By Pastor Chinedu Emmanuel

Ephesians 1:3 “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ.”

Casual seekers don’t get much from God. Every believer must seek and take the word of God as a treasure. If you do not show God that you are serious about something, He will not give it to you because you do not know the value and you will most likely abuse, neglect, or waste it. When you don’t show God that you are serious with His word, He will leave you with your wisdom and this makes you mediocre and leaves you in a very risky situation. To live in the excellence and power of the Holy Spirit, you must show God that He is a priority. Make God and His kingdom your number one priority.  We are urged to seek God’s kingdom first not to massage our feelings, but to teach us how God operates.

SEEK GOD FIRST

Seeking God first shows that we trust and rely on Him alone because He is God. By putting Him first you are saying your eyes are on Him alone because there is no other God but Him. Trust in God means leaning on Him with all our hearts. Leaning on something brings you in contact with that thing physically. So, leaning on God brings you in contact with His Spirit spiritually. This makes it possible for the sap of life to flow from Him into you or His life and power to flow into you and bring about what you are leaning on Him for.

Proverbs 3:5-6 “Trust in the Lord with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding.6 In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths.”

Every blessing from God comes to us as we lean on Him. His life flows into us to heal and strengthen us thus producing fruits of the spirit as we remain in contact with His spirit by leaning on Him. This is described as being “attached by faith to Him” in the verse below.

Romans 11:19-20 “You might begin to think that some branches were pruned or broken off just to make room for you. Yes, that’s true. They were removed because of their unbelief. But remember this: you are only attached by your faith. So don’t be presumptuous, but stand in awe and reverence.”

Know that doubt and unbelief mean the exact opposite. It means that we are leaning on something else besides God.

Hebrews 3:12 “Be careful then, dear brothers and sisters. Make sure that your own hearts are not evil and unbelieving, turning you away from the living God.”

Every good and perfect thing comes from God alone and not from anything else.

John 3:27 “John answered and said, A man can receive nothing, except it be given him from heaven.”

James 1:17 “Whatever is good and perfect comes down to us from God our Father, who created all the lights in the heavens.”

BELIEVE IN YOUR HEART FIRST

All of God’s blessings come to us by leaning on Him via our spirit. So, we receive our blessings via our spirit and not by our flesh for God is a spirit. To receive from God, we have to first believe in our hearts that we have received what we are asking God for before we see it physically.

John 20:29 “Jesus said to him, “Thomas, because you have seen Me, you have believed. Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.”

 We receive through our spirit therefore we believe we have it even when we have not seen it. How else do you receive what you have not seen or touched if not by your spirit mind? We have the mind of the spirit because our new man has a mind which conforms always to God’s mind on every issue. We also have the mind of our flesh which resists God and will not obey God. Our natural man or our natural body has a human mind which is not spiritual in any way but works only by the natural senses and human intellect. You must have an assurance that is not based on any physical evidence but on what God says. You must be persuaded like Abraham that God has done what He promised. This means you no longer pray to God to perform it, rather you start thanking Him for completing it. God is faithful!  He does what He promised He will. This is why we must now rest in faith and stop asking.

We can see in the verses below that Abraham received via the spirit before He physically saw Isaac.

Rom 4:18-22  “Who against hope believed in hope, that he might become the father of many nations; according to that which was spoken, So shall thy seed be.19 And being not weak in faith, he considered not his own body now dead, when he was about an hundred years old, neither yet the deadness of Sara’s womb:20 He staggered not at the promise of God through unbelief; but was strong in faith, giving glory to God;21 And being fully persuaded that, what he had promised, he was able also to perform.22 And therefore it was imputed to him for righteousness.”

GOD’S BLESSINGS ARE SPIRITUAL IN NATURE BUT MANIFEST IN THE NATURAL

God is a Spirit and therefore works as a Spirit, not as a man. This means He works in the spirit realm but His work manifests in the real world to benefit us.

Heb 11:3 “By faith we understand that the entire universe was formed at God’s command, that what we now see did not come from anything that can be seen.”

The spiritual and physical worlds are two different things. Looking for answers in the physical realm will lead to unbelief and discouragement thus nullifying our prayers.

2 Cor 4:18 “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.”

Spiritual blessings are revealed only by the word of God and by the Holy Spirit. The spirit of God is the only source of spiritual information. God has given you the potential to know these blessings because you have His Spirit in you. Only the spirit of God in you can reveal to you what is happening in the unseen realm of the spirit. It is important that we emphasize here that you need not rely on a Prophet for guidance or anything. People have missed out on their blessings by doing this. THE PROPHET OF THE NEW TESTAMENT WAS NOT CALLED TO GUIDE YOU AT ALL. THIS WILL SHOCK MANY BECAUSE THEY NEVER BOTHERED TO STUDY THE SCRIPTURE AND THAT IS WHY THEY ARE EASILY DECEIVED. THE SCRIPTURE SAYS THAT “EVERY SHEEP OF CHRIST HEARS HIS VOICE” If you don’t hear Him, it means you aren’t studying and meditating on His word.

John 10:3-5,27-28 “To him the porter openeth; and the sheep hear his voice: and he calleth his own sheep by name, and leadeth them out.4 And when he putteth forth his own sheep, he goeth before them, and the sheep follow him: for they know his voice.5 And a stranger will they not follow, but will flee from him: for they know not the voice of strangers……27 My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me:28 And I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand.”

 His Spirit in you will show you the things that are freely given to you.

1 Cor 2:12-13 “Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the spirit which is of God; that we might know the things that are freely given to us of God.13 Which things also we speak, not in the words which man’s wisdom teacheth, but which the Holy Ghost teacheth; comparing spiritual things with spiritual.”

 The day you got born again, you became a new spirit being. A new creature! Not new physically but a new spirit man. Peter called it the hidden man of the heart.

Rom 8:9  “But ye are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God dwell in you. Now if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his.”

The greatest need you have as a Christian is to have the word of God constantly nourishing your soul. Faith comes only through the word of God. The Lord Jesus told us that if we want to see the glory of God and the blessings we have to believe they are ours first before we see them manifest in the physical.

• John 11:40 “Jesus responded, “Didn’t I tell you that you would see God’s glory if you believe?”
• Mark 9:23 “Jesus said unto him, If thou canst believe, all things are possible to him that believeth.”

Pastor Chinedu Emmanuel is the Senior Pastor at Fountain Of The Living Word Church, New Jersey.