Think On These Things by Apostle Joshua Selman: MP3 Download & Sermon Notes

One of the very powerful things about working in the Kingdom system is the privilege to understand the way God works — not just the results we get from Him, but the dynamics of His operation.

When you go to a herbalist, he is not committed to explaining to you how things work. He will ask you to turn, move backward, call a name three times — and you have no right to ask why. Asking alone can bring punishment. The process of achieving things in the world system is usually kept secret, so that only a few people are equipped enough to produce those results.

The Bible tells us that the nation of Israel saw the acts of God — the results. But He showed Moses His ways — the dynamics, the spiritual principles responsible for producing those results.

Your Christian experience is truly barren if all you have is results without an understanding of the working principles that produce them.

Anything you do not understand — its process, you cannot have confidence in. Faith hinges upon understanding. For as long as there is vagueness in our Christian experience, we will think we are believing in God, but the truth is we are only hoping we are right. Paul said: "But I know whom I have believed." The word "know" there is not awareness — it is an encounter. He said, "I am persuaded that He is able to keep that which I have committed unto Him against that day." That is conviction.

Two Components of Spiritual Growth

As we grow spiritually, there are two components that constitute true spiritual growth:

1. Conformity into the Image of Christ

   The first spiritual index is the degree to which you are coming into conformity experientially — becoming an expression of the Christ. Paul prayed and said, "My little children, of whom I travail in birth again until Christ be formed in you." The formation of Christ is the experiential building into your person of the fullness of His life, His character, His quality. You measure this by:

   • The degree to which the fruit of the Spirit is at work in you.
   • The degree to which the spirit man has gained ascendance over the flesh.
   • The degree to which carnality is dead from your life.
   • The degree to which you have set your heart on things above and not on things of the world.

2. Understanding the Principles and Mysteries of the Kingdom

   The second component is your comprehension of how the Kingdom system works. It is possible to conform into the image of Christ and never experientially enjoy the benefits of Kingdom living. Conformity is not enough — it takes a comprehension of the laws of the Kingdom to walk in success, prosperity, and divine health.

   Psalms 82:5

   The diagnosis God gives is: "They know not, neither will they understand. They walk on in darkness, and all the foundations of the earth are out of course." Then the question follows: "Know ye not that ye are gods?" — not some of you, not men of God only — ye are gods. Yet it says they shall die like men and fall like one of the princes. The reason: they know not.

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   Wisdom is knowing what to do. Understanding is knowing how to do it. That is why the Bible says — with all your getting, get understanding.

   When you understand how the Kingdom operates, your success becomes predictable. It may take time, but for as long as there is a day after a night, your success will be inevitable.

Salvation Gives Access — Understanding Walks You Into It

Many believers think that because they are born again, their lives will automatically become the desired heaven on earth. Nothing can be further from the truth. While salvation gives us access to the fullness of all that Christ has purchased, it takes understanding to walk into the experience of it.

Hebrews 2:8

God has put all things under His feet — but as it is right now, experientially, we do not yet see all things. So that our Christian experience does not become a cycle of frustration — reading our Bible and seeing the promises of God while our lives remain unchanged — we must understand that results serve as a system of consolation. They serve as evidence and motivation. When your life refuses to bear fruit for a prolonged period, it will begin to challenge your convictions about God.

Man was never designed to serve God under pain, under penalty, under suffering. When you serve God under those conditions, it is called sacrifice — because you were not designed by default to function that way. God wants you to walk into the victory, the blessings, the prosperity, the increase.

Sometimes men of God fall victims of misleading people — in a sincere attempt to make people spiritually minded, they trivialize the fact that God is interested in their success. The result is a congregation of people who love God but are failures in every way. Eventually, the reality of their fruitlessness begins to choke their Christian experience.

Materialism is not having materials. There are poor people who are materialistic. Materialism has nothing to do with materials — it is the influence of things around us when they occupy the place of God. Most wealthy people actually conquered money to be wealthy in the first place.

God wants your success.

Think on These Things — The Governing of Your Thought Life

Philippians 4:8

Paul begins to give us one key to the success principles of the spirit — and he says: Finally, brethren, let me talk about your thought life.

Paul, the psalmist, and Jesus Himself again and again tell us that in our quest to become all that God has destined, we must pay attention to our minds. Our thought life, our convictions, and the things we think about have a lot to do with the manifestation of our reality.

Psalm 19:14

The psalmist gives us two keys responsible for success in life: "Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in Thy sight, O Lord, my strength and my Redeemer." The meditations of your heart that lead to the words of your mouth can decide your destiny.

Many people have not been taught that their mentality, their mindsets, their ideologies are largely responsible for the quality of their life. Not everything about a man's failure is tied to devils and witches and wizards. There are many who do not have the kind of mental state that will afford the Holy Spirit room to produce a glorious destiny within them.

A man is entirely a summation of his mindset and ideology.

Our ideologies are principally formed from:

• Culture — We come from different areas with different beliefs about God, success, marriage, victory, and failure. When we come to God, He does not add to faulty mindsets — He asks us to open up and allow anything not consistent with the pattern of Christ to leave, even if it is culturally correct.
• Levels of exposure — The reality you do not know exists, you cannot open your heart to receive. The word of God exposes us to the possibilities that exist so that by faith we can tap into them.
• The past — For many of us, our past experiences are not good. But we have allowed repeated failures to become walls in our minds that make us feel we cannot do much. Those limitations must be torn down.

The Mind as a Mechanism for Creation

Your thought life is a mechanism for creating things in your physical environment. Your mind is a spiritual component locked up in you that is responsible for creation. There are two components that must coexist for creation to happen:

Every time you speak what is not consistent with your mind — what is not consistent with what is locked up in your spirit — you have wasted your time.

For even salvation: the Bible says with the heart man believes, and on the strength of that conviction, with the mouth confession is made — and it leads to salvation. In the same way, the first key to succeeding is your conviction. Your internal work. Coming to a point where your thought life is completely governed by the word of God. We call that state having the mind of Christ.

The mind of Christ is not just a spiritual mind. It is a mind that has been adjusted to think entirely from God's perspective — your viewpoint consistent with the word of God.

2 Corinthians 10:4-5

The weapons of our warfare are not carnal. This battle is not in the flesh. The weapons are mighty through God to the pulling down of strongholds — casting down imaginations, creative thoughts planted by Satan. Because if a thought is in your mind and becomes an obsession, it must manifest. It is not a matter of if — it is a matter of when.

Whatever stays in your mind long enough, no power in existence will stop it from manifesting.

Genesis 11:4-6

Nimrod proposed the building of the Tower of Babel — a tower whose top would reach the heavens. In God's own assessment: "And the Lord came down to see the city and the tower which the children of men builded." Notice — not the tower they are building. In God's mind, they had already finished it. The moment the people agreed with the conception, God said the house was finished. He did not sit in heaven and say these are silly people. He literally had to scatter their languages so that the plan would fail — because there is no stopping a people who have come to collective agreement in their thought life.

• Every business empire you see, every successful ministry, every impactful believer — when God calls someone, His second assignment is not immediately to use them. He equips them. Part of that equipment is bringing them to a place where their mind resonates with His own.
• When God called Moses and showed him "I AM THAT I AM," He was giving Moses a mental picture. And on the strength of that picture, He said: Go.
• Your life is at the mercy of your thought — first and foremost.

The mind is the spiritual gateway for birthing ideas, creativity, and manifestation. If you ever will raise the dead, you must have conviction enough to stand before one. When a man walks to a sick body and sees a terminal medical report, yet has the audacity to overlook it — it is because his mind has been programmed to see a higher reality. That is not arrogance. That is a mind conformed to the word of God.

All things are not possible for everybody. The Bible never said all things are possible for everybody. It says — to him that believes.

Your first assignment is not to look for money, a job, or a business idea. Your first assignment is to stay and rise to a point where your mindset is obsessed with the possibilities — where the word of God is literally your mirror.

2 Corinthians 3:18

As we behold Him, we are changed. There is a transition.

You Choose the Day You Want to See

Psalm 118:24

"This is the day the Lord has made — let us rejoice and be glad in it." He did not say rejoice because you are happy. He says rejoice as a rule, as a key. In the realm of the spirit, the day has been made — it has been loaded with God's benefits. But it has not yet manifested. There is a condition: rejoice and be glad.

Every time you wake up, there are two days in one. You choose the day you want to see. Every morning is a decision to receive what God has made — and the door of entry is rejoicing.

The reason many people's days are always tragedies is because there is no rejoicing. Satan knows this.

Celebrating Others Authorizes You to Have What They Carry

Anything you do not celebrate in another person, you are not authorized to have in your life. For as long as you speak against the worship anointing you see in another, you will never step into it. For as long as you trivialize another man's grace, you cannot receive it.

• Remove negativism from your atmosphere — and watch what begins to happen in your life.
• Work with optimistic people. Avoid those who are always looking for what is not working — they will destroy what is being built in you.
• Never carry your bad day onto your congregation. The atmosphere of a leader is the atmosphere of a house.

Speaking From Conviction — Not Just Confession

There is a difference between speaking just because you want to talk and speaking from the overflow of what is in your mind. The Bible says: "Be filled with the Spirit" — and immediately you will start speaking. The moment your mind is full, your mouth will start speaking.

Proverbs 23:7

Every time there is a union between your thought life and your words, there must be creation. We call ourselves names we have thought about for so long and verbalized — and our lives inevitably become them. Job said: "The thing which I greatly feared has come upon me." He feared many things — but the most dominant fear became his reality.

There are many pastors who speak spiritual declarations on stage but then sit in private and say what they actually believe — "It's not easy, things are hard, ministry is not working." What is the private of your thinking is what will be your expression, even when you are alone.

Creation is not just speaking. It is speaking on the strength of a conviction. That is what produces creation.

I never confess things I don't believe because that is a waste of time. This is not positive thinking — this is Kingdom living. Creation did not stop on the seventh day. God only rested. Creation is still on. That is what makes us co-creators with God. But we have lost the art of understanding God's technology of creation.

What Truth Actually Means

A lie, in Kingdom terms, is anything the word of God did not endorse. Your current situation — whatever it is that contradicts the word of God — is a lie.

2 Corinthians 4:17-18

"For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, worketh in us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory — while we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen." He never said things that are unreal. He said unseen. That tells you that all you see is not all there is.

Truth is not what is merely factually correct. Truth is what has the life of God in it. It may be a physical reality that you have a lump or a growth — but the word of God opens you to the possibility that it can leave. It is up to you to dwell on the physical reality and die with it, or to fix your eyes on the higher reality.

It matters what you see. It matters what you look at. You cannot expose yourself to environments that feed your mind wrongly and expect your life to conform to the word of God.

Surround Yourself With an Atmosphere of the Word

Soak yourself with worship. Take a journey through the word of God. Read Joshua and let the camera of your mind snap the picture: "No man shall be able to stand before you all the days of your life." That is what your mind does — it snaps everything. It is up to you to delete every junk by the word of God.

The oil was not small — the vessel was small. The prophet said to the widow: go borrow vessels — not a few. Enlarge your capacity. The moment there were more vessels, the oil started multiplying.

Every successful person, every person mightily used by God, first got to a point where they were convicted that the ability of the Spirit can walk in and through them. It took them time — but they stayed until that construction was unwavering.

Job said: "Though He slay me, yet will I trust Him." He said: "All the days of my appointed time will I wait till my change comes." He knew his change would come. When David was in the cave of Adullam, he knew inevitably he was meant for the palace.

The devil stands helpless in the face of a man who has made the word of God his mentality. At that point, Satan becomes powerless — because you are no longer governed by your circumstances. Your convictions are higher than your physical perceptions.

Prayer

• Father, we thank you for your word. Every single one of us — give us the grace to reject negativism. As a family of faith, we curse Satan on all he has to offer. We declare that every thinking of limitation, every thinking of failure and setback, every thinking of unbelief — leaves our lives now. In the name of Jesus Christ.
• I minister to people who have been victims of their past or the scorching tongues of men. People have made pronouncements over your life and declared you are good for nothing. In the name that is above all names, we change that report by the word of God. You will keep recording one level of victory after another. Every challenge that stands before you will become your testimony. All those who laugh at you today will laugh with you tomorrow. In the name of Jesus Christ.
• Everything that has made you speak negatively over your life, everything that has blocked your eyes from seeing the faithfulness of God — let it fail tonight. From tonight, your convictions will be positive at all times. Praise and thanksgiving will never depart from your mouth. You will never have any reason to see life in a negative dimension. In the name of Jesus Christ.

In the name of Jesus — all I see around me is the goodness of God, the mercy of God, the favor of God, the faithfulness of God. All I see around me is increase, glory, beauty, favor. I reject every thought that is not consistent with the word of God. I am the head and not the tail, above and not beneath. Many are the afflictions of the righteous, but the Lord delivers him from them all. No man is able to stand against me all the days of my life. My path is as a shining light that shines brighter and brighter unto the perfect day. I am like a well-watered garden. Everything I do prospers. I am rising from one level of glory to another. Gentiles come to my light and kings to the brightness of my rising. I am planted in the house of God and I flourish. I am like a tree planted by the riverside that yields fruit in season — whose leaf does not wither. In the name of Jesus, amen.