And you shall bring Aaron and his sons near to the entrance of the Tent of Meeting, and wash them with water. / And you shall put the holy garments upon Aaron, and you shall anoint him and sanctify him that he may serve Me as a priest. / You shall also bring his sons near and put tunics upon them, / And you shall anoint them as you have anointed their father that they may serve Me as priests; and their anointing shall be to them for an everlasting priesthood throughout their generations. (Exo. 40:12-15)
What does the Lord’s anointing feel like? What does it look like to be anointed? Some Christians believe they need to have some kind of holy water or physical anointing oil. But when we all come together as believers to meet on the Lord’s Day, what is it that ushers us into the true prayer, singing of hymns, sharing of testimonies, declarations of victory, and offering of sacrifices upon the Lord’s altar? What leads us to offer up a real, genuine, and acceptable offering to the Lord? Conversely, why would we come empty handed, unable to speak? We all have a basic responsibility to come with something to offer. There is no option to hide from our silence in our excuses or guilt. In the meeting — in our living — we are either in the Lord’s tabernacle or in a coffin.
The solution, though, is not trying to fix ourselves by doing something. You cannot fix flesh with flesh. Our flesh is subtle and can even look spiritual or religious. We may try reading spiritual books or practicing spiritual exercises, taking pride in our theology or methodology. We may come together in a meeting with 40,000 other believers, singing songs and feeling that we have been revived. But pursuing these as formulas or spiritual movements are only exercises of our flesh — attempts to fulfill the righteousness of our flesh. Such efforts are only seeking our own honor and recognition.
As we come back again and again to our failures and our empty-handed condition, we may think we’ve learned something from our mistakes and know how to do things the right way. But the answer lies at the beginning — why we came to the church life. Why are we here? Acknowledging or even being sorry for all of our failures is not the answer. Anything in the nature of the tree of knowledge, or the tree of “right and wrong,” will never help us to enter into the Lord’s presence, or the Lord’s tabernacle. All of these right and wrong measurements, or judgments, whether they come from ourselves or others, ultimately only lead us to a coffin. In the book of Genesis, on the one hand, Joseph was an example of an overcoming, powerful human being. On the other hand, he still ended up like everyone else: in a coffin in Egypt. Exodus provides the way out of the curse — the tabernacle. How we build, how we serve, and how we exercise the tabernacle becomes the gateway or the bridge to not only come out of Egypt, but also come out of the wilderness.
In this journey, how can we avoid all of the pits and snares of the flesh and the curse? Learn to be anointed. Learn to be sanctified. Learn to let the Spirit permeate you and saturate you. The anointing does not just sanctify you — or separate you — from all of these snares and temptations, sin and ambition, and death. The anointing also crowns you and gives you power. The anointing does not just save you out of a low life. The anointing gives you stature — Christ’s stature. Why do you call on Christ Jesus? In other words, who is Christ Jesus? Christ is the anointed one. He is the perfect, qualified, and chosen one. The only way for us to come out of death into life is to mingle with Christ the anointed, to let His word saturate and permeate us, to become one with Him, to become one with His victory, to experience the true tabernacling of the word becoming flesh in us.
Everything we do in ourselves is a shadow. A shadow has no power. It is the presence of Christ — or the entering into the reality of this Word that became flesh tabernacling among us, full of grace and reality — that works (John 1:14). Your singing well doesn’t mean you are spiritual. Your praying well doesn’t mean you are spiritual. It’s just your offering to Christ. If that’s the case, you don’t need to delay. Who can say that your offering is not qualified? But you should know if it is qualified. It isn’t that we each time need to come to the meeting fully prepared, fully geared up. But we should always have a process before the Lord. What is that process? Anointing. Being sanctified. “Lord, fill my hands” — this is our life. Nobody can be qualified in themselves. Who is the only perfect one? Christ. Be saturated and permeated with Christ.
As the New Testament priests, being anointed is a very fundamental experience. It is a basic requirement for our serving. If you are not anointed, how can you be a part of the tabernacle? How can you claim your stature? How can you claim anything when your name is not even remembered? When your days and your years are not counted? The anointing is not just a ritual or a ceremony. Being anointed must be who you are.
So why is the church life fruitless today? Why do we come empty-handed? Because we love ourselves too much — that’s it. We have too many opinions. Opinions make us shallow. Opinions stop us from moving deeper into the experience of the tabernacle. Shallowness will kill us. Shallowness will prevent us from entering into the Holy of Holies. How can we be deepened? Deny yourself. Deny your opinions. Do you want to serve? Throw away your opinions. Become a slave. This is the instant way for our hands to be filled, and for us to be deepened all the way to the Holy of Holies to serve Him as priests.
(Above are notes of fellowship taken from a gathering 8/14/2022, not reviewed by the speaker.)