Because of the savour of thy good ointments thy name is as
ointment poured forth, therefore do the virgins love thee.
Songs of Solomon 1:3
The word "virgins" is referring to the brides of Christ.
Everyone on this earth is a candidate for salvation, because
God does not wish for anyone to perish. Thus, potentially,
everyone is a bride; except that everyone has the right of
choice whether to accept the Bridegroom or to reject Him.
Thy name is as ointment poured forth When you carry the
anointing of the Holy Spirit, even your name is sweet and
creates an expectation. You smell good and enjoy love
from others. This whole verse is talking about favour. Love
from a second party is favour. The favour you command
depends on the level of the anointing that operates on your
life. That you are loved is not because of your looks, status,
or educational background. The anointing upon you is
simply what compels people to love you in spite of
themselves.
When Saul was anointed king by Samuel, one of the things
the anointing did for him was to procure favour for him.
And they will salute thee, and give thee two loaves of
bread; which thou shalt receive of their hands.
1 Samuel 10:4
The three men he was going to meet were going to salute
him (feel kindly disposed towards him) and give him gifts.
That is supernatural favour. Not because he talked to them
or asked for anything from them, but because he was
clouded with favour by reason of the anointing.
When you carry the anointing, everywhere you turn, you
are welcome. When they don’t see you, they look for you.
People were always looking for Jesus, He was the most
significant personality in His days. It is not sonship to be
turned away from every office you go to in search of a job
or contract. Registered sonship is all about honour.
Anointing is not in feeling and "tonguing." It is operating in
the realm of the Holy Ghost with evidence. Without it, you
can be a Christian for thirty years and not have anything to
show for it.
Nothing pulls a man down more than empty activities. The
lamp that has no oil, has no use. What is its use in
darkness? Similarly, the bulb that has no current passing
through it is equally useless. Shining light attracts attention,
particularly in darkness. Light does not seek to be known
and recognized, because in a dark world, light is an asset.
That is why you have favour when your light is shining.
Success is a function of favour. Favour from the Lord
guarantees success. If in your place of work you are not
well favoured, it could affect your promotion prospects
negatively. Your file could be hidden or lost, making it
impossible for the authority to assess your performances.
But when your ointment begins to smell good, everyone
will be running over themselves to please you and to do
you good.
I once attended an interview, and right there in my
presence, the officials were asking me to choose between
two options. The gap between the two was so much, it was
like the distance between the nose and the mouth. Of
course, I chose the better of the two!
Check yourself carefully. If nobody seems to want to see
you, it is either because you don’t carry the oil or because
the one you are carrying is stale. It takes only fresh oil to
release unprecedented favour with God and men. Freshen
up and let the fresh oil flow.
In conclusion, bearing the four outstanding functions of the
Comforter in mind, I want you to pray and ask your
heavenly Father to help you experience the comforting
ministry of the Holy Ghost - spirit, soul and body.
The Bible says that the Spirit quickens our mortal body. So,
if there is anything upside down in your life, the same
Spirit has power to turn it around and make it work for your
comfortable existence.
Pray, I urge you, and experience a new release from
heaven. Some people still wish that Jesus were around
physically, but Jesus Himself said that the level of comfort
enjoyed by His disciples then would fade into mere
insignificance, compared to the comfort they will enjoy
from the Comforter. The Holy Spirit has so much more to
offer.
A man of God once said that in his twenty years in
ministry, he has not been down once. This is someone who
has been chased out from about five different places at
about the same period; yet he has never been down once!
He has always been full of joy and praises, no wonder he
still looks like a young boy.
Joy is like a medicine to the body. A broken heart weakens
the system, but the joy of the Lord strengthens it. It
quickens the mortal body and refreshes the soul.
You have spoken in tongues, now experience His person.
People who know me know that I don’t carry prayer
requests about. I have so much of the love of God and the
fullness of His joy. I am full of His praises and walk in
such measure of favour, both with Him and with men, that I
don’t have too many prayer requests.
Beloved, you have sweated enough, now be refreshed. The
Comforter inside you is not only a tongue talker, but His
ministry is also to make you comfortable by making you
experience joy, love, praise and favour. Keep Him fresh in
your life and you will live a practically translated life.
Appreciate His ministry and release yourself for His fourfold mission.
You are not designed to experience heartaches in life.
Break loose and break forth. The Comforter is here. It is
time to be comfortable in the hands of God. Loose that flow
of joy, love, the high praises of God and procure favour
from heaven. This four-fold charisma of the Holy Ghost
has been longing for expression in you, give Him the
opportunity to reveal His ministry of comfort in your life.
Beloved, I wish above all things that thou mayest prosper and be in
health, even as thy soul prospereth. 3 John 2
“Even as thy soul prospereth.” That means the level to which God will
meet all your needs is the level to which your soul prospers. Your spiritual
well-being is what determines your material well-being! Your spiritual
stability has a lot to do with your destiny in God’s agenda.
To walk in the realm where all your needs are met, you can’t be partakers
with them that collect kick back and kick front. You can’t be changing books
and figures in your office, and sharing what is not yours and still expect God
to meet your needs. God is no respecter of persons. He has no uncles; we are
all His children. So, if you want to see your heavens fully open, it’s important
to return to a quality walk with God.
The truth is, God will not bless any man above his spiritual capacity,
because he will go off course. With only ten thousand naira in his hand, many
angels are assigned to him, to make him read his Bible, and with one hundred
thousand naira, God Himself is following him up, to make sure he still
believes there is heaven. So God says told Himself, “If I give this man any
business that produces a million naira profit, I will kill him. So let Me leave
him where he is now. I’ve tried him on 10, he’s stable. On 15 he’s a little
shaky, so let’s stop between 12 and 15, so I can secure his destiny.”
I’m sure you agree with me that God knows the end from the beginning.
So any time God wants to bless you, He winds your life forward to see how
you will behave under the blessing. He says to Himself, “With a business of
two million naira, how does he behave? Ah! He is walking on his head, he has
divorced his wife.” God then says, “Bring him down, bring him down. What
of one million? Okay he goes to church once a month. But once a month is
not safe. Let’s try him on five hundred thousand.” He is tried on that, and they
discover that he goes to church only twice a month. The Almighty then says
to Himself, “Is it not better to leave him where he was? That way he’ll come
to church four times in a month, and if we drop it further to 30 thousand, he
will come for even Wednesday services.”
Having all your needs met is not only a response to your giving, but to
your living as well. Your lifestyle is what determines your placement with
God. If you know something will hurt your son, would you let him have it?
Would you allow your eleven-year old son drive your car simply because you
have three, and he asked you to allow him drive one of them? Even if your
eleven-year old son says to you, “Daddy/Mummy, I prayed that I would drive
myself to school this year.” You’ll reply him, “Your prayer is not answered”,
because you know it means driving in his coffin to the grave. You know that
his legs cannot even touch the pedal. Even though your boy might have
confessed between December 31 and January 1 that he’s driving himself to
school this year, because you love him, and will not want him dead, you reject
his request. The same way you will resist and will ensure it never happens,
that’s the same way God ensures that what is not safe for you never happens.
There are some whose destinies have been designed to affect nations, but
their present positioning will determine whether that ever comes to light or
not. You will rather have that your child cry for one week than to allow him
drive the car that you know he cannot drive. Even if his mother joins him in
begging you, would you agree? If all your neighbours come together and say,
“What is it? You must be a wicked man. Your boy has been weeping since
yesterday, saying, “I will drive”, what is in driving?” Your reply will be, “You
don’t know anything, just go. I would rather have my son alive than have him
go and kill himself, because he’s crying.” In fact you’ll tell the boy, “Cry the
more. Cry the louder and loudest you can, I won’t give you the keys”.
I have told the Lord, “Wherever I will get to in life that will cause me to
miss my place with You, never let me get there.” You know that far be it that
the Almighty would do wickedness. God does not do wickedly; so whatever
can destroy your destiny, God won’t let it reach your hand. That’s why you
have to pay attention to yourself. You are the greatest enemy of your life and
destiny. The more you open up to God, the greater your destiny becomes.
To have all your needs supernaturally met by God, you must make quality
acquaintance your goal, quality intimacy with God. You must make the fear
of God the guiding principle of your life. It is spirituality that qualifies any
Christian or believer for supernatural prosperity. “I wish above all things that
thou mayest prosper and be in health, even as thy soul prospereth.” Job was a
man that feared God and eschewed evil, a perfect man; and he grew to
become the greatest of all the men in the East. No matter what happens to a
man walking with God, the end is always brighter than the beginning.
You have practiced the law with all commitment, now practice the
lifestyle; a lifestyle that makes God your sole purpose for living. Practice a
lifestyle that makes whatever pleases God turn you on. Let pleasing God
become your way of life. Let everything about God excite you, including all
His plan and purpose. When you get to that point in your life, you will just
come on the automatic. You have struggled enough! The moon never
struggles; it just aligns itself at a particular angle to the sun, and then reflects
its glory.
I want you to have an unusual desperation to know more of God, as it is
the actual basis for true spirituality. True spirituality is not a function of
prayer and fasting, but a function of more knowledge of God (not the
knowledge about God). Too many know about God, very few know God. The
more of Him you know, the more spiritual you naturally become. You don’t
imbibe God’s nature in prayer or through fasting; you imbibe God’s nature
from His word. Jesus said, “The words I speak to you, they are spirit and they
are life.” You “eat” the word, to reflect God’s nature.
The Bible says in 2 Corinthians 3:18,
“As we behold Him in a glass, we are changed from glory to glory as by
the Spirit of the Lord.”
So, the more of Him you discover, the more of His nature you reflect.
Everyone that made it through was desperate for more of God, and true
spirituality is a desperation for more of God; more knowledge of God,
knowing more of God. The more of Him you know, the more like Him you
become.
In Romans 1:28, the Bible says,
“As they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them
over to a reprobate mind, to do those things which are not convenient.”
That is, when you don’t retain God in your knowledge, you become
carnal. Spirituality is the cure for carnality, and the knowledge of God is the
answer to true spirituality. The more of Him you know, the more like Him
you become, and the more like Him you become, the greater your access to
all that He carries. Daniel, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego knew God, and
with that knowledge they became immovable.
You know how Abraham passed that test in Hebrews 11:17-19? Abraham
said, “God is able. I know God. He can raise up sons unto Abraham from
stones. From the much of Him I know, there is nothing He tells me to do that
is calculated against me. God is not working against me; God is for me. If He
said bring Isaac, I won’t discuss it with anybody, I’m carrying Isaac up there.”
I pray that the knowledge of God will stabilize your walk with Him. The
truth is, God is not against you; God is for you. Let me end this chapter with
the testimony of this sister that was correctly positioned for her lifting:
“I joined this commission in 1998. Sometime ago there was a serious
shake up in the Customs service. I was not here at last year’s Shiloh (the
annual convocation of Winners), I was at Owerri on an official assignment.
But immediately I returned, I bought the Shiloh cassettes, and listened to one
of the very powerful teachings titled, ‘God Is All You Need’several times. The
message kept ringing in my ears.
When the restructuring in my office was going on, all I was hearing was
the Bishop telling me that all I needed was God, and I keyed into those words.
Family members, associates, and officers from all over the place were calling
me to ask what I was doing. I told myself I was not going to lobby any human
being, that God was all that I needed. I did not talk to anybody, I was just
praying and believing God that nothing will harm me.
At a time, there was the rumour that those of us who came in through
transfer of service were all going to be retrenched. I said that was not going
to be my portion, after all my daddy in the Lord has told me that all I needed
was God, and I knew I have God. The list of those to be retrenched came out,
and my name was conspicuously missing from the list. Then the 58 commands
nationwide were reduced to 25, so the next anxiety was who were those to
make up the number 25. Again everybody was concerned. I still said, ‘God is
all that I need, and my God who did it before will still do it.’
Finally, the 25 names came out. When there were 58 commands, six
women were part of the 58. With only 25 commands now, to the glory of God,
I am the only woman left!