Family Devotional Ideas: The Power of the Holy Spirit & Anointing Your Home With Oil

Late last year, I begin to feel the Holy Spirit press on my heart two words, prophetic destiny. Only in this particular moment, He wasn’t speaking of my prophetic destiny… He was referring to my son’s prophetic destiny. He was giving me a small glimpse of the calling that He had on my son’s heart and in doing so, He was shining a light on the irreplaceable role that we play as parents in nurturing that calling.

In the months that followed, I began to press heavily into that message, having deep conversations with my little boy about his unique and beautiful spiritual gifts and how God created him with an unmatched boldness that will inevitably propel him into his spiritual destiny. My heart began to feel a powerful fire growing inside as I realized that my family was walking through, no make that marching through, the mundane, and we were pushing intentionally towards a truly beautiful and miraculous transformation. We were becoming a family with one shared heart – Our Father’s Heart – and I couldn’t be more excited about what the future held.

Perhaps you would have to know all the details of our little family’s history to be able to understand the enormity of this moment for my heart, but today we sat down for the first time as a family and did a Bible study, more of a devotional, really, and it was absolutely incredible! So incredible, in fact, that I cannot wait to sit together as a family and do another one next week! And it is in the spirit of that very joy that I decided to start a blog post and share our first ten devotional topics and lesson ideas, complete with Bible verses and the topic questions that came up during our family discussions. That complete post will be coming soon, but in the meantime, I’ll be sharing these one at a time as they happen.

Be aware – They are informal. They are real. They are raw and sometimes they are vulnerable. But we hope you enjoy them. We pray that they bless you with the most beautiful family conversations. And mostly, we pray that they launch you into incredible moments of breakthrough and joy as you intentionally sit in that space with the Holy Spirit and He pours over you and your family.

Below, you’ll find the first family devotional that we shared.

Blessings on the journey, my friends! God is so good!!

Anointing Oil & The Holy Spirit

Well, I can confidently say that we started out our devotionals with a bang! A very powerful bang! My dear friend, hear this… The enemy’s camp shook today as our family laughed, talked, prayed, and gave thanks! The preparation for this devotional took a bit of time, but to say it was worth it would be a huge understatement. My heart is literally bursting with joy over the power and love that poured through our morning! So, with much love in my heart, here it is:

A while back I was discussing with a good friend some struggles that we were having in our home. Impatience, frustration, misunderstandings, and anger even had been waning and surging like waves pouring into our home and then receding for a while, only to pour back in again. As I sat with her at that restaurant table, I felt tired and discouraged. That’s when she asked me a totally unexpected question: Have we ever used anointing oil in our home? I was intrigued and began a month-long study of anointing oil and its uses. Through research, discussions with people that I consider spiritual mentors, prayer, and further reading, this is what I learned –

Anointing oil, today, represents the power and presence of God in a person or place. To anoint something or someone with oil is to take a physical action of placing oil on it (or them) that represents a purely spiritual action in your environment. In other words, the warfare and/or the blessing is purely spiritual, but the action of applying the anointing oil is a powerful way to take a physical action that represents the spiritual declaration that you are making.

Insert the use of anointing oil in your home…

Sometimes the warfare that takes place in our home has spiritual (supernatural) roots. You see, “spiritual not-so-friendly friends,” or better yet, the enemy’s spiritual pawns are declaring war and wreaking havoc on our emotional and mental well-being. The sole purpose of existence for these spirits is to torment us, cause friction, exacerbate fear, anger, impatience, and cause deep crack, crevices, and rifts between our family. Why? Understand this – Because joined together, we are a spiritual powerhouse, shaking the enemy’s ground every single day, so he knows that if he can break us, he can break the calling that God has on our hearts. And bottom line… I won’t let that happen. It was time to declare war on the enemy in our home. But first, we needed to understand the power that we have through the Holy Spirit.

Our discussion started out with a few Bible verses that I’d like to share with you –

John 14:16-20 TPT (The Passion Translation): And I will ask the Father and he will give you another Savior, the Holy Spirit of Truth, who will be to you a friend just like me – and he will never leave you. The world won’t receive him because they can’t see him or know him. But you know him intimately because he remains with you and will live inside you. I promise that I will never leave you helpless or abandon you as orphans – I will come back to you! Soon I will leave this world and they will see me no longer, but you will see me, because I will live again, and you will come alive too. So when that day comes, you will know that I am living in the Father and that you are one with me, for I will be living in you.

John 15:9 TPT: I love each of you with the same love that the Father loves me. You must continually let my love nourish your hearts.

John 16:23-24 TPT: For here is eternal truth: When that time comes, you won’t need to ask me for anything, but instead you will go directly to the Father and ask him for anything you desire and he will give it to you, because of your relationship with me. Until now you’ve not been bold enough to ask the Father for a single thing in my name, but now you can ask, and keep on asking him! And you can be sure that you’ll receive what you ask for, and your joy will have no limits!

John 16:7 TPT: But here’s the truth: It’s to your advantage that I go away, for if I don’t go away the Divine Encourager will not be released to you. But after I depart, I will send him to you.

When Jesus was called back to Heaven through the greatest sacrifice ever known to man, the Holy Spirit was sent in His place. What does this mean? It means that we have the truly unique and beautiful invitation to have a very personal, intimate, individual relationship with God. The Holy Spirit is accessible to us 100% of the time, always. We do not ever need a third party to interpret or intervene between us and God. God speaks directly to us through the Holy Spirit who dwells within us. And further, when we understand this very important and individual invitation into a personal relationship with God, this incredible gift that we have to carry Holy Spirit with us and within us everywhere and every day, we begin to understand the supernatural power and authority that pumps through our very veins.

Luke 10:19 TPT: Now you understand that I have imparted to you my authority to trample over (Satan’s) kingdom. You will trample upon every demon before you and overcome every power Satan possesses. Absolutely nothing will harm you as you walk in this authority.

So first, let’s talk about WHO the Holy Spirit is.

The Spirit of Truth. John 14:16

The Divine Encourager. John 16:7

The Chain-Breaker. John 14:26

Our Source of Discernment, Divine Wisdom, and/or Guidance John 16:13

He is our source of divine comfort and strength; our place of safety and peace; and the incredibly supernatural power source to which we can personally connect and launch from (make that – explode from!) in our every day!

So, if God is with us every day, everywhere we go, then we have ability to bring God into every space that we walk into. Going to the grocery store? Leave a little Jesus. Going to work? Leave a little Jesus. Taking a walk around your neighborhood? Intentionally invite the Holy Spirit along. What does that look like? I don’t know – that’s up to Him, but for me, it often looks like praying silently for someone, or everyone, as I walk through the store. Praying for an opportunity to lift another. Or even praying over my grocery cart so that the next person that grabs it feels His presence pour over their day, even if they don’t yet know who He is. That part is up to Him – my part is to sprinkle His presence into every space that I walk into.

Let’s just call it “spreading Jesus remnants and residue.” This may sound like I’m speaking in childlike terms, but remember, my kid is in the room and a vital part of this lesson. He’s a spiritual powerhouse in himself and I want to release that power in terms that he can understand. So, we take it even a step further and give the discussion a visual – glitter. We talk about the idea of sprinkling glitter everywhere we go and how it leaves a little – or a lot – of glitter all around. And then we explain… this is Jesus. This is the Holy Spirit. This is our invitation to be intentional in every space and pour Him into every place we walk into simply through the power of prayer, discernment, love, and obedience. You see, when we carry Him within us, and we recognize how incredible and powerful that is, we open the door for Him to use us every day everywhere. And whoa! – That’s just so powerful!

Now, let’s loop back to our home…

Carrying the Holy Spirit within us always gives us authority over the enemy, as we discussed earlier. Now, you may feel uncomfortable sharing lessons on the enemy in your home, but personally, I feel that having honest and real conversations about spiritual warfare with our children sets them up to recognize when such warfare is taking place around them all through life. So, we tend to be very open and honest about these conversations. After all, there’s nothing to fear – Jesus already won the war! All we have to do is recognize the attack and declare our authority. And that’s exactly what we did.

At the end of our family devotional and discussion about the Holy Spirit, and the power and authority that we carry within us every day when we have a personal relationship with Him, we made a…

Verbal Declaration – “Satan, you are not welcome in our home.”

Combined with a Physical Action – Anointing each window, door, and mirror (traditionally considered entry points)

To Represent a Very Spiritual Message in Authority.

Why do I so intentionally divide these pieces to the puzzle? Verbal, Physical, Spiritual? Because I hope that you understand throughout this message that parts one and two are representations, not requirements.

Can’t speak? You’re covered. The power pours from the Holy Spirit dwelling within you, not your voice.

Don’t have anointing oil? You’re covered. The power and authority rests not in the oil, but in God himself.

Want to use a different kind of oil? Go for it! The oil is simply and beautifully a physical representation of the spiritual sword; it is not the source of the power.

All that you need, my friend, is already within you – the presence, power, and authority of the Holy Spirit.

There are no rules when it comes to anointing your home. There is no box that you have to stay within. Do it traditionally. Do it non-traditionally. Do it with childlike joy. Do it serious. Do it in the shape of a cross. Do it in a line. Do it like Gandolf (seriously, my husband did this and my child loved it). Do whatever feels right for you and your family and invite the Holy Spirit to walk through this moment with you. I promise, my friend, you will be blessed!

As a side note, I know that some of you may find my suggestion that this can be done with childlike joy or like Gandolf may have you squirming, but I feel very strongly that God loves to hear my son’s laughter. He loves to see his pure joy. And most importantly, He loves that my child will always remember this day and what it meant. And as to the effectiveness of doing it like Gandolf, well, my husband’s heart was equally as devoted to the declaration in the voice of Gandolf as he would be in his own voice. It’s all about our relationship with Him and not rules, after all. But I completely understand if this feels too uncomfortable for you. That’s why I’m encouraging your heart – do what’s right for you and your family and celebrate the day! It’s monumental no matter how you choose to approach it!

Now, about that anointing oil… Should you choose to make a traditional anointing oil, you can find easy-to-follow recipes online. I’m not going to list one here because I’m not familiar with essential oils and their safe doses or uses, so I’d rather leave that to the experts. That said, according to Exodus 30:22-25, traditional anointing oil includes myrrh, cinnamon, calamus, cassia, and olive oil. In the recipe that I followed, the calamus oil can be substituted with frankincense oil because it’s often difficult to find calamus. That’s ultimately what I decided to do.

After anointing all the windows, doors, and mirrors in the home with our oil, we took a quiet, intentional, and heartfelt moment to anoint and pray over each person in our family. It was a beautiful conclusion to a very powerful family devotional morning!

Now, I’d like to take just a moment and share with you some of the more challenging discussion questions that came up during our devotional. I’ll answer them as best as I can, but I’m not claiming to be an expert. I just go with answers that feel right in my spirit. So, here we go…

What is the difference between the very natural human emotion of anger and the spirit of anger that is of the enemy?

Like the question states, anger is a very natural and healthy emotion. It’s a signal from our heart to our brain that says something is wrong; we feel hurt, betrayed, misunderstood, or otherwise treated unfairly. Even Jesus expressed anger. But here’s where a warning is fair. The enemy will use any entry point he can to create a spiritual battlefield that you feel helpless to overcome. He will twist the once-healthy emotion of anger into you like a knife, whispering lies and manipulating you until the anger winds its way all throughout your identity and suddenly you cannot separate yourself from it.

You begin to feel like the anger defines you. The anger has become you. The anger is part of who you are and you can no longer see life without it. It leaks, or pours, onto everyone you love, destroying everything you hold dear. Identity… that’s what this is about. When the enemy takes your healthy emotion and speaks lies into your spirit until you feel so trapped by this overwhelming spiral that you are helpless to find a way out. “This is just who I am.” Sound familiar? You see, the spirit of anger defines you, becomes you, where healthy anger defines a situation that hurts. We must allow ourselves to feel one, exploring the root and allowing healing to flow, and be quick to name and rebuke the other.

Note: The same could be said for how the enemy uses our sadness, fear, and other healthy emotions to attempt to re-define us according to his manipulative lies.

If we can pour God’s presence into every place and space that we go, can we leave remnants of God’s spirit on an inanimate object like a shopping cart or a rock?

I loved this sweet question. So, here’s my thoughts on it: I do not believe that God literally goes into the inanimate object, like a rock, but I do believe that God is all-knowing and omnipotent and He honors our prayers for others and our love for Him. If we pray that the next person that touches a shopping cart or holds a certain rock be blessed, I believe that He honors those prayers because He honors our devotion and our faithfulness. He doesn’t enter the rock, but He already knows who will hold it next and He chooses to pour over them, to bless them, simply because of our beautiful act of faith… even if that person does not know who He is (yet)! You see, God will bless someone simply and beautifully because of how much it delights Him when we seek His presence and humbly pray for one another. We are His children and He absolutely delights in us – He delights in you – and when we seek Him together, well… I feel like I can just see His smile and hear His sweet laughter. His children, calling on their Father, seeking to bless one another. What joy it must make His heart feel!

So there you have it, friends! Our first family devotional. I can’t wait to bring you more, but for now, I hope this one has truly blessed you. I hope it encouraged your heart. I pray that it helps you create intentional space for your family to gather around the table and discuss the incredible, beautiful, loving Father that we have in Jesus.

Much love, my friends!

Shannon