The Wealthy Place - 3 by Apostle Joshua Selman: MP3 Download & Sermon Notes

No pastor is prospering simply because he is preaching the gospel. And no pastor is poor simply because he is a pastor. The formula for wealth is the same for everyone. The amount of money received — wealth, income — will always be in exact proportion to three things:

1. The demand or need for what you do
2. Your ability to do what you do
3. The difficulty in replacing you

This formula works for anyone, any day, anywhere. It is a principle. When someone gives a tithe and favor opens a door that brings in a million naira, the question is not whether God is faithful — He is. The question is: will the mindset sustain that million? If the mental transition has not happened, the same mindset that was poor before the favor will dissolve the million and return the person to where they were.

The Mystery of Multiple Streams of Income

Genesis 2:10 — A river went out of Eden to water the garden, and from there it parted and became four streams. Each stream carried a different treasure — gold, precious stones, and more.

One river. Four streams. Each producing its own wealth.

This is the revelation behind what can be called Oceanic wealth: a stream can dry, but an ocean never dries. A single stream of income can be cut off. An ocean — fed by multiple streams — cannot be emptied.

Why a Single Stream of Income Is Dangerous

Operating under one stream of income is the key to insufficiency and perpetual financial struggle.

The Nigerian system was designed around a single-stream model: go to school, get a job, receive a salary. This is not wrong in itself, but the problem is when a job becomes the only stream. A salary is never designed to completely fund one's vision. It was designed to meet immediate needs — and even that it struggles to do, because of Parkinson's Law: need rises to meet the level of income.

When a person earns fifty thousand and gets married, their expenses rise. When they earn two hundred thousand and have children, the expenses rise again. The salary grows, but so does the demand on it — and a single stream can never run ahead of the expanding need.

Beyond that, there is no such thing as job security in the modern economy. A corporation can shut down. A sector can become irrelevant. Technology can make an entire workforce obsolete overnight. Those who worked for companies that once seemed invincible know this by experience.

The limitation of one stream is covered by the availability of another. That is the power of multiple streams. If one stream is interrupted — salary delayed, business slow, sector disrupted — another is still flowing. The person is not destroyed. They can recover, sustain themselves, and continue building.

Why Multiple Streams of Income Are Essential

• To ensure abundance at all seasons — not just when one source is performing well
• To protect against the failure of any single source
• To fund both present living (cash flow) and future projects (capital investment)

There are two financial categories that must be planned for simultaneously:

• Cash flow — consistent income that meets daily, weekly, and monthly needs and expenditures
• Capital projects — income set aside for long-term investments: land, buildings, school fees, savings

Many of the previous generation focused entirely on long-term capital — they bought land, livestock, and property — but made no provision for cash flow. The result is a man who owns ten houses but cannot produce ten naira to take a child to the hospital in an emergency. He is not stingy. He is financially illiterate.

The present generation has overcorrected in the opposite direction — obsessing over present cash flow (looking rich now) while ignoring tomorrow. The goal of financial literacy is to maintain both: to live well today and prepare seriously for tomorrow.

Financial freedom = financial abundance + time + peace of mind.

Having money is not financial freedom. Financial freedom is having money, having time, and having peace. There are people with millions who have not prayed in years, who cannot spend a quality evening with their family, who are on the ninth day with no rest. That is not the wealthy place.

God's System for Activating Multiple Streams of Income

The mistake many people make when told to "start something on the side" is to blindly begin businesses with no connection to their gifts, passions, or calling. That approach produces scattered effort and repeated failure.

The kingdom system for identifying streams of income is anchored in two things:

1. Your gifts and abilities

   Proverbs 18:16 — A man's gift makes room for him and brings him before great men.

   A gift does two things: it gives opportunity and it gives access. Gifts and abilities are not just spiritual endowments — they are streams of income waiting to be activated. Every gift in a person's life is a potential revenue source.

   David's gifts all became streams: his ability to play music, his faithfulness in service, his leadership skill — all were expressed and all produced results. Every gift and ability is a potential stream of income.

2. Problems and opportunities aligned with your passion

   Passion is what sustains a person when results are slow. Passion puts people back on their feet after failure. Committing to a problem or opportunity that has no passion behind it wastes time, energy, and resources.

   Look for the problems people desperately need solved. Look for the gaps that align with what you were built to do. The intersection of your gifting and a genuine demand is the location of your next stream.

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   Apostle Joshua Selman

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People are often boxed into a single expression of their gifting. A pastor is told to stay on the pulpit. A civil servant is told to stay in their role. But the same God who gave the pastor a preaching gift may have also deposited gifts in leadership, writing, consulting, and entrepreneurship. Refusing to explore those other streams in the name of "staying in your lane" is not humility — it is waste.

Matthew 25:15 — He gave to every man according to his several ability. Not according to their prayer requests — according to their ability.

The Critical Principle: Time

Life on earth is measured in time. Whatever a person gives their time to, they have given part of their life to.

Focus on activating streams that increase your income without consuming your time.

The wealthy build systems that generate income even when they are not actively working. A book continues to sell while the author preaches. A rental property generates income while the owner is at a meeting. A media ministry reaches thousands while the minister sleeps.

When streams of income require constant active participation, they wear out the one running them. The goal is to activate streams that, once built, produce on their own — freeing time for what matters most: assignment, family, prayer, and growth.

Never give your time away unnecessarily. Your life is measured in time.

Four Recession-Proof Streams of Income

1. Land

   Land, together with anything under it, on it, and above it — real estate in its fullest sense. A person who does not own land is not yet rich. Land is a fixed asset. It cannot be stolen. Even catastrophe can only affect what is on it, not the land itself. It is one of the greatest expressions of God's justice and mercy to the inhabitants of the earth.

2. Education — the transfer of knowledge

   Daniel 12:4 — Before the coming of Christ, knowledge shall increase. There will be an unabatable demand for knowledge. Anything that transfers knowledge to people is a guaranteed source of wealth.

   Education as a stream includes:

   • Speaking — those who can communicate excellently and transfer knowledge earn millions
   • Writing — books, courses, and documented persuasions generate income long after they are created. One book, skillfully written and marketed, can bring life-changing financial results. Proverbs 18:16 — the gift makes room.
   • Building structures — schools, training programs, platforms that institutionalise knowledge transfer

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   The limitation many people face in writing is not content — it is craft. Skill in communicating ideas on paper must be learned, just like any other form of expertise. A powerful persuasion that is poorly packaged remains unknown. A powerful persuasion that is skillfully presented becomes a bestseller.

3. Employment — your job

   A job is a stream of income. It is not the final destination, but it is a legitimate and useful stream. A salary covers short-term needs and creates financial breathing room to develop other streams without immediate pressure. The mistake is treating a job as the only stream — not as one of several.

4. Transportation

   For as long as human beings exist on the earth, they will need to move. Movement is one of the fundamental characteristics of living things. The transportation sector is a stream that starts producing from the first day a vehicle goes out. It does not require a degree, a connection, or a large capital outlay to begin — yet it consistently generates daily income.

   Small-scale transportation — even a single vehicle managed well — can produce steady weekly cash flow that, when saved and reinvested, becomes the foundation of something much larger. The same principle scales: multiple vehicles, logistics networks, and freight services all operate on the same fundamental demand for movement.

The Principle of Creativity

Creativity is the ability to birth new or improved ideas. It is the key to being different, to being unique, to being irreplaceable. Without creativity, a person's business looks exactly like every other business. With creativity, even a simple service becomes a destination.

The first revelation of God in Scripture is as a Creator — and He created humanity in His image. Every person with a mind has the capacity to be creative. It is not a gift reserved for artists and musicians. It is the fundamental ability that separates those who produce from those who consume.

You are only limited by your creativity.

In the current age, there is demand for almost anything. People have built wealth from laughter, from fingers, from being able to play an instrument in a corner. The world is a global village. Whatever is genuinely done with excellence and creativity will find its audience and generate income.

Creativity is the key to effectively creating demand for a gift or potential that the world has not yet recognised. The reason no one has placed a demand on a particular gift is often not because there is no market — it is because creativity has not been applied to surface it.

Important Warning: Keep Business and Ministry Separate

Matthew 21:12–13 — When Jesus entered the temple, He drove out those who were buying and selling inside it. This is the boundary: what belongs to God's house stays in God's house. What belongs to business stays in business.

A man of God can have multiple streams of income, run multiple enterprises, and be wealthy through skill and wisdom — but he must never bring business into the church and use the loyalty of members as a customer base. That is a misuse of influence. It exploits the relationship of trust between a shepherd and his flock.

When members are exposed to business deals through the church platform:

• They feel the endorsement of the pastor, which bypasses their critical judgment
• When things go wrong — as business sometimes does — they attribute the failure to the pastor
• The integrity of the ministry is damaged, sometimes irreparably

If ministry leaders want to facilitate business opportunities for their community, the right approach is to create a separate platform — a business club, an investment cooperative — with clear terms, and let people subscribe and participate at their own risk, with full understanding that it is not a church venture.

Give people room to take responsibility for their own financial decisions. They are not wards — they are adults. Overprotecting them from risk while also exposing them to risk through your endorsement is the worst of both worlds.

The Path Forward

Two fundamental ways to grow financially:

1. Increase the service you offer — ask what better, bigger, or more creative version of what you currently do looks like. Birth ideas for higher-value services. The income will follow the improved offer.
2. Increase your skill in what you currently do — even within a job. An employer does not give salary increases because an employee asked. They give increases because the employee became more valuable. Skill creates leverage in every direction.

You do not seek money directly. Money is an effect — a byproduct of carrying out a formula. You attract it by becoming the kind of person who carries what the market needs, executed with excellence.

One practical rule: as much as possible, do not borrow money. The borrower is servant to the lender. Borrowing, like many things, is addictive — a person who borrows five thousand today will borrow five million tomorrow, until they are buried in debt they cannot explain. Save. Delay. Sacrifice. Buy with what is actually in hand.