Anointing: Instant and Constant

Matthew 7:11If you then being evil know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in the heavens give good things to those who ask Him! 

The good things here refers to the Holy Spirit. Our Father gives the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him. 

It was on this line that I shared the need for asking in prayer the Holy Spirit for everything in our lives. Be it for personal family matters, for church life, for service life, or for any matter, the filling of the Holy Spirit as the anointing in our lives is definitely needed. I also mentioned about how we prayed for hours altogether to experience such anointing with testimony in our literature service. 

An elderly and matured brother picked the matter up and elaborated further the need for constant anointing besides the instant anointing as I mentioned in my sharing in a Lord’s day meeting last week at Chennai. All the saints who were present at the meeting were all supplied too, as the ambience of the meeting under such speaking was full of light and life-supply, followed by the sharing as an echo to the brother's speaking. 

Yes, we must take care of the Holy Spirit very much in everything that we do. In fact, we should not do anything without the anointing. By prayer and honoring the word of God, we definitely will be filled with the Spirit and be anointed. All these are good, but we have to go further and deeper beyond the instant anointing to the constant anointing in our Christian life and church life. 

Reserved anointing is constant anointing. For this, the Lord has to work on us for a long period of time. We have to live under the cross of Christ daily. Christ was crucified at the cross for six hours for the accomplishment of redemption, and but he lived all His life under the cross, carrying His cross. When our lives are such a living under the cross of Christ, the Lord will give us a measure of reserved anointing. Not just for now or today, but even more for over a long period of time. It takes time for the Lord to work on us, for the reserved anointing to become real experientially and continually. The cross has to work on us all our lives for the reserved anointing. The Lord's work on us is quite personal and He will do it faithfully until He breaks through in us. For instance, a marriage life is for God to work Christ into us. All circumstances are meant to work Christ into us. For such, we must learn Christ and gain Christ in every opportunity given to us. 

Ephesians 5:16-17Redeeming the time, because the days are evil. Therefore do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is. 

To redeem the time is to know the will of the Lord, the will of the Lord is work Christ into our being for which God caused all things to work together for good, so that we would be conformed to the image of the firstborn Son of God. 

Romans 8:28-29And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose. Because those whom He foreknew, He also predestinated to be conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the Firstborn among many brothers; 

A good testimony is that of brother Watchman Nee himself. After six years of excommunication, he said his experience in those years was Romans 8:28, "all things work together for good." The discipline of the Holy Spirit is what we have to experience. The result of such will be the working of Christ into us to be conformed to His image, and be filled with His anointing.

What we do should be the outflow of what we are. Therefore, we will be constituted with the divine life for the outflow of life. 

This further brings us to our usefulness to God. How rich we are to the Lord will determine how useful we are to the Lord. How rich we are will be determined by how much anointing we have. Then how do we gain the anointing? By the experience of the cross and gaining Christ; this must be our daily experience. We must make use of every opportunity the Lord allows in our lives for us to gain Christ. This is to redeem the time. 

The conclusion of the matter is: Redeem the time by gaining Christ in every opportunity to be constituted with the Holy Spirit as the anointing within us constantly and instantly and be useful vessel to the Lord.