“‘Not by might nor by power, but by My Spirit,’ says the LORD of hosts”—Zechariah 4:6

“We don’t ever have to become depleted spiritually, if we could but learn to access the constant supply of the indwelling Spirit. In the secret place, we enlarge our capacity to draw upon His grace, and then we live out our days in the strength of His eternal resources. 

“The imagery of ‘constant supply’ is painted most vividly in Zechariah 4…Zechariah was shown a lampstand with seven oil-fed lamps on it. He saw a bowl full of oil above the lampstand, with pipes feeding down from the bowl into each lamp. The bowl acted as a reservoir of oil, and was itself fed by two olive trees which stood on the left and right of the lampstand. The olive trees dripped oil constantly into two receptacles, which fed the oil down into the bowl. The trees fed the bowl; the bowl fed the lamps. The supply was constant, and the fires in the lamps burned without cessation. 

“In the context of Zechariah 4, the lampstand is Zerubbabel, but Zerubbabel only typifies the devoted servant of the Lord. Lampstands in the Bible represent various things, but in Matthew 5:15 Jesus used a lampstand to refer to an individual. So the lampstand is you, the individual believer. 

“‘Let your waist be girded and your lamps burning’ (Luke 12:35). We have one waist, so waist is singular. But Jesus put ‘lamps’ in the plural, saying that we have multiple lamps within us. We have more than one lamp burning within our hearts—we have seven, to be precise. God designs that each of us burn with seven holy fires before the presence of His glory. The Holy Spirit is revealed as ‘seven lamps of fire’ that burn before the throne (Revelation 4:5). When you are filled with the Holy Spirit, you too will burn with seven fires.

“It’s interesting that the storage bowl, which is full of oil, is said to be ‘above’ the lampstand. This means that the oil pours down from the bowl into the seven lamps. Not only does this bowl contain more than enough oil to sustain the lamps, it also supplies each of the lamps with gravity-fed pressure. With the oil pressing down eagerly into each flame, the lamps are not flickering lazily but they are burning fiercely and brightly—veritable torches of divine zeal.

“The secret place is where your lamps are trimmed and where your zeal for the face of Christ is rekindled and renewed until you burn with seven bright, fiery, torch-like flames. Those who come into contact with you are impacted with your passion for Jesus and your selfless love for people. They realize you’ve been seared clean from self-serving ambitions and personal agendas. Your fire is hot and your flame is pure. Your heart is enthralled with the beauty of your King. 

“…Your productivity becomes disproportionate to your resources. What I mean is, the work accelerates forward at a pace that is faster than seems possible with the limited resources at your disposal. Why? Because you’re not just working by the might and power of human resources; you’re operating in the synergy and flow of Holy Spirit momentum as God Himself works with you and in you. You’ve found the God zone! Financial resources come out of seemingly nowhere; volunteers come out of the proverbial woodwork; heathen corporations start donating their stuff to you; doors open where only a wall existed; saints are joined together in kingdom purpose; sinners are in awe of the grace of God that rests upon the community of believers. And it was all unlocked because a servant leader came out of the secret place on fire for God! 

“Zechariah wants to know what the two olive trees are because they are the source of the oil…The two olive trees, in my judgment, are the word and the Spirit. We need both the word and Spirit, mixed together and flowing into our spirits, if we are to build the kingdom through the power of God. When the Spirit of God moves upon His word and speaks it into the depths of your being, you will come alive with a holy fire! 

“The secret place is where we draw upon the life of the word and the Spirit. It’s the place where we open our spirits to Him so that a greater flow of His oil might make its way to our lamps. What we really want is wider pipes. The pipes that carry the oil from the bowl to the seven lamps are critical to the degree of light emitted by the lampstand. If the pipes are open and unclogged, oil will flow freely to the flames of our hearts. When this admixture of oil (the word and the Spirit) flows into our hearts and sets us ablaze for Him, the kingdom will advance in and through our lives in staggering proportions. The issue is not, “Work harder!” The issue is, “Get oil!” The secret is: Apply yourself to enlarging your connection to the source of divine oil. The more this oil flows into your inner being, the brighter your lamps will blaze before God and men. 

“Nothing is more dangerous to the kingdom of darkness than a man or woman who has found the unceasing wellspring of heaven’s life. When the servant of the Lord is fed from this inner flow of oil and his seven lamps are veritable torches of flaming zeal for his Beloved, then no force of hell can extinguish this flame. Even if hell tries to douse this flame with the floods of the dragon’s mouth, this fire is fed by an internal source. Nothing external can quench it. Oh what a marvelous secret I am trying to describe! 

“John Wesley said it something like this, ‘Get on fire for God and let people come and watch you burn.’”—Bob Sorge

 My Prayer

“Oh Lord, widen my pipes so that the flow of oil from Your heavenly bowl will gush through into my life. Lord, I am burning bright but this is not the brightest I can be. There is yet more flame needed to devour the darkness of my generation. Oh Lord, let the oil flow uninterrupted. Oh Lord, let the heavenly life ooze into my spirit-being as I wait upon Your Spirit and meditate on Your word. Let the mixture of both word and Spirit ignite my life with a fresh fire that the forces of hell cannot consume. I have labored too long on human strength. I have depended too much on human skills and resources. Even now Lord, I am urging You to help me move beyond what is human—into what is superhuman. May the super-abundant life be the life-force that attracts all other resources needed to be all that You want me to be. I know that when there is the overflow of oil, there is nothing that I need that will not flow to me. All things will serve me and serve Your purpose through me. Oh Lord, I need Your Holy Spirit overflow. I cannot say this enough. The arm of flesh has failed me in the past and will continue to fail me. I need the heavenly overflow. I know that You do not want me to live my life, depleted and drained. That is not God’s will for my life. Let the energies from God energize me to be and do all that heaven expects of me. I will not crawl through life on a limp. I will live the fullness of the God-life because the oils of God flow uninterrupted through my spirit. Let this always be my experience, every day of my life, as I journey in this earthly and vain tabernacle of dust. In Jesus name. Amen.”

The Challenge

Seek the overflow of the heavenly presence by intentionally spending quality times with the word and the Spirit. Seek God’s energizing touch to keep you as His life-giving contact point with this decaying world.