Understanding the AnointingBut Jesus didn't always just lay hands on people, and people
didn't always touch Him. He ministered to people in various
ways.
One time He spat on the ground, made clay of the spittle,
rubbed it on a blind man's eyes, and said, "Go, wash in the pool
of Siloam ... He went his way therefore, and washed, and came
seeing" (John 9:7).
Do you think Jesus did that because He laid awake nights
trying His best to think up something different? No, He was
suddenly anointed by the Spirit of God. God will use people in
different ways.
On another occasion they brought a man who was deaf and
had a speech impediment to Jesus. The Bible says Jesus put His
fingers into the man's ears, spat, and touched his tongue. "And
straightway his ears were opened, and the string of his tongue
was loosed, and he spake plain" (Mark 7:35).
Why do you think Jesus did that to him? Did He think, Well,
I spat on the ground and rubbed it on the blind man's eyes. I l l
try it here and see i f it works? No, He didn't make a practice of
that; there aren't that many references to it. Still, I'm sure He did
it more often than the Word of God tells us, because the
anointing was there to do it. And when it's done under the
anointing, it works.
The Bible only tells us a little of what Jesus did. John said,
"And there are also many other things which Jesus did, the
which, i f they should be written every one, I suppose that even
the world itself could not contain the books that should be
written" (John 21:25).
I don't minister in all the ways that Jesus ministered; I never
spit on anybody! Yet somebody might minister that way and that
might be the only way they'd minister, because their anointing is
there.
One of the founding fathers of the Assemblies of God
movement told me personally of such a case while we were
talking along these lines.