Is anointing symbolic only?

[user1234]

Yes, some who say they are Christians never experience the presence of the Lord. But I wonder why that is so. But they argue with others about what other say they experience.

I don't understand how someone could say that what another person claims to have experienced, they didn't.
At best, perhaps a mature believer with discernment might use scripture to check whether the experience was of God or not, in order to help the newer believer keep from deception, or perhaps from putting too much faith in their experience OVER God's written revealed Word.
But for someone to try to tell another that they didn't experience what they claim at all, isn't fair to do to another, and could even be detrimental to the person. That just shouldn't be.

 

[Rens]

Yes, some who say they are Christians never experience the presence of the Lord. But I wonder why that is so. But they argue with others about what other say they experience.

Some are more analytical or something. No idea.
A preacher who had people feeling a lot when he prayed for them, said he felt nothing himself.
It's not about feelings.

 

[user1234]

May be. But that does not give them the right to say what others say they perceive is hog wash.

Agreed. Have you experienced this kind of rejection before? (Please don't share it if it makes you uncomfortable, but I hope no one was mean and abusive to you) But perhaps it could help another, either a victim or perhaps even someone who is overly judgemental?

 

[user1234]

Aww. Sorry. Not my style to mention reps in a thread ... AT ALL. EVER. I meant to delete the post but hit submit by mistake. I shouldn't have typed it here in the first place. I humbly apologize and feel like a jerk for doing that. No excuse. I'm very sincerely sorry. Please forgive me.

 

[Rens]

Agreed. Have you experienced this kind of rejection before? (Please don't share it if it makes you uncomfortable, but I hope no one was mean and abusive to you) But perhaps it could help another, either a victim or perhaps even someone who is overly judgemental?

Lol once in church a guy and I laid on the floor, wow strong anointing. God healed us up. Two baptists came, looked at us: oh they said, that's only for labile people, thinking we were off the world unable to hear them.

 

[Brighten04]

Lol once in church a guy and I laid on the floor, wow strong anointing. God healed us up. Two baptists came, looked at us: oh they said, that's only for labile people, thinking we were off the world unable to hear them.

View attachment 753

Excuse me sis, but what is a labile person?

 

[Rens]

Excuse me sis, but what is a labile person?

Oh google translate said labile. Oops sorry. It's mentally unstable. They were just standing not even a meter away, looking and commenting like that. Thanks m8.

 

[user1234]

Excuse me sis, but what is a labile person?

Oh google translate said labile. Oops sorry. It's mentally unstable. They were just standing not even a meter away, looking and commenting like that. Thanks m8.

Oh ... Okay. I guess I'M a labile person! :=D:
Hey...what's up with him? Oh, don't worry ... He's just labile :chairfall: :boggled:

 

[psalms 91]

Some are more analytical or something. No idea.
A preacher who had people feeling a lot when he prayed for them, said he felt nothing himself.
It's not about feelings.

If they cant experience it then it isnt real and they want to keep others from it as well. It is much like a spiritual person trying to talk scripture with one who only sees the physical

 

[Rens]

If they cant experience it then it isnt real and they want to keep others from it as well. It is much like a spiritual person trying to talk scripture with one who only sees the physical

Sometimes the one who ministers feels nothing and just has to step out in faith. Feelings don't matter. It doesn't make the anointing less or Him less present if I don't feel a tingling.

 

[psalms 91]

Sometimes the one who ministers feels nothing and just has to step out in faith. Feelings don't matter. It doesn't make the anointing less or Him less present if I don't feel a tingling.

agreed

 

[MoreCoffee]

Could it be that they have known Him for such a long time that they don't perceive anything new about Him being there?

I don't know what other people feel I can guess and use my own experiences as an analogue but I cannot KNOW because I am not them and only they (and God) know fully what they feel. But I can point to the way holy scripture describes events - it usually describes events rather than offering information about somebody's feelings - and check if the claims about feeling this or that corresponds with what the holy scriptures say. That is why I asked for scripture about feeling somebody else's anointing. I'd never read a passage that would fit that pattern and the passage that was given (about the disciples after talking with Jesus feeling their hearts burn within them) didn't say anything about feeling the anointing that somebody else had it only mentioned the disciples feeling something as they listened. As far as I know every Christian feels something inside when passages or actions or rites touch them. I feel something very profound when I hear the words blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord. Hosanna in the highest during the liturgy because for me it is participating in the 2,000 years of blessing Jesus who came in the name of the LORD (Jehovah) at the incarnation, the triumphal entry into Jerusalem, and in the holy Eucharist. To me it is greeting Jesus as he makes himself present among the people of God gathered in worship. But this is not feeling somebody else's anointing it is feeling something wonderful that God gives.

 

[tango]

Is the anointing that those claim to receive today symbolic only?

It's hard to answer such a generic question because "those who claim to receive" is such a broad term.

I don't doubt for a minute that there are people out there who are highly anointed. I am also sure that there are an awful lot of people who throw words like "anointing" around like candy when it means nothing. Typically what happens is people don't want their teachings tested against Scripture so they claim "an anointing", then for bonus points rip Ps 105:15 out of context as if their claim to "being anointed" means they don't have to be tested, and then use lots of fine-sounding rhetoric to suggest that people "just don't get it" because they "don't have the anointing".

It all sounds very reassuring until you stop and think that you can use the exact same argument to "prove" just about anything, including the diametric opposite argument. Generally if the exact same argument supports both a stance and the exact opposite stance, the argument is so faulty it is more deserving of derision than reverence. The trouble is that it's very easy for young and impressionable people to be taken in by this kind of reasoning (I speak as one who was taken in when I was young and impressionable) and it can do huge amounts of damage.

It reminds me very much of a lady I knew briefly from a church I left because it got very involved in the silly hypercharismatic stuff (just to give one example, they frequently declared themselves prosperous but couldn't pay the rent, and apparently saw nothing wrong with this situation), who was very keen to tell me that they were "a prophetic people". I saw nothing in the church that suggested there was much prophetic activity going on, they gave an awful lot of credence to garbage like The Elijah List despite the impressive track record of prophecies that either weren't fulfilled or were so vague as to be meaningless (with a few bonus "prophecies" thrown in whereby people asserted that angels had been sent from the throne room of God and the "angelic message" was little more than a butchering of Scripture that ripped it apart and reassembled pieces of it like some kind of ransom note), and despite their almost relentless focus on the spiritual gifts there seemed to be little to no discernment where sound interpretation of Scripture was concerned.

Personally I've found that people who talk the most about anointing are likely to be the least anointed, those who talk the most about how prophetic they are are the least likely to actually be prophetic, and so on. It's pretty high on the scale of "don't tell me, show me". I remember a lady at a church I attended some years back who didn't regard herself as being prophetic and yet always seemed to have just the right word for any given situation. On more than one occasion I saw her chatting with someone who ended up with their mouth pretty much hanging open at what she had said. She didn't see herself as a "prophetess", she just talked to people and loved them, and God did what God does through her.

 

[user1234]

Amen and amen to the above post #53. Really well said. (I'm thinking tango 'had the anointing on him' when he typed that post!) :=D: God bless you brother! Kudos!

 

[tango]

May be. But that does not give them the right to say what others say they perceive is hog wash.

We should be ready to question whether someone has actually felt the presence of the Holy Spirit, or has been sold a pig in a poke by some kind of high-profile evangelist who puts on what's little more than a gig, creates a state of euphoria that is then presented as a spiritual experience, and allows people to go away thinking the Spirit has been resting upon them when actually all they have experienced is the euphoria that is natural when listening to upbeat music for an extended period.

That was the lie sold to me several times as a teenager and by the time I saw through it I wanted nothing to do with the church at all. It took me well over a decade to find my way back. It's just one of the reason I apply "test all things" so liberally, because I see people being sold a dud these days just as much as back in my teenage years. I wouldn't specifically say someone has not experienced the Holy Spirit, I'd just ask them to consider whether it was actually a spiritual experience or a natural mortal experience. I finally learned that a good way to test it is that if your life a couple of days later isn't noticeably different the chances are your experience was nothing spiritual.

 

[Rens]

It's hard to answer such a generic question because "those who claim to receive" is such a broad term.

I don't doubt for a minute that there are people out there who are highly anointed. I am also sure that there are an awful lot of people who throw words like "anointing" around like candy when it means nothing. Typically what happens is people don't want their teachings tested against Scripture so they claim "an anointing", then for bonus points rip Ps 105:15 out of context as if their claim to "being anointed" means they don't have to be tested, and then use lots of fine-sounding rhetoric to suggest that people "just don't get it" because they "don't have the anointing".

It all sounds very reassuring until you stop and think that you can use the exact same argument to "prove" just about anything, including the diametric opposite argument. Generally if the exact same argument supports both a stance and the exact opposite stance, the argument is so faulty it is more deserving of derision than reverence. The trouble is that it's very easy for young and impressionable people to be taken in by this kind of reasoning (I speak as one who was taken in when I was young and impressionable) and it can do huge amounts of damage.

It reminds me very much of a lady I knew briefly from a church I left because it got very involved in the silly hypercharismatic stuff (just to give one example, they frequently declared themselves prosperous but couldn't pay the rent, and apparently saw nothing wrong with this situation), who was very keen to tell me that they were "a prophetic people". I saw nothing in the church that suggested there was much prophetic activity going on, they gave an awful lot of credence to garbage like The Elijah List despite the impressive track record of prophecies that either weren't fulfilled or were so vague as to be meaningless (with a few bonus "prophecies" thrown in whereby people asserted that angels had been sent from the throne room of God and the "angelic message" was little more than a butchering of Scripture that ripped it apart and reassembled pieces of it like some kind of ransom note), and despite their almost relentless focus on the spiritual gifts there seemed to be little to no discernment where sound interpretation of Scripture was concerned.

Personally I've found that people who talk the most about anointing are likely to be the least anointed, those who talk the most about how prophetic they are are the least likely to actually be prophetic, and so on. It's pretty high on the scale of "don't tell me, show me". I remember a lady at a church I attended some years back who didn't regard herself as being prophetic and yet always seemed to have just the right word for any given situation. On more than one occasion I saw her chatting with someone who ended up with their mouth pretty much hanging open at what she had said. She didn't see herself as a "prophetess", she just talked to people and loved them, and God did what God does through her.

Thanks for the chuckle I had. Good old times. Don't you miss it?
Talking about prophetic, Wigglesworth prophecied revival if the flaky hypercharismatics who test nothing and go by feelz join with the ones who have an emphasis on the Word and want nothing to do with it.

 

[MoreCoffee]

... I remember a lady at a church I attended some years back who didn't regard herself as being prophetic and yet always seemed to have just the right word for any given situation. On more than one occasion I saw her chatting with someone who ended up with their mouth pretty much hanging open at what she had said. She didn't see herself as a "prophetess", she just talked to people and loved them, and God did what God does through her.

God always does what he does and always chooses to do it through the faithful except when it is some great miracle worked by the Lord himself. In the old testament God worked his great miracles through people, Moses, Elijah, Elisha, and in the new testament through the incarnate Lord and through the apostles and some prophets named in the holy scriptures. So God works through human beings in this world. Perhaps also in the next because this world is something of a training ground in which the faithful mature until they reach the full stature of Christ and become mature sons of God. In the heavens it is the sons of God who work the works of God just as Jesus did while on Earth and now in heaven. They share the divine nature as much as any creature can share that nature. So when people here on earth see a vision, receive a visitation, have a message given by God through his heavenly messengers then there is credence attached to it but when people self proclaim their own anointing and desire others to recognise it beware because it is likely that they are not messengers of God's graces.

 

[user1234]

Thanks for the chuckle I had. Good old times. Don't you miss it?
Talking about prophetic, Wigglesworth prophecied revival if the flaky hypercharismatics who test nothing and go by feelz join with the ones who have an emphasis on the Word and want nothing to do with it.

Yep, that's the key ... that unity. Too many ppl IN CHRIST, and I'm talking about the SAVED, brothers and sisters in Christ, judging each other as being 'lesser than' or perhaps even outside of salvation, and not exercising the friendship and brotherly love that we are called to and are supposed to be known by.

If an individual claims to have some encounter or experience with the Lord, let them verify it with God's Word and rejoice, but not to the point of judgement over others that may not have the same experience, or to make them feel like theyre missing out on something.

And those that are well-grounded in the Word and seem to have a firm foundation in God's truth and promises, depite any outward signs or manifestations or 'liver-quivers', should continue on being firm in the faith, (blessed are they that have not 'seen' and yet believe), but not to the point of judging others or being so suspicious of everyone and everything that they may miss some opportunity to receive a blessing or be a blessing to another.

Everyone In Christ is important, and those that are called to be more of a watchman and learned in the Word do us a great service in helping us not be carried about with every wind that blows and the false teach-ings/-ers out there and the traveling money-ministries that get ppl trying to catch the next wave.

We need that discernment, these days more than ever, there's so much nonsense out there pretending to be christian, with such easy access to it, not to mention real 'spiritual wickedness' out to cause harm, division and destruction.

We need to pray for those called to that type of ministry in the body, it can sometimes be a lonely thankless job, because they often are accused of being condemning of others, when they're simply trying to help and be cautious and do what they believe the Lord is leading them to do.

We also need to remember, though, that God is alive and vibrant and came to give us life, and life more abundantly, and He loves to bless, and surprise us sometimes, if we keep our hearts open and don't harden ourselves to the possibilities to what He can do in and through us.

Of course, this all applies to the saved, .... The fact that Jesus saved us is what makes us children of God and brothers and sisters In Christ. Those that are unsaved or unsure or searching should be our main concern. It's not about us, it's about Jesus and God's glory, and people being saved, and then letting brotherly love continue in the unity of the faith. In my opinion. God bless you.

 

[psalms 91]

Yep, that's the key ... that unity. Too many ppl IN CHRIST, and I'm talking about the SAVED, brothers and sisters in Christ, judging each other as being 'lesser than' or perhaps even outside of salvation, and not exercising the friendship and brotherly love that we are called to and are supposed to be known by.

If an individual claims to have some encounter or experience with the Lord, let them verify it with God's Word and rejoice, but not to the point of judgement over others that may not have the same experience, or to make them feel like theyre missing out on something.

And those that are well-grounded in the Word and seem to have a firm foundation in God's truth and promises, depite any outward signs or manifestations or 'liver-quivers', should continue on being firm in the faith, (blessed are they that have not 'seen' and yet believe), but not to the point of judging others or being so suspicious of everyone and everything that they may miss some opportunity to receive a blessing or be a blessing to another.

Everyone In Christ is important, and those that are called to be more of a watchman and learned in the Word do us a great service in helping us not be carried about with every wind that blows and the false teach-ings/-ers out there and the traveling money-ministries that get ppl trying to catch the next wave.

We need that discernment, these days more than ever, there's so much nonsense out there pretending to be christian, with such easy access to it, not to mention real 'spiritual wickedness' out to cause harm, division and destruction.

We need to pray for those called to that type of ministry in the body, it can sometimes be a lonely thankless job, because they often are accused of being condemning of others, when they're simply trying to help and be cautious and do what they believe the Lord is leading them to do.

We also need to remember, though, that God is alive and vibrant and came to give us life, and life more abundantly, and He loves to bless, and surprise us sometimes, if we keep our hearts open and don't harden ourselves to the possibilities to what He can do in and through us.

Of course, this all applies to the saved, .... The fact that Jesus saved us is what makes us children of God and brothers and sisters In Christ. Those that are unsaved or unsure or searching should be our main concern. It's not about us, it's about Jesus and God's glory, and people being saved, and then letting brotherly love continue in the unity of the faith. In my opinion. God bless you.

The thing is that God is no respector of persons so whatever experience they might desire they can have providing they are willing to walk the same walk. It is our closeness to God and our obedience that will dictate what God will and will not do for us. If we are walking as God wants us to and we are within our calling then there is no limit to what God will pour out on us

 

[Brighten04]

The thing is that God is no respector of persons so whatever experience they might desire they can have providing they are willing to walk the same walk. It is our closeness to God and our obedience that will dictate what God will and will not do for us. If we are walking as God wants us to and we are within our calling then there is no limit to what God will pour out on us

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KWT8BjS4aw0