Greetings;
When God appoints you to a place of responsibility, He also supplies the anointing needed for that place of responsibility. All authority comes from God; therefore, all God-given responsibility is God’s responsibility. He will anoint each of us to fulfill what He has given us to do. The more we attach to what God has given us, the more focused we become in the task. The more focused we become in the task, the more able we become in walking in an anointing for the task. The anointing doesn’t come from some far away place. The anointing is within each of us.
1 John 2:27 But the anointing which you have received from Him abides in you, and you do not need that anyone teach you; but as the same anointing teaches you concerning all things, and is true, and is not a lie, and just as it has taught you, you will abide in Him.
When a leader is not confident in the task of leading it can open a door for other influencing factors to have an effect on his or her leadership. I have found this to be very true in my personal journey of leadership in the church. I never asked to be the senior leader of a ministry. I never saw that as a role of calling in my life. I had served for many years in the church as a worship leader and a worship director. One day I was asked by the leader of the church to come on staff as a youth pastor and as an administrator for the church. I felt God’s calling on me and I knew these were steps to take in my journey of ministry. I was happy to serve in those positions of responsibility, since I saw my role as a service role to the church and to the leader. Through the process of accepting those roles I soon became an associate pastor in the church. This was ok by me, since it was still a role of serving the leader and the church. One day there was a big split in the ministry and the leader felt that he had to leave town to see the ministry survive. I felt that he was to stay and that we would stand together in whatever we had to face in the fallout of the ministry. He insisted that this was the only way that it could be done. He instructed me to move my office into his office after he drove away and I was to command his presence to leave the city. I am not sure that he realized what this would do and I didn’t realize what it would do either. I insisted that this was not the course of action to take, but as the leader he had the right to decide what his course of action should be for the ministry. After he drove out of town I did as he had instructed me to do. I told no one in the office staff. I moved my office into his office, closed the door, got on my knees and commanded his presence to leave. It was a very tearful and difficult task. When I did this, a spiritual reality of authority happened. The responsibility of leading the remaining 60 wounded and bleeding people came upon me. The responsibility of facing 140+ angry people in the community also came upon me. There were three businesses along with the ministry that also needed to be closed and cleaned up in the mess of the falling debris and the responsibility of these also fell upon my shoulders. There were a lot of financial, spiritual, emotional, and practical responsibilities that came upon me that day. The leader who left had hoped that the leadership team would ask him to come back, but they didn’t. I asked him to return several times in the next few months, but none of the leaders on the team did. I believe that the mantle had shifted and the responsibility was now resting upon my shoulders. For the first month and a half of the process I was plagued daily by thoughts of suicide. I was resisting the mantle of leadership, since I still saw myself as an associate minister and not the leader of what had been given to me to lead. Something had shifted in the spirit and I was still holding on to what had formerly been. I faced the daily responsibilities of ministry decisions, business decisions, conflict resolutions, and even the practical duties of closing the facilities of the ministry and seeking affordable accommodations for what had remained of the ministry. I even had angry individuals in the community come looking for the leader who had left and I met them telling them I was him and asked what it was that I needed to do for them. After they spewed a series of cursing words and violent accusations I would agree to make things right for them. They never knew I wasn’t him and I strategically solved each problem that came my way. I was making needed decisions, but the thoughts of suicide continued to plague me. I had moved to the city many years earlier based upon a personal word from God, but I had never imagined that this is what I would end up being or doing in the community. I didn’t see myself as the leader I needed to be, I saw myself in the responsibilities of a former time. Then I had a dream. In my dream there were two of me. One of me was going to Florida. This person of me said, “I’m going to Florida. I am going to start a ministry.” The other person of me responded by saying, “You can’t go to Florida. You don’t have a ministry. You have been sent, that is why you minister. You weren’t sent to Florida. You were sent to Bellingham.” This same scene repeated several times in the dream throughout the night. When I woke up I knew that I knew I was sent for such a time as was the present time for the city of Bellingham. The moment I accepted that reality the spirit of suicide left. I no longer had thoughts of despair and wanting to escape. My focus became clear and strategies for healing and deliverance began to come with confidence. After a couple more months the leader returned and publicly laid hands upon me to release the responsibility the local congregation to me. It was from that that a new ministry was birthed, Abundant Life. The initial foundation was about 20 people of the previous work of 200. Those 20 were what remained after the shaking of the remaining 60 of the previous ministry. That core of people became the foundation of the ministry that I have since transitioned to my own son. The mantle of responsibility for what is to come now rests upon his shoulders and he too must attach to the responsibilities given to him so that the strategies of heaven come to him with a clear path of authority. A leader has to be confident in the task given to them in order to lead with the anointing given by God that comes from within them and rests upon them. The Holy Spirit will give clear thoughts of direction when a leader accepts the responsibility to lead. Accepting the responsibility opens the effective door of legitimate anointing. It is not a responsibility taken from another; it is the acceptance of all that has been given to them. When a leader accepts this they become focused and miracles from heaven happen. In my own case, I saw financial miracles, healing miracles, strategy miracles, accommodation miracles, and many supernatural testimonies confirming my role of authority. The anointing of leadership came by the anointing of the Holy Spirit within me. It came by me accepting who God was making me become in the journey of authority. Whatever God appoints you to be also releases His anointing for the task given.
Philippians 2:13 …for it is God who works in you both to will and to do for His good pleasure.
Food For Thought,
Ted J. Hanson
