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The term "glow up" has become popular in contemporary culture, but the concept actually originates in God's kingdom. A glow up refers to a radical, revolutionary, undeniable shift from one state to another. God orchestrates the greatest glow-ups, and we can look throughout Scripture to see this pattern—Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and countless others testify to God's transformative power.
But here's the crucial distinction: Cultural glow-ups work from the outside in, while kingdom glow-ups work from the inside out. Cultural transformations are limited to one area, but when God orchestrates a spiritual evolution, it affects you emotionally, relationally, and professionally. It shows up everywhere—in your mind, your home, your relationships, and your resources.
Our text from 1 Samuel 16:10-13 shows us a man transitioning from last to first, from the back to the front, from the pasture to the palace—from shepherd to king. This passage has prophetic implications for all of us. When you optimize the Bible, you don't just read it; the Bible starts reading you. You see yourself in the stories and characters.
Contextually, God is transitioning kings. He's moving on from King Saul. This is significant because God will fire you in the present and you won't realize it until the future. God didn't remove Saul from his position; He removed His presence from Saul.
Why? Because Saul demonstrated behavior that made him unreliable and untrustworthy. He became infected with an emotionally insidious disease: arrogance and pride. He built monuments to himself and became unpredictable. God can use imperfect people, but He is limited in His ability to use people He cannot trust.
God speaks to Samuel, a king-maker and judge, and tells him: "I regret that I made Saul king." Samuel enters a season of mourning because Saul was the first king he anointed, and he had an emotional attachment.
But God interrupts his mourning and asks a penetrating question: "How long are you going to keep nurturing an emotional attachment to what I'm finished with?" Saul represents not just an individual but an entire era of leadership. God is essentially saying: "You keep reminiscing over something I'm not going to revise. The fact that your head is stuck in the past is evidence you don't believe I have something better for your future."
Then comes the powerful pivot: "If you knew what was waiting for you at Jesse's house, you would not be mourning over Saul." This applies to all of us. If you knew what God has waiting for you in your future, you would not be mourning over the Saul in your past.
God tells Samuel: "Take your horn of oil and go down to Jesse's house." Notice—He didn't just say go; He said take your oil with you. Why? Because Samuel kept pouring his oil in a place God was done with.
This speaks to many of us: Your issue may not be with your oil; your issue is you don't know where to pour it. You keep pouring it on people who can't receive it, people who don't appreciate it, on what you love but you're no longer assigned to.
God says: "Your oil has done all it can do there. I have somebody waiting on it. I have somebody praying for it. I have somebody who knows what to do with it. There's a man after My own heart at Jesse's house."
When Samuel arrives at Jesse's house, Jesse presents seven sons. Samuel looks at each one and the Lord says, "I have not chosen these." One by one, they're rejected. Then Samuel asks: "Are all your sons here?"
Jesse replies: "There remains yet the youngest, but he's keeping the sheep."
Jesse didn't even invite David to the gathering. Perhaps Jesse thought so much of David because of his faithfulness with the sheep that he was more concerned about how he wanted to use him than how God wanted to use him. You have to watch out for the Jesses in your life, because they can love you and use you at the same time. Sometimes the reason they love you is because of how they've been using you.
But here's what's beautiful: Even though Jesse tried to hold David back, he could never hold him back. God will hold it up until you get there.
Samuel says to Jesse: "Send and get him, for we will not sit down until he comes here." When a king walks in, you don't sit down; you stand up. The seven brothers arrived first, but the anointing wouldn't flow until David got there—God held it up until he arrived.
David was out in the fields, faithfully stewarding the responsibility God had given him in that season. He didn't have to go looking for Samuel; he didn't have to chase after opportunity. Samuel came looking for him because he was faithful to what his father had assigned him.
This has prophetic implications: If you will faithfully steward what God has given you in this season, He will send Samuel to find you. Other people chase opportunity, but if you remain faithful, opportunity will come looking for you.
When David arrives, the text tells us: "He was ruddy and beautiful in his eyes, and the Lord said, 'Arise and anoint him, for this is he.'" Then Samuel took the horn of oil and anointed him in the midst of his brothers.
This detail is significant. If you follow David's narrative leading up to his fight with Goliath, you see a contentious, adversarial energy from his brothers. But now they have to stand there and watch his glow up. When David later wrote Psalm 23, he may have reflected on this moment when he wrote: "He prepares a table before me in the presence of my enemies." The way God handles adversaries isn't by annihilating them; it's by keeping them alive and in close proximity so their punishment is watching you win.
"And the spirit of the Lord rushed upon David from that day forward."
There's a critical reality here: David's anointing changed, but his assignment didn't. He received a king's anointing but kept a shepherd's responsibility. Samuel left and didn't take David with him.
This creates a tension many of us experience: When your ability and responsibility don't match. You've got the oil to run a kingdom, but God only lets you tend sheep. You know you could be doing more, but God keeps you where you are.
But here's why: The oil will always outpace the character. God holds you in that place to let your character catch up. You're frustrated, but you're actually protected. Things you could get away with in the pasture would destroy you in the palace. You think it's rejection, but it's actually protection. The palace has more than thrones and servants; it has spears too.
We need to understand the difference between modification and transformation. Last week we discussed how the Holy Spirit brings transformation, not just modification. But there's another angle.
Many in the charismatic community have reduced the Holy Spirit to excitement in services. While that's appropriate and important, we must distinguish between expressions of appreciation and means of grace that lead to transformation. Dancing is an expression of worship—David danced before the Ark—but dancing itself has no transformative value. You don't get healed in a dance; you don't really hear God in a dance.
The Holy Spirit wants to do more than make us more pious; He wants to make us more productive. Don't create a false dichotomy between faithfulness and fruitfulness. It's both: Faithfulness that leads to fruitfulness.
David was already a man after God's own heart before the anointing came. The oil wasn't to make him that; the oil was on him because he was that. But the anointing enabled him to transition from managing sheep in a pasture to managing people in a palace. He didn't have the age, experience, education, or background—but God anointed him to fill the gap.
The anointing is the empowering presence of the Holy Spirit that enables us to be uniquely effective at what God has called us to do. I can be effective through self-reliance and human acumen, but when I step into God-reliance, I'm operating on something different.
"The spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor; he has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to set the oppressed free." (Luke 4:18)
Jesus understood His assignment and His anointing. I am only anointed for my assignment. When I step outside my assignment, I step outside His oil. I must be clear on my assignment, and I must stay in my authentic self because God will only help you be who He called you to be, not who you think you are.
The enemy gets us out of our oil by talking us out of our identity, causing us to question and resist who we are. But if you step into the fullness of who you are, God will throw oil on it. Even if it's not as sharp as someone else's, when He puts that oil on it, the oil makes the difference.
There's a principality—a satanically-induced social norm of dysfunction—that manifests in certain geographical groups and demographic regions. I'm talking about the principality of hyper independence, which is a trauma response.
We were hurt so badly in the past that now we become hyper independent in the present, ignoring the biblical command for interdependence. Paul writes about many members with different gifts, and we all need each other (1 Corinthians 12 and 14). But hyper independence makes us feel safer when it actually makes us more vulnerable. The Bible says, "In the multitude of counsel there is safety," but our pain has made us think we don't need anybody.
There are some things you can't do without God. There must be reliance and dependence on the anointing. David relied on it. Jesus relied on it. We need to rely on it.
1. The Anointing as an Educator
The anointing gives you an IQ and know-how that doesn't come from natural birth; it comes from spiritual birth. It provides expertise that cannot be gained through natural education alone.
"As for you, the anointing you receive from him remains in you, and you do not need anyone to teach you; but his anointing teaches you all things." (1 John 2:27)
This doesn't mean you don't need people to teach you; it means there are some things people cannot teach. You've been looking for answers in people, but God is saying you won't find it there. Sometimes what you're mad at people for is actually God's job.
2. The Anointing as an Innovator
Before you know that God is love, you know He's a Creator. In Genesis, we see God creating something out of nothing. That creative God lives inside you, and He wants to give you creative abundance.
There's an unlimited supply. Instead of limiting your ability to your own creativity and expertise, you can tap into an endless supply of creative anointing. Your answer may be in your innovation.
3. The Anointing as an Insulator
The anointing protects you. David, as a shepherd, would anoint sheep's heads with oil as a repellent against flies that would lay eggs and cause infections. Similarly, the anointing will repel certain things from your life.
4. The Anointing as an Elevator
An elevator takes you to places you couldn't get to or couldn't get to at that speed. Your oil gets you in doors; your oil gets you in rooms.
We often assume the anointing is only for people like pastors or leaders. But the anointing is for everybody. Christ means "anointed one," and He lives inside you. That's a glow up—not a cultural one, but a kingdom one.
I pray that God disarms the principality of hyper independence, which is a trauma response to pain. I pray that you shift from languishing, toiling, and striving to stepping into the ease of an anointing. Know that you are anointed for this. Know that He helps you with this.
May the same spirit that rushed upon David rush upon us. May your spirit be upon us from this day forward—not just a temporary anointing, but a permanent empowering presence that transforms us inside out and manifests everywhere in our lives.
