The famous American author Mark Twain once said, “I can live for two months on a good compliment.” Though history leaves us uncertain of his religious beliefs, at least we find him in agreement with Scripture on this occasion. Proverbs 18:21 says, “Death and life are in the power of the tongue.” Twain’s words lead us to an important observation: the contemporary soul of this generation is starving for affirmation.
In and of itself, that isn’t wrong. The problem is, people will receive it wherever and from whomever they can get it. I’m convinced they’ll even accept a dog’s wagging tail at the door as conclusive evidence that they’ve been wonderfully affirmed. Their souls are so starved for affirmation that they fail to discriminate the source.
A businessman finds his affirmation in the latest deal he’s made. An actor finds his affirmation in the accolades showered upon him after his latest performance. A misguided young girl gets her affirmation in the backseat of a Chevy. Or a mother’s rebellious son finds it belonging to a local gang in the inner cities of our nation.
I, too, as a Christian, am as vulnerable to a sincere compliment as the next man. I personally love words and acts of affirmation. They can serve as oxygen to our souls and lift our spirits. However, I’ve come to believe that it is only the Father’s affirmation that will carry the Church through the hard and difficult times on the journey to the fulfillment of her destiny. It is the Father’s affirmation that under-girds us during Satan’s assaults upon our self-image and true identity. Human affirmation falls short in the warfare we wage against our enemy. Paul clearly informs the Church of this divine source of affirmation when he writes in the book of Romans, “The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God:…” (Rom. 8:16)
As is secular society, the Church in our day is engaged in a desperate search for affirmation wherever and from whomever she can get it. She, too, doesn’t always discriminate its source. If she’s not seeking for human acceptance, she requires her preachers to pump it out every Sunday morning. If they fail to affirm her, she becomes offended and frustrated. Soon she finds another pabulum-pumping preacher down the road who will spoon-feed her from the pulpit and tell her how wonderful she is. There was a better time when the Father’s affirmation, through the witness of the Spirit, was all she required.
The affirmation of God is not an end in itself. It is a means to an end. When God affirms you (firms up your mushy self-image), it is a call to begin a journey to a place in God you have never been before. It is the inauguration of an intimate journey with the Lord which culminates in the double portion anointing! Whether it is through answered prayer, a prophetic word, a miracle, an outbreak of revival, or an unexpected blessing, simply stated, the Father’s affirmation is a call to pursue! And who pursue? The hungry. They follow after with a heart that beats for Him with a passionate quest of His grandeur. Combining David’s desire and Moses’ fervent desperation, they cry, “Show me Your glory!”
We often miss the true implications of our visitations, encounters, and touches from God. We want a touch, but God doesn’t want to give us just a touch. He wants to give us a destiny. We’ve allowed those affirmations to become nothing more than a fading memory-an ancient testimony-instead of what they were designed to be: a hot pursuit into all that God has for us and a pilgrimage to attain the double portion anointing.
The sad commentary is that all too many times, we’ve wasted our supernatural visitations, divine encounters, and glimpses of God and reduced them to a feel-good affirmation. We run to conferences and revival meetings to experience a ‘touch’ only to return home to business as usual. We stop at ‘goose bumps’ and ‘doodads’ that tickle our skin and run up and down our spine. Though these emotional encounters are part of the way the Lord designed us to experience the spillover of the heavenly into the natural, we cannot let it end there!
Our response has to extend beyond, “Wow, what a service! Wow, the whole church was reduced to tears and brokenness at the altar! Wow, didn’t that message wreck the house!” Yes, God affirmed us-and that’s the very reason why our walk has to go beyond weeping and shouting at an altar, only to return to church next Sunday for a repeat performance of the same. We’re looking for another Holy Ghost experience, but God is looking for us to begin a passionate, engaging encounter with Him until the transformation of nations becomes a common occurrence.
It is time for the Church of the new millennium to move from the place of affirmation to the place of anointing. We can no longer be gluttons for approval. We have to change our posture from that of Pentecostal thrill seekers to those engaged in vigorous pursuits as God seekers. We need to graduate from the thrill of an encounter to a pursuit of God that ends in an anointing that can change our world!
It bears repeating: We often miss the true implication of our visitations and touches. Every healing, every deliverance, every answered prayer, and every prophetic word you receive is not an end in itself. It is really a call to pursue. It is God summoning you to embark upon a journey into new spiritual territory. Every God encounter, however meager or magnificent, prods us to continue deeper into Holy Spirit reality. Every blessing is a new grace to press on. Don’t waste the Father’s embrace. Don’t cheapen divine approbation. Don’t squander a heavenly call.
Perhaps the most powerful example is that of Elisha, found in the book of I Kings. When we first see Elisha, he is “driving the twelfth” of twelve pairs of oxen and eating the dust of eleven plows turning the soil in front of him. Suddenly and unannounced, the old prophet Elijah, on assignment from God, slips up behind Elisha while he is plowing, casts his rough, camel-hair mantle over the young farmer's shoulders, and then moves on (I Kings 19:19-21).
I admire Elisha’s response to the touch of Elijah’s mantle upon his shoulders. It serves as a model for the believer today. Elisha understood that the encounter with the mantle wasn’t an end in itself, but rather a prodding to go on, to press through and advance toward his destiny. It was designed to whet his appetite and create a hunger that demanded satisfaction.
It was more than a feel-good experience that affirmed him in the eyes of the other farmers in the field. It was a foretaste and announcement of something far greater. It was this experience with the mantle in the field that goaded Elisha in his pursuit of Elijah’s double portion anointing. He burned all his bridges behind him and started on a journey that would take him to the fullness of what he had only merely sampled: the transference of the mantle that empowered His master.
You may be brushed with a mantle as you read these words. If that happens, what will you do? What will you make out of it? God may take the initiative and you may be kissed with destiny. How will you respond? Will you store it in your memory bank, and let it end there? Or will you transform it into a pursuit that will forever change the landscape of your life and catapult you into an anointing that destroys the works of the devil on every front of your life?
Coming into contact with the mantle of affirmation is the grace incentive to endure the journey to the double portion. Those that are determined to receive this incredible measure, be it known to you that you will have to withstand the hardship of the wilderness! It is unavoidable and inevitable. There is no way to bypass it. When you encounter this dry and desolate place, your response is key. For, if the truth be told, your response to your wilderness determines the level of your anointing!
(From "The Double Portion Anointing")
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