Followers Of Them(the Advantage Of Models And Patterns) by Apostle Joshua Selman: MP3 Download & Sermon Notes

THE POWER OF KNOWLEDGE AND FOLLOWERSHIP IN THE KINGDOM

The ignorant believer would always be a defeated believer.

What gives value to the life of God that we have received is the knowledge component.

Just because we are recipient of eternal life, does not mean that we would enjoy the potential that comes with that life.

The life of God that has been administered to us in the account of salvation is knowledge dependent. Which means in as much as you are saved, if you do not contend for life (high level spiritual illumination,) there's is a limit to which your life may not cross beyond.

There are things you need to know to reign, excel and tame life.

May something you read in this message lift you above that challenge

Every dimension of your life that is bankrupt of revelation is the dimension that will exert dominion over you.

God is not a herbalist, there is an exact communication of faith on your own part for the word to work for you. Hebrews 4:2

Hearing it is only the first layer, you must believe.

There are times God gives you the strategy for victory, but there times he'd say get out of the battle.

TWO DIMENSIONS TO TRANSFORMATION

1. The Principle of Followership - We are transformed in this kingdom to the degree to which we are able to follow. Follow men, men that have today become models, references.
2. Looking unto Jesus - Hebrews 12:1-2

   • When you want to contend for transformation in the spirit, you look unto men, not any man, not the men you want... but certain ones who have become models, patterns and references.
   • Secondly, you look unto Jesus. If you look unto men alone like you'll be learning, there would be a side effect eventually.
   • As you look unto Jesus, as mighty as that is, he'll eventually refer you to men because that is how his system works.

God's methods are far superior than man's methods. God has a way he does his things and God has a way he does his things. Isaiah 55:8-9

God's ways are far superior.

The bible tells us that when we follow the way of the Lord which is higher, greater and better than any other path, the bible lets us know that we can find rest. Jeremiah 6:16

PATTERNS FORE-RUN THE GLORY OF GOD

Every time you want to see the glory of God revealed in your life, the bible mandates that you work in keeping certain divine patterns.

• What is the Glory of God? The glory of God is a capture of everything that makes God, God:

  • His wisdom
  • His favor
  • His power
  • His goodness

  notifications_active Stay Updated

  Join the Readsermons communities for daily nuggets and new sermon alerts.

  WhatsApp Telegram
  • The multifaceted dimensions of God being expressed in a man

• Your Assignment: Your assignment as a believer is not just to fulfill God's mandate, but that your life eventually will evolve and become a manifestation of the glory of God. Exodus 25:9, 40
• The Pattern Brings the Glory: Exodus 40:16, 33 - When he kept the pattern the glory came in honour to that pattern that was kept. Leviticus 9:6
• Glory Follows Patterns: Every time you see the glory of God in the life a man, financially, revealed spirituality, perhaps in ministry - every manifestation of the glory of God in the life of a man is an attestation that divine patterns have been kept somewhere.

So you don't search for glory by searching for glory, you search for glory by searching to know the patterns that the glory is connected to.

There are spiritual patterns for everything:

• A spiritual pattern that will inevitably lead to kingdom influence
• A spiritual pattern that will inevitably lead to power in spirit
• A spiritual pattern that will inevitably lead to leadership and excellence in life
• A spiritual pattern that will activate the prophetic within the spirit
• A spiritual pattern that turns you into a warrior

Your assignment under God is that by the ministry of the teaching priest like you have received and you're receiving now, to understand these divine patterns, to submit yourself to engage them.

I give you a guarantee by the integrity of God's word, when you understand these patterns and engage them, all that will be left in your life is the glory of God.

Adherence to patterns brings glory. The same way the violation of patterns can deplete men from grace to grass.

THE MYSTERY OF FOLLOWERSHIP

Followership is one of the mysteries of the kingdom by which men (ordinary, weak, limited) become mighty.

Every time you find a man of stature and strength in life and destiny, especially in the spirit, among the many patterns that were kept has been the law of followership. Matthew 4:19

You are made by who you choose to follow.

Acts 4:13 - "...and they took knowledge of them that they had been with Jesus"

HUMAN MODELS INSPIRE HUNGER AND PASSION

What is a Model?

• An example
• A prototype
• A template
• A reference
• A foundation

Transformation and replication is very easy when there are models and references.

Transformation and replication is only as hard as the distance between you and a model.

To replicate means to reproduce result in men.

One of the ways you mass produce product is to first have a simulation of the model. When you simulate the model and it meets your quality control standards you mark all the parameters that were used to create that initial model. That becomes the pattern. And notice the making of the second, the third, the fifth becomes faster and easier because you're not guessing.

Replication and transformation is easy when people understand followership.

To pioneer means to start. To pioneer means the journey that makes you the model yourself.

Pioneering anything, any move, any dimension is very challenging. Why? Because largely, you may not have references or enough references.

THE LIMITATIONS OF PIONEERS

To pioneer any move is very difficult. You must know this: There are 2 limitations that if you are pioneer of anything, you have to be aware of. If you're not careful, you will fall prey to these two limitations:

1. Pioneering Requires Humility to Keep Growing

   • The danger of pioneering is that because most pioneers are emotionally connected to their pain, anytime they see an improvement, they'll most likely frown at it.
   • Models must be secured enough to allow improvement without feeling like failures.
   • One of the reasons, with all due respect, why the body of Christ has not evolved is because the emotional connection of models to dealings they had with God may not easily allow them embrace other dimensions of God because they are emotionally connected to the things that have produced their results. But God is always in motion.
   • Technology is a lesson to us that any model is not yet the best of its version. It is because of the flexibility of science that allows creativity find its course, that today we have all kinds of things. What if those who initially brought us technology sat on what they did and said there cannot be improvement...

2. The Current Move of God Almost Always Seems to Fight the Next Move of God

   • What other dimension is there to God that we have not seen?
   • Every possibility that is open in the spirit creates a portal in the earth where it can happen again and again. Sometimes there are reserved because the saints are not matured enough to work in that dimension. God seeing that it can lead to another kind of error that will end up destroying the body of Christ.
   • Models are foundations, you must be secured enough for improvements to be made on what you have paid for and yet not feel like a failure.

The foundation of a house is about the ugliest part of that building, so down that you don't see it, yet that's what holds the building.

So there are people who have modeled certain dimensions of God. But right now, God is bringing other word-based, system-consistent dimensions. It's like seals that have been closed for the end time and now they are being opened. We are seeing God move in ways that we never imagined again that he'd move. We are seeing God do things now that may be foreign to the experience of people but it is consistent in scripture.

Warning to Models: When you become a model, even if you are Eli, be careful when God begins to talk to Samuel in a way you do not understand, don't call it an attack and don't call it error.

Among the many failures of Eli, one thing he did right was to discern that even though his eyes were dim, he had seen that a new move is rising, called 'Samuel.'

Many of us are inevitably going to be better than our parents, financially, spiritually, ministerially...

We must never look down on fathers and those who have become models because we have seen certain areas. No!

A foundation is why a building stands, a building may crash down, but we can rebuild it if the foundation is right.

The bible says if the foundation becomes destroyed, what can the righteous do?

If as a pioneer, you are the best version of yourself at the end of your life, you failed. The excellency of your being a pioneer, is that you raised people who will become an improvement.

THE ADVANTAGE OF HAVING MODELS AND PATTERNS

This Call is to Models:

1. All Models Must Remain Students Themselves

   • Never have an arrival mentality. Provided you remain a student in the school of the spirit, there is no limit to the height that you raise.
   • You must know that God has granted you grace whether as an overseer, a ministry, as a man of God, a captain of industry, wherever God has placed you. You must remain a student.
   • Models get used to being celebrated and so get embarrassed to learn. "Why should I learn? Especially from someone I raised?"
   • There are heights we have not gotten to, there are levels in the spirit we have not gotten to and there are others who have gone there, and while we keep inspiring a generation to love Jesus and to become, we must remain students too.
   • Never be embarrassed as a model if you find yourself in a class in the school of the spirit, learn with honor, sit down and learn, take notes.
   • If you're too big to sit down, you will not eat bread. Jesus said tell the people to sit down before they serve bread.
   • You are a millionaire, congratulations, but is that money you have enough? Can you give to the kingdom and still sleep? If not, there's still something to learn.

PROFITABLE FOLLOWERSHIP

You can be around models, and never receive from them. This is the disadvantage of many people who are in proximity with greatness, in proximity with grace and they never rise, they remain stunted. The Gehazi syndrome, the Judas syndrome; close to power, close to grace and they are never beneficiaries of it or recipients of it.

Keys to Profitable Followership:

1. Genuine Connection and Loyalty

   • Never follow a man that you cannot genuinely connect to in the spirit, never follow a man, system or structure you will not be truly loyal to. You'll be doing yourself a disservice.
   • They will never credit anybody as touching contributions to their life. It's an embarrassment that a generation is making.
   • Profitable followership demands genuine connection, connection from your heart that this individual, system, structure have modeled a dimension of God commendable enough to command your admiration, connection and loyalty.
   • You will never, whether in the open or in the secret, insult, abuse and be sarcastic over the fathers of faith, it doesn't matter what happens. It births a cloud of dishonor and so it is difficult to receive from them.
   • Beware of familiarity, beware of dishonor. The closer you are to the anointing, the harder it is to receive from the anointing because of familiarity.
   • Profitable followership happens by genuine connection. The hypocrisy of this generation is the reason why people never receive.
   • Every time you despise what God is doing in the life of a man, you have closed the door to yourself entering that possibility.

2. Remain a Student

   • Followership only becomes profitable when the learner or the follower remains a student. When you're following for your making and you have a colleague mentality or a mentality that you're a boss in all.
   • The disciple is not above his master, but everyone that is mature shall be as his master. The goal when you follow is that God helps you to rise to that position and then when you become as his master, you can become greater in result, but that person remains a foundation.
   • Humility is an antidote for shame and embarrassment.
   • Say in the name of Jesus I remain a learner, I remain a student
   • Every time the student is ready, the teacher shows up.

3. Factor the Limitations in the Vessels You Follow

   • Never expect God-like perfection from people you follow. Not because they are bad.
   • Never replace the quest for perfection with sincerity of heart.
   • Every man who has limitation and is not working on it must be a foolish man. It is not the limitation of men that destroys them, it is the limitations unaddressed. That's why every man should be working on something.
   • But the body of Christ will continue getting disappointment because of our appetite for God-like perfection in men, nobody can stand that standard of God's perfection. It is a treasure in earthen vessels.
   • Whatever you can adjust, adjust for your own benefit but follow with honor, this is the character of wise followership.
   • When you honor those ahead of you, it is because you're not unaware of their limitations.

Go back home and together with God, repent from being a contributor to the pain of the people who invest in leading you. If you have caused pain to anybody whose life you have modeled or you're modeling, go and ask God for forgiveness otherwise, a harvest of it is being programmed to your own future. It doesn't matter whether you're treated well or not, yours is God will vindicate you.

Many of us need to be careful. You have insulted everybody whose lives you admire, yet you pray in secret and say, "Father, let this grace come upon me."

Every model must rise to become a model enough, worthy of emulation. This is what we advocate.

There are great vessels carrying grace and they're limited. And the limitation does not have to be something wrong:

• There are some that their limitation is that they are not enlightened.
• There are some that their limitation is that they are not very worded to be able to edit a lot of things.

When graces are upon you, they speak, evidently.

Open your mouth and say, "God you gave this grace for the body, I am part of the body."

One of the ways to get integrity is to receive help from God.

PRAYERS AND DECLARATIONS

I pray for you, whatever has crippled you economically, making your allegiance to God vacillate. Your integrity as a child of God vacillate, this moment I release you into a realm of fearful abundance

You can have what to say, but it does not mean the world would listen.

Whatever would make men know you are there. Whatever would make men to see the investment of the spirit upon your life and to encourage you and reward you. I pray may the grace that makes this happen rest on you now!

Essentially there are two principal ways God channels his blessings to the saints:

1. The works of your hand - Whatever it is you're doing.
2. Relationships

When God wants to accelerate your becoming, he sends both.

I pray for you that the relationship that must be introduced to your life, this week may you encounter those helpers

Every attack on your life, health, job, I release you to safety!

The spirit of might that empowers you for the work receive it now! You will not collapse in service, you will not die while serving.

The grace to know what God is doing. Whatever has covered your eyes that you're not seeing what God is doing in your life, what God is doing in your country, what God is doing in your ministry, I pray for you now, may your eyes be open. Spiritually may your eyes be open. Financially, may your eyes be open.

SALVATION PRAYER

If you want to make your ways right with God, please place your right hand high above your head and say this as loud as you can:

"Lord Jesus, today I have heard your word, I believe that you died for my sin. I believe that you rose again, for my justification. Right now I receive Jesus as my saviour, my Lord and my king, I declare that the power of sin, satan, hell and the grave is broken over my life. From tonight I go forward ever and backwards never."

Heavenly father thank you for this precious one who have come in the name of the Lord. The bible declares that as many who have come to you, you will in no wise cast away. You have made this faith declaration, therefore I speak over you in the name of Jesus Christ, that today you walk in the newness of life, the grace to walk in victory is released upon you, I declare that you go forward ever and backward never in Jesus name!