Leaning On The Anointing | Pastor John Greiner

This message, “Leaning on the Anointing,” explores the difference between the Holy Spirit within believers for personal salvation and the Holy Spirit upon believers for serving others with power. Drawing from Scripture and personal testimonies, the Pastor John Greiner emphasizes the baptism of the Holy Ghost as essential for effective ministry—bringing healing, deliverance, and hope to the broken, bound, blind, and bruised. Through real-life stories, the sermon calls believers to stay engaged with life, move with compassion, grow spiritually, and boldly rely on God’s anointing to help others reach their milestones, reminding listeners that true impact comes from leaning fully on the power God provides.

Chapters

• 0:00 Opening Prayer And Scripture Setup
• 0:47 Jesus’ Mission And Anointing Explained
• 2:03 Anointing Within Vs Anointing Upon
• 4:03 Why The Baptism Of The Holy Ghost Matters
• 6:00 Testimonies As Milestones For Others
• 8:20 Tongues And Power For Service
• 10:20 Learning To Lean On The Anointing
• 12:20 Stirring Up Boldness When Intimidated
• 15:20 Story: India Trip And No-Atmosphere Ministry
• 18:10 Rekindle The Gift: Practical Stirring
• 20:00 The Church’s Role And Need For Power
• 22:20 Building The Within To Fuel The Upon
• 24:00 Three Keys From Jesus To Minister
• 24:40 Key 1: Stay Engaged And Be Bold
• 27:20 Story: Burned Hand Healed By Bold Action
• 30:20 Key 2: Move With Compassion’s Nudge
• 32:00 Story: Two Visits And A New Heart
• 37:00 Key 3: Grow In Wisdom And Use
• 39:00 Story: Gymnast Healed And A Second Miracle
• 47:30 Call To Stir The Anointing And Close

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:00

Reach down and pick up our Bibles. Thank you, worship team. That was beautiful. Beautiful job. Hallelujah. Let's lift our Bibles up, wave them around, make Jesus glad, the devil mad. Let's say this together. Say, Heavenly Father, we adore Jesus. We magnify you, Father. We're so thankful that you sent him to save us from our sins. You sent him to heal us. You sent us to redeem us from destruction. And we are redeemed. Let the redeemed of the Lord say so. And we talk about it all the time. Jesus is Lord. Amen. Alright, you can be seated now. I've got a few places for us to look. We'll flip through the Bible together. Luke chapter 4, verse 18. It's all in the New Testament, so it's not very far apart. Luke 4, 18, we'll start with that. And Jesus is speaking in his own hometown. And uh in the synagogue where he was raised, and he found the place in the book of Isaiah where it was written about himself. And he read Isaiah chapter 60. We're going to read what he said there in Luke 4.18. He said, The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor, he hath sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised, to preach the acceptable year of the Lord. And then in Acts chapter 10, verse 38, how God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Ghost and power, who went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed of the devil, for God was with him, or God was upon him. And then in Acts 1.8, right after the resurrection, Jesus is about to be lifted off and be ascended into seat and take his seating at the right hand of the Father. And he told the disciples not to leave Jerusalem and but uh to wait for the promise of the Father. And uh verse 5, for John truly baptized with water, but you shall be baptized with the Holy Ghost not many days hence. Verse 8, but you shall receive power after that the Holy Ghost has come upon you. Everybody shout upon you. And you shall be witnesses unto me, both in Jerusalem and in Judea and in Samaria and unto the uttermost part of the earth. And so today I wanted to share a message entitled Leaning on the Anointing. Leaning or depending on the Anointing. You know what a privilege it is to be anointed by the Holy Ghost. And every believer, of course, by definition, if you are a believer, then you've been born of the Spirit. When a person is born again, Jesus said you can't see the kingdom of God much less enter into the kingdom unless you're born again or born of the Spirit. So every believer is born of the Spirit. But then there's something else that has to happen or should happen to every believer after they're born of the Spirit. That is, they should be filled with the Spirit. And that's what he's talking about here in Acts chapter 1, verse 8. He said, Don't leave home without it to his disciples. Don't you dare try to go out into all the world, preach the gospel like Jesus did. What was the anointing for? The anointing upon him was for something different than the anointing within him. See, when you got born again, you didn't get born again for your neighbor. You didn't get born again for your family, you didn't get born again for anybody else, but you. So the Holy Ghost took up residence in you when you got saved and you've got the anointing within you. Act, you know, 1 John 2.27, but the anointing which we have received dwelleth in you. Well, that's talking about the anointing within. Well, we thank God for that anointing. But this morning, I'm talking about the anointing that we experienced last Sunday when we heard all these testimonies. I mean, we heard lots of wonderful. Didn't your bones get fat last Sunday? Listen to all this good news. I mean, listen to everybody's testimony about what God has done. We saw people that we heard about people that got saved at the very last minute, but right before they went to heaven. I mean, 30 some odd years of witnesses, somebody, and all of a sudden they get saved. Donna was talking about her cousin, you know. You know, she prayed for him all those years, you know. I mean, I had an uncle like that, you know, got saved on his deathbed. He's God is better better late than never. Talk about a milestone, and what an honor it is for the anointing upon us. See, you know, the anointing upon us is for other people. And so that's another experience called the baptism of the Holy Ghost. Jesus talked to the woman of the well and talked to her about everlasting life being a uh a well of water springing up in her. But then in John chapter 7, Jesus talked about uh, you know, rivers of living water flowing out of us. You know, if any man thirst, let him come unto me and drink, and out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water. Well, there's a big difference between a well and rivers. And so that suggests then that after we get saved, that there should be an experience called the baptism of the Holy Ghost. That's what he's talking about in Acts chapter 1, verses 8. You don't have all the equipment you need. You're born again. You're good, you're set for yourself, but you're not much good for anybody else. I just think about the whole church today on earth. We've got, really, we've got billions of people that are saved, but very few people really are filled with the Holy Ghost like they ought to be. And we we need an awakening. I mean, and and part of that awakening is for good Bible-believing Christians to realize that if they're trying to do anything for God without the baptism of the Holy Ghost, in other words, without the anointing upon them, like Jesus said he had. Jesus said the Spirit of the Lord is upon me because he's anointed me to minister to five groups of people the broke, the brokenhearted, the bound, the blind, and the bruised. Well, there's still of that five groups of people on the earth today, and if you're just saved, I mean, you've got a limited amount of ability to help them, but when you get baptized in the Holy Ghost, oh, praise God, what an honor it is to have the anointing. And we need to learn to lean on it. See, this message is just one message out of a series that I did a number of years ago on the value of the anointing. You know, we just finished Thanksgiving. You know, one of the things we ought to do, you know, is we ought to be thankful every day, not just once a year. And when you think about, when I think about, when I start thanking God, I start thinking about how He's used me to bring milestones in other people's lives. Yet, do I need a milestone? Yeah, I can stand to have one, but you know what? Thank God there's something else that I can do. I can give them away. I can be an instrument of God's plan in other people's lives to bring them into their milestone. Oh, what an honor. What an honor. And so, you know, if we I you know, we focused on milestones for ourselves this year, and that's not wrong. I believe God wanted us to focus on that. But let's here at Christmas season, we're thinking about gifting, and we've got the trees up and we're decorated for Christmas, and we've got the custom of giving gifts. We've been given the greatest gift there is, Jesus. And through Jesus, we've been given another greater gift, the baptism of the Holy Ghost, with the evidence of speaking in other tongues. You can't, I mean, tongues come with it, folks. I mean, I've been around people saying, Oh, I'm just as filled as you are. Well, do you speak in? No, I said, Well, then you're not. I mean, it just comes with it. It's like a pair of shoes. It comes with a tongue. I've got the I've got some sneakers. They got, you know, got a mile worth of laces. I hate lacing up sneakers. I mean, you know, to lace those things up, tie them and they come untied, and, you know, uh big old long tongue, and then you put your foot in there and the tongue gets wrinkled up, you know, and it and you it takes a long time to. And nowadays for me to bend all the way over and get all the way down to the floor and pull that tongue out of my shoe, well, it's kind of a challenge. It's more of a challenge than it used to be in my younger days. So I've converted over to uh loafers now. I know the loafer is for the loafer. Doesn't want to bend down, then want to tie his shoes. Everybody say, tongues. Oh, it's it's it's an it's such a such a blessing to be filled with the Holy Ghost and to be able to be used. He said, You shall receive power, told his disciples, don't leave, don't, don't, don't go out here. Go into all the world, but don't leave yet. Wait till you get endued with power from on high. You will get power after the Holy Ghost comes what? Upon you. See, they already had him inside, but now that he comes, he's gonna come upon them. Jesus is how he ministered. He went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed of the devil, for he was the Son of God. Well, yeah, he was the Son of God, but that's not why people got healed, and that's not why people got delivered. They got delivered by a man anointed with God, a man that was filled with the Holy Ghost. So he's our example, isn't he? And so this idea of milestones, I'm just thinking about how it's so wonderful to be able to not only have a milestone for ourselves, but also to give people milestones in their lives and be an instrument of God's love. And so uh we want to lean on the anointing or learn to depend on the anointing. You know, sometimes we face needs that are so great that it seems a little overwhelming and we feel overmatched. Somebody's got it, somebody's right in front of us, and and they've got a need, and we're feeling like, man, I don't think I have faith for that. I don't know, I don't know if I'm qualified. We start looking around maybe to find somebody more qualified to pray for this person. Maybe they've got stage four this or stage five that, or maybe they've got, you know, uh all kinds of financial issues, this, that, and the other. And we we start kind of backing up, we get intimidated. And uh it's not hard to get intimidated. I think about uh this gospel group. Uh brother Tom is a gospel singer and knows a lot of gospel groups, Wendy Bagwell and the Sunlighters. And Wendy Bagwell and the Sunliders were a gospel, and they are still a gospel group, but they got invited to this little church up in Appalachian Mountains to sing, you know, and so they get all their equipment and and to get the service started, a little one-room uh church up in the uh up in the trees, you know, the just a little old, little old church, you know, 50-60 people. And they get to play it and singing, and I mean, the Holy Ghost comes. It's a Pentecostal church. I mean, they're there they're rolling, boy. I mean, everybody's enthused, everybody, the anointing is falling and everything, and boy, there's a lot of activity, and boy, they're there, well, this is a hit so far. And then uh the pastor gets up and goes up to the front, and uh he's on the front row. He walks over to the right in front of those guys where they were singing. They had their guitar and their and everything, their bass, all their instruments, and they're singing. And he opens this basket and pulls out a big old rattlesnake. They'd been invited by a snake handling church, leaving handling snakes. And so uh Wendy says to one of the guys, he says, uh, reckon they do they have a back door in this place? He said, No, I don't think so. I think the only door they got is the one we came in the front end. I think that's the only. He said, Wonder where do they want one? See, when he was ready to make his own way out of there. And have you ever felt like you were looking for some place to go besides where you were? I mean, that's kind of how I felt the first time, you know, that I went to India on my own. I'd gone to India with Brother Osteen before, and he's the man of the hour. He's the man that's leading everything, he's the man that's preaching, and I'm there to help him, and all of that, and so it's all on him. I mean, I'm just along for the ride, I'm carrying his bags, I'm, you know, helping him. But this time, you know, Jay and I were in Bombay, and this is my first trip after we started the church. We were there and uh doing a minister's conference in the morning, and at night we had some meetings that were more designed for uh non-believers, and the way that they our first, it was our first ever meeting, so I didn't have any really any churches behind us. We didn't have anybody helping us, it's just a ministry we that we were there to bless. Brother Vargeese, Mahanadon Fellowship as a Bible school. But they didn't have a lot of churches helping us. We had a church building for that night. It was in a suburb of Bombay, and so they opened the windows and they so that the sound could go out on the sidewalk. It's busy outside, people milling around, and so they had a team out there trying to bring people around so they could hear the message that I was going to preach and maybe get ministered to by the, you know, that way. And it was kind of, you know, it was it was we learned from that. Didn't do that again because that wasn't very effective. We had other ways to do it later. But this was our very first church uh trip. So I'm sitting there in this church, and the praise team is up on the platform and they're they're playing something I've never heard. Of course, I don't understand the language, and I know I didn't know the music, and I, but I could understand flat, and it was flat. I mean, it was not on key, it was it was horrible. And I'm sitting there thinking, oh my God, you know, this is what am I gonna do? There is absolutely no anointing in this place. Where's the anointing? There's no anointing in here. This is so dry. And I'm just complaining to the Lord under my breath, you know, just I'm kind of half panic. I'm looking for a door out. I'm really looking for a place. Can I get out of here? Can I leave now? And uh, you know, just so sweetly say, Well, you know, I didn't have a praise team when I ministered. I turned, I turned red, I was embarrassed, you know. And I said, Well, you're right, Lord. I I I've got I've the word is anointed that I'm gonna bring, and I and I'm anointed. I'm just that's all that's necessary. Praise God. I'm just so I started just, you know, I started just talking like it to myself, you know, and by the time I got up there, the anointing was upon me. I mean, I I had to learn, you know, this is what we have when we have Brother Mark and Trina come in here. They go to places where there's not a flick of anointing anywhere. You couldn't find it any place. Most of the churches they go to is an anointing, but there's a lot of places they go, there's no anointing. So they're geared for that. They know how to minister when there's no real supporting, you know, worship and all of that kind of thing. It's valuable to have that. We had that this morning. It's wonderful. It it sets the place setting, but I'm telling you, if I didn't have a worship team, we'd still have the anointing. Are y'all with me now? Praise God. You gotta learn to lean on it. I had to I had to start leaning on what I knew I had. I had to know I had it too. Are y'all with me now? So uh stir up, you know, the anointing that is upon you when you face those kind of things. I like the amplified 2 Timothy 1 6. Rekindle the embers, fan the flame, and keep burning the gracious gift of God. Start talking about it, start talking like you're anointed. Start thanking God that you're anointed. Because if you've received the baptism of the Holy Ghost, you are anointed. If you haven't received the baptism of the Holy Ghost, come up here this morning and get it. Because it's the hours late and you don't have time to walk through life with one arm or both arms tied behind your back. That's what really, I mean, a target on you, on besides that. I mean, you need the full manifestation. You said, He said, after the Holy Ghost has come upon you, you should receive power. And the word power there is the word, it means ability, efficiency, and might. Everybody say ability, efficiency and might. I mean, don't we need that? We've got a lot of work to do. I mean, we've got a lot of work to do in this nation. I mean, it's there's a lot of good things that have happened this year, but the more the further we go every day, we find out how horrible our government is, how rotten to the core. Every single aspect of the federal government is rotten. It stinks like a barrel of rotten fish. Have you ever smelled that? I have. Man, it's it's pretty rough. And so that's what we have. And who's gonna fix it? The church. The church has got something to say about it. We might not get finished with it before Jesus comes, but we're gonna start on it. Amen. So we must lean on the anointing. We have it. We now let's let's stir it up. You know, it's not a matter about how you feel, it's not a matter of how great the need. It's just all about leaning on and trusting in the anointing upon you. See, there's the anointing say the anointing within. See, that's for you. That's for your that's your word life and your and your prayer life. And that that the basis of the anointing within you. See, is the basis for the anointing upon you. If you have a strong anointing within you, you'll always have a strong anointing upon you that's always available, and all you have to do is stir it up when you need it. Amen. Now, I've seen preachers that they they got they got weak, and others that got weak in the anointing within, their word life and their prayer life starts to suffer. They get distracted with other things, they get so busy working for God, they don't have any time to spend with God, and they wear themselves out and they do this and they do that, or they get distracted by the cares of this world, the deceitfulness of riches, the lust of other things entering in, and they get more interested in carnal pursuits, and there's nothing wrong with golf. But if all you want to do is play golf instead of study the Bible, well then you need your priorities are messed up. Nothing wrong with any pursuits, hunting and fishing, whatever the pursuit is, nothing wrong with having it, but it needs to have an order below your prayer life and your word life. And I've seen that. I've seen people just kind of wither on the vine, and then they keep showing up for meetings, and there's an anointing upon them. But at some point in time, that anointing just starts to fall off because this is dried up. Everybody say the anointing within. But this morning I'm really wanting us to think about the anointing upon. And that is for other people to help other people get their milestone. So Jesus is our example. And so we're going to have three, I want to give you three things this morning that I see in the Bible that Jesus did that helps us lean on the anointing. Number one, in Acts 10, 38, we read it. Jesus went about doing good. So point number one, don't withdraw from life, stay engaged. Don't withdraw from life, stay engaged. I mean, if you have trouble, and who doesn't? If I go across this congregation, all of us are facing some amount of trouble somewhere. It's either in our family, it's in our finances, it's in our body, it's in our mind, it's somewhere. And you're facing trouble. So what the devil tries to do is, well, you're disqualified. You've got too much trouble. You can't help anybody. He's a liar. He's a liar. It's irrelevant. The anointing upon you is plenty good for you, no matter what you're going through. It's plenty good for you to help somebody else. So stay engaged. You know, you have to pray for boldness. You know, in Acts chapter 4, uh the disciples went out, you know, right after Jesus lifted off the earth. Peter and John went to the gate beautiful to pray at the hour of prayer, and they found that lame man. They got him healed, and he went walking, leaping, praising God. It opened up a whole bunch of persecution, and they started rebuking them and started telling them to quit teaching and preaching in that name. I don't want, we don't want to hear that name. And so they had a big, they had a big prayer meeting. And they got together in Acts chapter 4. And that signs and wonders may be done in the name of your holy child Jesus. See, they they prayed for boldness. They prayed, we're gonna double down, we're gonna even be more bold. You're gonna try to get us to hide our flame under a bushel or under a basket. No, we're gonna glow, we're gonna, we're gonna be a bright and shining light. We don't care whether you like it or you don't. If we're rubbing the cat's fur the wrong way, let the cat turn around. Amen. So they what? They prayed for boldness. I mean, watch, it takes boldness. You know, when somebody, when when God, when you're going about, see, you go about in your world, you going about in your workplace, you go about in your family, you go about in your neighborhood, you go up wherever you go about, you keep stay engaged because you're gonna find somebody that needs what you've got. And when they when they show up, it's gonna look like, oh, I better not get involved. No, be bold. Be bold. One time I was, we were uh hadn't been saved very long, a few months. We were going, we had a dual track, I had a dual track uh discipleship program. I went to Lakewood and I was connected there. But I also was involved with Full Gospel Businessmen, Full Gospel uh Businessmen's Fellowship International. I'm I'm a lifetime member, so I went there twice a month. Uh morning meeting on a Saturday morning and a night meeting Saturday night. So every two weeks we were at a meeting and uh got to know these guys. They were from all different kinds of backgrounds, Methodist, Baptist, you know, different ones, but they're all filled with the Holy Ghost. And uh but anyway, we were out at my sister's house. Both my sisters and their fam, most of their families were out there, and Gladys and I and our kids, and we were in the backyard sitting around the patio listening to a uh testimony on a cassette tape on a Saturday afternoon. I mean, that's how we spent time. We didn't, I mean, we didn't have a barbecue like everybody else. We're listening to tapes, you know. We're all on fire. My whole family got saved within a few months of each other. It's amazing, really. I mean, it's it's very unusual. It's an unusual thing. So we're sitting back there listening to this tape, and and so my oldest sister's uh youngest son, Dennis, come busting through the gate, and he was holding his hand and he looked distressed. And I looked closer and I could see tears running down. He's trying not to cry, but he's crying, he's hurt. And went over to my sister and whispered to her, Oh, Dennis, you know, she has this loud voice, you know. She, oh, Dennis just burned his hand, like that, you know, and it reverberated across the entire neighborhood. Everybody knew something had happened to her baby. But he had they were driving an old car and they'd come over to to be with the family, and the muffler had fallen off, and and he got underneath the uh the car and and came came across the exhaust pipe, and it was just red hot, and it burnt a circle right in the center of his right hand. It was it'll ph, you know, and you know, man, a burn in your hand, it hurts, and it was a pretty big burn all the way around this, you know. So he was trying not to cry, he's about 14. Well, I didn't think about it. I just busted, I was sitting across the patio from him, and I I bolted up and walked across there and grabbed his hand, and I said, In the name of Jesus be and I slapped my right hand on top of his right hand, just like, in the name of Jesus be healed in Jesus' name, like that. And he blinked, you know, like he it was the funniest look on his face. It's like it's like somebody hit him right in the jaw. I thought his eyes are gonna roll back in his head. But the anointing hit him in every bit of the pain, instantly left him. See, boldness. I mean, I couldn't even believe I did that. I mean, that's her boy. Why don't she pray? Why am I involved? I'm just Uncle John. What am I what am I doing getting involved? Well, see, sometimes, you know, when you pray for boldness, you'll you'll insert yourself. And he got a milestone. He didn't get saved for years. I finally, he finally did get saved. Now today he's saved, and and his wife is saved, and his kids are saved, and they go to church there and they're in church. But that way, way back when he needed something, he needed proof when he was a teenager that God was real. Are y'all with me now? So stay engaged. See, I I just I'm gonna be I'm gonna be a witness. I'm gonna testify in my world. I'm gonna go about in my world. Are you with me now? All right, and then the second thing five times in the Gospels it says that Jesus moved with compassion. And especially regard to healing, he moved with compassion and healed their sick. And so the second point is obey that nudge of love and concern and even pity for others, and let it guide you to those who will receive. I mean, when you when you when you have that concerning someone, and you find out about them and you hear and you know that, that is that's compassion. That is the Holy Ghost saying that's the place they have a need. You've got a supply. Everybody say, I've got a supply because of the baptism of the Holy Ghost. Because of the baptism of the Holy Ghost. See, that's the purpose of the baptism, be a supply to everybody else's need. So uh one time I we were uh I had uh the house that we were living in was one of the houses that I that I had built in uh Cantelite Hills. It had an island kitchen, and the the sink was in the island, so anyway, I'd I had to I'd get up early in the morning. Again, I was just saved a few months, but my I'd I'd gotten on the uh the program of getting up early, reading my Bible, praying in tongues, and having my prayer life, and I had a room in the house downstairs. It was a uh kind of that acted for my prayer closet. It had a sofa and a desk in it, and it was in a chair, and so it was comfortable for me. So I'd I'd go down to the kitchen, get my coffee, and go in that room. And then later on the kids would get ready for school and whatever, glad it's to be puttering around the kitchen, but I'd be around the corner in that room. So uh that morning I came through the kitchen and there was a piece of paper, a mimeographed piece of paper that was laying there on the on the island that Jay, we had had Jay in Parton's kindergarten in Old Town Springs, so he's about five years old at the time. And on this uh uh piece of paper, it was an appeal for canned goods and food for a family that they knew about. Their kids came to the kindergarten, and the father had a major heart problem and needed a heart transplant, was unable to work, and so they were having trouble. Their finances, they were hurting, they needed food. And so I'm I'm it's early in the morning. I got my coffee and I'm reading this thing, mimeograph page, and all of a sudden I just start weeping. I mean, tears come down on my face, drop on top of that, and smeared the mimeograph, you know, and everything. And I mean, just I got so, you know, compassionate about this guy that I don't even know who he is, other than his kids go to the same kindergarten. And uh the Holy Ghost says, I want you to go buy his house, I want you to write him a hundred dollar check, and I want you to give him your testimony and pray for him. Well, yes, Lord. So I went around the corner and did my prayer time, and later on I thought, well, I don't know who he is, I'll call the kindergarten. Maybe they'll give me, and they did, but nowadays they wouldn't ever give you the name and that back then they would. So I called the kin, I said, look, I've I've gonna do more than just canned goods. I've got a check I want to write him and I want to pray for him. Oh, okay. Well his name is Billy Balamowitz, and he's right around the corner from the right that right around the corner from the from the uh you know, a good Irish boy, Belemowitz. And uh he lives right right by the by the kindergarten. So I drove over to Old Town, I packed up my Bible and my checkbook. I go up the up the walk, and I'm stirring up the I'm stirring up the boldness. I'm thinking, man, I hope this is God. I mean, you know, I'm just you know, you're nervous. You don't know what to do. I've never done anything like this before. It's crazy. I've got a hundred dollar check, I've got my Bible, I ring the doorbell, lady comes to the door, and his wife. No, he's not home. He's at he's at the doctor's office. I said, Oh, I'm sorry, I missed him. And I told her briefly what happened. I said, Well, we want to, it's not a lot, but we want to help you. Oh, I just really touched her, gave her a hundred dollar check. And uh I said, be sure and tell him we're praying for him. We're just believing God's gonna touch him and heal him. Okay, thank you so much. And I leave, okay, check that off. Thank you. Thank you very much. Well, the next morning I go through the same thing, same thing, going right by the by the aisle. And here's that piece of paper. I guess glad it hadn't been in the kitchen in a couple of days. Because it's still laying right where I found it, and uh, she had not yet filed it in the file cabinet and uh had not wiped the cabinets down, had not cooked, had not done anything. I mean, really, our kitchen should be a study. From now on, I'm not gonna have any kitchens, I'm just gonna have a study where the kitchen was. Boo, Pastor. No, she did cook. The kids were the kids were young, and so she cooked back then, not now, but she cooked back then. Anyway. Same thing. I mean, you know, and God said, Okay, I want you to go back by that house. I want you to write them another$100 check. And this time I want you to pray for him. I said, Okay, God, I'm gonna do that. I'm gonna get that done today because I can't keep going like this$100 a day. I'm gonna be broke.$100 a day, man. Give me a break. How much more help can I give him? And so this time he was there. And he invited me in. We sat in the kitchen, and I found out he was a trim carpenter. I'm a home builder, he builds cabinets, and he had built the cabinets in this house he was living in, and we had that in common, you know, God do all of that. And uh I, you know, I didn't I didn't know all about how to do what I was doing, but I gave him too long of my testimony. I mean, I just went on and on. It seemed like I couldn't stop. And he sat there and his eyes were wet. He didn't cry, but his eyes were wet and they would kind of tear up at times, and I I could tell he was receiving, he was receiving. See, that's the anointing upon that's God. See, God's got his full attention. See, it's not me. Just a vessel. You know, it's the gravy. I'm the gravy boat. Did anybody have a gravy boat at Thanksgiving? You know, you didn't care about the gravy boat, you cared about what? The turkey gravy in the boat, right? I got the turkey gravy with me. And he's he is partaking. And finally I get to the end and says, I said, you know, all I know is that I've seen God do great things. I said, He healed my wife, he healed my mother of osteoporosis, he'll heal you. He'll give you, he'll give you whatever you need. Would you mind if I just laid my hands on you? The Bible says lay hands on the sick and they'll recover. He said, No, I'd be good. Thank you. And I laid my hands on him, and I said, In the name of Jesus, I don't even remember what I said. I didn't, I didn't know much. I just laid my hands on him. I said, In the name of Jesus, be healed. I might have even asked God to heal him. I don't know. Back then I didn't know very much. I don't do that anymore. I don't ask God to heal anybody because healing is already done. I pronounce it over people, I release it over people. But back then I didn't know, and so I just laid my hands on top of his head, big old burly guy, you know, sitting there. And so then I packed up my Bible and my checkbook, and I went out the front door and went out to the van and opened the front door of the van for sick to get in. I was relieved it was over, you know. I didn't feel anything, didn't see anything, didn't know anything. I just spent 30 minutes there, and I'm getting in the van and I hear this noise, and I look down the driveway, and he's come out the back door and he's headed up the driveway toward me. And he can't talk. He's choked up. He's trying not to cry. And finally I ran, you know, I went to him and I said, Billy, what's what's wrong? He said, Man, I I feel weird. I he said, Weird, what's wrong? He said, Well, I ever since you laid hands on me, I feel like electricity is all over my body. And he and he just bust down crying. And I just felt, I just couldn't, I had the feeling that came over me. I said, Billy, you don't know what that is. No, I know what is it? What is it? I said, that's God's healing power. You're not gonna need heart surgery. God just gave you a brand new heart. And I went, what did I just say? Shut my mouth. I didn't pray for that. But he never did have heart surgery. Oh, come on, let's lift our hands. Lord, I tell you, when you lean on the anointing, when you when you stir it up, you can bring people into milestones and you can talk about them for all eternity. I I plan on talking about these for all of eternity. They're milestones for other people, but they're really kind of milestones for me. Alright, so you know, go about doing good in your world. Don't withdraw from life, especially when you're under pressure. I mean, look for places to minister to other people. So move with compassion, obey that nudge of love and concern and pity for others. And then finally, the last one is found in Luke chapter 2, verse 52. Jesus is our example. Jesus went about doing good, Jesus moved with compassion. And Luke 2, 52, Jesus learned and Jesus increased. And Jesus himself learned and he increased. And in Luke 2, it says, And Jesus increased in wisdom and stature and in favor with God and man. So not only did he grow physically in stature, he grew spiritually. Well, that went, but Jesus is a son of, I know, but he's still a human being. And he had to grow spiritually. He had to grow in the things of God. He had to grow in the knowledge of the word. He is the word, but he's got a brain now that has to be renewed to everything that his spirit knows. And we all know the spirit and the brain have a connection. It's called your conscience. And so he had to grow. So if Jesus had to grow and did grow, then we can learn and we can grow. So the more and the more you lean on the anointing upon you, it will grow. And you lean on it and you exercise it. See, anything that you exercise, it'll grow, won't it? The more you use it, the more prominent it becomes. And every time you have an encounter with someone, you learn something from that encounter. You learn something. I've learned a few things over 40 years of ministering to people. I learned a few things. And I don't minister quite the way I used to. I mean, I just I do a lot more declaring and decreeing and releasing and all of that. I don't do any begging. I don't I don't do very much praying. Jesus never prayed for anybody. He just declared. Doesn't take a long time. I don't have to go 30 minutes on it. I mean, you know, boom, just release it. So um in those uh years, and I'd been saved a while, and uh we moved into we were living in the same house I was talking about earlier, the one with the island kitchen. And uh I had an office that some builders uh uh that we were associated with uh all got together and we we split the cost. We built our own office. One of our partners had an acre of ground over next to Terra Nova, so we built this office and we I I I officed with about six other builders. And we all had, you know, and we had a a common uh receptionist and the bookkeeper, and she was a bookkeeper for a few of us, not all of us. And then we hired the other guy hired another bookkeeper, so we had two bookkeepers and one receptionist, and you know, we had an office. So uh this guy that I office with, it was my neighbor, lived on the other block. We associated with him a lot, and he saw when I got saved, he's and he's a Lutheran guy, and I I know he came to the Lord about maybe a little before I did, and he saw the difference in my life. He saw what I was before, and and we talked about it. We went, you know, I gave him my testimony. And so he had a daughter that was a champion gymnast. She went to Caroly, uh gym, Bella and Martha Caroli, you know, world class gymnast. Uh gymnasi gymnasium here in town. Mary Lee Ritt Retton lived with them. They're just teenage girls, 15, 16 years old. They came by and sat at the breakfast room table with Gladys, and Gladys entertained them and made them laugh. And they'd come to work with him to work, you know, and just go uh running in the subdivision, do their exercise and stuff. Then one day he one night he called me, he said, John, he said, uh, I wonder if would you mind if I brought Paige, his daughter? She's injured herself, and the and the U.S. trials for the Olympics are coming up in two weeks, and she's injured her leg and she's really hurting. Would you mind praying over her? I said, not at all. Bring her on over here. So she he brought her. And uh and so, you know, I I talked to her a little bit, told her what I was gonna do, and and asked her if she'd believed that in healing. You believe in Jesus. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. So I laid hands on her, ministered to her. I didn't feel anything. And uh, you know, said our goodbyes, and they left. About 30 minutes later, the phone rang. And it was her dad calling me. He says, I'm sorry to bother you, but I just thought you ought to know this. He said, We got out in the car, and Paige looked at me and says, I feel weird. Well, what do you mean you feel weird? Well, I feel like electricity all over my body. It's just, I just it's still on me. I I I don't know what what is that, she said. And he said, Well, Paige, that's God's power. He's healing you. It is? Yeah. He said, I just thought you ought to know. I said, Well, praise God. I agree with that. I know it's done. And she did. She went to she went to the next round and competed and was injured in a different area. She had a stress fracture of the hip, and she couldn't compete. But Mary Lou won that and became the top one. Actually, Paige was better than her going into the into that competition, but then they switched places and she fell out. She didn't get to go to the Olympics. The rest is history. Mary Lou went to the Olympics, got five gold medals in the 84 Olympics. So here's Paige, and she didn't get to go to the Olympics. And her, you know, she and you know, you just it's time sensitive. And nowadays, girls go even further. They they're in their 20s, and you know, back then that was not. It's just little teenagers all that competed. They by the time they're 19, 20, they can't do what they were doing when they were 15, 16. So it's different now. But back then, so we lost track. I mean, we moved to hu to Corpus a year and a half later, it's been a year and a half since that night that I prayed for her. And we're in Corpus, they're in Houston, and we come home from church one night, and on the TV, Paige, I won't give her last name, uh, is uh injured in a car wreck. Well, this is Corpus Christi, and yet her car wreck is in Houston, and they have it on the television, Channel 3, K I I I, and ABC affiliate in Corpus Christi. And I'm sitting there thinking, what is this on TV for? She had a rollover car wreck and she broke her neck and she's paralyzed from the neck down, and she was a champion gymnast, and she da-da, and then brought up Mary Lee Retton, and they brought up the Corollis, and that all was on the television in Corpus. Well, I knew I had to go. Why? Because I had learned that we had a connection that she had received from the anointing upon my life a year and a half before, and nobody called me, nobody asked me to come, but I I just felt like I had to go. See, compassion. So that's a combination of what I've been talking about. The compassion went to her. I mean, you think about a little teenage girl being paralyzed from the waist, from the neck down, similar to uh Superman, uh Christopher Reeve, very similar, very similar damage. And he died eventually. And so, and they even said where she was. She's in in uh Herman Hospital. So I drove next morning, called my boss, said, Hey, I'm leaving for the day, I'll be back. I've got an assignment. So I went and I I peeked in her room, nobody was there, nobody was in the hallway, nobody was anywhere. And I look at a little thing, you know, these gymnasts are like four foot nine, five foot tall, little fire plug. She's laying up in that bed all, you know, in a halo around her, keeping her necks from moving. And it just, it was just talk about intimidating. You're looking for another door out or doorway. You look, you feel like, hey, this is too big for me, this is too much for me, this is way, what am I doing here? What am I, you know? You listen, stir, stir, listen, lean on the anointing. You're not doing anything, he's doing everything. You're just carrying him. He is upon you. So, I said, I couldn't go in there. I just I'll just wait out here until a nurse shows up. I'm not going in there by myself. And it wasn't five minutes before her parents walking down the hall. And uh Paul said, Oh, I knew you were coming. And he wasn't smiling because it was grim. See, they're not word of faith, they're Lutheran. And they, yeah, they believe in God, but I mean, this is a this is a catastrophic injury. And so he said, I knew you'd be here. I said, Well, I saw it on news. It's a miracle. I how would I know about it? It was on channel three in Corpus Christi last night at the 10 o'clock news. That's why I'm here. I wouldn't have known. But I said, I remember what what Pai got a couple of years ago when I prayed for her. I said, the same Holy Ghost is here today. He said, Amen, brother. So we went in and I bent over and started talking to Paige, and I reminded her of what happened before. I talked to her about it. I laid my hands on her in the name of Jesus, and I left. I didn't feel a thing. You know, sometimes we don't feel anything. And other people feel it all. Sometimes they don't feel anything. It's really not about how you feel or what you feel, it's about your faithfulness to stir up the anointing and lean on that anointing. And I didn't know a thing. I left, and over the next year or so, every now and then I'd think about her and think, well, I wonder how she's doing. And when I'd wonder how she was doing, I'd say to myself, Well, she's healed in Jesus' name. I'd never I'd never say, I hope she's healed. I think she, oh, I hope she's not in the wheel. No, I just I just say, Oh, thank God she's healed. So we moved back to Houston. It's been a year and a half or more than that, almost two years. And one day I was over in that neighborhood, that part of 1960, and I said, I'm gonna go by and check on them. And I went by and knocked on the door, and here's Paul, and he answers the door and says, Honey, get Paige on the phone. John's here. And that's the first I heard that, you know, she's not living at home. Get Paige on the phone. And uh and they call her and he tells me the rest of the story. He said, You know, John, five days after you laid hands on her, she walked out of the hospital without any help at all. Never went into a wheelchair. Now, see, I didn't know that. See, I don't know why they didn't call me. If that was me, I'd have called. I would have. If that was me, I would have testified or something. You Lutheran goofball. Get a but see, you get just think of, think of that. See, a few months later I sang at her wedding in the Lutheran church. Got married in the Lutheran church, and I sang at her wedding. Oh, I'm telling you, milestones. We we we're believing for milestones, but you know what? We have the ability, just despite whatever we're believing for, despite whatever we're going through, no matter what kind of opposition you have in your life, you can stir up the anointing upon you and you can bring somebody into their milestone. Come on, lift your hands. Hallelujah. Lean on the anointing. Did you get anything out of this today? Well, I enjoyed testifying. Praise God. Hallelujah. And I'm so glad that God has been able to uh use me that way all these years. I just give thanks for the anointing. Glory to God. Thank you, Jesus.