AND THE KINGDOM LIFE IS NOT A MEDIOCRE LIFE, HOWEVER, IT DEPENDS ON UNDERSTANDING.
THE GREATEST ACCESS IS NOT ACCESS TO RESOURCES; IT IS ACCESS TO THE HEARTS OF KINGS.
RELATIONSHIPS ARE POWERFUL BUT BEWARE OF THE DIMENSION YOU ARE RELATING WITH.
FAVOUR IS MERITED;
YOU ARE RESPONSIBLE FOR ACTIVATING THE FLOW OF FAVOUR IN YOUR LIFE. GOD IS RESPONSIBLE FOR CREATING THAT IDEA AND HE HAS DONE THAT IN CHRIST.
- Apostle Joshua Selman on THE MANIFESTATION OF THE HOLY SPIRIT at the Global Impact Church || Recharge Conference || Evening Session || Day 3 || 8th July, 2022.
Hallelujah!
Praise the name of the Lord. Thank you so much for the stretch and your endurance, I am aware of the kind of spiritual investment that has gone into this Conference; the Bible says they go from strength to strength as many as appear before the Lord in Zion.
Please help me honour the angel over this house and his dear wife, Pastor Yemi Davids, God bless you. I sincerely appreciate you.
By God’s grace, we will try to make it a brief session, but I believe that it will be an impactful one. Please lift your hands in one minute and let’s ask the Lord to help us again; one encounter with the Word of God can transform your life. One encounter with the Word of God can change the narrative of your destiny.
I am teaching along the theme on the subject of favour and may I please request that you lend me your attention; I submit to you that many people do not really understand the subject of favour. Many people may have experienced semblances of favour, but I think for the average believer, the operation of favour is largely haphazard. Church Gist. If it happens, that’s fine, we give God glory. But there’s no predictability in our experience of favour and it ought not to be so. So, I believe that the Lord put it in the heart of His servant, to call forth a coveragance like this, to help believers understand this subject because we live in times where we need this understanding and we need the experience.
I honour and I salute every servant of God, who has contributed in ways great and small to our understanding. I pray that the Lord will help us again in Jesus’ name.
Ephesians 1:3
Apostle Paul was teaching the Church in Ephesus and he said, blessed be the God and the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the Heavenly places in Christ. This is a very powerful information. Church Gist. So, he said that God through Christ has given us access to every spiritual blessing, not some. We have been given access to every spiritual blessing, through Christ. But the Bible says that this blessings still reside in Heavenly places in Christ (John 10:10). It is very important for us to get this as a background.
The life of the natural man is largely based on the law of time and chance (Ecclesiastes 9:11a). That means, one who is a natural man, unassisted by his union with Christ, his life largely subscribe to the law of time and chance. So, the law of time and chance means, nothing unusual happens to you; what happens to you is that which is common to all men. The law of time and chance does not require you being born again, does not require you being a privileged person; there are certain things that naturally, for as long as you are part of this time frame, eventually it will happen to you.
An example under normal circumstances, biological growth. That means, the natural man by default does not have anything that should make his life an advantage. There is nothing capture in the life of the natural man that should make his life uncommon and an advantage because, all that he has to leverage on is the law of time and chance and the Bible says, it happen to them all. Church Gist. That means, there’s no basis for uniqueness or anything special. When we get saved and come into the Kingdom life, the Bible lets us know that among the many things that we receive when we come into Christ is that life, that Zoe life, the very life of God (John 3:16). What God gave us is more than everlasting life, it was the limitation in the translation of that word. Zoe is more than an everlasting life because even those who died without Christ have everlasting life. It is just location, not possiblity. They will continue living.
So, the life God gave us is more than everlasting, it is a quality of life and Paul begin to describe the riches of that quality, that that life affords you the privilege to access Heavenly blessings given from the Father, through the office of Christ.
1 Corinthians 2:12
When you become a recipient of this life by faith, among the many privileges that this affords you is the ministry of the Holy Spirit, who now works in partnership with the Word of God to begin to unveil to you the riches and the blessedness of that which is contained in this life you have received. Because, just because you have received the life does not mean you are aware of the vastness and the riches of all that that life captures. You must be enlightened.
You need to understand that accessing the riches of redemption is knowledge dependent, more than desire dependent, it is knowledge dependent (Ephesians 4:18). If you lack knowledge and understanding, you can be alienated from the experience of this Zoe life, even though it is a fact that in Christ, you have been given access to that life, alongside the provisions that come with that life. Church Gist. Did the Bible not say an heir, for as long as he is a child, it says, he is different not from a slave, even though he be lord of all. So, the experience of that child, one who is part of the fold, a beneficiary of the inheritance and one who is a slave, their experiences will be the same. Why? The gap is knowledge.
So, let’s settle it for a fact, that the natural man does not have any possibility of outsourcing any advantage by himself. The natural life of the fallen man does not capture within it any advantage whatsoever. If for any reason your life must capture anything that looks like an advantage, it must be outsourced from a realm that is beyond the natural realm; whether it is diabolic in context or spiritual sponsored by the Holy Ghost. Anytime you see any natural life manifesting super human advantages, it already reveals to you that, that individual, knowingly or unknowingly has fraternized with a dimension beyond the natural realm, because by the natural realm, the only possiblity here are the things that are common to men.
But then, if you come into Christ by reason of the new birth experience, you are given this life and He says that, that life captures possibilities among them, access to the Spirit of truth, that will guide you into all truth. So, even though you have truth, you must be guided for it to benefit you. Just because it is true does not mean it will bless you.
The awareness of the blessings of redemption alone will not bring us into the experience, we need understanding. That means, just being aware that the life of God given to me is superior, higher than the natural life, that the life given to captures within it possibilities, including favour. Awareness does not translate into experience, it takes understanding. Church Gist. Understanding means you must maintain the faculty and the fortitude of comprehension. You must understand the dynamics of making that which was finished in Christ to become your experience here and now.
One of the blessings that is captured in the Kingdom life is the privilege of exerting dominion over time, situations and circumstances. I call them systems of advantage. That means, when you come into Christ, among the many possibilities that are contained in this faith life is the ability to find your way out of any situation. There are instruments that have been deposited on our path in Christ, that if and when discovered, now begins to provide an extraordinary life. That means by default, by the natural man, the life and the template of the natural man, nothing unusual should happen in my life. But now, I got saved and in getting saved, I discovered that the economy of God runs in a way that if I walk in compliance with the Word of God, I will start meeting certain things on the way that must make my life unusual. One of them is called favour.
It is not the only system of advantage, mercy is a system of advantage; speed, restoration are all systems of advantage and they are scattered on your way, so that as you walk with the Holy Spirit, you will start colliding with this possibilities and the narrative of your life will start changing to that of a human being who is not a pure a human being. It becomes very clear and evident to all that someone else is supporting this journey, you are no longer alone. Church Gist. So, regardless my background, if you are to predict my future based on my ground, if you are to factor in the revelation that I was not born naturally in Christ, you now look at my background, you can accurately predict my future and you will be right because there should be nothing contained there except that when I meet Christ, the moment I come into the faith life, the Holy Spirit begins to guide me, there are riches and treasures that if and when my destiny collides with them, He will begin to produce a certain kind of man that must compel the attention of all and sundry, it becomes clear that this one is not a man walking alone again. There is a system of advantage that has come to him.
Naturally speaking, if I want to call someone from another state, unassisted, the only way to do that is to trek or walk and get to that location and meet the person and talk into his ears, because the only part of him that can hear me is his ears and since his ears are not in close proximity, but then someone can now assist me by giving me a phone. What have you done? You have created an advantage to my life. I have redeemed time, I don’t need to run to that man and meet him. Imagine if you are in London, but that you can give me a phone that is so efficient, with one dial, I have access to the same ears. So, the person who began to trek, in hope that he will talk to that man three days ago and me who know have access to a phone, I will talk and we will be gisting for hours and you will see how unfair life becomes relative to that man’s experience. It is nothing unusual about me, I have access something.
My assignment this night is to stand in partnership with the Holy Spirit and handover something to your life, that you can hold and surround your life with and your results will begin to change in a way that you will wonder and you will marvel.
The faith life is not an ordinary life, the Kingdom life is not a mediocre life, however, it depends on understanding. One of the many systems of advantage that have been provided by the grace and by the mercy of God to help the saints excel in life, to fulfill their destiny and then to live lives that are notable and uncommon is favour.
To understand the subject of favour, there are things you need to know:
1). Destiny fulfillment and results are time dependent (John 9:4). If for any reason you were designed to live say, 100 years and you get born again at age 40, from a spiritual standpoint, you wasted 40 years. 40 years is already against you. You will need a system introduced to your life that can remedy for that 40 years.
Ecclesiastes 12:1-2
If you want to dry your clothes and have it dried very fast, you take an advantage of a provision already, called the sun. When the sun is shinning brightest, you come quickly, if you need water in your bucket, you take advantage of the rain. Church Gist. You don’t necessarily create it, you just discern and take advantage of them when they come. We have the raining season and the dry season, a good farmer is also one who understands the seasons.
2). Destiny fulfillment and getting results are also men dependent (Psalm 115:16). If anything must happen in this side of God’s Kingdom, you cannot do it in isolation with the corporation of a man. Just like Pastor Jerry said, it is possible for someone to not like you. You know that ordinarily unassisted you are in trouble. What if that man is a gatekeeper?
Gatekeepers are people you cannot cast away because they control systems and structures. The only thing you can do with them is, God will give you favour with them. When a man’s way pleases the Lord, He makes those kinds of enemies to be at peace with you. They are not the one you cast because they are gatekeepers.
3). The whole world lies in wickedness under the siege of satan (1 John 5:19). There’s no physical place of escape that exempt you from the possibility of wickedness, provided you are alive. There must then be a divine factor that immunes you above and against this reality (1 Peter 5:8).
What then is favour?
To be favoured means to be given unusual kindness, unusual acceptance and unusual access. These are the tripartite scriptural proof of favour in the life of a man. So, when you say I am favoured, we don’t need to argue, prophetically yes, but in experience, we will vet you from the lens of unusual kindness, acceptance and unusual access.
- In the name of Jesus who is the Son of the living God, from tonight, that grace that makes for unusual kindness, unusual acceptance and unusual access, receive it right now!
Immediately you know the definition of disfavour, you can know that disfavour is at work in my life, by also have unusual dimension of rejection, closed doors, empty-handedness. These are biblical indices, so that this teaching now leave us in two categories. You can know without confusion whether favour is working in your life in experience or otherwise.
- For someone in the name of Jesus, after tonight, it will be as if you are dreaming; you will find out that in a very strange way, you are favoured.
Luke 2:52 - In the name of Jesus, I prophesy by the power that raised Christ from the dead, whatever must come upon your head to make what is yours to come to you, let it come right now in the name of Jesus!
Genesis 39:1-4
Anywhere you see favour, check it by the indices I have given you; unusual kindness, unusual acceptance and unusual access. Here you see it in the life of Joseph. Church Gist.
Exodus 3:21
Emptiness has a spiritual explanation. When you see a man’s hand empty; you have the hands to receive, yet nothing is coming on it. There’s an explanation; lack of kindness, acceptance and access.
Ezra 7:6
There was something on Ezra that was making the king answer everything he said. The request was granted according to the hand of the Lord upon him.
- May something come upon you in the name of Jesus the Son of the living God!
The world is to wicked for you to indefinitely have unusual kindness, acceptance and unusual access. Men are not even that emotionally stable to give you the guarantee that everyday you come, there has to be a factor that is greater than emotions, that will compel men, regardless their vacillations to give you the same result. It is called favour.
To say favour is unmerited, it is not exactly right. The moment you say favour is unmerited, it takes away the responsibility dimension from you. I can tell you favour is merited. The only dimension and expression of favour that is unmerited is favour that is captured in the redemption of man and that is in that we could not die for ourselves, but even at that, there is still a responsibility to receive.
Proverbs 13:15
Bad understanding is understanding that leads to the outcome that you did not desire. Good understanding is like a pregnant woman, when she gives birth to a child, the name of that child of favour. Transgression is also a pregnant woman, when she gives birth to a child, the name of the child is called hardship. When your life is hard, don’t blame the child called hardship, blame the mother that keeps giving birth to that child. Theoretically speaking, every woman should be able to give birth to as many children. Don’t joke with that woman that gives birth to hardship; she is very fruitful. There’s no barrenness with transgression; you put a seed there, your child is coming. Unfortunately, this child does not wait for nine months, it can come in one day.
Good understanding is such a fruitful woman, she can give birth everyday. In fact, you know it is favour if it happens more than once. If it happens only once, it is breakthrough, not favour. The proof of favour is the ability to make it repetitive regardless the surrounding conditions. Church Gist. If it is favour, this tripartite realities must be captured in it; unusual kindness, acceptance and unusual access because we are going to pray these three this night. If you have unusual kindness alone, it is not favour. If you have unusual acceptance alone, it is not favour. I can accept you and never bless you. If you have unusual access alone, you will remain a caretaker, access to things that you can never possess.
The greatest access is not access to resources; it is access to the hearts of kings. It is easier to open a treasury than to open the heart of a king. Whatever can make the heart of a king be opened towards you is greater than a safe in a bank. You are responsible for activating the flow of favour in your life. God is responsible for creating that idea and He’s done so in Christ, but you are responsible. Say, “In the name of Jesus, I take responsibility and I activate the flow of favour; the flow of unusual kindness, unusual acceptance and unusual access in my life and my destiny.”
Six keys, if you hold these keys, you will hang them like trophies and like badges, symbols of honour, as you triumph from one realm of glory and victory to another. This is the factor that has bailed men out of the wickedness, limitations of background and culture. The good land is sitting in these three things; unusual kindness, unusual acceptance and unusual access.
When favour arrives, it start work immediately. It is one of those spiritual qualities that does not waste time. As it arrives, it gets to work, including this night. These six keys came by studying and learning from people who are carriers of favour with proof because there are some them the Bible says we should follow, who through faith and patience; people with proofs:
1). Honour. There are people who will never experience favour in their lives because they have not learned the power of honour. Honour is the discerning, the celebrating and where applicable, the rewarding of men for their uniqueness. If you don’t master honour, you can be a child of God and you will fall short of the potentials, as far as working in this system of advantage is concerned (Romans 13:7).
The anointing of the Holy Spirit was only supposed to fight what was caused by demons, so before you introduce the anointing of the Spirit to fight over something, be sure that the problem was caused by demons, because if it is God Himself fighting you, the anointing will not solve the problem. You don’t know God fight men? God resists the proud. There are many people whose resistance today is not just caused by witches and wizards, before the arrive, they find you already resisted, the only join the resistance that was happening.
Spiritual laws are vicious warriors, they do not die or fear. When spiritual law is fighting you, only God in partnership with your obedience and His mercy can bail you out. Dishonour is a sound in the realm of the spirit and there are spiritual immigration officers assigned to detect it; whether it is done in the secret or the open. Please practice honour. Your mother and your father, the Bible says, honour your father and mother that it may be well with you and that you may live long. You have access to speed by honour.
2). Integrity (Proverbs 20:3). Integrity comes from the word ‘integer’ and it means sameness, unbendedness. There are many believers who do not have Integrity and yet, we continue to claim favour and hope it will work; no.
3). Value and contribution (Proverbs 18:16). I can assure you to the degree to which you are valuable and you contribute to the well-being of men spiritually, economically, sociologically, that is the degree to which you drive this favour from your life. Your gift is a promoter, it can bring you before a class of people called great men.
4). The power of relationships. You are as favoured as your relationships. The word be fruitful means be relational. You cannot be fruitful without being relational. In this Kingdom, who hates you does not matter, but in this world of men, who likes you matters. There are people today whose prayer requests of decades was answered at the instance of relationship.
Everything in this Kingdom operates on the strength of your relationship. First your relationship with God through His Spirit, your relationship with mentors and fathers, strategic destiny helpers; you are as strong as your connections. When God wants to bless you, among the many ways He blesses you is to shorten the distance between you and the relationship that connects you to the next level. Relationship is the hardest spiritual currency that we use to purchase things because you are as powerful as your relationship.
God called Abraham and promised him everything and asked him to leave and go to a land and the Bible says, Lot went with him. God didn’t call Lot or find somebody to assist you. Lot said, “I heard that something was coming on your head and I will be foolish enough to follow.” By the time we get to Genesis 13, we don’t know who was blessed and who tapped from who, because both the blessed one and the person who followed by relationship had the same thing. They got to a point where their men started fighting, but the foolishness of Lot was, he forgot that it was relationship. Church Gist. The Bible says, “Abraham met him and said, we are brethren, let us not fight. Choose for yourself, because for me, location does not matter. I am the one carrying it. But you, choose anywhere.” Lot did not discern what Abraham was saying and the Bible says, Lot looked at a place, it was lush, near Sodom. The first decision Lot took without the support of his relationship ended him in trouble. By the time Abraham will come to rescue him, it was still the same relationship, he met him at the center of Sodom; he was still in touch with the God of Heaven, yet he was a victim of the absence of relationship, even the God he was serving needed to bring a relationship to rescue him.
There are people you should never allow yourself to fight with. Swallow your pride and say sorry. They are too important to allow ego push them out of your life. You will suffer in a way, it will look as if God does not exist. Respectfully speaking, there are many people today who are ordained for greatness, but lack of this wisdom…
One of the classic ways that the devil destroys people and makes them to abort their destiny; he scan around your spiritual environment, who is strong enough, loving enough to bail you out? Church Gist. He will create something between you and them and cut you away from them. As that thing is happening, you will not know that the goal is not that conflict, the goal is an eventual attack on your life or business. When he uses your dishonour to cut you away from every person, then he now attacks you because in your pride, you may not rush and go back again and so, you stay there.
There are people as soon as they got a job, the Holy Spirit spoke to them, oh make sure you listen to your pastor and you are just laughing, the devil is planning to attack you and he makes you to downplay and trivialize the relationship God has connected you to. You can be in this church respectfully speaking and not be genuinely connected, God is speaking to you, go back. Go back means, sit tonight and say, who is this man that God brought to my life? He may be laughing with me everyday, we be may be hugging ourselves, we may even be eating together.
One of the reasons why I have profound regard for the woman of God is because of her recognition that although, maritally she is his wife, but she realizes when that grace comes and she opens up her heart to receive it. Let me tell you a story;
Many years ago I was in a conference and then a man of God shared this story. What was the story? That in a church like this, the man of God and his wife, things were not happening in their lives at all; favour, zero in their family. Yet in the Church, doors were opening. Church Gist. People would come and testify, because you see, the anointing upon you does not work for you until you humble yourself the same way the member humble themselves. That is the only reason the anointing will work on you. The anointing that is upon your office does not respond just because you are the carrier.
The tanker that carries fuel, it does not fuel it from the tanker, it must queue too, to receive the fuel. So, don’t you say I am carrying the anointing, it will work for me. I listen to my own messages and I get down on my knees and lift my hands when that man of God is prophesying.
So, one time, how could one be excelling in church but at home, things were going down? One day, it was a service like this and the man of God’s wife got up and just walked out. He finished service very quickly, finished counseling and he rushed home; Honey, what is wrong? Did I say something or do something on stage? She didn’t answer a word. Church Gist. He sat down at the table to eat and the next thing, she came to serve his meal and he noticed, the tray had changed. He said, what is all this one? We’ve been married for how many years, please bring food for me, I am hungry and she brought a different kind of cup, brought everything until she dropped the last item and she got down on her knees. She said, servant of God, my home is in trouble.
The man said, suddenly, the same anointing he felt on the pulpit came there and he laid hands on her. This is his wife, but she said, I have not been enjoying the grace upon this man of God, because all he has been to me is my husband. Church Gist. Listen, all men are multi-dimenstional, the part you relate with is the part that blesses you. If you relate with your brother alone, the man of God can be a prophet, but the only thing you get from a brother is stories about how the family is faring. That is a brother’s reward.
How many people are making maximum impact across the globe and yet, some of the closest people to them only know them as friends, classmates, colleagues? Relationships are powerful but beware of the dimension you are relating with. Relate with all the possible dimensions invested in that man that makes for your glory.
5). Favour provoking prayer. You can use prayers to provoke favour (Psalm 23:4-6). You can pray your way, I pray for one month, from February 1st till the 28th of that February, I pray favour everyday. When it came, I knew it had come.
6). Impartation. Impartation is a big mystery (Philippians 1:7, Esther 2:15-17). Favour works with the power of sight. When favour is at work in you, the only person who may not be able to help you is a blind man, but for as long as they can set their eyes on you, you have favour.
There is a real grace for favour. When the grace for favour comes upon you, it works like HIV, HIV is not what kills you; it opens the door and keeps it for any other sickness. That is how favour works. So favour opens the door for speed, breakthrough etc. The assignment of favour is to keep the door of kindness, acceptance and access open.
Rise up to your feet.
