. If the Son of God needed to regularly commune with the Father in order to sustain His anointed ministry, how much more do we?

This verse falls immediately after one of the busiest days in Jesus’ recorded ministry. After all of that, He rose before dawn to pray. He was too hungry for the Father’s presence to settle for sleep when communion was available.

Praying in the Spirit

One of the most powerful tools for maintaining and increasing the anointing is praying in the Holy Spirit. Jude 20 instructs believers to “build up yourselves on your most holy faith, praying in the Holy Ghost.” This kind of prayer — Spirit-assisted, Spirit-directed, Spirit-empowered — builds the anointing in your life the way exercise builds physical strength.

The secret chamber of prayer is the birthplace of the anointing. Never underestimate what God is doing in you during those hours when nothing seems to be happening — when you are simply present before Him, worshiping, waiting, and yielding.

The Anointing on the Church

The most explosive single release of God’s anointing in human history occurred fifty days after the resurrection of Jesus Christ, in an upper room in Jerusalem. One hundred and twenty disciples had been gathered for ten days in prayer and waiting — exactly as Jesus commanded. And then heaven broke open.

The anointing that had rested upon one Man — Jesus of Nazareth — now descended upon the entire body of His followers. This was the fulfillment of Joel’s prophecy: “I will pour out my spirit upon all flesh.” (Joel 2:28 KJV) The church was born — anointed, empowered, and commissioned. Peter, who had denied Christ three times just fifty days earlier, stood up and preached with such anointing that three thousand people were converted in a single sermon.

The Corporate Anointing

There is an anointing that comes when believers gather in unity that exceeds what any individual carries alone. Psalm 133 describes the anointing flowing from Aaron’s head to his beard to his garments. When the body of Christ gathers in genuine unity of spirit and purpose, the corporate anointing creates an atmosphere where God’s presence is experienced at a level that cannot be replicated in isolation.

This is why the enemy works so diligently to create division and strife in the body of Christ. He knows that when believers truly walk in unity, the corporate anointing is released in such power that no principality or power can stand against it.

Walking in the Anointing Daily

Everything we have studied — the fragrance of spikenard, the broken alabaster box, the anointing of kings and priests, the yoke-breaking power of the Holy Ghost — must now move from the realm of theological knowledge into the reality of daily living. The anointing is not reserved for church services and special meetings. It is meant to be the normal, constant atmosphere of a believer’s life.

Hunger — The First Prerequisite

Jesus declared, “Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness: for they shall be filled.” (Matthew 5:6 KJV) Hunger is both the sign that you need something and the promise that you will receive it. A person satisfied with where they are spiritually will never press into the deeper dimensions of God’s anointing. It is the hungry who get fed.

The Word — The Foundation

The anointing always honors the Word of God. The Spirit who inspired the Scriptures will never lead you away from them. “Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly.” (Colossians 3:16 KJV) The word “richly” suggests abundance, overflow, and saturation — not a token daily reading, but a deep, ongoing immersion in the Scripture.

Worship — The Atmosphere

Worship creates the atmosphere in which the anointing flows. When King Saul was tormented by a distressing spirit, David would play his harp and worship, and the spirit would depart. Make worship a lifestyle, not just a Sunday morning activity. Worship in your car, worship in your kitchen, worship in the middle of the night. Let your life be one long, continuous act of praise.

Obedience — The Channel

The anointing flows through the channel of obedience. Every act of disobedience narrows that channel. Every act of surrender widens it. The Spirit of God does not force His way through a resistant vessel — He flows freely through a yielded one.

The Fragrance That Remains

We began this journey with a woman kneeling at the feet of Jesus, breaking open an alabaster box of pure spikenard and releasing a fragrance that filled an entire house. Two thousand years later, we are still inhaling that fragrance. We are still moved by that act. We are still being called by it to bring our own costly offerings and lay them at His feet.

The anointing of God is not a relic of another era. It is not a gift reserved for a spiritual elite. It is the living, active, present-tense power of the Holy Spirit — the very presence of God — resting upon and flowing through ordinary people who have made the extraordinary decision to give Him everything.

God is still pouring. He has not stopped. The question is not whether He is willing — the cross of Christ answered that question forever. The question is whether we are willing. Whether we will break open our alabaster boxes, pour out our most precious offerings, and say with every fiber of our being: “You are worth it. You are worth everything. Take it all.”

The fragrance that filled that room in Bethany has never left the earth. It has drifted through every generation of true worshipers — through the Upper Room, through the prayer closets of intercessors in every nation. It is present wherever there is a heart broken open before God.

May you never again be satisfied with religion when the real thing — His glorious, transforming, yoke-breaking, life-giving presence — is available to you right now, wherever you are. The King is at His table. Come close. Let your spikenard send forth its smell.