YOU HAVE BATHROOM, YOU HAVE DRESSING ROOM, YOU HAVE BEDROOM, YOU EVEN HAVE FOOTBALL ROOM, HAVE YOU GOT THINKING ROOM?
THE TRUE WORTH OF A MAN IS HIS MIND.
YOU CAN HAVE BRAZILIAN HAIR AND NOT HAVE BRAZILIAN BRAIN
OUR WORTH IN LIFE IS A FUNCTION OF THE STATE AND USE OF OUR MIND.
IT’S IN OUR ABILITY TO THINK WELL AND NOT IN OUR SHOWMANSHIP.
CARRY A LIZARD TO FRANCE, IT WILL STILL BE A LIZARD. THE ONLY THING THAT WILL CHANGE IS THE PRONUNCIATION, FROM LIZARD TO LE’ZARD.
-Pastor David Ndubueze on ” ENGAGING THE DEMAND OF INTELLECTUAL EXERCISE. ” at International Youth Alive Convention 2021
Day Four, Morning Session.
Thank God for bringing you and I to this mountain of excellence.
What a privilege to have a God we can run to. What a privilege to have a Father we can call on.
Father, with the unity of faith we return as responsible children acknowledging Your goodness from day one, You brought us safely and You have continually furnished us. Our lives are no more the same. Thank You for sending us Your word, thank You for Your visitations, thank You for waking us again this morning, thank You for what You have in store for us.
Receive all the glory and right now Lord we are before You ready, eager, hungry. Let everyone be satisfied, let every destiny be transformed, let Your Name alone be glorified in Jesus awesome Name we have prayed.
Let’s be seated and give Jesus a big hand of praise.
I count it a rare privilege this morning granted me by God and His Servant, the Apostle over this Commission to bring us the first word for this morning session. You are clapping for Jesus make it bigger and better.
This morning we will be considering another major access to this realm of excellence and that is:
ENGAGING THE DEMAND OF INTELLECTUAL EXERCISE.
Let’s begin with defining Excellence this morning and I will be giving you two definitions of excellence this morning.
One literally coming from an inspiration and the other verbatim from our father in the faith, Bishop David Oyedepo.
- Excellence means Supernatural intelligence: Daniel 1:20.
From today, you will not just be the best, you will be the best amongst the best.
Supernatural intelligence, Supernatural enlightenment, Supernatural comprehension, understanding, illumination, ability to solve problems including hard ones. Daniel 5:11-13.
When the matter became tough, when problem became thick, when jungle matured, they told the king there is a man in thy kingdom in whom is the Spirit of the holy gods.
The guy was so loaded that he didn’t need to talk. Church Gist. People were talking for him.
Good news. From now, you and I shall become the reference point.
- From the words of our father, the Apostle over this Commission. There’s nothing mystical about excellence, it’s a product of man’s tireless commitments to improvement.
Proverbs 4:18.
So, there is nothing mystical about excellence. It’s simply put, practical God-likeness. If you are godly, if you are a Believer, if you are a child of God, it will show in your God-likeness. And our God is an excellent God.
How? Because He is tirelessly committed to improvement. Lamentations 3: 22-23. So, our God is an Addict of improvement. Everyday is an improvement of the former.
But by these two definitions, it is clear that excellence is not possible without paying attention to your mind. Church Gist. Why? Our mind is the seat of thinking and reasoning.
The mind (the soul) of a man is the seat of thinking and reasoning. And that goes to say that our mind is the true worth of our lives.
If the mind is the seat of thinking and reasoning in man then the true worth of a man is in his mind. Proverbs 23:7.
Therefore, it’s important to note that your worth and my worth is not in the coat we wear. You can have Brazilian hair, the question is do you have Brazilian brain?
Our worth in life is a function of the state and use of our mind. Our ability to think well, not our showmanship.
Carry a lizard from Nigeria, go to Italy it’s still a lizard because of the way it thinks.
Carry it to France, it will still be a lizard. The only thing that will change is the pronunciation, from lizard to le’zard.
Carry a lizard from Nigeria, go to Italy it’s still a lizard because of the way it thinks.
Your worth is not in your height, it is not in your stature. Stop crying because of your height. Zacchaeus was not the tallest. In fact the way you are is the best, you were created in God’s image. Are you getting me right now?
Some people think it’s just good to be tall. The Bible says lo, I am with you.
Some people say, ‘ I am too fat, I am too fat’. The Bible says, you shall be fat and flourishing.
Some people say, ‘why are my eating and it’s not showing’. The Bible says, narrow is the way that leads to heaven.
So your limitation is not your height, your limitation is not your weight, your limitation is not your complexion. Leave bleaching cream alone. Your limitation is the state, somebody touch your head and say the state and the use of my mind.
Take for instance if you check, why is it that we don’t reckon with mad people? They don’t count, they don’t matter.
You see mad people may be huge, fair, strong but they don’t admit them for war, they don’t admit them for wrestling. These are fierce people that you should bring to battle but despite how fierce they are, they don’t count them.
They don’t vote for them, they don’t vote. They don’t count them during census but if you check, some of those mad men are taller than you and I. Some of them are fatter and weightier, some of them are very beautiful. There are some of the mad ladies if you see them, they are so beautiful to the point you are now wondering how they will look when they bath. Yet with all of that, they don’t count. Not because they are not alive but the state and the use of their mind.
You and I, we either think well or we will sink well. We either think well or we will still start stinking well.
Thinking, thinking. I pray the same way the God of this Commission has helped our father to become a tireless thinker, that grace comes upon you and I.
Mensah Otabil, one of the great leaders we have in the Christiandom in Ghana came to Shiloh once and when he was about teaching said, ‘ your father, Bishop David Oyedepo is abnormal’. Church Gist. And you know some of us were ready to fight because there are some fights that are good fights. So, I was waiting for him to conclude. He said, ‘ I say your father is abnormal’.
I said, you are just starting, finish.
He said, ‘ he took me to his house in a tour, and showed me one room, another room. This one, library, and he showed me another one and I asked him, ‘what is this one?’. Church Gist. He replied, it’s my thinking room and I asked, your what? What do you mean by that? He said that’s where I enter to think.
No wonder, everything is working.
You have bathroom, you have dressing room, you have bedroom, you even have football room, have you got thinking room?
Now, what’s thinking?
- Thinking is tasking our brains to improve our gains without providing pains to God: it’s tasking our brains to improve our gains without paining the Lord. That’s the difference between thinking and scamming.
Thinking is God’s while scamming is the devil’s.
Providing solutions, tasking your brains.
I Pastored a location some time ago, in South South, in Port Harcourt. When we were there, there was no rooms. The Church was in a school building up there. Just one office, one hall. The office doesn’t have window blinds. It’s when you have window blinds, you will talk about intercom. No intercom, yet we had staff in the office.
Before long, they brought me an Assistant Pastor and now one office, one hall, an Assistant Pastor.
I started thinking and tasking my brain, and I called him and said Pastor, this is an executive meeting between me and you. Church Gist. You know that I am the Resident Pastor and you are the Assistant. You will be having visitors and I will be having visitors, and there’s one office.
I want two of us to stay in this one office but will you be comfortable when your visitors come.
So, we need to think about this thing. Let’s provide a place where you can be comfortable. Let me stay in this room, you the whole church will be your office. And I told him, go to choir stand and put all those barricades.
Pastor don’t be sleeping because people will be coming to the church. Church Gist. When people are coming, just continue with your work. You will be shocked they will start treating that place like an office.
Before long, people will come to that place and in that empty place, they will clap their hands to alert him, and he will permit them.
After long, I noticed there was a problem of communication because there was no intercom.
So I called another executive meeting and said there’s a job that is for security men, there is another job for Pastor. Sometimes when I am counseling and I might need to call him, and I will be shouting Pastor, Pastor. Church Gist. It will look like an another Chapel, not Winners’ Chapel because Winners Chapel don’t call their Pastors like that.
So I started thinking, there is no intercom, no need to complain, no need to grieve. So, I started thinking without paining God. I remembered flashing, what people use for nonsense. I called another executive meeting. Church Gist. ‘The subject today is communication’. Security, when I call, don’t pick the call, check whether it was a flash.
If I call once, it’s means come. If I call once and call again, it means call Assistant Pastor.
If I call you once, call again and call the third time and if is ringing, it means don’t come, pick.
Assistant Pastor your code is, if I call once and cut, it means come. If I call once and cut and call once again, it means pick.
So, I will be doing counseling and somehow it will be a matter that concerns the security. Church Gist. So, I will need to call him, before you know it I have done the communication without the knowing of the person that came for counseling. Church Gist. And before you know it the security in my office and the person who came for counseling will say, ‘sir the Spirit is one’, yes the Spirit is one.
Tasking your brains to increase your gains without paining the Lord.
- It’s processing Scriptures to profer solutions over the situations of life.
John 8:3-4.
There’s no situation without a solution in God’s revelation. And that point Jesus needed to think and not to pray.
Daughters of God you need to keep yourself, you are delicate. Church Gist. Men were created from dust. You were created from man.
The devil targets you always the first because he knows how special you are.
When it came to Eden, it was the woman.
Look out now, if there’s immorality, who suffers the most? It’s the woman.
They carried a woman to Jesus. What about the man?
Pregnancy who carries it? Abortion, who suffers it? Who will drop out school?
Now, if she did abortion and died, who will die?
This woman we caught her in adultery. And many of the people that brought her were men.
And by the time He lifted up His head, they were all gone.
I pastored a church that was in a two storey building. And the people started complaining about the inaccessibility in attending service. They said, we should ask the leadership to give us money so that we can rent a more comfortable place but I knew the people only wanted me to return to my village. Because what will I tell God’s Servant, Bishop David Oyedepo?
“You see, you see”. Those who don’t reason can’t be seen.
I went one day and saw from Scriptures where it said, the mountains of God’s house shall be upon the mountains and many people shall flow in.
And I came to church one day and told the people that, if you have a two storey building, one storey building and a normal building and God wants to pour His blessings from heaven. Who will first receive it. They all shouted, the ones in the two storey building. And that was how it was handled.
The church started growing, people started coming. Church Gist. The overflows were filled then two services started, then three services started. The church is still growing up till today.
What you are thinking is in Sokoto, is in your ‘shokoto’. Bring our your Bible and think.
Listen to this, only few people think. Some people actually feels they are thinking, while most people don’t think at all. They are in the category of La casera Believers.
Que sera, sera what will be, will be.
Nothing good comes like that. Some have minds that are in bad state, hence useless. That’s mad people.
There are people that have minds that are in good state, hence put into bad use. Church Gist. Because of the bad use of the minds in good state, the minds soon become useless in a matter of time.
Romans 8:6-7.
That peace there means shalom; prosperity without pressure, news without noise.
We must therefore be careful how we make use of our minds.
Until you mind your mind, people will not mind you.
And I have two recommendations:
We must guard it critically. Proverbs 4:23. 2 Corinthians 10:5-6, Daniel 1:8.
- Guide it well.
Give it direction. Tell it what to do. Phillipians 4:8-9.
Our father, Bishop David Oyedepo followed Kenneth Copeland and then the things he saw from Kenneth Copeland began to rub on him.
Bishop Abioye followed Bishop David Oyedepo and the same thing happened to him.
We heard Pastor David said he trekked with his wife to Shiloh from Sango.
For a man to trek from Sango to Shiloh, you should know there’s a problem but for a man to trek from Sango with his wife to this place is a major problem
Under the sun, it shows you his level of following. But by follow follow today, it’s wonder wonder tomorrow.
You called them old school but how come they are still making news.
Winners’ youths, beware of what you follow. This new trend, how long has it lasted? There’s no new truth. Church Gist. Truth is truth. Hebrews 6:12.
Like the Rechabites to Jeremiah. Jeremiah said, ‘ I am a Prophet of God and this wine is a wine of God’ . They refused but maintained what their father taught them.
This your grace teaching will not disgrace me. My focus is clear. That’s how to guard and guide your mind.
Therefore we must be constantly reminded of the following:
- We now possess the mind of Christ : 2 Corinthians 2:16. At redemption, you and I received the innovative mind that cannot be trapped.
- This mind of Christ puts us at an advantage over others. :2 Timothy 1:7
Didn’t they said, Myles Munroe was a dullard. Church Gist. One of the greatest brains that ever lived.
- Whatever we don’t put to use, no matter the advantage or potential becomes useless. Ecclesiastes 10:18.
Christians, Christianity is not equal to stupidity. Wake up your mind.
Isaiah 1:18-19.
He told us that he was in a meeting like this and as the man of God was teaching, he was hearing cracks in his head. Church Gist. And from that day, he could dissolve any matters.
To engage our minds, we must be committed to the following:
Reading.
Readers are leaders. Daniel 1:8, 1 Timothy 4:13-16.
Develop the learner’s attitude: if you cannot be taught, you cannot emerge a teacher.
Our father, Bishop David Oyedepo said, what you don’t know, you don’t know. What you won’t learn, you don’t know and what you don’t know, you will pay for it.
There are certain lessons if you don’t learn it now, you will pay for it later.
Possess a seeker’s attitude.
Isaiah 34:16. Matthew 7:8. Luke 15:8-9.
Only seekers are finders.
- Studying : 2 Timothy 2:15.
Studying is researching. - Beware of sin and carnality. T.L Osborn says, once you sin, something dies. And I believe one of those things is the mind.
When Adam and Eve sinned, the mind that was working actively with God could not cover their nakedness.
Genesis 49:3-4.
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