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Behold, how good and pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity. It is like the precious ointment upon the head that ran down upon the beard, even Aaron's beard that went down to the skirts of his garments as the dew of Hermon and as the dew that descended upon the mountains of Zion. For there the Lord commanded the blessing, even life forevermore.
Unity is not uniformity. Oneness is not sameness. Your authenticity and your uniqueness is preserved because you are different by design. It is a tragic mistake to try to blend in when God is calling you to stand out.
Unity has more to do with a place of agreement—agreement on the assignment and the agenda. Because we agree, we cooperate. We collaborate. We partner on purpose to make something happen. You were born an original and you must not die a copy. God is not about to anoint your impersonation of someone else. No one will ever be better than you at doing you.
The anointing is like precious oil running down upon the head. Everyone say the anointing. It is like the anointing that ran down upon the head of Aaron, the first high priest of Israel. Aaron was installed to the office of a high priest with the outpouring of a very special ointment called anointing oil. They poured so much oil over the head that it literally ran down and saturated the garment.
The original anointing oil was a substance that symbolized something. Its power was in its symbolism. It was a substance that symbolized your selection to serve in a particular office. Those anointed were anointed because they were appointed. There was no anointing without an appointing. When you're appointed, you're appointed to an office that comes complete with roles and responsibilities.
This is why it's disastrous when people want an anointing but don't want the responsibility that comes with the appointing. We've come to think of anointing in terms of authority, but it primarily speaks of responsibility. If we were wise, the anointing wouldn't be something we coveted. It would be something that left us in awe with great humility.
There is no anointing without an appointing. There's no anointing without an assignment. You are always anointed to something. The spirit of the Lord God is upon me for he has anointed me to. The anointing is evidence of an assignment on your life. It is given to you because God selected you to serve him and represent him in a particular assignment.
The anointing authorizes you to operate in the office. It is your authority. It is your claim to legitimacy and authority in your particular office. I am anointed, therefore I am appointed, therefore I am duly authorized and deputized to execute the roles and responsibilities that come with this office. I am not looking for the affirmation, the consent or the appreciation of anyone other than the one who anointed me because that's who I have to give account to at the end.
There's such a difference between a prophet and a politician. A politician is a representative of a constituency and is basically in need of the vote. Therefore they are going to say whatever needs to be said in order to get more votes. A prophet on the other hand should not run for that kind of office because you're going to say what thus saith the Lord, and what thus saith the Lord may be unpopular.
The substance of the anointing, the actual oil, was a compound made up of five principal spices. The quantity of each spice was determined by Moses and given to an apothecary—the chemist who would actually make the compound. What went in it and how much of what went in it was prescribed in the actual making of the compound.
Sometimes we want to catch an anointing and don't realize that anointing is being made for you by the apothecary who chooses what goes into your anointing and how much of what goes into your anointing. This is why we have these unique and different anointings. The last thing you should do is covet someone else's anointing. Understand that the apothecary has made one for you.
There were five principal spices: myrrh, sweet cinnamon, sweet calamus, cassia, and olive oil.
Moses said, "Put 500 shekels of the myrrh and the cassia. But when it came to the cinnamon and the sweet calamus, he says 250. I want twice as much myrrh and cassia in the compound than we do sweet cinnamon and the calamus. Why? Because each of these herbs represent things.
Myrrh has a relationship to sacrifice, suffering, and dying to self because it was the chief spice used to anoint a body, to embalm the body. God says when it comes to the spice that represents sacrifice and self-denial, I want twice as much of that.
Sweet cinnamon represented zeal and passion and fire. God says, "I want twice as much sacrifice than I do your zeal and passion and fire." A lot of people bring zeal, passion, and fire to the table and think that's what God wants. He says, "No, I want you ready to go. I want you to be zealous. I want you to be on fire, but I want twice as much of your willingness to deny yourself, to take up your cross, to practice self-sacrifice and to endure suffering. I want twice as much of that in your anointing than all of the fire."
There's a price you pay in order to minister well and consistently. That price isn't just the time you spend studying, but it is your ability to endure the suffering. Your ability to endure that suffering is what's really making up your anointing.
The cassia, set at 500 shekels, represented submission and consecration. God says, "I want twice as much submission and consecration as I want zeal, fire, gifting."
The olive oil is the conduit for these spices. The olive oil comes from the olive berry. How do you get the olive berry? You're going to have to shake it down from the olive tree. Someone's going to have to go to the olive tree and shake the tree so that the berries could fall. When the olive berry falls from the olive tree, you got to put it into a bowl and you got to crush it so that you can extract the oil from the berry because the oil is the blood of the berry. The berry has to die in order to get the oil out of it.
There are way too many people who want an anointing but cannot stand the shaking that makes the anointing. There's a lot of people that want an anointing but cannot endure the crushing that makes the anointing. Not ready to die to self so that the ointment can come out of the berry in your life.
Some of these spices were literally made from the resin of the bark of particular trees. In order to extract the resin, you had to strip the bark from the tree, then you had to scrape it.
I remember one zealous mother said to Jesus, "When you come into your kingdom when you sit on the throne can you grant that my two sons sit on your left and on your right hand?" And Jesus said to her, "You don't know what you are asking. Can you drink from the cup that I'm drinking from? Can you be baptized with the baptism wherewith I am baptized?"
Sometimes when we are looking for elevation, exposure, visibility, popularity, we don't know what we're asking for. Because if it's going to be genuinely the anointing that elevates you, it's going to be preceded by a shaking, by a crushing, by a stripping and by a scraping. If you can endure the shaking and the crushing, the stripping and the scraping, then God can make something and put it on your life that makes you visible and powerful and graceful and gifted. God can do it for you if you can endure it.
I want you to notice the direction in which the anointing flows. The anointing always and only flows down. You don't catch the anointing. You have to get up under where the anointing is falling because the anointing always and only flows down, which means you can't get it unless you're under something.
There are folks that are looking for anointing, but they are not ready to be under someone. Aaron got his anointing because he was under Moses.
Whenever God wants to do something meaningful in the earth, he never calls a committee. He always calls a person. He puts in that person a vision, a dream. Then he puts in them the courage, the conviction, and the character to put it all on the line in pursuit of the vision. That person is the visionary.
God didn't call a team, he calls Abraham. He doesn't call a team, he calls Moses. But that individual soon realizes that the vision is bigger than me. It's beyond my reach, beyond my means, and in some cases beyond my years. It's simply bigger than me. I'm going to have to build a team around the dream.
Moses was operating as a prophet, priest, king, judge, jury, executioner. He's doing absolutely everything by himself. His father-in-law, Jethro, says, "Moses, you're going to kill yourself and you're going to kill the people, too. You can't do this. You are going to have to bring structure, organization, and systems that support you and that support the nation. You're going to go out and find 70 elders."
This is deep: God called Moses, but Moses called the elders. God spoke to Moses, but Moses chose the leadership team. Actually it was the first priority of Christ. Christ begins his ministry and then he goes about selecting a leadership team. If I'm going to be anointed and the direction of the anointing is flowing down, I have to get under someone who's anointed. There is no other way.
The anointing universally—Christ is the head of the church universally. Locally he has appointed headship in every Christian community and congregation. He recognizes and respects that headship to the point that he says to John, "John, I want to speak to my church. So write a letter to the angel of the church." The angel is the messenger of the church. You have to get under if that anointing is going to be authentic.
Sometimes we are literally blessed by association. There are many ways to obtain the blessing. You can obtain the blessing by obedience. But you can also obtain the blessing by association. What that means is that you are in close proximity to someone who is blessed and therefore you start experiencing abundance and prosperity and success simply because of your proximity.
Laban, Jacob's uncle, found out that so long as Jacob was living in his house, his flocks were multiplying and his crops were growing exponentially and he was blessed. He said, "You know what? I'll do everything in my power to keep Jacob in the house because I am blessed by association with him."
If you ever meet an anointed person, get as close as you possibly can. Bless them as much as you can. Because if you bless them, the Bible teaches that a blessing will come upon you. Whatever you do to a blessed person comes back to you.
Even if you don't like them, don't come against them anyway because they're just blessed. All blessed people ain't nice. They're still humans. They're not always nice. But don't say don't come against them anyway because they're blessed.
If you're going to have anointing, you must understand the direction which the anointing flows. God pours that anointing upon a head and then you get under that head as part of a body and then that anointing that is on the head literally runs all the way down to the body.
This is why we have to protect the head. If you smite the shepherd, the sheep will be scattered. We have to protect headship. Headship is the ultimate spiritual gift. Every nation on earth is longing for the gift of great leadership because every nation on earth is suffering for the absence of great leadership. Great leadership is the best thing God could do for your life.
Even when your tongues fail and your prophecies cease and the miracles dry up, so long as there is a great leader in your life, you're going to find a way out of no way. You're going to break through a barrier and you're going to make it in the end.
You are the neck of this body. Every one of you that has something on your neck from this day forward, remember that collar represents you as a neck in the organism of Tab London. I'm a neck. What does that mean? I'm the closest thing to the head.
When people meet you outside with your collar and your title and your responsibility, the assumption is that you are the closest thing to the headship of this house. Your job description is pretty straightforward.
Your primary function as the neck is to support the head. That's the first thing. You say, "I want to do this. I want to do that. I'm gifted for this. I see that. I hear the other. I can heal. I can this. I can." But can you support the head? Because the reason you are so close to the head is because you represent the neck in the body. It is your job to literally support the vision, to support the programs, to support the ministry 100%. That's your first job description.
Your second function is just as important. It's about understanding that with growth, there comes a need for structure. I remembered a time when I was a young pastor that I knew the name of every single member in the church. We got up to 120 and I knew their names because we had them divided into cell groups. Then we crossed over a line where I didn't know the names anymore.
I used to love to counsel my sheep. I had an appointment system and we could talk through things and I could give them the word and I could give them counsel. But then as the thing began to grow, I couldn't counsel everyone. I couldn't do all the hospital visits. I couldn't even do all the weddings. I couldn't do all the funerals. I had to rely on a leadership team to make my presence felt in my absence.
I needed people who would go to the hospital and say, "I am here on behalf of our pastor to pray with you. He wishes he could be here, but I'm here on his behalf." So they never felt alienated from me because of the neck.
The second function of the neck is to communicate instructions and intentions from the head to the rest of the body. It's the spinal cord that is carrying that nervous system so that whatever's going on in the head can quickly get to the rest of the body. The only reason I move my hand is because a message was sent from my head. The only reason I am walking is because a message is sent from my head.
But that message will never get to my legs or my hands if somebody successfully breaks my neck. If somebody breaks my neck, there's now a fundamental disconnect between the head and the rest of the body. I can have great hands and I can have great feet and I can have great muscular legs and I can have all of it. But if somebody successfully breaks my neck, those hands, those feet, those legs, everything else becomes useless because there's no mode of communication.
So I stop by to say to you, please don't break my neck. Get up and look out at the congregation and say, "Congregation, don't break this. Don't break this." Because if we break this, we break everything. Don't play with the neck because the neck is the closest thing that we have to the head. Without you, whatever the head is thinking, whatever the head's intentions are, it never gets out to the rest of the body.
This makes you a carrier of signals and messages and ideas and intentions that are coming directly from your head. It's supposed to reach the rest of the body so that it's no longer the pastor's job to say, "We're having an all-night prayer meeting." He only needs to say it in a boardroom and then the rest of you carry the message throughout the rest of the body until the whole body knows that we're meeting on Friday night to pray.
We've got to get to the place where he don't have to reiterate and reiterate and reiterate and say it again and say it again because the minute he says it, you grab it and you run with it and you make sure everybody knows it.
Some of you, like me, are into combat sports. In a fight, your opponent will do anything to get to your head. In order to knock you out and disable the entire body, you only need to have a clean shot at the head. But if they can't get the clean shot and it's mixed martial arts, they're going to try to get you in a headlock. To get you in a headlock, they have to get their arm around the neck. With the arm around the neck, they can suffocate the opponent and prevent oxygen getting to the brain in an attempt to get their opponent to tap out.
This Tab is never going to tap out. As a congregation, we're going to protect the neck. We're going to protect the neck as a house. My head can't really protect my neck like that, but my hands can and my feet can and my knees can and my toes can. When you understand that you're in a spiritual war, know that the enemy is going for these guys to get to these guys, or is going for these guys to get to these guys to get to these guys.
So what we're going to do is we're going to protect you. We're not going to place on you unrealistic expectations. We're not going to let people gossip on you. We're not going to talk about you negatively. Some people disguise their gossiping spirit as concern. "I'm really concerned about Minister So and So. I'm just concerned." You've got to deflect it. I see what you're doing. You're trying to get to the neck so you can get this house in a headlock. So you can block off the oxygen so you can disable the body. But we're not going to let it happen.
We're going to big up our leaders. We're going to pray up our leaders. We're not going to be jealous. We're not going to be badminded. We're not going to have red eyes. We're going to love them. We're going to support them. We're going to pray for them. We're going to lift them up. We're going to celebrate them. We're going to help them out. If they make a mistake, we're going to cover them and say, "Try again." If they didn't preach too good, we're going to make them feel like they did.
Let's protect the body. We've got some work to do and we need the whole body to function.
