Love Before Anointing

This formation is an inside work that cannot be learned, studied, or manufactured. Romans 5:5 declares, “The love of God has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.” Notice it is poured in, not worked up. This is where many in the West miss the process—we attempt to learn what can only be received, and we try to demonstrate outwardly what has not yet been developed inwardly. God’s method has never changed. If He desires to release true anointing through a servant leader, He will first establish His love within them, and He does this through the cross. Jesus made it plain: “If anyone would come after Me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow Me” (Luke 9:23). The cross is not a teaching topic alone; it is a living experience. It is where self is confronted, where motives are purified, and where the love of God begins to take root in a way that is no longer conditional or self-protecting.

There is a form of anointing that can exist apart from this deeper work, but it is limited. It is the kind that God, in His mercy, will still use according to the level that we have allowed Him to work within us. Yet it often produces admiration rather than transformation. Jesus warned of this when He said, “Many will say to Me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in Your name…?’ and then will I declare to them, ‘I never knew you’” (Matthew 7:22–23). The issue was not activity, but intimacy. Without the cross doing its work, love remains partial, and the anointing remains external. But when a servant leader stops trying to go around the cross, stops trying to define it or package it, and instead yields to it, something begins to change. “Unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit” (John 12:24). The fruit that comes from this death is not forced—it flows.

This is why true servant leadership is not about learning how to minister better, but about allowing God to deal deeper. Philippians 2:13 reminds us, “For it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for His good pleasure.” This is His work within, shaping desires, purifying intentions, and forming Christ in us. As this happens, love begins to take on a different nature—it becomes steady, sacrificial, and unconcerned with recognition. It is no longer about being seen as anointed, but about the Father being seen through us. “By this all people will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another” (John 13:35). This is the evidence of true authority—not the display of power, but the presence of God expressed through a life laid down.

For the servant leader, the invitation is clear: do not settle for a version of love that has not been tested by the cross, and do not pursue an anointing that has not been formed through surrender. The depth of what God can release through a life is directly connected to the depth of what He has been allowed to do within it. Galatians 6:14 says, “But far be it from me to boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ.” This is where everything changes. When love is formed here, the anointing that flows is no longer about us—it carries the weight of heaven and reveals the heart of the Father.