Understanding the Anointingrepeated it often doesn't make it so! Something isn't so just
because we thought it was so.
I want you to see something here that can hinder you from
entering into the blessings God wants you to have.
In 1947, I picked up a religious periodical and read that
Smith Wigglesworth had gone to be with the Lord at age 87. I
felt a great loss. I remember I went into my church and fell
across the altar. I didn't know the man personally, but I had read
about him constantly, actually wearing his books out, until
something from him rubbed off on me.
You feel an emptiness—a vacuum—when a man of God of
that caliber leaves—a man who had had 23 people raised from
the dead in his ministry.
People asked, "I wonder on whom his mantle will fall?" In
my ignorance, I, too, thought that the mantle is the anointing,
and it would fall at random on somebody.
But that's not correct. The mantle symbolizes the anointing.
Furthermore, the mantle is not decreed to fall upon some
particular individual—and it doesn't. The mantle doesn't even
come to you that way!
How, then, did Elisha get Elijah's mantle and a double
portion of the prophet's anointing? He followed Elijah closely.
As we saw earlier, you get the same anointing by association,
environment, and influence.
No doubt you'll be led of the Lord to follow certain
ministries, but there are certain things that ministers need to be
warned about in this regard. I'm in my 49th year of ministry.
You stumble upon a few things in 49 years.
If you are going to follow somebody, be sure they are
following the Lord. If they get off a little—just a little—don't
follow that. Learn faith from them, but don't follow them too
closely.
Remember these three things:
First, have the call of God on your life.