(In a very soul-searching and challenging message, Apostle Joshua Selman, head of the Eternity Network International (ENI) in Abuja, delivered the following (Part 1 of 3), at one of Nigeria’s largest gatherings at the Koinonia service in April 2022).
“The aim of the man of God towards those God has placed in his charge are:
1. To help them to encounter God
2. To help them methodically advance and progress in the knowledge of God.
The pride of the believer is derived from their depth of knowledge. The administration of eternal life requires gradual and continuous knowledge of God.
“And this is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent”, (John 17:3. NKJV)
3. Expose the believer to the multi-faceted dimension of the kingdom. Exposing them to the keys of the kingdom and the ways of God.
4. Taking away spiritual ignorance
Ephesians 4:18 —“Having their understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of God, because of the ignorance that is in them, because of the blindness of their heart.”
The assignment of the god of this world is to blind the minds of God’s people so that they do not come into comprehension of the ways of God.
Psalm 82:5-7 — “They do not know, nor do they understand; They walk about in darkness; All the foundations of the earth are unstable. I said, “You are gods, And all of you are children of the Most High. But you shall die like men, And fall like one of the princes.”
Apostle Joshua Selman Teaching a Congregation in Nigeria
5. To line upon line, precept upon precept open God’s people up to the various layers/facets of the kingdom life and begin to guide them methodically to understand the principles that govern excellence in every one of these areas.
Transformation takes time. So it would take a long time for believers to come to the comprehension of God.
6. When believers come into that understanding, they are now taught the applicability of the truth that they know.
It is one thing to have knowledge and understanding and not find that point of kingdom truth application to your life.
The goal of knowledge is to be able to apply it in your life. This is where the principle of faith now comes in.
— Faith is obedience
— Faith is more than action
— Faith in disobedience is not faith. Faith must be actioned in obedience.
The blessing is not just in the knowledge. The blessing is in the obedience.
Deuteronomy 28:1-2 — “Now it shall come to pass, if you diligently obey the voice of the Lord your God, to observe carefully all His commandments which I command you today, that the Lord your God will set you high above all nations of the earth. 2 And all these blessings shall come upon you and overtake you, because you obey the voice of the Lord your God.”
It is impossible for the human unassisted by the grace and the power of God to walk consistently in keeping with the conditions that make for victory.
This is where the engracing of the spirit now comes in. The believers will come back with testimonies and it is in those testimonies that Jesus is glorified.
John 15:8,16 — “By this, My Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit; so you will be My disciples. 16 You did not choose Me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit and that your fruit should remain, that whatever you ask the Father in My name He may give you.”
Ephesians 3:10 — “to the intent that now the manifold wisdom of God might be made known by the church to the principalities and powers in the heavenly places.”
Ephesians 3:3-5 — “how that by revelation He made known to me the mystery (as I have briefly written already, 4 by which, when you read, you may understand my knowledge in the mystery of Christ), 5 which in other ages was not made known to the sons of men, as it has now been revealed by the Spirit to His holy apostles and prophets”.
Luke 1:3-4 — “it seemed good to me also, having had perfect understanding of all things from the very first, to write to you an orderly account, most excellent Theophilus, 4 that you may know the certainty of those things in which you were instructed.”
You can have Perfect Understanding as far as the Things of God are Concerned
You should get to the place where your fears and doubts fade away. So you know that this is the key that controls this spiritual outcome.
It is your [believers] assignment to be :
- Serious — First with God, then be serious and fair with your destiny. There must be an intention and a determination to learn. It takes endurance more than attentiveness to learn doctrine. (Acts 2:42 — “And they continued steadfastly in the apostles’ doctrine and fellowship, in the breaking of bread, and in prayers”).
- Learn the Word — It will take the Word of God to build the believer. (Acts 20:32 — “So now, brethren, I commend you to God and to the word of His grace, which is able to build you up and give you an inheritance among all those who are sanctified”). The word has the ability to build you up. To give you an inheritance among them that are sanctified. (Colossians 1:9 — “For this reason, we also, since the day we heard it, do not cease to pray for you, and to ask that you may be filled with the knowledge of His will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding.”)
So the Word has the power to:
- Fill you with Knowledge
- Give you all Wisdom
- Give you Spiritual Understanding
“And if anyone thinks that he knows anything, he knows nothing yet as he ought to know.” 1 Corinthians 8:2
“And if a man also strive for masteries, yet is he not crowned, except he strive lawfully.” 2 Timothy 2:5
Mastery in the Kingdom is based on light.
“And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day.” Genesis 1:5
There is a level of spiritual illumination that can turn your darkness into day. Waiting for time to turn your darkness into day is a total waste of time.
God views the appearance of light as day. So every time a man has light he has entered his day. It is not the passing of time that will determine if your day will dawn — it is the excellency of the light that comes. So no matter what time of day it is, if you are a possessor of darkness you are in your nighttime.
Steps To Gaining Mastery
1. The Spirituality of Life — Life is spiritual in every way (there are currently 4,200 different religions and all of these religions are based on this fact)
The three (3) principal religions that came out of Abraham are:
a. Christianity
b. Islam
c. Judaism
We live in a world that celebrates Science and intellect — and while that is wonderful, everyone that has done anything worthwhile on earth beyond a normal human frequency would agree that they source their knowledge and intelligence from the realm of the spirit.
Life and Living are Spiritual.
Life is spiritual!
James 2:26 — “For as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is dead also.”
So any ‘body’ that does not have a spirit backing it does not have life. (Body means material things, business, ministry, etc). That means if you want to destroy a body, you have to separate it from the spirit that backs it.
There is a spirit that gives a body life. Bodies can be troubles and conditions. And as long as that spirit backing it has not been separated from it, it will act as though it is a living thing.
“While we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen: for the things which are seen are temporal; but the things which are not seen are eternal.” 2 Corinthians 4:18
Just because your physical sight cannot capture the things that are ‘unseen’ doesn’t mean they are not there. There is more going on than you can see.
Life is spiritual!
“These all died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them afar off, and were persuaded of them, and embraced them, and confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth”. Hebrew 11:3
Everything that you can see with your eyes came from somewhere — stars, trees, animals, man, etc — all things have a mother that gave birth to them. That mother is the realm of the spirit.
The realm of the spirit governs the physical realm. This will never ever change! Anything that you see that is physical, the spiritual realm can superimpose upon it and change it.
You need to understand the frailty of the physical realm with respect to the spiritual realm. 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 to tap into the spirit to change it.
The bad news is that when you are careless about any physical good thing, an expression can also come from the realm of the spirit and also change it to the negative.
For example… “But while men slept, his enemy came and sowed tares among the wheat, and went his way….” Matthew 13:25-40. Because the realm of the spirit controls the physical.
You must therefore, master the keys that transfers spiritual realities into physical realities
You must master the keys that transfer spiritual realities into physical manifestations.
Your Mastery is Defined based on:
- Your knowledge of God
- 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.
There are many believers who are not spiritually powerful. The Bible gives a test to determine if you are powerful.
Genesis 1:2-4 — “And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. 3 And God said, Let there be light: and there was light. 4 And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness.”
This gives the ultimate test to true mastery and spiritual power.
True spirtual power is the ability to SAY, and then it HAPPENS… (God SAID, and there WAS)… So like God, you rise to mastery to the point where you can say it and it happens. Then you must SEE what you say — and when it happens it must be GOOD!
So spiritual power is the ability to say, and then it becomes, then we behold it and it is good.
The Bible says ‘the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we behold Him’.
So if you are able to say, and it happens, and then we see it and it is good — then you are truly powerful!
God is bringing us to a point where our words are not just rambling, but that our words carry power. And what drives this result is understanding the spirituality of life.
Life is spiritual!
That means everything that happens in your physical world, trying to deal with it physically is proof of amateurism. We don’t grow because we usually address the issues of our life primarily from a physical standpoint.
But… “For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.” (Ephesians 6:12).
When Jesus begins to deal with things, He starts from the realm of the spirit. When God deals with things He starts from the realm of the spirit.
It is only men who deal with things physically and that is why there is hardly any victory. So the financial situation, the spiritual situation, the health situation — whatever condition it is, the origin is from the realm of the spirit.
In the book of Job, it says ‘there was a certain day…’, which means when it is finished in the spiritual there is a certain day for it to affect the physical. It is our assignment as believers to keep shifting that ‘certain day’ so that it can never manifest in your lives.
That means the conclusion in the realm of the spirit depends on your cooperation to give it a certain day.
So once it is concluded in the realm of the spirit there is a time allocated for it to find expression in the physical.
If you do not reach mastery, then you are allowing many certain days that you are not a part of.
Why should a discussion happen in the spiritual realm and I become the principal victim and yet I did not contribute to choosing the day?
In the book of Esther, we see the date being chosen for divinity when Hamon was supposed to strike. There was a date chosen in the spirit by divination for it to come unhindered.
Time has been allotted in the spirit for things to happen in your life on certain days.
Life is spiritual!
Only God knows what God has planned. No wonder the Bible says “this is the day that the Lord hath made,” Psalm 118:24
There is a day that ‘just happens’ and there is a day that the Lord hath made. There is a day too that Satan hath made.
So God has made the day, and Satan has made the day. It is up to you through the intelligence of your mind to stand and say ‘that which Satan has planned for me will not find material expression’. It is up to you.
Many believers have not experienced the day that the Lord has made because they have experience days of adversities. The day you experience a full day that the Lord hath made, you will know that His signature is on that day. Mastery can bring you to the point where every day becomes ‘the day that the Lord hath made’.
“The day that the Lord hath made’ is captured in the Lord’s prayer. He will give you supply… ‘give us this day our daily bread’. Bread does not mean food. It means everything you need to make you efficient— relationships, anointing, etc.
But just because He made it doesn’t mean you will walk in it.
The fact that the Bible tells you that ‘this is the day that the Lord hath made’ means there are days that the Lord did not make — ask Job! The day he experienced losses and pain, wickedness and tragedy — we knew this was the day Satan had made. The day this happened we knew it was not the day God had made.
The question is, the day that you keep entering into — who made it?
Psalm 118:24 — “This is the day which the Lord hath made; we will rejoice and be glad in it.”
There should be some authenticity over your day, life, and destiny, that you can look at and say ‘this is the day that the Lord hath made’. ‘This is the home that the Lord hath made’, ‘this is the ministry that the Lord hath made’, ‘this is the business that the Lord hath made’. If you have a Samsung phone, or an Apple phone, the moment you bring a fake one to the manufacturer of these products they can look and it and tell if it belongs to them. Even if it looks very close to it, there is always something that sets the original apart from the fake.
Hebrew 6:1 — “Therefore leaving the principles of the doctrine of Christ, let us go on unto perfection; not laying again the foundation of repentance from dead works, and of faith toward God.”
So every time I open my mouth I’m not just hoping that my prayer works, but I will know that it works!
The throne is not for learning. You should have already done your homework. There are occasions that only leave room for masters. There is a cave of Adullam [where king David sought refuge from Saul and taught his army of soldiers how to fight] that allows for trial and error. But then when you get to the throne you have to have mastered it. Because one mistake on the throne will be taken as law and people will pay the price for it.
God wants to bring us to greater levels of perfection and mastery.
There are three (3) keys to Mastery
The first key to mastery is:
1. Understanding Prayer
Many people pray out of routine but are not gaining anything.
Haggai 1:5 — “Now therefore thus saith the Lord of hosts; Consider your ways.”
This means that something is wrong with our approach.
Consider your Ways
Haggai 1:6 — “Ye have sown much, and bring in little; ye eat, but ye have not enough; ye drink, but ye are not filled with drink; ye clothe you, but there is none warm; and he that earneth wages earneth wages to put it into a bag with holes.”
This shows that you have sown much, put in a lot of effort but see little results. This verse shows that we are not doing enough. We need to strive for mastery.
Haggai 1:7 — “Thus saith the Lord of hosts; Consider your ways.”
As a result, you need to consider your ways.
James 5:15 — “And the prayer of faith shall save the sick, and the Lord shall raise him up; and if he have committed sins, they shall be forgiven him.”
Most believers do not know or understand the power God has given them in prayer. If they knew they would realize that they can rain down blessings from heaven, that they can convert spiritual riches into realities and give them material expressions — if they truly understand prayer.
Mark 11:24 — “Therefore I say unto you, What things soever ye desire, when ye pray, believe that ye receive them, and ye shall have them.”
There is nobody who ever gains mastery in the kingdom in converting spiritual realities into their material expression without understanding the ministry of prayer!
Effective prayer is taught. You don’t just pray, you are taught how to pray.
Luke 11:1 — “And it came to pass, that, as he was praying in a certain place, when he ceased, one of his disciples said unto him, Lord, teach us to pray, as John also taught his disciples.”
People have been praying amiss. They have been putting out a lot of energy into prayer, but the corresponding results were not matching that prayer. Many people pray sincerely but very few bring forth results.
Nobody leaves what is good. So if people have been praying and praying they become tired of it because they see no results and feel they are tired of faking it. It gives them the consolation of feeling spiritual but they don’t understand to what end it is about. If prayer really works for you you will not leave it.
Luke 18:11 — “… men ought always to pray, and not to faint.”
Therefore, all men ought to pray. Jesus, when He became man, He prayed. He ascended into heaven as man and He still prays. Because all men pray.
Four (4) Major Assignments of Prayer in the Life of the Believer:
1. Growth and Transformation — This is the highest priority of prayer in a believer’s life. You gain mastery by evolving to superior levels of yourself even in the place of prayer.
Luke 9:29 — “And as he prayed, the fashion of his countenance was altered, and his raiment was white and glistering.” (KJV)
You can grow and you can be transformed in the place of prayer.
You cannot gain mastery in the kingdom if you ignore prayer and if you do not understand the assignment of prayer to your life.
Jude: 1:20 — “But ye, beloved, building up yourselves on your most holy faith, praying in the Holy Ghost.” (KJV)
Prayer builds the believer. Prayer can turn a weak you into a strong you. Prayer can turn a very timid, carnal you into a spiritual fashion of yourself. Men ought always to pray and not to faint.
2. Making Requests and Obtaining Promises — Every time you want to make a request and you want to obtain promises, the platform for making this happen is prayer.
Philippians 4:6 — “ Be careful for nothing; but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God.” (KJV)
3. Spiritual Legislation — Spiritual legislations are decrees — creating possibilities in the place of prayer.
Job 22:28 — “Thou shalt also decree a thing, and it shall be established unto thee: and the light shall shine upon thy ways.”
Numbers 14:28 — “Say unto them, As truly as I live, saith the Lord, as ye have spoken in mine ears, so will I do to you.”
4. Warfare and Intercession — Standing in the gap
Ezekiel 22:29-31 — “The people of the land have used oppression, and exercised robbery, and have vexed the poor and needy: yea, they have oppressed the stranger wrongfully. 30 And I sought for a man among them, that should make up the hedge, and stand in the gap before me for the land, that I should not destroy it: but I found none. 31 Therefore have I poured out mine indignation upon them; I have consumed them with the fire of my wrath: their own way have I recompensed upon their heads, saith the Lord God.”
Standing in the Gap
Every time you pray you are doing one, or more, or all of these four things — Number 1 is engaging in that which makes for your spiritual development. Obtaining promises is like cashing a cheque in the realm of the spirit in the presence of prayer. Number 3 is making decrees and establishing realities in your life, and number 4 is engaging the ministry of warfare and intercession. At any time you go to pray these are the things that capture the life of the believer.
Unfortunately, many believers do not pray — not for transformation, not to make requests and obtain petitions, not even to make decrees over their lives. Maybe they do a bit of it at church but that is it. And largely, most believers do not engage in the ministry of intercession and warfare. No wonder the lives of many believers remain defeated in spite of the fact that they are zealous and love God with all their hearts. But they continue to find out that nothing in their lives captures the grace, the wisdom, the power of God.
Make up your mind that to rise to the point of mastery ‘I must engage the ministry of prayer as a LIFESTYLE!’
Prayer must become a lifestyle. Not a strategy for disaster management.
For most people, something has to provoke them to pray. A negative report and you quickly come to pray. Satan knows that, so when he wants to attack you he will not make the thing look so bad because it will call for an emergency and you will go and pray. So he will cause things to happen gradually and gradually until your prayer life grows cold and he will attack you in one day.
We must submit ourselves to the ministry of prayer. We must obtain grace from God. A believer who is willing to pray with understanding will see great results. If you want to strive for mastery, you must understand prayer.
Many believers feel it is the stretch and the energy invested that equals results — it is not so. Most believers do not pray with the scriptures. Most believers do not pray according to knowledge. There is a thing as praying amiss.
Do you know how much of a blessing you would be if people know that your prayer really works? God wants the average believer to get to the point where you don’t just pray, but you understand the jurisdiction and the assignment of prayer.
The Bible recommends an approach to prayer. The most effective dimension of prayer — second only to praying in the spirit — is praying in the promises of God.
Isaiah 41:21 — “Produce your cause, saith the Lord; bring forth your strong reasons, saith the King of Jacob.” (KJV)
God cannot be committed to the believer outside of the provisions and the allowance of scriptures. The word of God defines the boundaries of God’s commitments to the believer. Based on Isaiah 41:21, we should approach prayer as a legal system in the realm of the spirit. Don’t just say ‘God bless me’ —based on what? Don’t just say God change my life’ — based on what? Isaiah 41:21 means bring my word to me in prayer — the spiritual basis that causes me to move on that wise.
So the devil is plaguing your family and plaguing your life and you say ‘God I am tired of this situation’. I assure you — you reported the situation but you didn’t pray.
It is when you connect what is wrong and what you want to what God has said, that is when it is prayer.
Even Jesus prayed scriptures. When Satan came to Jesus He said ‘it is written…”. ‘It is written’ is what gives strength to your prayer. It is not what you are saying that gives strength to your prayer. It is saying what is written. It is not prayer when you say what is wrong.
The Word of God Contains Three (3) Things:
- Promises (of God)
- Principles (of the Kingdom)
- Prophesies
Every time you open your Bible you are interacting with these three things.
If you are a leader of a prayer group and you tell people to ‘pray, pray, pray’ — if you have not brought scriptures you have wasted your time!
If you know how to ‘bring forth your strong reason’ using scriptures, you can go to bed and commit God and destroy anything that is not of God in prayer.
When Praying …
“Father, I bring before you your words. Your words say that… (tell Him what the Bible says pertaining to the matter you are bringing before Him)”.
When you are making decrees, it is being registered in the realm of the spirit. Demons are hearing you and there should be a basis for your confidence. That basis should be ‘it is written’.
But it is not just what is written that blesses you. But what is written that is found
Jeremiah 15:16 — “Thy words were found, and I did eat them; and thy word was unto me the joy and rejoicing of mine heart: for I am called by thy name, O Lord God of hosts.”
The first assignment when you want to engage in prayer is to find and bring the scriptures pertaining to what you want to talk about. This becomes the basis of your defense and petition. If you can find just two or three scriptures, that is enough. Then you go to your place of prayer. While you are praying you will find that things begin to shift and change.
If you do not find mastery in the area of prayer many will become tired and say this thing does not work.
The prayer that works is the prayer that is connected to scripture. The prayer that works is the prayer that is derived of the spirit. Outside of the word and the spirit, prayer DOES NOT work! It just becomes a motion of dissipating energy.
Prayer is based on what God has said. Prayer is based on what you want that is connected to what God has said. Your first assignment is to find out what He has said based on what you want.
1 John 5:14 — “And this is the confidence that we have in him, that, if we ask anything according to his will, he heareth us.”
So it tells us that there is a possibility that we will not be heard if it is not according to His will.
The Second Key to Mastery —
2. Understanding and Engaging the Laws and Principles of the Kingdom
Your mastery in this kingdom is based on the degree to which you understand and engage the laws and principles of the kingdom.
Matthew 16:19 — “And I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.”
You have a way where you can see what is bound in heaven (in the spiritual realm) so you can now bind it on earth.
(This is explained even clearer in the Amplified version)
“I will give you the keys (authority) of the kingdom of heaven; and whatever you bind [forbid, declare to be improper and unlawful] on earth will have [already] been bound in heaven, and whatever you loose [permit, declare lawful] on earth will have [already] been loosed in heaven.” (AMP)
You have the power by access to the key of the kingdom through knowledge. You can know what has been declared from the realm of the spirit that is happening in your life. And with these keys of the kingdom, you bind and loose. With these keys, you declare lawful and unlawful as far as your life is concerned.
You gain mastery by holding the keys of the kingdom.
Luke 11:52 —”Woe unto you, lawyers! for ye have taken away the key of knowledge: ye entered not in yourselves, and them that were entering in ye hindered.”
Anytime a dimension of the kingdom doesn’t seem to open up to you, there is something wanting as far as your spiritual knowledge in that area is concerned. Or there is insufficient knowledge in that area.
Leviticus 9:6 — “And Moses said, This is the thing which the Lord commanded that ye should do: and the glory of the Lord shall appear unto you.”
There is what you know that must activate what you do — and the Bible says ‘the glory of the Lord will appear unto you’.
Psalm 25:4-5 — “Shew me thy ways, O Lord; teach me thy paths. Lead me in thy truth, and teach me: for thou art the God of my salvation; on thee do I wait all the day.”
This was Moses’ first request…
Exodus 33:13 — “Now, therefore, I pray thee, if I have found grace in thy sight, shew me now thy way, that I may know thee, that I may find grace in thy sight: and consider that this nation is thy people.”
Moses’ second request…
Exodus 33:18 — “And he said, I beseech thee, shew me thy glory.”
There is a relationship between God’s ways and His glory. God showed Moses His ways but He only showed Israel His acts — without showing them how to reproduce them.
YOUR PRAYER
“Open my eyes so I can see! Take away this age-old ignorance in my life. I want to gain mastery through knowledge. I am tired of being afraid because of all that is happening around me. Help me to rise in true mastery and gain knowledge of the kingdom.”
It takes a lot of dedication and intention to say I am not going to live my life shadow boxing. I will learn these principles.
Every facet of your life has a way that God controls it — finances, health, longevity, ministry, influence, etc. There are laws of the kingdom that governs every area.
Your immunity in the days that we live is the fortification that the knowledge of these laws provides for you. These laws can surround and secure you like chariots. You can know of a truth that you can stand the test of time because these laws are backed up by God’s own integrity.
The spirit of death will look for everyone, but if you do not know the ways of God you will be surprised thinking that you will not die —until you die. The spirit of poverty will look for everybody — including you. But in this kingdom, our defense is based on the power of the laws of the kingdom that we understand and engage.
Every Facet of Your Life is Controlled by God
Two (2) of these spiritual laws are:
The laws are so powerful and irrefutable that if you hang on to them and learn these principles, your life will be a surprise — even to you!
1. The Sacrifice of Total Surrender
2 Corinthians 5:14-15 — “For the love of Christ constraineth us; because we thus judge, that if one died for all, then were all dead: And that he died for all, that they which live should not henceforth live unto themselves, but unto him which died for them, and rose again.”
Matthew 16:25 — “For whosoever will save his life shall lose it: and whosoever will lose his life for my sake shall find it.”
This is one of the most fundamental principles for the making of champions in the kingdom. This law is sacrifice. It will take EVERYTHING away from you. But it will give you EVERYTHING.
If you want to gain mastery in the kingdom, learn the ways of God.
You are not ready to do business with God unless you die to yourself. There are two things you have to conquer — sin and self. If you have not conquered self you are still not free.
What an unbeliever needs to conquer is SIN. What a believer needs to conquer is SELF. Both must die for you to rise!
For as long as God is only something that you use to make a good life, as long as He is still a deity that you use to become a champion, that you use to get prosperity, you use Him to get whatever you want — then forget about certain levels of mastery.
If it is the God of the Bible that you want to see strong and mighty in your life then it must be the law of COMPLETE, PERFECT, UNASSUMING surrender. Another word for it is DEATH!
If you are striving for mastery you have to obtain Grace from God. Die to your desires, die to your feelings, die to anything that is not Christ.
There are many people who just want to gain mastery over the anointing. They just see wonderful things happen and they want that. But no, you have to be dead! God does not trust you when you are alive to self! Your tendencies and variables are too many!
When you are dead He can give you money. If you put one million dollars on a dead man, when you come back you will find it there. But if someone is alive — even if he is sick and you put one million dollars there, you will come back and find $750,000. He didn’t go out yet the money left. The tendencies of men!
Many believers want the greatest of gifts, thinking God plays ‘abracadabra’. They want so many high-powered things, but the price of death they are unwilling to pay.
Behind every strange dimension, mastery and grace is blood dripping behind that altar! The price for life is death. The size of God is so heavy that if you carry Him in yourself it will kill you.
Many desire a higher level of grace. You want to see God use you mightily — But do you know what it means to die to yourself? It means there is nothing and no one that will ever have the ability to replace God in your life.
To die does not mean to throw away your plans. It means to demote them to a point that God stands at the epicenter of your life.
“Lovest thou me more than these?” (John 21:15)
If you fast and pray for a whole year and do whatever you want to do — if you do not cross the gate of death, forget about mastery and power with God. When God comes to meet you He will demote everything that is not Him. God does not demote it by asking it to go down. He will allow it to fail you one by one until you are left with nothing.
How many of you can give up EVERYTHING for God?
But God comes and tells you ‘I don’t kill. I only come to resurrect. I give you another body — a life of beauty and glory”. It is a very difficult law that you need the grace of God to keep.
You want to see the power of God? You want to see the grace of God? Forget all the things you are doing. You want to package and give seed offering? that will not make Him impart that realm on you.
Total surrender! That is the price! To be surredered means you lose the ability to tell God NO. To be totally surrendered means you have killed the option of NO forever!!
You now reach the point where you say ‘whatever you want my answer is yes! Whatever you say I will not argue with you. You are the final authority in ALL things!’ Your prayer now finds value. Studying the Word now finds value when that surrender is in place. It is sacrifice!
Even Jesus Himself, that was the law He engaged. He came to the earth in obedience to the Father. The Bible didn’t hide the fact that Jesus Himself didn’t want to die. In Gethsemane the Bible tells us the prayer content — “Father, if it be thy will, shift this cup away from me. Nevertheless, not my will but thine be done’. That is the language of men who have died. ‘This is not what I desire, but nevertheless, not my will, but thine be done’.
Romans 12:1 — “I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service.”
We keep crash-landing because we don’t allow the wisdom of God to take precedence. Don’t say you love Him because He will test it. You love Him? More than what?
Total Surrender is what God Requires
You want to strive for mastery? You have to get to a point where your mind is spiritually-minded — ‘Lord if it is for you, there is nothing I would not do’.
[However] nobody has the power to give their all. You can only give God access to take everything. There are things that are too precious in your life that they cannot go. So you just have to give Him access and say ‘Lord, I don’t know what I am doing, but you must be my God’.When you get to this realm where nothing else matters to you, anything that comes close to God has already failed because God is in a position jealously guarded.
God says you have done this for me? Well, I know the things that you should want and look for, and since you have prioritized me you will begin to see things you did not even pray for.
Fearful is the man who pushes past that realm of pain and gets to that point where in reality and in experience you have enthroned Jesus above any and everything. There is nothing God will not give you!
“If you let men see me there is nothing I would not give you.”
You should get to the point where you say ‘whether you bless me or not, you are still my God. Whether you prosper me or not you are still my God. Whether my requests are answered or not you are still my God. Everything, let it be yours’. It is a very painful decision, but if you make that decision where everything belongs to Him — your life, reputation, strength, energy, business — now you have entered the realm of power. Now you have entered the realm of favor. Now you have entered the realm of uncommon grace. Now you have entered the realm of wisdom where you become a friend of Jesus. It takes death to be a friend of God.
The realm of friendship is a realm of revelation. He comes to you.
God is Not all About Miracles
We need to teach the church of God that God is not all about miracles. That God is not all about breakthroughs and signs and wonders. If all we keep chasing after and prostituting around for is just miracles and breakthroughs, power, results, money — No. You have to move past those realms and get to the point where you say ‘Lord you are my everything. There is no plan B. I’m not just using you’. As long as you have options for God, forget about mastery! As long as you have plan B as to who empowers you – God will never come to you.
The sacrifice of ‘total surrender’ is what it takes. So then death works in us that life will work in you. Don’t you think that you can just stretch your hands at the sick and say ‘you are healed’. God is not a magician! Don’t think you can just sit down and say ‘where is my destiny helper? Come and bless me’. No!
For those serving Satan, you have to bring your blood. You go there and they make an incision and you pour your blood. That’s how Satan knows you are serious with Him.
So what makes you think you just fold your arms and casually come to God and say ‘God give me anointing for nations and I promise I will serve you’. Do you think God is stupid? That He will say ‘I love you, I died for you. Take it!’ No! There is a realm of death where He is the one who brings you alive. You no longer live for yourself. Otherwise, you can pray and pray and God cannot trust you. It would be a risk to give you that kind of power. It would be a risk to give you that pedigree. It would be a risk to give you that kind of wealth.
“We are entering seasons where Matthew 25 is about to be replayed in the church. Matthew 25 is the parable of the talents. God is coming like a mighty wind upon believers and He is beginning to entrust them with things for nation. I tell you this, you will start seeing God give gifts to men in spectacular ways. You will start seeing God trust men with graces for territories and nations. The question is ‘can your death afford you that gift?’ There are prophets that will rise like never before. There are apostles that will rise like never before. There are business men that will rise like never before. There are politicians that will rise like never before. You will see levels of power that will dumbfold principalities and power. But let me tell you, the price is not just fasting. The price is not just prayer. The price is not just Bible study — the price is DEATH. Your all must be on that altar for that fire to come.” (Apostle Joshua Selman, April 10, 2022)
God weighs our motives for wanting what we are asking Him for. He finds you wanting. There are things in our lives that are not caused by the devil. It is that the level of death we need to submit to that will allow that magnitude of blessing, we have not yet obtained it.
“And if a man also strive for masteries, yet is he not crowned, except he strive lawfully.,” 2 Timothy 2:5
We need to pray and ask God to purge our hearts, vet our tendencies and remove anything that would stop that weight of glory from resting upon us. That is the prayer of the believer in this season. You must cry and tremble before God and say ‘Lord, I don’t even know my tendencies myself, but purge me’.
There are some people who have been saved for decades. You are well-meaning Christians and yet you don’t seem to have passed beyond certain doors. You seem to do everything right. But there is something God has seen in your heart that if certain weights of glory rest upon you it would end up being a disadvantage. That thing has not died. It’s like giving a baby an AK47 rifle and showing the baby how to shoot it. The baby can turn it to himself and shoot and kill himself.
Psalm 51:10 — “Create in me a clean heart, O God; and renew a right spirit within me.”
You can have a wrong spirit — a demon spirit. A wrong motivation — thus ‘renew a right spirit within me’.
Renew a Right Spirit Within Me
When you see God using people across the nation, don’t think it is just luck or impartation. There is an altar dripping with blood on it. A token of death!
Jeremiah 29:11 — “For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, saith the Lord, thoughts of peace, and not of evil, to give you an expected end.”
“I am ready to burn the bridges behind me. I am with you forever and for the rest of my life.”
Jeremiah 17:9-10 — “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it? I the Lord search the heart, I try the reins, even to give every man according to his ways, and according to the fruit of his doings.”
This is why oftentimes God will pick people who are nobodies and honor them. Why? Because of their lowly estate. It is easy, they are malleable, they are not full of themselves. They know they don’t amount to much within themselves so it’s easy for them to give everything. Surrender must be practical in our hearts. God is looking for our yieldedness. So He says ‘I can make do with your limitations — I will still make you an apostle. I will still make you a prophet. I know that there are disadvantages to your life, but what I’m looking for is death and yieldedness. God is searching for a vessel that is yielded and a vessel that is dead. And then He can pour that oil upon you. It is a spectacular sight when you see a vessel that has been brought like a reed out of the fire.
Sacrifice is a Covenant
Psalm 50:5 — “Gather my saints together unto me; those that have made a covenant with me by sacrifice”.
whether it is through demonic or through genuine spirituality, sacrifice is a non-negotiable requirement. You don’t stand up, you don’t read your Bible and you see someone who day and night has interacted with spirits physically and he comes and stands and says ‘I will kill you’, and you say “God forbid I won’t die’ — you would be surprised!
Our work in this kingdom is based on covenant. Our covenant is a vow. It can stand to amplify what you represent.
There are spirits when you speak to them they know what they see. “Jesus I know. Paul, I know’. Ask them what they are seeing that makes them count those names.
Redemption is real. But the administration of mastery in this kingdom subscribes to the law of sacrifice — not even Jesus evaded it. When Jesus hung on that cross, you thought the Father would see Him and say that is enough? The Father left Him there until He died. And that is the Father who is Love. Even when Jesus cried out the Father didn’t stop it — Jesus still died there.
Just because God is love doesn’t mean He will compromise on the law of sacrifice. The sacrifice of total, complete surrender — death! That is what God requires.
Hebrews 12:1 — “Wherefore seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us.”
Hebrews 12:2 — “Looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith; who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God.”
Whatever brings you to the place of grace is whatever will keep you there — you will even need greater weights of it.
For many people, you believe that once you are fasting, praying, and studying the Bible, that you are going through the sacrifice for greatness — not so! There is something beyond prayer, fasting, and Bible study. It is YOU being the living sacrifice upon that altar.
Let nothing or no one be so great in your life that they take the place of God. When this becomes your prayer and you mean it with all your heart, you will count testamonies like the sands of the seashore. Things you pray for and things you did not pray for — you become a friend of Jesus
There are levels of anointing that will make men walk like gods upon the earth. That their words become the words of God. Spectacular manifestation of His power! You will look at them and you will know that this is a man backed by a strange altar with blood dripping on it.
We will stop being storytellers in the body of Christ and will be proof producers even by the Spirit, but the secret beyond fasting and beyond prayer is death.
The worst thing that can happen to me in this life is death. And even death we have cheated it already in victory.
2 Corinthians 5:14 — “ For the love of Christ constraineth us; because we thus judge, that if one died for all, then were all dead.”
Therefore, we cannot do what we want to do and live any and anyhow. We cannot do business with God that way.
Constraint is related to mastery — you must be able to constrain yourself. You must culture yourself and trust God for a new beginning.”
(Part 2 to follow)
