Over these past few episodes of the Praying DISCRNR Podcast, we’ve been building something together. First, I shared on “God’s Revelatory Ways”; practical, real steps to help you hear His voice. Then I followed it with a word I called “I Will Take a Stand.” In a culture that grows more and more confused about the supernatural, I wanted us to plant our feet on something solid: the Will, the Word, and the Ways of God; a three-fold cord that will not quickly be broken.
This month, I want to go one step further, because gifting without protection is a tragedy waiting to happen. This episode is called “Praying to Protect the Anointing.”
Here is what I have observed in over 50 years of vocational ministry: movements are birthed in the place of prayer. People step into their callings out of seasons of consecration. But then something happens. They get swept up into the momentum of the very thing prayer produced, they get busy, and they quietly abandon the secret place that got them there. The anointing may keep moving for a while on momentum alone, but the hand of God can lift, at least for a season, off a man or woman who stops sustaining what prayer first births.
My theme verse for this message is Titus 2:11–12: “For the grace of God that brings salvation has appeared to all men, teaching us that denying ungodliness and worldly lust, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly in the present age.”
It is the grace of God that empowers us, but it is also the grace of God that instructs us. Somewhere along the way, many have confused liberty with license. When the Spirit of the Lord gives freedom, some take that freedom and cast off restraint altogether, sliding into a hyper-grace mindset that excuses what the Word never excused. Grace does not teach us to live loosely; grace teaches us to live soberly, righteously, and godly.
I think of Samson. His strength came upon him again and again, yet he began to believe he was the exception to God’s standards. I call this the Superman Syndrome — the moment a gifted person starts to believe the rules bend around them because their platform is bigger, their following is larger, or their revelation feels superior. Deception will always tell you that you are the exception.
This trap usually shows up in one of three places: fame, finances, and sexual fascination. The anointing is real, it is wonderful, and it can also become addictive, a bubble that makes you feel untouchable. I have watched gifted men and women begin to believe they had earned special treatment, that they were “getting away with something,” simply because the anointing was flowing. Friends, Romans 11:29 tells us the gifts and callings of God are irrevocable, but that does not mean we are exempt from consequence when we abandon godly boundaries.
I remember the Lord speaking to me years ago, commissioning me to write, to teach, to produce transferable resources that would ground His people. Because He said with every move of His Spirit, the enemy comes right behind it to kill, steal, and destroy what was just given. That commission still stands, and I believe it applies to every one of us who carries a gift from God. We are called not just to receive the anointing, but to protect it.
So here is my exhortation to you this month: let’s pray to protect the anointing on our own lives, and let’s pray to protect the anointed ones God is raising up around us: in ministry, in the arts, in government, in every one of the seven spheres of culture. We are not in competition with one another. We are in divine cooperation. There is room in the Kingdom for every gift God has given. Celebrating someone else’s anointing does not diminish yours.
What got us there is what will sustain us there. The place of prayer that birthed the calling must remain the place of prayer that protects the calling. We’ve watched too many gifted leaders fall because the secret place was abandoned once favor arrived. We don’t need any more fallen leaders. We need watchmen who will stay on the wall.
Will you join me in fruitful praying?
James W. Goll
“For the grace of God that brings salvation has appeared to all men, teaching us that denying ungodliness and worldly lust, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly in the present age.”
Titus 2:11–12
Father, thank You for this wonderful time together. We ask You to give us wisdom beyond our years and beyond our experience. Surround us, Lord, with Your shield of protection. Holy Spirit, we need You — we need You every hour. We call forth the Psalm 91 secret place of the Most High God over our lives.
Holy God, protect us, and protect the precious anointing You have given to each of us. Teach us, by Your grace, to deny ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live soberly, righteously, and godly in this present age. Raise up anointed voices across every sphere of culture, and surround them with the prayers of protection they need to finish well.
We declare: we are not in competition — we are in divine cooperation.
In Jesus’ great and holy name, amen and amen.
