Have you thought about the many places in the word of God that refers to oil? If you were to read all of them, you would find that it is a precious thing in God’s sight. I want to submit to you that we are that fine oil that God wants to pour out on the world. Is the oil we carry polluted or pure oil? Oh, we have places in our lives that God is perfecting, but God is looking for the pure, the fine and frankly for the unrefined. By that, I mean He is looking for willing vessels, not necessarily those that are already refined.

How is oil, especially olive oil, refined and how is it obtained?

It is put into a press and ground until the oil comes out of the olive. Then it is purified by pouring through a sieve. Have you been pressed lately? Most of the people that I talk to that are making inroads into the kingdom of God are being pressed like never before. Do you suppose that God is after something precious in us? Does He do anything by mistake? Are you in a place where you are making inroads into the kingdom of God? Then you are probably being pressed and pressed and pressed again! Brothers and sisters, in this we can rejoice because God is up to something! He is up to bringing more of the precious that He put in us out of us.

My pastor preached a sermon about being pressed last Sunday and I won’t forget it because it also applies to me. Do we try to get out of the pressing or will we submit? Probably both until we realize that God is doing something in us for the sake of the world.

In Romans chapter 8:18 it says “For I consider that the sufferings (pressings) of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us.” 

We are looking for the prize of the high calling in Christ Jesus which is “Jesus in us” fully manifested. The world needs to see Jesus. We pray-“More of You and Less of Me” and God takes us up on that prayer. We pray- “Lord, make me an instrument of your peace”, and we say with the psalmist in Psalm 2-‘Ask of Me and I will give you the nations for your inheritance and the ends of the earth for your possession.”

The Lord would say to us “How much inheritance do you want?” Do we still want nations when the pressing gets too heavy, too hurtful, or too crushing?

Here is the picture again in Romans 8:35-36 “Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?  Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? As it is written “For Your sake we are killed all day long; We are accounted as sheep for the slaughter.”

Brothers and sisters, we are coming into a time when God is asking us “How much of me do you want and how much of an inheritance are you willing to pay for?”  We have a world to win for Christ! Let us be those “sons of God” that Romans chapter 8 talks about. They are yet to be revealed. It took twelve disciples to go into all the world and preach the gospel. There are many more of us. What are you willing to do? What am I willing to do? There is a call going out now for unconditional surrender. Are you one of them? Am I?

Written by: Joyce Euren