The true need for us as Christian writers is the ability to write and publish books which genuinely bring change in the lives of our readers. This must be our goal. Only the Holy Spirit can do this through us.

How do we write under the anointing?

I am sharing this out of my personal experience of teaching and being taught in the Lord for nearly forty years. I am not talking about something weird, but I am sharing with you a standard of writing that is lamentably missing in most Christian books today.

What we want and need as writers is for the Holy Spirit to take the words that we publish and convert them into personal rhema messages for each person in your audience individually. He has the power to take a bit of speech or a phrase you write and use it as a word of knowledge, wisdom, or prophecy to your readers. He is so powerful and wise that He can use the same phrase mean different things to every reader—even to people rereading your work. More than that He loves to do this. This is why it is common to hear reports after truly anointed writing that show completely different reactions and stories from almost every person who read the book.

I need to cover my experience with Dr. Westbrook again here. He was the best person I ever saw communicating in this manner—he was our supervisor when my wife started her church in Albuquerque in the early 1990s. Most denominations would call him a bishop. Who he was became clear to all of us: a powerfully anointed leader. This man, in the course of his calling, came to several of our regional pastor meetings to share with us and help prepare us for ministry.

He had a method of teaching and leading that was truly amazing. It was not impressive. He often spoke in sentence fragments. These fragments revolved around the message but obviously came from a man who was taking the time to seek the Holy Spirit for the next words to say moment by moment. When examined intellectually, things often didn’t make straight linear sense. However, the insights that came to my mind as I listened to him teach were amazingly wise and directly solved questions I was dealing with at the time.

Most amazing, this was the case with every person hearing the teaching. Basically every listener heard a different sermon or teaching and all the messages received were uniquely personal and powerfully life changing.

In his case, you could see and sense the Holy Spirit taking the raw content this man spoke and converting it into powerful anointed teaching—an individual rhema for each of his listeners. I have never experienced this so clearly before or since. However, I am now aware of how often truly great preaching has this characteristic. God takes what is taught and converts it to a rhema for the hearer. The conversion from logos to rhema is wonderful to see. This is what Paul was talking about in I Corinthians 2 when he refused to let his intellect provide the teachings.

How do you receive this anointing when you write?

You ask for it. You ask sincerely, humbly, and fervently before you write—every time you write—that the Holy Spirit will take your thoughts and words and make them into rhema for your hearers. You pray that your flesh and old man will be kept out of the way and that you can be a channel for the Holy Spirit now. You pray you can convey truth about prophecy which will not mislead.

Pray for it every time you write

Not only do you need to spend time on your knees (or down on your face) in prayer about this before you write, it is also good for you to begin every marketing or speaking event by publicly asking the Holy Spirit to anoint your words so that the people hear what they need to hear—so that the Lord can help them in their daily lives.