Mark 3:10 NKJV For He healed many, so that as many as had afflictions pressed about Him to touch Him.
Mark tells us that every person that had afflictions pressed about and touched Him.
To understand what is happening we have to go back to when the Spirit descended on Jesus ‘as a dove’ and remained on Him.
Jesus was anointed with the Holy Spirit at His baptism, anointing literally means ‘smearing with oil’. The word ointment has its origins in the word anoint.
We can liken the anointing of the Holy Spirit to smearing our skin with ointment and just like when we rub ointment on our skin a film of residue remains when Jesus was anointed by the Holy Spirit a ‘film of the Holy Spirit’ remained all over him and just like ointment infuses our clothing so to the anointing can infuse our clothing and whatever it touches. This explains why ‘Paul’s apron’ was not simply a point of contact for faith, it was drawing on the anointing on Paul that infused his clothing.
Acts 19:12 NKJV …so that even handkerchiefs or aprons were brought from his body to the sick, and the diseases left them and the evil spirits went out of them.
Jesus attracted such crowds that many people pressed around him and touched him. The issue is not accidental ‘touching’ of the anointing rather it is about a deliberate conscious demand placed on the anointing.
We see this in the story of the woman sick for twelve years and having spent everything on doctors.
Luke 8:43-44 NKJV Now a woman, having a flow of blood for twelve years, who had spent all her livelihood on physicians and could not be healed by any, (44) came from behind and touched the border of His garment. And immediately her flow of blood stopped.
The woman made such a demand and Jesus perceived ‘a flow of anointing’.
Luke 8:46 NKJV Jesus said, “Somebody touched Me, for I perceived power going out from Me.”
The response of Peter and the other disciples was interesting. Jesus asked who touched me and Peter says many people are pushing in, everyone is touching you, but Jesus was not asking about ‘incidental contact’ someone made a deliberate choice to draw from the anointing He was carrying.
If we have been baptized in the Holy Spirit, we have an anointing and that anointing abides.
1 John 2:27 NKJV But the anointing which you have received from Him abides in you…
But that anointing is on us for the benefit of others, the others being people who place a demand on the anointing. It is vital that we place a demand on and draw from the anointing that is on others, making receiving answers intentional not accidental.
