Why the Anointing is Missing in the Church

Hello, welcome to Self Talk with me, Dr. Ray Self, the show that empowers you with the Holy Spirit and gives you the ability to overcome every scheme of the enemy so you can enter your promised land. Today you're going to get a new strategy for success in your life.

 

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Hey, welcome to Self Talk. I'm your host, me, Dr. Ray Self. Got a good show today. I want to talk about the anointing in the church. Mainly, where is it? What happened to it? It's going to be an important show. The show, as you know, we always mention the college that I founded. I'm very blessed to have founded the International College of Ministry, icmcollege.org. And I want also to mention a couple of other programs we have at icmcampus.com, I have some other programs. If you want to become a certified life coach, you want to be a certified Christian counselor, or possibly be licensed and ordained as a minister, check out icmcampus.com. Anyway, enough of the promo stuff. I want to get into today's show. Thank you for being a part of it. I appreciate you so much.

 

Here we go. The anointing. Where is it? What happened? Heavenly Father, thank you for the show and for everyone listening to me. I pray that will be a blessing, that this show will be a blessing to them. So yesterday I visited a church in another city. Big church, one of the big ones, you know, big church, church that has four services on Sunday, and went in there and the people are very friendly, and it's big. I'm not a huge fan of large churches because I like the intimacy of a smaller church and being able to be a part and know people. But however, the big church has its purpose, and God uses them. So I go in, church is very friendly. Go in, and a couple of quick announcements, and the praise and worship started, and it was great. The presence of God was so strong. It was just– you could feel His presence. You could sense His presence in the music, and people were standing and worshiping. Then sadly, somebody begins to talk and make announcements right after the first song and decides to start reading their Bible, which to me kind of killed it for a while there. But when she finished talking, the music started again. The praise and worship started, and the anointing was strong. My wife and I were thoroughly enjoying it. You could sense the presence, discern the presence, and you could, it's like, commune with God. You could hear His voice and truly show your appreciation through worship and through praise of who He is and what He's done for us. And it was great. 

 

So after the worship was done and another couple of quick video announcements, then the main speaker comes on, and I was kind of disappointed because the speaker was on video screen - very, very large video screen. And, actually, in fact, there are three large video screens. Now I'm not saying that, you know, you can't, you know, use that in a church, so I'm not saying that. But what I am going to say is it was interesting, the, the pastor, um, it was, it was a lady, and some people will say, “Well, that's a little different.” Well, there are some female pastors out there; that's a whole nother topic, but she began to give an historical lesson. Uh, the sermon was called uh, “Close enough.” And then she began to give a historical lesson coming out of the book of Revelation about the church at Laoc–Laodicea. Probably mispronounced that, um, and about how they had to get their water supply. And this is the scripture where Jesus said that, um, “I wish you were either hot or cold rather than lukewarm,” He would spit you out of his mouth in Revelation, I believe, chapter 3. And so she went into a great long expository teaching, um, of that scripture, and it was interesting. Then she made a lot of bullet points about, um, what to– that we should be more active in our prayer, more active in our worship, more active in our giving and what it means to be a better Christian, and a lot, a lot, a lot of scriptures and a lot of points. Basically, she was doing a very involved teaching.

 

Now, there is - I'm a teacher, and there is a place for teaching. But you see, my wife and I commented after the service was over, said, "Well, that was good teaching." I said, "Did you sense the anointing?" She said, "No." I said, "I did not either." It's like there was anointing during praise and worship, but when the teacher came on and began this long discipleship teaching lesson, the anointing just seemed to leave the room.

 

Now, this is going to sound kind of contradictory in a way, but it's me being a teacher. Maybe it's, maybe it's a little ironic, but guys, what has happened to the preacher in the church? You see, there's a difference between a preacher and a teacher. A preacher proclaims the word of God, proclaims the truth. A teacher brings down the fire of God, convicts our hearts. He, he brings in the anointing of God into the room, and hearts are changed, and people are convicted, and there's deliverance and healing and things that are taking place. Well, teaching makes disciples, and we are commanded to do that. But in a worship service where we're worshiping God, what we need, what we're missing in the church today is preaching. The preaching, the anointed preaching of the word of God. It seems like preachers are becoming in the minority. 

 

Now listen, you know, a preacher doesn't have to be someone who shouts and hollers and screams. You know, sometimes preachers get excited, and I can get excited when I'm preaching, too. But see, preaching brings conviction. Preaching brings in the anointing of God. If you ever heard a really good preacher, you could sense the presence of God as he's preaching and he's proclaiming truths into the atmosphere. And these truths are permeating your spirit and changing your life. Where a teacher is more feeding your mind. A preacher is feeding your spirit, and a preacher is more likely a good preacher to bring in the presence of God or the continue– the presence of God that started in worship- and continue that. Now at the end of the service, it was interesting at the end of the service there was no real altar call. I think they said something like, uh, “If you need somebody to pray for you, we got some prayer people in the, in the foyer.”

 

And you know, I've been involved in a lot of altar ministry. Some people argue about altar ministry, but I want to tell you something. Um, when I preach, and I'm at a church service, and I'm preaching the word of God, I will make an invitation at the end for people to come to the altar for my wife and I to minister to them. And while we're at the auditor– at the altar, prophetic words are given, healing takes place, deliverance takes place, life-changing…salvation takes place. A lot of things happen at the altar after a good sermon where the presence of God is moving. 

 

You see, when the anointing is moving in the church, people respond to that, and they come to the altar because they want more, and they want somebody to lay hands on them and somebody to pray with them, and maybe they need to be healed. Maybe they need a word from God. Maybe they want to accept Jesus as their Savior, be filled with the Holy Spirit. All these things happen when there's an anointing flowing in the house. Teaching typically does not bring that atmosphere in. It does not bring that type of response. Preaching will. What we're missing in the church today is anointed preachers. The church has evolved into a lot of motivational speakers. And listen, there's a place to be exhorted. There's a time where you need to hear a motivational speaker. And there's a time where we just need to be taught. I, I'm a teacher for a Bible college. And I found it. I teach classes. I'm teaching a class tomorrow night. I teach classes all the time. Okay? 

 

But in a church service where we, we're come to worship God, we've come together. That's where me, I'm going to do my best to preach, follow the anointing of the Holy Spirit, and allow the Holy Spirit room to operate. Another thing that's missing in the church is we programmed the Holy Spirit out of the service. The church has become so organized that we have to start at 9:45 and we have to be out by 10:50. And during this time, we have the order of service. And it's written down exactly how many minutes we're going to do praise and worship, how many minutes we're going to do the announcements, and when the announcements– announcements will take place from 11 to 11:03 to 11:08. And then the offering will be from 11:08 to 11:13. And then the preacher will come on and teach or preach or whatever he's going to do for the next 20 minutes. Then we're going to dismiss. There's no room for the Holy Spirit. There's no room for the Holy Spirit. What happened to the Holy Spirit? We programmed Him out of the church. 

 

Now, I'm just being blunt here, but that's what's happened. And if you're listening to me, you know that's what has happened. We programmed Him out of the church. Now, when I had my little church in uh, North Mississippi for a long, long time, my habit, now I'm not claiming I'm anything great or special, and I'm above or greater than any other preacher or teacher in the world. I'm not. I'm just saying this is what I did. And I will tell you what happened. Every Sunday– we had a Sunday morning service and a Sunday evening service. I would always pray for the presence of the Holy Spirit to come. And I would invite Him to come. And sometimes I would have to be still. We'd have to be quiet and give Him room to operate. Give the Holy Spirit a chance to move and, and determine what the Holy Spirit wants to do. Those that are led by the Spirit are the children of God. What a pastor should be doing is determining the direction of the Holy Spirit for every service. It's not what you have planned, what you want to do. It's what the Holy Spirit wants to do. Now, maybe you're fortunate, and everything you've planned to do is anointed and what the Holy Spirit wants to do. That, that's great if that happens. And I've seen that happen sometimes. But what we need to do, and my recommend–, we need to make our plans, have our order of service, but leave room and be flexible. Be the new wineskin. Be flexible and be ready to make a change if the Holy Spirit wants to do something different than our plans. Hold our plans loosely. Let the Holy Spirit take charge of the church again. Let the Holy Spirit move again in the church. I've seen it done hundreds and hundreds of times. I've been in churches that did it. My church did it.

 

Matter of fact, I remember on our Sun– for some reason, it seemed like Sunday night was a really special time for us. And the anointing would come in, and sometimes the Holy Spirit would just take over the service. I mean, He would take over the service. And now this is going to sound kind of strange, but sometimes the Spirit of God would start moving so strongly during our service that my wife and I would literally go sit down at the back of the church and just watch what the Holy Spirit was doing amongst the people. Now, how many churches would allow that to happen today? “No, we can't because we got a program. We got a time schedule.” The Holy Spirit is Lord. He's Lord. There's a scripture that says, "For where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty." And when you translate that scripture, in the Greek it says where the Spirit is Lord, there is liberty. We need to allow, have enough courage, and have enough faith and enough discernment to allow the Holy Spirit to start taking charge of the church again. We have programmed the Holy Spirit out. All we do is teach. We, we worship. We teach. We have a program. We close it out, and we're gone. There's no room for the Holy Spirit. And if the Holy Spirit does start to move, we'll pro– we'll program Him out because now it's time for the offering or time for the announcements. 

 

When you have the Holy Spirit in charge of a church service, you let Him take charge. And His ways are not your ways. His thoughts, not your thoughts. And He will do things differently than you think. But you have to allow Him. If you will allow the Holy Spirit to take charge, that's when you see the power of God. That's when you see a move of God. Lives changed, people healed and delivered and salvations and you see the glory of God come into the house. It takes flexibility. It takes courage to let go of our control, let go of our program, and let the Holy Spirit take over. Now, the pastor should be discerning the Holy Spirit during the whole service. He's got the– He's the leader; he's got the responsibility. Maybe it's time for prophetic words. Maybe it's time that we should just keep worshiping and not preach. Maybe it's time just to, to pray. Maybe it's time just to lay hands on the sick. Maybe it's time just to be still. Whatever the Holy Spirit wants to do. And when you take this attitude of we're going to allow the Holy Spirit to be in charge, oh my goodness, incredible things happen. And that…folks, I used to be around churches that did this all the time. My church did it all the time. Now, I'm not saying that my church was better or worse than any church. I'm just telling you what we did. And I'm telling you, it seems like it's missing in the modern church. 

 

We, the modern church, has become dry. Dry. And the reason it's dry is because it's man-made. Anything that's man-made, it's going to be lifeless. When something is God-made and God-breathed on, and God breathes on something, there's life in it. And if you, if your church is feeling dead, maybe that's just because it's all man-made program and it's not, it's not a God-made program. It's not something God instituted; it's something man designed. It's not a God plan; it's a man plan. You know, we know better than God. Listen, I– it, it makes you uncomfortable to be led by the Holy Spirit and allow the Holy Spirit to take over a church service…can make you uncomfortable and uneasy, but the results are so incredible. And some of you old Spirit-filled people listening to me, you know what I'm talking about because you've experienced it. Some of you other listeners are thinking, "What the heck is he talking about? I've never seen anything like that.” I want to tell you something. We have structured the Holy Spirit out of the church. We have also done nothing but teach, teach, do motivational teaching, motivational teaching, and no anointed preaching. Motivational teaching. And it's just dry. It's just dry, folks. It's dry. You know what? We're supposed to be rivers of living water flowing out of our bellies. Where the Holy Spirit is, there's life, there's joy, there's peace, there's an anointing. It's incredible. Lives are changed. It's time for us to let go of our control of the church. Give the Holy Spirit control. Have enough courage…and enough faith and enough discernment to give the Holy Spirit control of the church. And that's the pastor and the leader's job. And watch what He will do when we do that. 

 

And also learn the difference between preaching and teaching. Teaching is great for uh, a Saturday class. I teach on Tuesday nights. It's great for that. I do Saturday conferences. It's great for that. Okay. I'm going to be teaching a school of the prophets on, through Zoom beginning March 12th. It's good for that. But you know what? Preaching is different. Preaching is proclaiming the truth of God into the atmosphere, into your heart, into your spirit. Teachers are feeding your mind. Both are important, but on Sunday morning, I'd rather have a preacher than a teacher. Amen. I hope this has meant something to you. This is Dr. Ray. 

 

Thank you for being a part of the show. I appreciate you. Hey, the podcast is doing a lot better. So, thank you so much. We're getting I think, uh, just did a little research. We're in the top 20%, 25 to 20 percent of all podcasts in America now. Thank you. Really could use your financial support. Uh, if you feel led, again, this is about trusting the Holy Spirit. If you get a conviction to help us, it would really help us to get some donations. Uh, easiest way’s to go to the website, uh, icmcollege.org/donate. I think the link is in the show notes. icmcollege.org/donate. We have several scholarship programs available and several programs to pick from. Anything you donate to will help us. If you help our college, it helps the podcast. Thank you for being a part of the show. I pray, Holy Spirit, that you will convict us, anoint us, and come back into our church services. We invite you back into our church services. Lord, thank you for everyone listening to the show. Touch them now with your Holy Spirit. Fill us fresh with your anointing and let us carry it everywhere we go. In Jesus’ name. Amen. Amen. God bless you. Thank you for being a part of the show. Bye-bye.

 

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