TO ATTAIN MASTERY IN LIFE, THE MINISTRY OF PRAYER MUST BE ENGAGED AS A LIFESTYLE, NOT A STRATEGY FOR DISASTER MANAGEMENT.
TRUE SPIRITUAL POWER IS YOUR ABILITY TO SAY AND THEN, IT HAPPENS.
IT TAKES ENDURANCE, MORE THAN ATTENTIVENESS TO LEARN DOCTRINE.
LIFE AND LIVING IS SPIRITUAL IN EVERY WAY.
- Apostle Joshua Selman at Koinonia on ‘STRIVING FOR MASTERY’ (PART ONE)
(PART A).
Hallelujah!
I’ll like you to cry your heart to your Maker in one minute, let Him know that you are desperate for Him. Let Him know that you came with an intention for an encounter. Let Him know that He means that much to you.
From everlasting to everlasting, You are God. Majesty, we worship You. King of kings, the Lord of lords, the Monarch of the Universe; we bless You, we bow our hearts in worship. We thank You for who You are and for the things that you do. Forever, let Jesus be glorified, for in Jesus mighty name we pray.
It is important that we cultivate the attitude of deep worship and reverence (Hebrews 11:6). You don’t come to His presence carelessly, just to run through the routine of service, you must be very intentional. Church Gist. You must believe that He’s the rewarder of not just them that seek Him; them that diligently seek Him.
Bless our hearts tonight oh God, in Jesus’ name.
Good Evening Everybody. We are going straight to the business of tonight; it remains my assignment by the grace of God to see that we are grounded and established in righteousness (Jeremiah 3:15). Church Gist. In order of priority, the assignment of a man of God with respect to a people that have been committed to him, in order of priority, is to:
1). Help them encounter God and to grow progressively in the knowledge of the same.
So, your encounter with the God of the Bible and then, methodically you continue to advance and progress in the knowledge of God (Jeremiah 9:23-24). Church Gist. So, the pride of the believer is derived from the depth of your knowledge. The administration of eternal life requires a gradual and continuous knowledge of God (John 17:3).
2). To be able to expose the believers to the multifaceted dimensions of the Kingdom, exposing them to the keys of the Kingdom (the ways of God) and taking away ignorance (Ephesians 4:18). The assignment of the god of this world primarily is to blind the minds of God’s people, so that they do not come into a comprehension of the ways of God (Psalm 82:5-6).
When it has to do with knowledge of the ways of God, there is precision and exactitude to that knowledge; the knowledge of the ways of God. When it has to do with knowing God, we’ll never exhaust knowing God, progressively and continually; layer after layer, we’ll keep learning Him, even in Heaven. But when it has to do with the keys of the Kingdom that make for the victory and the dominion of the believer, the keys are finite and you can hold them with the precision of a Master. You can know that you can lay hold of eternal life the Bible says.
So, the next assignment of a man of God in order of priority becomes to methodically, line upon line, precepts upon precepts open God’s people to the various layers of the Kingdom life and begin to guide them methodically; to understand the principles that govern excellence in every one of these areas. It will take a long time for believers to experientially come into a comprehension of the ways of God, because transformation takes time and then, when believers come into that understanding, they are now taught the applicability of the truth that they know. Church Gist. It’s one thing to have knowledge, it’s one to have understanding and not find the point of application of that Kingdom truth to your life. The goal of knowledge is that, you are able to apply it in your life. That is where the principle of faith now comes in because faith in one word is obedience. Faith is more than action. Action in disobedience is not faith. Faith must be action in obedience.
The blessing is not just in the knowledge, the blessing is in the obedience (Deuteronomy 28:1-2). You must be diligent to work in keeping with the truth that are there. This is where the place of empowerment comes, because it is impossible for the human unassisted by the grace and the power of God to work consistently in keeping with the conditions that make for victory. This is where the engracing of the Spirit now comes in. When believers are empowered, they go and return back with testimonies. The testimonies are consolations to your Christian experience because in your results and testimonies, Jesus is glorified (John 15:8, 16)
God desires that our fruits and our results bring glory to Jesus in a very definite and a very practical way (Ephesians 3:10, Ephesians 3:3-5). When God gives the man of God revelation, access to dimensions in God, He does that with the intent that that revelation should ultimately serve the body (Isaiah 9:8). Every time believers are bankrupt of platforms for methodical spiritual growth, the side effect is that, no matter how well intentioned the believers are, number one, their knowledge of God will not be accurate and then, number two, they will not be able to come into a point of thorough understanding of the ways of God. You’ll find out that believers continue to shadowbox around principles in hope that one of them will work.
The series we’re about to start is intended to bring us to higher level of spiritual understanding, so that we get to a point where we are grounded and established in the knowledge of God and in His ways and then, empowered in order to empower others also. I do not believe that anyone should stay in church for sufficient period of time and then be bankrupt of the requisite level of knowledge that empowers him or her to go and raise to empower others too. Church Gist. It’s a sad and tragic thing that happens in church that you have believers who sit and stay in church for many years and yet, when you probe into the understanding of these believers, you cannot find anything that justifies the investment of their time for that long. God’s desire for every believer is to come to a point of confidence that comes through the certainty of scripture and in every ministry and platforms that God creates, that is the assignment of the man of God to the believers; to bring them to a point where their knowledge is exert and their confidence is unbendable (Luke 1:1-4).
You can have perfect understanding of all things as far as the ways of God is concerned. It is your assignment to be serious. Be serious first with God and then, be fair and serious enough with your destiny. I submit to you that, I’m almost coming to the conclusion that there are certain believers who have made up their minds that they will never be serious with God, no matter what you preach or say; they have seared their hearts with hot iron and they are determined to not know God and there are others, who are not determined to learn the ways of God. I pray, that is not you in the name of Jesus.
There must be an intention and a determination to learn. It takes endurance, more than attentiveness to learn doctrine. Doctrine comes from the Latin word, ‘doctrinal’. It means a predefined body of spiritual information that turns a student to become something exact (Acts 2:42). Church Gist. It will take the Word of God to build and mature any believer. There is no superstition about the growth and the maturity of the believer (Acts 20:32). The Word has an ability to build you up and to give to you an inheritance among them that are sanctified (Colossians 1:9). Wisdom is multidimensional.
PRAYER:
Open my eyes, oh God. I submit to Your wisdom, Your ways are perfect. Open my eyes, give me understanding and access to light in the name of Jesus Christ.
STRIVING FOR MASTERY (PART ONE)
The goal of this series is to move us beyond spiritual amateurism to levels in the Spirit where every one of us can lay hold on eternal life; where my life and your life begins to, in experience become a living epistle, a display of the wisdom, the power and the grace of God.
Coincidentally, today in the Body is known as Palm Sunday and it’s a celebration of the moment Jesus had the triumphant entry into Jerusalem and the Psalmist said, ride prosperously because of truth. You don’t ride just because you have a horse to you. You ride because of truth. The carriage that brings the believer into a triumphant entry in this Kingdom is truth. Church Gist. I think I should start with a statement I made that I thought would edify us while I was in Bauchi. I said, how that it is possible for a student to have 14/100, let’s say in a grading system that is per 100 and then, another student can have 25/100, another student can have 37/100. My question for you us; who passed the most of the three students?
Response: The one who had 37
With the grade system of A-F, who qualified?
So, the one who had 14, 21 and 37, with respect to the grading system, they all failed. So, just because you have improved from 14 to 20 does not mean you are there (1 Corinthians 8:2).
There are two reasons why Jesus wept as far as the synoptic accounts give us
1). John 11:35 – at the grave of Lazarus.
2). When he stood over Jerusalem (Luke 19:42).
It takes high level spiritual Illumination to be able to rise in life (2 Timothy 2:5). There is a relationship between compliance to principles and gaining mastery in the Kingdom. Relative to where you are going to, there is still more to learn. Mastery in the Kingdom is based on light (Genesis 1:5). The Bible says, God called the light Day. So, in God’s mind, what makes a day is not the passage of time. Church Gist. What makes a day is the appearance of light. That every time a man has light, he has entered his day. So, no matter what time of the day, if you are a possessor of darkness, you are in your night time. So, if I want to turn my darkness or my night time to day, I don’t have to wait for time to determine it; there is a level of spiritual illumination that can turn my night into day. At the instance of light, darkness can turn to day. Waiting for time to turn your night to day is a total waste of time. In God’s mind, day is equivalent to light.
- I pray that the light from this teaching will sustain the power to turn every night to day in the name of Jesus Christ!
The first thing I want to talk about, when you want to gain mastery, you have to understand the spirituality of life. This is a concept and a truth that most believers do not have that understanding of. That, life and living is spiritual in every way. When it has to do with the spirituality of life, every religion, except for a few, most of these religions believe that the foundation of an individual’s consciousness, awareness or excellence is from the realm of the Spirit, based on his ability to make contact with the realm of the Spirit.
The three principal religions that came out from Abraham; Christianity, Islam and Judaism. All three agree that everything that a man has is derived from the extent, the health and the quality of his spirituality. Life and living is spiritual. As simple as this concept is, you can spend your life in total defeat and failure, not knowing that life is spiritual (Romans 1:20)
There are two realms and two dimensions of reality; the invisible realm, invisible with respect to your seeing. Invisible does not mean unreal and then, the visible realm. That means, for every material thing that appears, there is an invisible dimension and an invisible component to it (Acts 2:26). Church Gist. Anybody that does not have a spirit component backing, he does not have life. The formula for destroying anybody is to create a system of separating it from the spirit that backs it. Until you create a system of separating that body from the spirit, that body or condition will still be alive (2 Corinthians 4:18, Hebrews 11:3).
The realm of the spirit governs the physical realm. You must understand the frailty of the physical realm with respect to the realm of the spirit. With respect to the realm of the spirit, this physical realm is very frail, it is subject to change. Anything that you see that is physical, under a certain condition, the realm of the spirit can superimpose upon it and change it. It is both good and bad news. The good news is that, whatever is physical, that is inconsistent with what God has said about you, there is a provision by tapping into the supply of the spirit to change it. The bad news is that, when you are careless about any physical good thing, an expression can come from the realm of the spirit and also change it to the negative. An example, while men slept, the Bible says the enemy came as a farmer and planted something. You went to bed and woke up with something you can’t remember you went to bed with because the realm of the spirit controls the physical. You must master therefore, the keys that translate spiritual realities into physical manifestation.
We define your mastery based on your knowledge of God and your depth of comprehension of the principles that are able to translate spiritual realities into their physical manifestation and that is the measure of true spiritual power.
Genesis 1:2-4
True spiritual power is your ability to say and then, it happens. So like God, when you rise through mastery to a point where you can say and it happens and then we see it and it is good, you are truly powerful. God is bringing us to point where our words are no longer empty, babblings and ramblings of men; that your words carry power and what drives this kind of result is understanding.
The Bible is full of many instances where scripture tells us that our wrestling is not against flesh and blood. When Jesus begins to deal with things, He starts from the realm of the Spirit. When God wants to deal with things, He starts from the realm of the Spirit. It is only men that deal with things physically and that’s why there’s hardly any victory. Church Gist. Everything concluded in the realm of the spirit depends on your cooperation to give it a certain day, your not gaining mastery will allow many certain days you are not part of. There is a day that just happens but there is a day that the Lord has made. There is a day too that satan has made; all of them, you can make your day. God can make the day prophetically, satan can make the day; it is up to you to stand and through intelligence make up your mind that that which satan has programmed for me will not find material expression. It is up to you; this is the day that the Lord has made.
Many believers have not experienced the day that the Lord has made; they have experienced days that they have made, they have experienced what the Bible calls the day of adversity. The day you experience one full day that the Lord made, you will know. His signature will be on that day, that this is the day I made. Mastery can bring you to a point where every day becomes a reflection of the day that the Lord has made. There is a day that the Lord has made, but just because He made it, does not mean you will walk in it. For the Bible to tell you this one is God that made it, it means there are many other expressions of that day. There is the one that satan can make, ask Job. Job did not experience satan’s day every day. The day he experienced satan’s own, we knew that this one, it wasn’t God that made this day because in one day, loses and pain and wickedness and tragedy. My question is, the day you keep entering, who made it? There is every signature of authenticity over the product of your original maker; there should be something on your life, day and destiny.
I want to give you in this part one, two keys, they will be extensive keys. Remember we are striving for mastery, so the Lord is taking away everything that makes for spiritual amateurism from your life. Be determined in this series that I’ll lay hold of this thing once and for all. I made up my mind that I will submit myself to learning and gain understanding and gain mastery from scripture over every aspect of the Kingdom life that God will grant me the grace to pursue. I still remain a student, pushing towards that mark, that prize of the high calling but I can tell you, so far, I thank God for that decision. You can gain mastery; you can strive and go into perfection (Hebrews 6:1).
There are occasions that will only allow rooms for masters. There are realms where you are not allowed to be on practice while you are there; you must have done your homework. The throne is not for learning. No, there’s the cave of Adullam that gives you an opportunity to do your trial and error, but then, when you are to get to the throne, because one mistake on the throne will also be taken as law and people will pay the price for it. God wants to bring us to greater levels of perfection and mastery.
Let me give you three keys that control the pursuit for attaining unto mastery:
1). Understanding prayer.
Many people pray but very few people understand prayer. There are many believers who cannot tell the role that prayer has to play as far as their actualizing destiny is concerned. Every time something goes wrong in your spiritual life, the Bible mandates that you consider your ways, it means there is something wrong with your approach (Haggai 1:5-7).
James 5:16, Mark 11:24.
There’s nobody who ever gains mastery in the Kingdom and mastery in converting spiritual realities into their material expressions without understanding the ministry of prayer. Efficient prayer is taught; you don’t just pray; you are taught to pray (Luke 11:1). Everybody who prayed properly was taught to pray. Just praying arbitrarily, it will take the mercy of God for you to gain mastery, even though that approach to prayer. You must be taught.
Most believers do not understand the jurisdiction and assignment of prayer in the believer’s life. I see people pray sincerely, but very few people can bring forth results. The reason why there’s a lot of prayerlessness and struggle is that, believers, their laxity to prayer is a report card.
Luke 18:1 – God never prayed as God, but when He became a man, He prayed because men pray. Now that Jesus ascended to Heaven as a man, He still prays because all men pray. I’ve studied the subject of prayer a bit, I can tell you and my assignment when I study things is to compress them to an expression that is very useful and applicable to the general Body of the believers and I found out that there are four major assignments of prayer in the life of the believer:
1). For Growth and transformation. Most people have not tapped into this possibility. That you gain mastery by evolving to superior levels of yourself, even in the place of prayer (Luke 9:29).
You can grow and be transformed in the place of prayer. You cannot gain mastery in this Kingdom if you ignore prayer and if you do not understand the assignment of prayer (Jude 1:20). Church Gist. Prayer builds the believer and can turn a weak you into a strong you. Prayer can turn a very timid, carnal you into a spiritual version of yourself.
2). For making requests and obtaining promises. Every time you want to make request and you want to obtain promises, the platform for making this happen is prayer (Philippians 4:6).
3). For spiritual legislation; decrees, creating possibilities in the place of prayer (Job 22:28, Numbers 14:28).
4). For warfare and intercession (Ezekiel 22:29-31).
These are the four dimensions of prayer. If you want to gain mastery in this Kingdom, you must understand prayer. Church Gist. Unfortunately, many believers do not pray, no wonder the life of many believers remain defeated in spite of the fact that they are zealous for God, they love God with all their hearts but they continue to find out that nothing in their lives is a capture of the grace, wisdom and power of God. To attain mastery in life, the ministry of prayer must be engaged as a lifestyle, not a strategy for disaster management.
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