Ps.145:18 – The LORD is near to all who call upon Him,
To all who call upon Him in truth.
This is the most amazing thing of all to me about the anointing, the anointing is the assurance of God’s nearness. You see the anointing is not singing or preaching real good or even real passionately. There are many public speakers and singers that have great talent, even God given talent, that have no inkling of the anointing. Just because someone hits a great note singing in church that is not proof of the anointing. Actually the anointing is not a feeling or some special effect given by God. The anointing is God Himself, God the Holy Spirit is the anointing. Calling upon God in truth is calling on Him Biblically, we must come to Him through Jesus Christ. Jesus is the only door and calling on God through His name brings us into His nearness. Here is how Spurgeon describes this.
“Not only near by his omnipresence, but to sympathize and favor. He does not leave praying men, and men who confess his name, to battle with the world alone, but he is ever at their side. This favor is not for a few of those who invoke him; but for each one of the pious company. “All” who place themselves beneath the shield of his glorious name by calling themselves by it, and by calling upon it in supplication, shall find him to be a very present help in trouble. “To all that call upon him in truth”: for there are many whose formal prayers and false professions will never bring them into communion with the Lord. To pray in truth, we must have a true heart, and the truth in our heart; and then we must be humble, for pride is a falsehood; and be earnest, or else prayer is a lie.”
One of the major hubs of the Great Awakening in the 1700’s was Northampton, Massachusetts. Jonathan Edwards was the pastor during that time and his wife was famously effected by the outpouring of the Spirit. She became aware of His nearness by the touch of God. This is what she said, “The great part of the night I lay awake, sometimes asleep, and sometimes between sleeping and waking. But all night I continued in a constant, clear and lively sense of the heavenly sweetness of Christ’s excellent and transcendent love, of his nearness to me, and of my dearness to him ; with an inexpressibly sweet calmness of soul in an entire rest in him.”
Like David and Sarah Edwards I am going rest in God’s nearness to me.
