Arise & Shine

Welcome to Part 3 of Arise and Shine: The Oil of Anointing. Today, Bettie is opening part 3 with a devotional, including a poem and Spirit-led song she was gifted, as she shares what God showed her about the process required to make the anointing oil and its connection to Christ’s labor of love and our response to that.

Join us in the coming days and weeks for the chapters and daily free will offerings connected to the Oil of Anointing. We will be posting these as the LORD leads us.

Have you seen the beautiful plant called “Crown of Thorns?” It is a reliable bloomer that keeps me going through the garden-less days of winter. But just because it’s reliable, doesn’t mean it’s boring. I am always moved by the beauty that rests alongside the pain of this plant. Thorns are jagged along the whole stem, with hardly a space left open. But at the tip of each stem there rests such a fragile seeming, tender bloom. Will my own heart find tenderness alongside the pain? 

Crown of Thorns

Gentle thorns, I pray

Please don't blow the joy away

Let the blooms remain 

And if you understand the Song of Solomon to be an allegory of the love story between our God and His People, then He sees us as that beautiful bloom:

“Him: Like a lily among thorns, that is what she is;

        my dear is a captivating beauty among the young women.” Song of Solomon 2:2

Oh, what a mystery is the Love of our Lord! Many years ago, during a particularly busy and overwhelming Season in my life, my Lord spoke this Spirit-led song over my heart in a dream:

"I will pour on you
the oil of gladness in the morning,

I will pour on you
the oil of my joy.

I will burn off all the dross,
Stir up what remains,

And I will pour on you
the oil of my joy."

At the time the song was given, I searched the Scriptures, and the historical processes for the Biblical anointing oil that was used by Moses.  And this is what I found in Exodus 30:20-25 (NIV):

Then the Lord said to Moses, “Take the following fine spices: 500 shekels of liquid myrrh, half as much (that is, 250 shekels) of fragrant cinnamon, 250 shekels of fragrant calamus, 500 shekels of cassia—all according to the sanctuary shekel—and a hin of olive oil.  Make these into a sacred anointing oil, a fragrant blend, the work of a perfumer. It will be the sacred anointing oil 

Then to understand the process that the “work of a perfumer” would have gone through, I found these words by David Levy, in his book, The Tabernacle: Shadows of the Messiah:

“The anointing oil was made from a specific formula . . . Rabbinical sources state that Moses, having reduced the solid ingredients to powder, steeped them in water until all the aromatic qualities were drawn out. The olive oil was then poured into the ingredients and the water boiled out. The residue thus obtained was preserved in a vessel for use.” 

Where did those specific ingredients come from? Cinnamon, cassia, and calamus were gathered from the bark and leaves of fragrant plants. But myrhh—it’s a thorny plant that only releases its resin after a wounding is made to the bark. So, not only is the process of making the anointing oil a journey through drying, grinding, steeping, and boiling, but there is a wounding involved in the very first step of gathering.  

Dear one, are you facing a wounding in your life? Are you in a season of boiling stress? Or maybe you are facing the drying winds of a desert.  Rest assured, our Lord has already walked through the process that was required to birth the anointing oil that He, himself became for us. But He has called us His lily among the thorns. Are we ready to give our love, our anointing oil, back to Him?

My feet are aching

Here on this thorny road

Where pebbles prick my feet

Diseased and worn

I hobble through my days.


The oil given me

A healing balm I’m told

Will soothe the burning

And restore the movement

Illness took from me.


But I don’t see results

I cry when I am forced

To wait while others walk

And watch the path

Sit silent at my feet.


And yet

I pour the oil.


Another woman poured her oil

She wasted all her treasure

For ONE the world called

Foolish and meek

Anointing Him for burial.


A beautiful gift she gave

Poured from the wounding

In her heart

After the boiling of her pain

Had wrecked her heart for HIM.


God had set the plan

He had made the picture

Worship required Anointing

Anointing required oil

Born from a wounding and a scar.


Jesus dear Redeemer

You were that oil for me

After your own wounding

Pounded, dried and scourged

Blood drops squeezed so pure.


Now here am I at your feet

Broken, wounded, beaten

By diseases from this world

Yet from the thorn-touch here

You birth a lovely gift.


The oil of my wounding

Has become my sacrifice

Of praises never ending

Washing your feet with tears

Drying them with my hair.


You pull me to my feet

Your words for all to hear

From lips so full of love

What she has done so free

Eternity will call, Beautiful.

Chapter 1: Incense

Chapter 2: Goats’ Hair