Psalm 23:5-6 “You prepare a feast for me in the presence of my enemies. You honor me by anointing my head with oil. My cup overflows with blessings. Surely your goodness and unfailing love will pursue me all the days of my life, and I will live in the house of the Lord forever.” Today's episode talks about how great God is. It also talks about how we were anointed to be priest, prophet and king when we were baptized and what that means to us. Music:"Adding the Sun" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
You Are Anointed
Psalm 23:5-6 “You prepare a feast for me in the presence of my enemies. You honor me by anointing my head with oil. My cup overflows with blessings. Surely your goodness and unfailing love will pursue me all the days of my life, and I will live in the house of the Lord forever.”
There is a lot to like about this verse. First. It starts out saying that God will prepare a feast for me in the presence of my enemies. I don’t have to be worried about my enemies as God has got me. He is my shield and my refuge. Now he is saying we will prepare a feast for me. When someone is preparing a meal for us, they are not usually stressed out about it. They aren’t worry about all the things going on around them. Picture this, there is chaos all around you, and yet in front of you is this beautifully set up dining room table. You have a seat and God is bringing you a feast one course at a time. He is not concerned with your enemies because He knows they can’t touch you. You are not concerned either because you just feel so at home, so taken care of. Isn’t that a beautifully relaxing image?
Next the verse says that God honors us by anointing our head with oil. Did you know that you have an anointing on your life? We all do. Did you know through your baptism you were anointed to be priest, prophet and king? It’s true, just as Christ was all three of these, you are also anointed to be these three things to your community. What does that mean for us?
Let’s start with priest. Drawing on the priesthood of the Old Testament, a priest is one who offers sacrifices (see Genesis 14:18; Exodus 29:38- 42; Leviticus 23:6,8). Some sacrifices are personal, and some are on behalf of others. These sacrifices will look different for each one of us depending on our circumstances. However, sacrifice to some degree should be a part of our every day life. I have tried to embrace this a little more this year, so I am fasting from one thing each month. I will switch it up each month, but there will always be something I am fasting from. I think this will help me to appreciate things more and it will also show me that I am not a slave to that thing. For instance, if I feel like I just can’t stop eating chocolate, then I will fast from that for a month. By the end of the year I will have shown God and myself that I do not need these things. I will have also made a small sacrifice each month for 12 months.
Next we have prophet. A prophet is a spokesperson for God, or one who speaks on God’s behalf (see Exodus 4:30; Deuteronomy 18:18; Isaiah 42:19). In the Old and New Testaments, prophets called people to a different way of life. Can we be a spokesperson for God by how we live our lives? Can we live in a way that when people see us they think to themselves, “I want what they have?” Can we call others to a different way of life, not necessarily with our words, but with our love? Can we love others as Jesus did? Can we speak love and light into the world, into people’s lives? Can we be prophets?
Lastly, we are anointed as kings. What are kings called to do? Usually rule over others. We are called to rule over ourselves first and foremost. We are all responsible for making sure we are living our lives according to God’s laws. Most kings are called to rule over others, however, as Christians we are called to servant leadership. A servant leader leads by serving others. In other words, servant leaders place the interests and needs of their followers ahead of their own self-interests and needs. Generally, they value the development of their followers, building their communities, acting authentically, and sharing power.
Now that we know what each one of these means, hopefully we can apply this to our every day life. God has anointed us in our every day tasks too. For instance, I was anointed to be a mother and a wife. That was where God called me and that is what He set me apart to do. Maybe you are anointed to be a doctor, a lawyer, a pharmacy tech, a garbage collector, a grandmother, a teacher, whatever it is, God has anointed you to do it. Your baptismal anointing is not meant to replace any of those other calls on your life. You are anointed to be a priest, prophet and king in the life you are already living. Think about your day to day life, how can you incorporate sacrifice into your days? How can you be more of a prophet spreading the Lord’s Word in your daily lives? How can you be more of a servant leader right now, right where you are?
The verse then goes on to say my cup overflows with blessings. This is also great imagery. I love to picture a tea cup, as we grew up drinking tea in my family. Although I don’t picture a regular tea cup, the image I am getting is an English fancy tea cup from a china set. The tea is being poured into it with a steady stream and the cup is overflowing and running all over the table and even onto the floor. This is how many blessing God has for you. He wants to rain down blessings upon blessings on all of His children. Sometimes we get in the way of God’s blessings. Sometimes we don’t appreciate the blessings that we have and so why would God give us more? Sometimes we find ourselves complaining about all that is going on in our lives instead of praising God and giving thanksgiving. God has ridiculous blessings for you. All you have to do is believe that and then praise God for any blessings, even if they are small. If you can be faithful with the small He will increase your blessings. He is a good, good Father!
The ending of this verse is beautiful. “Surely your goodness and unfailing love will pursue me all the days of my life, and I will live in the house of the Lord forever.” We had this word pursue the other day. I love that word. This verse is saying that God’s goodness and unfailing love will pursue us all the day of our lives. Isn’t that wonderful? We don’t have to chase after God, because He is already chasing after us. All we have to do is to let ourselves be caught by God’s goodness and unfailing love. Unfailing love is not like any love we can find here on earth. It is an incredible love that knows no limits, that knows no boundaries. God’s love never leaves us. No matter how much we may try to run from it. No matter how much we try to reject it or send it back. No matter how much we might mess up. God’s unfailing love will pursue you every single day of your life. How incredible is that?
And the very last part of the verse says, “I will live in the house of the Lord forever.” Yes please! I want to live in the house of the Lord forever. I think we all do. It is so amazing to me that God has an open door policy to heaven. All our welcome. Come as you are, in your broken and wounded state. You do not have to earn your way, you don’t have to do anything to get there. Jesus has earned you your right to be there. All you have to do is surrender to God and let Him help you, let Him give you the strength to follow Him. Following God is not always an easy road but it is a rewarding road and one that leads to spending eternity living in the house of the Lord.
Dear Heavenly Father, I ask you to bless all those listening today. Lord, we thank you for loving us like you do. We thank you for preparing us a feast in the presence of our enemies. We thank you for the ridiculous blessings you want to give us and we are sorry if we get in your way of doing that. We thank you for making us priest, prophet, and king and we ask for your help in discovering what that means for each one of us and how we can incorporate that anointing into our lives. We love you Lord and we can’t wait to live in your house forever! We ask all of this in accordance with your will and in Jesus’ holy name, Amen!
Thank you so much for joining me on this journey to walk boldly with Jesus. I look forward to bringing you another witness tomorrow. Last night in my class we had a guest speaker named Jim Baker, and he was amazing. The whole first hour of class he gave testimony to all the amazing healings he has seen. His church has seen 18 people raised from the dead. And this is right here in the United States, right in Ohio. The people who did this were everyday ordinary people. It was incredible to hear and I will share a few of those stories with you tomorrow. You won’t want to miss it. Remember Jesus loves you, and so do I! Have a blessed day!