1 Samuel 10:6 - The anointing

Often when we think about the anointing we see it in turn speaks of a symbolic act that is to represent our choosing of a servant for a specific role. Yet when we read 1 Samuel 10 we soon realise even when we anoint servants in the natural there is also a spiritual change that takes place in the person.

When we read the story of Saul's anointing in it's entirety we soon learn that Saul himself shied away from the ceremony when Samuel called the tribes of Israel to Mizpah to select and anoint him as King. When they went to anoint Saul he was nowhere to be found and Samuel had to enquire of the Lord if there was another who was to be anointed in his stead. The Lord later revealing that Saul was hiding...

Though Saul stood a head taller than his rivals on the inside he was just as insecure and timid as the next person. Yet when the Spirit of the Lord came upon him scripture says that he was into a different person. It was this different man that went on to prophecy with the other prophets having those that knew him asked whether he too was a prophet. Again in his defeat of the Philistines it was a different Saul that was at work in his early days as King.

And yet even though we see this change was temporal, when he operated in the anointing it was obvious that God was with him and gave him great success in defeating the enemy. In the same way, we can operate out of the anointing at times and other times out of our flesh or weakness. Yet it is obvious with Saul and should therefore be obvious with all that when we operate out of our own strength rather than the strength of the Spirit then there is no guarantee of success.

Indeed it was Saul sin, namely initiating the burnt offering himself rather than through the prophet that we see Saul's weakness and sin at work. It was following his times of weakness that he failed to achieve the things that he was initially anointed to do.

We in the same way, when in the weakness of our sin neglect to be obedient and therefore miss out on the success of operating in the power of the Spirit as we should.