When Jesus began to reveal to His disciples that they were chosen, they were on their way to the Garden of Gethsemane. This is where Christ endured such pressure that His sweat became drops of blood. This was the first place where Christ’s blood was shed, but this pressure is what birthed an incredible anointing! Gethsemane means “olive press”. It is where olive trees where, which symbolize trees of life! Psalm 52:8 says, “But I am like a green olive tree in the house of God: I trust in the mercy of God for ever and ever.” The righteous is like a green olive tree, who trusts in God’s mercy and grace, because they stand through thick and thin in God. David was saying, “I shall be in the house of God, full of spiritual vigor, bringing forth evergreen leaves and annual fruit, as the olive does when planted in a proper soil and good situation. It does not mean that there were olive-trees planted in God’s house; but he was in God’s house, as the olive was in its proper place and soil. The wicked man trusts in his riches: I trust in my God. He, like a bad tree, bringing forth poisonous fruit, like a poison ivy, shall be cursed, and pulled up from the roots; I, like a healthy olive in a good soil, shall, under the influence of God’s mercy, bring forth fruit to his glory. As the olive is ever green, so shall I flourish in the mercy of God for ever and ever.” We are called to be like the olive tree.

Olive trees symbolize the anointing of God because of its natural content of oil and fruitfulness. The olive branch (or branch of olive oil) represents peace (Genesis 8:11), the righteous (Psalm 52:8), the natural Israel (Hosea 14:5-6; Jeremiah 11:16), the Church (Romans 11:16-24), and God’s two anointed witnesses (Zechariah 4:11-14; Revelation 11:3-4) (The Making of a Leader, Frank Damazio, p. 288). Therefore, the anointing brings peace, functions in righteousness, and proves that one is chosen by God for a specific work!

In order to bear fruit and anointing, olive trees must be purged. John 15:2 says, “Every branch in me that beareth not fruit he taketh away: and every branch that beareth fruit, he purgeth it, that it may bring forth more fruit.” To purge here means “to prune trees and vines from useless shoots,” which are immature stems or branches with its leaves and appendages. Christ purges us from those branches, or connections with people, that cause us to be hindered from yielding forth fruit. He purges us from things that we do not need in life because they will keep us from reaching our perfect destination in the LORD. Do not cry over what God is delivering you from and separating from your life because it is for your own good. Some people cannot go where you are going. They will only hold you back when you have fruit to bear. The purging process is never easy, but at the end, you will have a testimony of how great God really is. Instead of having all of these ugly, immature branches all over your tree, you will be full of fruit and life by shedding and purging off of these old branches!

Something that we are all familiar with concerning olives is that we get oil from them. It was pure olive oil that was used to keep the lamp in Moses’ Tabernacle continually burning. When God, not man, begins to pick your fruit, He will take that fruit from your tree, and it will go through a process of heat and bruising. See, when Jesus went to the fig tree, He was hungry for what that tree had, for what it should have had to offer was life. But because it was acting “out of its appointed season”, Christ cursed it. It was supposed to have something to offer, but it did not. When God comes by your tree hungry, what will you have to offer Him? It is what will define blessing and cursing! When He picks from your tree, He will take it through suffering just as Christ suffered. Remember at the LORD’s Supper, when Christ took the bread, blessed it, broke it and then gave it to His disciples. It is a process you have to go through to win souls for the Kingdom of God. There are moments where God will take you and bless you, but there are moments where He breaks you and give you away! You have to go through some pressure, just like Jesus went through the pressure in the Garden of Gethsemane. Believe there was such an emotional stress on Jesus that His sweat became as drops of blood, that the devil was trying to kill Him in the Garden before He could fulfill His purpose of getting to the cross, but aren’t you glad the devil lost, and he is still a loser to this day! But as that pressure of the sins of this entire world rested upon my Savior’s shoulder, an anointing began to flow that would still break yokes today, that the Word is truly fulfilled, “He was wounded for our transgression, bruised for our iniquities, the chastisement of our peace was upon Him, and with His stripes, we are healed.” He was nailed to a cross because the tree of life would now blossom again, and that precious anointing would flow from Mt. Calvary even to this day. But now is the time where we deny ourselves, take up our cross and follow Him, being true Christians, becoming a tree of life to this generation! We may go through some suffering, but all God is doing is doing is pouring a new and fresh anointing to put more devils to flight. Don’t worry, there is a purpose for your storm!

The cultivated olive tree grows to approximately 20 feet in height and has a very twisted trunk with many branches. The tree grows very slowly. It must be maintained very diligently, and if it is, it can grow huge crops of oil-rich olives for centuries. The fruit of a wild olive tree, however, is useless, and can bear usable fruit only by in-grafting a portion of a cultivated tree (The Making of a Leader, Frank Damazio, p. 288) (Romans 11:17-24).

Olives ripened in the early autumn. They were gathered in through shaking and beating the branches with long poles, at the end of November. After harvesting, olives were gathered together into a shallow rock cistern where they were crushed with a large, upright millstone (normally preferred over crushing by foot). The crushing would release the rich oil from the olives, which then sat, allowing foreign matter to settle out. After their impurities were removed, the rich oil was then stored in earthen vessels or rock cisterns (p. 288). This illustrates how that you may go through some the shaking, beating, and crushing to see what you are made of, but that is when the oil of God’s anointing flows! Sometimes, you may feel that you just settling in a place of preparation, but it is that season of learning in which God is removing the impurities out of your life so that an anointing can flow out of you like never before. It is part of being chosen!