Help My Unbelief: The Rules Of Potent Faith by Apostle Joshua Selman: MP3 Download & Sermon Notes

Rule One: Genuine Faith Is Born Out of Encounters

Faith that works must be a product of encounters. An encounter is an experience — usually supernatural — that makes a person, a thought, or a thing real to you. There are three platforms that afford the believer an opportunity to have encounters:

• Prayer — Spirit-to-spirit communication with God
• Heartfelt worship — not careless or unattentive, but engaged worship
• The study of scripture — where one day you see something you have always looked at but never truly seen

Job 42:5

Job said, "I have heard of thee with the hearing of the ear, but now my eye seeth thee." That is the most graphic description of an encounter. You may forget the things you hear, but you cannot forget the things you see.

For as long as the highest definition of power in your mind is pharaoh and Egypt, you cannot be a deliverer. You need to be subjected to another experience — the burning bush — that shows you a superior dimension of power. It will then sponsor the courage to go and stand before Pharaoh.

Moses had the prophetic destiny of a deliverer, but he needed the encounter at the burning bush. God lured him. And when Moses turned aside, God finally had his attention. He said: "Take off your shoes — where you stand is holy ground." At the end of that encounter, Moses was bold enough to go back to the very Egypt from which he had fled.

I prayed over the map of Abuja, then Nigeria, then Africa, then the whole world — and in the place of encounter, each map began to shrink in my spirit until they looked like territories a child could hold in their hands. Something was settled in me: I can take the nations. That is what an encounter does.

Four fruits of a genuine encounter:

• Conviction — a revelation of God's love, power, or purpose that settles something deeply in you
• Illumination — the eyes of your understanding being enlightened
• Instructions — specific divine direction for the next season of your life

  Exodus 25:22 — God said, "There I will meet with you and commune with you, and I will give you all that I command concerning the children of Israel." Instructions that can redefine the next ten years come in the place of encounter. One instruction — put your teachings online and my angel will spread them to the nations — that is what has driven this ministry's reach.

• Intimacy — a deepening knowledge of God that translates into visible boldness and sustainable power

Encounters are atmosphere-dependent. They do not just happen. You must invest in creating the atmosphere:

• In consistent, persistent prayer — as they ministered to the Lord and fasted, the Holy Ghost spoke
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Apostle Joshua Selman
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• In heartfelt worship — when they worshipped, the shekinah filled the temple
• In the study of the word — one day Deuteronomy 28:1 came alive: "You shall be exalted above all the nations of the earth." From that day, no nation has capacity to refuse me when I am sent

Show me a man of prayer — I will show you a man of encounters. Show me a man given to worship — I will show you a man of encounters. The secret place is the greatest publicity any ministry can have. We become known when we are known by him.

Rule Two: You Must Understand the Will of God

The most neglected aspect of Bible faith is understanding the concept of the will of God. In the economy of the kingdom, if you do not understand the will of God, you cannot manifest potent faith.

There are two dimensions to the plan of God:

1. The general plan of God — his desire for all men. 1 Timothy 2:4: He desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth. You do not need to ask whether God wants your brother saved. Any spirit that tells you someone should not be saved is antichrist.
2. The unique plan of God — the specific assignment over your life. Jeremiah 1:5: "Before thou camest forth, I sanctified thee and ordained thee a prophet." Acts 26:12-18: Paul had a defined apostolic mandate — to open blind eyes, to turn people from darkness to light. This was not a plan for everybody. It was his unique plan.

Confidence in your faith work is a product of knowing that you are at the center of the will of God. If someone tells me I am not called to ministry, I will intercede for them — because that tells me their hearing needs correction. When you know you are in the will of God, you cannot be shaken.

Hebrews 10:35-36

"Cast not away therefore your confidence. For ye have need of patience, that after ye have done the will of God, ye might receive the promise." When will you receive the promise? After doing the will of God.

The believer's work of faith is a journey of searching out, knowing, and aligning with God to birth his will, his plans, and his purposes for your life. Using faith as an instrument to meet needs is only the secondary assignment of faith. The primary assignment of faith is to connect you to and birth the unique plan of God for your life.

God is not committed to bringing just any desire to pass. If you design your ministry by yourself, your family by yourself, your finances by yourself, and then ask God to come and drop his grace on top — it does not work that way. When God steps into any life, you start from ground zero.

Rule Three: Only Activated Faith Delivers Results

Faith is not dormant belief. Faith is the name given to the action of obedience you take as proof that you believe God.

When Peter said, "If it be thou, bid me come," Jesus said "Come" — but Peter had to get out of the boat. The grace did not carry him out. He had to step. At the point of his response, the miracle happened.

In Ezekiel 2, God said, "Son of man, arise upon your feet and I will speak to you." The man did not have the capacity to rise. But the Spirit entered him — not to lift him — but to empower him while he rose in partnership with it. There is an enabling grace that does not do the work for you. It empowers you while you engage by faith.

Activated faith = speaking the word + obeying every instruction connected to the result you desire. Faith that is coming will not produce. Only faith that has come.

Rule Four: You Need Patience

Hebrews 6:15

"After he had patiently endured, he obtained the promise."

Hebrews 6:12

"Follow them who through faith and patience inherit the promises."

There are blessings connected to seasons. You cannot rush them. A baby that takes a full drum of breast milk does not become an adult — he becomes an overfed baby. And an adult who starves himself does not shrink back to infancy. There are things that subscribe to the law of time and seasons. Patience is not weakness — it is a component of mature faith.

One way to deal with impatience is joy. And joy is sustained in the place of encounter, worship, and the word.

I pray for you — every manifestation of unbelief that has kept you grounded, in the name of Jesus, the spirit of faith is imparted upon your life. You will begin to walk in extraordinary dimensions. Welcome to your season of signs and wonders in the name of Jesus Christ.