The Holy Spirit Oil

Hello! Recently, I participated on a women's prayer call as a speaker. After preparing my notes I realized that the preparation felt a lot like writing my thoughts down for this blog. So, I've decided to start a new category on the blog with my notes from the prayer call. It was so good to get together with other women and encourage each other. I hope some of these notes are encouraging to you too.

Women's Prayer Call Series: Parable of the 10 Virgins

Hi Ladies! I am so excited to share with you and pray with you all today. There is something that is so wonderful and beautiful when women of God pray together. Some of you ladies have prayed me through some of the hardest times of my life. So I know our prayer time together is a gift and I’m glad to be part of it right now.

So tonight our discussion is about having discipline and being prepared. We’re looking at the parable of the 10 virgins in Matthew 25:1-13. Let’s just read those verses from 1 to 9, because I want to focus right there.

Sometimes I’ve read this parable and I think about our own efforts to be ready and how we can be attentive to all the things that we need to do to make sure we don’t miss out on the arrival of our master. Well, I want to share about an easy way to be prepared. And it’s kind of a tricky statement, because it isn’t easy, but it is one step! That step is to simply surrender all of yourself to the Holy Spirit.

When I was thinking about this parable on Friday, I was listening to Brandon Lake and his song “Living Sacrifice”. If you haven’t heard that song, it’s amazing, Google it and put it on repeat. Brandon ad libs in the song and says: “We don’t give you 50%, we don’t give you 99%, we give you everything.” His words are so right. When we surrender to the Holy Spirit we need to give our whole life to him. So what do I mean by life? I mean our worship, our circumstances, our problems, our dreams, our goals, our tongue, our desires, our cravings, our fears, our eyes, our comings and our goings, our heart and our mind. Everything.

The five wise virgins who carried oil with them for their lamp, wisely told the other five that they needed to go get their own oil. And that is something about the Holy Spirit. Having the Holy Spirit is an experience that is inside of you; where you are completely given over to God. It’s not something you can share. Sure, I can describe my experience to someone else, but that isn’t enough for another person to light their lamp. 

The Holy Spirit is personal. The oil you have is just for you. 

Another person must have the Holy Spirit themselves and be completely given over to God in order to be prepared.

Isn’t that beautiful, that there are no rules here except for a commitment to be sold out to Jesus and give him our all. A verse from Brandon’s song says this:

I just wanna bless you, whatever it takes
With my mind and my body, my spirit and strength
If you are a fire, then set me ablaze
And I will be a living sacrifice
All my heart and soul to glorify

I offer nothing less than all my life for Jesus Christ

I want to sing it for you, but I won’t do that tonight, because that’s not why you’re here! Instead, I’ll share what happens when we do what those passionate words say - and that is this: the Holy Spirit transforms us. That’s what I mean about it being so beautiful. The Holy Spirit makes our personal “Normal“ uncomfortable until we are completely aligned with God. All it takes is us not resisting with our own spirit, and following all the nudges we feel from the Holy Spirit, until...we get...“there”.

So, the Holy Spirit transforms us and the way we do life:

• When we want to worry, instead, we choose to declare - here’s an opportunity for God to resolve this situation, in his timing and I will be excited to see the result, because I will see it.

• When we feel uncomfortable with some temptation, anger, lust, you name it, we declare - I will not be ruled by my flesh. I declare in the name of Jesus, the devil is a liar and I am not stuck, I am not in too deep, I can overcome.

As my son likes to say: God is the most powerful! And He is - that’s the truth. He gave us this Holy Spirit to make us Overcomers. To have our lamps lit. To be burning ablaze and shining with the light. Not just ready for our Master, but showing the world that the light exists - God exists. But, each person on their own must get their oil. We must want the Holy Spirit and permit it to permeate all over and through us.

I think about how David, the shepherd boy, was anointed with oil in 1 Samuel 16:13. I’ll read it it says:

“Then Samuel took the horn of oil and anointed him in the midst of his brothers. And the Spirit of the Lord rushed upon David from that day forward.”

King David had the Holy Spirit, guiding him. And even though he slipped, in a big way, and "fell asleep", just like all those virgins did, he had the Holy Spirit to guide him right back to the heart of God. Look at Psalm 51:10-12. There David said:

“Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me. Cast me not away from your presence, and take not your Holy Spirit from me. Restore to me the joy of your salvation, and uphold me with a willing spirit.”

King David gave all of himself back to God. He needed the Holy Spirit to take him away from his personal normal; he knew that he needed a willing spirit. And it was the Holy Spirit that got him there.

I also think of Aaron, Israel’s first priest, and how he was anointed with oil, allowing him to be acceptable in the presence of God. That oil is so important.

Well, we have a wonderful gift that is free to us. We don’t have to fight to be the “special, chosen child“ in order to have this Holy Spirit. Jesus willingly gave his life, so that we could have access to God. He left us with the Holy Spirit. So when we give our lives completely to the Holy Spirit, not 50%, not 99%, our lives will be bright, our oil will not run out, and we will be prepared for our master.

With that, I want to pray Hebrews 10 over you. 

Prayer 1: ‭‭Hebrews‬ ‭10:15-17‬: Write your laws on our hearts and minds.

“And the Holy Spirit also bears witness to us; for after saying, “This is the covenant that I will make with them after those days, declares the Lord: I will put my laws on their hearts, and write them on their minds,” then he adds, “I will remember their sins and their lawless deeds no more.””

Prayer 2: Hebrews‬ ‭10:22-23‬: Give us a confidence in our faith.

“let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water. Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who promised is faithful.”

Prayer 3: ‭‭Hebrews‬ ‭10:24-25‬: Help us to encourage each other towards being prepared for your coming.

“And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near.”

Prayer 4: ‭‭Hebrews‬ ‭10:36-39‬: Give us endurance to stay prepared until you come.

“For you have need of endurance, so that when you have done the will of God you may receive what is promised. For, “Yet a little while, and the coming one will come and will not delay; but my righteous one shall live by faith, and if he shrinks back, my soul has no pleasure in him.” But we are not of those who shrink back and are destroyed, but of those who have faith and preserve their souls.”

Amen!