Anointing vs. Approval.

I wanted to take a brief moment to discuss a phenomenon in the church today known as "wolves in sheep's clothing," or "phonies." How can one tell the difference between the genuine and the fake? By their fruits, but that's not the whole of it. Let's first make the point that the anointing (or acknowledgement and empowerment) from God is completely separate from the approval of man (be it a church board, fellow pastors, etc.) Let's start with a few examples of different people who claimed to be sent by God and dissect it from there. Our first example here is John the Baptist, who experienced both an anointing from the Holy Spirit as well as the approval of local temple leaders. In other words, he was popular with the Jewish community. Our next example would be Judas Iscariot, who experienced an anointing from the Spirit, but did not receive approval from the Jewish community (by in large). Even being the traitor that he was, Judas was empowered to heal diseases and cast out demons in the name of Jesus Christ. Our last example would be the phony pastor down the street, whom experiences no empowerment or anointing from the Spirit, but receives approval from his contemporaries. Returning to my initial point, while one may have suspicions concerning any given pastor's means or motives, it is not given to us to pull our hair out determining whom is whom. This job is reserved for the angels to do, mainly at the end of the age. There is a good rule of thumb to go by, and that is "if something doesn't seem right, it's probably not." Get out of there. The takeaway point here is this: it is always God's anointing and presence that makes the difference in people's lives, regardless of what Pastor Henry or Jack down the street says or thinks.