Dynamics for Fulfilling your Vission Title 2

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The practical tips, the dynamics of executing God's counsel. If I would put it differently, I would have just said the tips and the dynamics for fulfilling your mandate. If you come to understand that God's counsel, God's divine purpose for lending us life and for creating for us platforms, either professional platforms or positional platforms or different endowments.

It was only meant for God's purpose to be accomplished on the face of the earth. And if God's counsel is what I am created to accomplish, then it becomes my mandate. It becomes the vision that I need to run after for my life.

So I felt within these hours that we have, if we can make input to both study and look at practical tips for executing the counsel of God for our lives, what are the dynamics that we need to put together that will make a man to fulfill, to execute in his lifetime what God has ordained for him to carry out. And I would like to, I feel that in looking at these practical tips, there are some peculiar issues that we just have to sit back and look at in terms of how do we, how do I fulfill the counsel. How do we rise from this meeting and deliberately commit ourselves and say, in my lifetime, and while I have the space and the grace, I don't want to die looking back and saying, what I could have done, I did not do.

What I was born and born again to bring about in my own generation, I couldn't do it. The things that God squally allocates for my life and say, it is you that must bring this to be. Let it not be that at the end, I wasn't able to accomplish what God has called me to do.

As we were praying about raising a prayer or opera this morning, and our brethren were alluding to the calamity of Samson, I perceived that Samson had a mandate. He was born for a purpose. It was revealed to him what he was raised to do for God.

His basic mandate was to disconfigure and destroy the Philistines, and release his people from their bondage. And God specifically began to give him all the instructions that he needed in order for him to be able to accomplish that. But unfortunately, so many other things crept into his life, until the last day, when he knew now that he was going to die, he prayed a very desperate prayer.

God, being the God of another chance, answered his prayer. But he did not live to see the result. And he was not alive to even follow it up.

And so, altogether, the people of God were still not delivered, because the man that has the mandate, the man that is supposed to execute that, missed it along the line. There are a few things that I have put together that I am thinking we will study together in the course of this time. Predicatives for executing God's counsel, or for fulfilling God's mandate for my life.

There are a few dynamics that I was going to deal with and study. The first dynamic, which I am looking at, is the vessel. The vessel, the man, that executes God's counsel.

The second dynamic, which I want to look at, is the vision. The vision. Ability to see what is that counsel that God wants you to accomplish in your lifetime.

The third dynamic is the vehicle. What is the first dynamic I want to study? The vessel. What is the second one? The vision.

What is number three? The vehicle. The vehicle. Sometimes you see where you ought to go, and you know where you are.

But between where you are and where you are supposed to go, there is no vehicle. There is no means of conveying yourself to the place of your vision. So part of the dynamics I want to look at is the vehicle.

And I would like to suggest that God never gives a vision without providing the vehicle. The unfortunate thing is that many people are in the wrong vehicle. There are many people that are supposed to go to Nineveh.

So when they go to the motor park, and there were boys who were calling, what did they do? They sat in dashes. And at every turn of the wheel, they were taking him 180 degrees away from where he was supposed to go. And some people are in wrong vehicles.

And if God is going to help them at all, what do they need to do? What they need to do is to jump out of that vehicle and retrace what vehicle has God provided for this vision. The fourth dynamic that I hope we can deal with is the vehicle. The vehicle.

Talking about the vehicle, talking about the wherewithal, the endowment, what it will take, the energy that will cost what I've seen, for what God has provided a vehicle for it to be accomplished. We'll be looking at the vehicle. That's the fourth dynamics.

The fifth dynamics, which we cannot ignore, is the velocity. What is the fifth dynamics now? The velocity. Since you are not here forever, is there any everlasting man here? Who has infinity of time to execute his mandate in life? Is there anybody like that? You are not talking to me again.

You mean you are not an infinite man? To remind you that yesterday you were younger than today. Is that true? Or is it a wrong statement? So, that's why we have to talk about the velocity. When I come to deal with that, I will be talking about velocity is simply defined as the rate of displacement, the quantity of your journey vis-a-vis the time that you have spent.

So, the next question that you are going to be looking at in the velocity is to ask, number one, am I making measurable displacement towards my vision? And at what rate am I making it? And if my velocity, maybe if I explain it, it will be easier. If I need to go from here to Lagos, to Lagos, and I got the vehicle that is going to Lagos, but when we go to the motor park, the colleague I'm traveling with, they are going to Ali Ade, some will stop in Taraku, others will stop in Otupo, and some we have to stop in Otupa before we get to Ayamba. Those are the colleagues that park inside this vehicle that is going to Lagos.

Am I in the right company? When am I likely to arrive in Lagos? Forever we are going to be on the road. So, it is not just enough to note that this vehicle is going to Lagos. It's important to find out who are the passengers, because it will affect my velocity.

Some of you that have a journey that is far, your present friends, they are people that have no journey to make. The people that you are listening with, they are people that it doesn't matter, even if on our way to Lagos, we go to Ali Ade and we spend two hours to eat roasted yam. And you say, let's move now.

I'm going to stop in Taraku. There's no need, let's take time and eat the yam here, because between here and Taraku there is no more yam. And you are in that vehicle.

Will you achieve a correct velocity for your journey? Right. This is the dynamic that we must talk about if we want to execute God's concept and fulfill our mandate within the time-space that we have. So, velocity will be dealing with the rate of accomplishing my task within the time-space that God has given me.

Velocity will be very critical. That is number five dynamics. What is the last dynamic that I want to deal with? The viruses.

The viruses. What's a virus? A virus is an imperceptible, small, small, small, small, almost invisible objects that are deliberately injected to stop you from fulfilling your vision. And because fulfilling God's concept on the face of the earth itself is a warfare, because there is one whose immediate principal purpose is to destroy the work of God on the face of the earth and he has not gone on leave and he has not retired.

Is he going to fold his hand and say, okay, let me just watch Brother Peek become what God wants him to be without doing something about it? Will he do that? Eh? What is he going to do? That something did not fulfill his mandate in life was because maybe he did not know that there are viruses that are particularly injected to arrest his progress. Because as soon as you are making progress towards the purpose of God, you are being discussed in hell. There is a discussion already in hell.

And in fact, even this morning, there was already an emergency meeting called in hell. They said, did you notice what these men are doing? Can you see where they are going? What can we do? Even if we can't stop them completely, what can we do to incapacitate them? Or at least to slow them down? Or to crash, to crash their hard disk so that whatever they are using, their vigor will have been infected. They cannot achieve what we are looking for.

There are six dynamics that we cannot but study. You know, each of these dynamics, they are big. And if we are even sitting here for many more days and we are saying, let's take each of these to study, we might not finish.

But it's still alright that we can pick them together and discuss them and pray over them. And my intention this morning is that if we succeed in dealing with these six dynamics, when we come back after break, after we have done our professional workshop, the final one, there is a small time that we created for tips on your program. Did you see that? It is the time that we are going to come and sit and now discuss practically.

If you now have questions, if you now have observations, something to read that is particular, that maybe at the professional workshop it was dealt with, and you are saying, now I have understood what I am supposed to go and execute for God in my lifetime. How can I undo it? We want to create that time to be a practical time. We say that we should not just end this meeting without coming to a proper conclusion so that in the night when God is commissioning us, we can hold God's hand and say, Lord, before I come back for another men's convocation, things like this is going to be my report.

I should be coming back to report and say, Lord, after this time, I took this challenge, I went all the way, and this is my displacement. This is the speed with which I have run. This is my current velocity.

Praise the Lord. Praise the Lord. I would like to begin the whole of this process by asking you to read a passage that I know you know.

And I want us to repeat it again. Let's read Ephesians. Let's read Ephesians.

I could have asked you to have a paper each, but it's almost going to be a book. And it will be cumbersome. So when we finish this, if it becomes something to work with, we will see a way of getting these materials to our hands at various points.

Praise the Lord. Let's go to Ephesians chapter 2. Ephesians and chapter 2. Ephesians chapter 2. We are going to read verse 10. Ephesians 2 and verse 10.

Maybe I should read verse 8 to verse 10. But verse 10 is our study point where we start dealing with the dynamics. Ephesians 2.10. Are you there? Are you there? Okay.

For by grace are you saved through faith. And that's not of what? Of yourselves. It is the gift of God.

Not of works. Lest any man should be, should make any boast. No man should boast.

For we are his workmanship created in Christ Jesus unto good works with God as before ordained that we should work in them. I want you to please go over this passage together with me. For by grace are you saved through faith.

And that's not of yourselves. It is the gift of God. Do we agree with that? Eh? I want you to know that the grace of God has brought you to be saved.

The grace of God has delivered you from the kingdom of darkness. The grace of God has been made manifest to such a point that we can't boast about it is the grace of God. That someone else heard the same message and he did not repent.

The same message that changed your life did not change another person. I want you to know that is the grace of God. So the first thing we want to establish before we go ahead in dealing with these practical things and the dynamics is that you were saved by grace.

And if you are not saved yet grace is available today to do what? To save you. The Bible says he is able to save to the uttermost those who come to God by him. Because he lives forever to intercede for all those who have come to God by him.

Why am I beginning with that? If you are not saved you do not have any space in fulfilling God's counsel. I'm not saying that you may not contribute. You may contribute like Pharaoh also contributed to making sure that the counsel of God for Moses came to pass.

But Pharaoh was not an object of mercy. God had nothing to do with his life. If a man is not born again the first thing that God is demanding from him is to turn to the Lord.

If you have not given your life to Christ you are not born again. There is nothing you are doing for God that is acceptable. The Bible said even the sacrifice of a wicked man is an abomination before God.

If a man has not acknowledged Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior and he has not recognized that I'm a sinner saved by grace and he now wants to do something for God is an insult. God does not take from his enemy to do any of his works. So let's establish that this fulfilling God's counsel begins first by your being saved.

By your being born again. By your accepting that on your own and by your own strength you will not be able to please God. And that unless Jesus Christ who died and died for your sin and who was buried in order to destroy the power of the devil and release captives from the dominion of Satan and who rose again that we may have a new life to live in Christ Jesus and who ascended to heaven to give us the hope that we also we are not just running about for nothing.

There is a heaven to go. There's a heaven to go. If he did not rise and if he did not ascend to heaven we would have been hopeless.

We would have said everything ends here on earth. Now because Jesus Christ died because he was buried and because he rose again and because he ascended to heaven and because he is now seated by the right hand of God up there that forms the basis of what you needed to believe and submit yourself to in order to be saved. You cannot be saved because you gave money.

Let me say quickly giving, philanthropies giving working for the poor cannot save you. Hard work good service even in the church cannot save you by grace are you saved through faith and this is not by works lest any man should do what should boast. None of us can boast about anything.

It is the gift of God. It is the gift of God. So can I ask a very simple question? Who is saved in this meeting? Let me see the hand up.

You are saved not because you paid for it. You are saved because you believe Jesus Christ. Are you? Jesus came into your life and by grace you are saved.

Praise the Lord. So if that be the case turn to someone by your side and say by the grace of God I am saved. If you want to take it further please don't worry ask him and say when did it happen? When were you saved? Let's talk about it just for two minutes.

When were you saved? Do you know? Thank you. And ask him what about you? What about you? It is very simple but that is a very important matter. In case when we ask this question you suddenly become a stammerer.

Let's settle that matter before you go. Let's settle it. You will say well I don't know I don't know but I just know I just know.

No. It is still available. Jesus Christ is still standing at the door and saying if anybody hears my voice and opens the door I will come in.

Why am I beginning from there? You cannot hope to execute God's counsel while you are in the enemy's camp. A captive who himself is a slave how can he challenge his master? It is not possible. So please that is the helmet on our head.

The helmet of salvation. It must always be noted. I am here today not because I am a brilliant preacher it is just because by the grace of God I am saved.

Praise the Lord. I love that song. I don't know how to sing it.

It says I am a sinner saved by grace. I have no other grant no other boast no other qualification what qualifies me to be here to do whatever I can do for God is because I am saved. And if you meet a rich man that has plenty money like water and you are saying there is a lot of things you can do for God with your money you are not doing well with him what is the first need of his life? He must be saved.

He must be saved. Thank you. But all those that are saved they were saved for a purpose.

And that is the first issue that is the general preamble unto the dynamics it is that we are what his workmanship created in Christ Jesus unto good works with God as before ordained that we should work in them. Let's take 9 verse 10 a little quickly together. Those of us that have been brought by grace not of works but by the very very gift of God we are his handiwork we are his his his work of art we are his workmanship created in Christ Jesus I want you to please note that unto the word unto is an old English word but it is a very very powerful word all my English specialists can you please help us what is the word unto? When you see the word unto not to but unto what does it mean please? Can you stand up and help us? What is the word unto? What does it mean? Eh? Meant for somebody has brought the word meant for that's good yes sir for the purpose of we are touching it now any other? Eh? Eh that's that's bigger than unto isn't it? You have now made it more complicated I'm looking for a simpler word and he has added many more things there unto for the purpose of meant for yes sir Eh? Two words so let's take note of that scripture it says you are is workmanship created in Christ Jesus unto which means you were not created to no purpose you were actually recreated in Christ Jesus for a specific what? purpose and you know when they use the word unto that means this is the very reason why you were actually carved constructed and prepared which means that there is something in the heart of God ever before he began to put you together oh you are not getting me at all let me ask a question maybe to make it clearer when does the potter those women that used to make pots if you have gone to them when does the potter decide what he was going to use the pot that he is preparing for when does he decide it eh? ever before he begins to work it is that inside purpose in the heart of the potter that determines the shape the size am I right? even the texture of the pot for example for example I hope you are able to see me here did you see this pot? this pot did you see it? what pot is this? this is a flower pot this is a flower pot why could we not be adapted onto a drum pot I hope you know there is another pot that is particularly made for drumming eh? why couldn't we adapt this now to make a drum pot thank you very much I'm hearing you number one it's not meant for it number two this shape can never produce any sound as it is now so if you are struggling the potter will just laugh at you and say if you had told me that you only want a drum pot you would have told me that that's what you wanted we didn't make this thing to beat drum with it it's flower pot can I ask you why can we not change it to a cooking pot do you notice that the first problem is that if you start turning something inside it now the bottom will just collapse because it's not meant for that so even the potter does not begin his work until he has first of all decided what am I going to use this thing for that's what informs him on the shape the size and the way it is constructed are we together so let me say to you before you go away from here there is a divine purpose very specific in the heart of God for creating you there is something that God had in mind before putting you together and unless you discover it and begin to work in it you will forever be an adaptation who will never be his best many people cannot be their best in their lifetime simply because they are struggling to use their life different from what it was meant for or what it was intended for so everything they are doing is out of shape simply because they've not discovered what is it that I was created to do praise the Lord so as we begin to look at these dynamics practical dynamics it must have to be clear in the mind of everyone of us every man here that there is a specific purpose for which you were made and it is important to search the heart of God and say why was I created why was I recreated in Christ Jesus why did you make me who I am what is the intended purpose for which I am supposed to be alive that question until you have answered it executing God's counsel we continue to elude you if you find yourself in what you were not designed by God to be you will just be putting a round peg where in a square hole will it work not likely not likely you may try but everyone will say but if he had asked us we would have told him what it was meant for what it was meant to do I could take that down to every area whether in the choice of your career in the choice of what you are doing what you want to do what you are involved in maybe the basic question to first ask is is that what you were created for is that what you were designed for now permit me to show you furthermore in that verse 10 this is a basic passage that's why I'm spending a bit of time there now for where is workmanship created in Christ Jesus unto good works which did you see the word which did you see the word which in your own version or my own version says which God has before hand ordained that we should do what we should work in them again I want you to note now that the counsel of God for your life is not an afterthought whether I say life is not is not an afterthought there is certain things that God actually ordained beforehand so what you are supposed to accomplish for God is already prearranged by God he who declared the end from the beginning already knows about it and if you go on and on in that Bible verse you will notice I said which God has before ordained that we should do what work in them which means if I am properly guided and if I am properly set in pursuing the counsel of God for my life fulfilling the counsel of God for you are you hearing me will be simply working into it taking steps enter it will look effortlessly it will appear as if ah ah so this thing has been arranged and I'm just working into it that's how God wanted it if we were working properly now I said this is a basic understanding that God must give us ESV said for where his workmanship created in Christ Jesus for good works with God prepared beforehand God had prepared it that we should work in them so brothers may I first say that in order to fulfill God's mandate and God counsel for my life my first responsibility under God and as her brother was guiding you in the morning about searching the volume of the books to do what to discover what are the concepts of God for your life that's very important the Bible says as soon as Jesus came into the world he said what did he say sacrifices and burnt offerings you don't desire but a body you have prepared for me and I have come oh Lord in the volume of the books to do thy will he took time to say why did you create this body for me once he discovered it he pursued it hallelujah if I were to pause and say do you have a question I know the first question somebody would say how can I know what I was created by God to do you see I'm asking the question in your mind already that if that is the matter it means I better find out I will go ahead to speak about that in the course of time I would like to say that our brother said in the morning while he was quoting and said if you don't even know they are only pushing you to do it if it is not you personally discovering it by the guidance of the Holy Spirit and God is just pressing a body as if he is a robot and he said now this I will be talking to you later on about the place of discipleship into your mandate when I'm dealing with the vessel as a dynamix that thing he said sent me back I went back to my room I said God what will you have my life actually to be that matter was going to change many things for me it was then I started asking God so all my advanced certificates in accounting that I've already got at that time and you know the certificate I had at that time when they advertised for anybody to get a job I don't know whether you remember how they used to advertise anybody earning less than 5,000 per annum need not apply in those days and I thought yes I'm going to make money here and suddenly as I began to ask I said but God why didn't you tell me before because you didn't ask excuse me it is the glory of God to do what to conceal a matter it is the honor of a king to search it out it's your responsibility to find out don't let me hear you say I don't know what God wants me to do no don't do that find out if you will fast three days and three nights if you will fast 21 days if you will take 40 days to seek the face of God nothing is as important as being sure that this is what I was created in Christ Jesus to do what to pursue while I was searching that question we had another prayer meeting and I think we were five people praying we are saying Lord use me Lord use me do you understand to this point do you think I cannot go on so in that Bible verse it says which God when the word use which which means it is not as important as being sure that this is critical in becoming what God wants you to be and in accomplishing the divine task that the Lord has set before you may the Lord help us in the name of Jesus Christ what is the last point there before I leave it that we should I wanted to know the word should what's the meaning of the word should we must it's the word should be the should be the word should the word should be the word should be should the the word should be the word word should word should be word should be Word of God who lives in Jesus Christ so you will feel what is what he knows how to do very well, and be himself.

I dare some of you, forcing yourself to do what you are not ordained for. The first problem is that you are going to short-circuit all the dynamics that could have helped you to fulfill your mandate in life. Praise the Lord.

What is the last word I was dealing with there? Should. When you have discovered what God is saying, I want you to know that that is what you should be doing. You shouldn't be doing anything else.

You shouldn't be found anywhere else. Where should you be found? Where should you be found, please? Walking in the things that God had ordained for you to walk in. Don't keep doing all that this.

Should is an important word, that we should walk in them. So brothers and sisters, I just discovered that. No, no sisters are here.

They're somewhere behind, and I'm seeing them. And they're hearing me, and they say, God is putting us in his mouth. It's OK.

I just want you to know, dear brothers, that the word should is a necessity that you must accept in order to fulfill God's counsel for creating you. If you do not accept it as a necessity, then all these dynamics I'm hoping to deal with will not make sense. Since you have not accepted it as a necessity, you will not look for the right vehicle.

If I have not accepted that it's a necessity for me to travel to Lagos, if I go to the car park, and all the vehicles on grass said, there's no one going to Lagos. You say, what? I went to the park. There's no one going to Lagos.

That's why I'm not going. Is that a correct excuse for a man who has a necessary reason to be in Lagos on Tuesday for an important interview? Talk to me now. What is he going to do if he went to the park in Boko, and there is no vehicle going to Lagos? What does he do? He's going straight to Makodi.

What is making him to go to Makodi? That's a necessity for him to be in Lagos. If you have not accepted the necessity of walking in the things for which God created you, you will not have the momentum to even enter the dynamics of fulfilling it. So one thing I saw with a man like Paul, he said, necessity is what? God made on me.

Woe is me if I don't do it. So I then discover that what makes men who execute God's counsel, to execute that counsel, is that there is the word should that they have accepted. They have accepted the necessity, the must.

So you will see Jesus many, many times. Can you remember Jesus said, I must work the works of him that sent me while it is day. For night is coming while no man can walk.

Why did he put himself under a must? Because he has accepted that it is for this I came. I saw that with Jesus every time. He was somewhere and the disciple said, many were looking for you.

He said, let us go on to the other city also for this reason I came. When it is time to go to the cross, and you know going to the cross was not easy. Was it easy? Ah, he was going to face ridicule.

He was going to be crucified. And naturally, he looked at it, and looked at it, and looked at it, and said, father, what do I say? How I say I wish this God would pass over me. Then he said, immediately, but on to this hour came I. This is the only reason why I came.

And I'm the one to do it. I should. I must.

Men who executed God's counsel, it was not something that happened to them casually. They accepted the necessity. They took upon themselves the necessity, and it became a must.

In fact, some of them almost cursed themselves. Say, woe is me if I don't do it. I want to suggest to you, if God ever reveals to you what you were born to be, you can't be discussing it here and there.

You know what to do? You should do it. You should pursue it. Put yourself under unrest until it is done.

Insist that I should do this, because I'm the one ordained, designed, created, carved by God to do it. Hallelujah. Have I carried you to a point? That we should work in them.

When we are talking later on on how can I carry out God's mandate, God's counsel for my life, I would like to say to you that if it has not become a must, then you are not yet serious about it. You are not yet serious about it. If it is something you can do without, then we can do without you.

But when it becomes something you cannot yourself do without, you wake up in the morning, something tells you, boy, you must do this. This is why you are living. This is why you are alive.

That's when the counsel of God will begin to find expression in your life. Praise the Lord. Praise the Lord.

Now, the first dynamic now built on this general preamble is the dynamic of the vessel. Let us say very deliberately that God's work does not begin with work. It begins with the worker.

Am I making a conflicting statement? There is no work until there is a worker. Whatever counsel God has in his mind, it will remain in his mind until he has found a vessel to use. So the first and almost the most important dynamic for fulfilling your mandate is your life, is the vessel, the man or the woman that God wants to use.

It is not the programs or projects. Those are not what comes first. It's not projects.

It's not programs. If I'm telling you today, the problem of Nigeria is not policies. It's not programs.

There's nothing wrong with all the educational policies that we have been running. Can you tell me what exactly has incapacitated all those policies and is not producing anything? There are no men. It's the vessel.

The vessel is the first dynamic that you have to pay attention to if you are going to bring to pass what God has spoken concerning your life. And whereas programs, projects can be fashioned around a table, men are not so easily fashioned. The fashioning of correct men and women to handle God's counsel on the face of the earth is a bigger, bigger challenge than even the work.

If it takes God 80 years to find the correct man to use, it takes 80 years before his work can be done. So many people have great dreams about what they want to be, but they are very indulgent about preparing themselves for it. So many people are great talkers.

They are great talkers. They talk a lot. In fact, in my experience over these few years, I found that there are too many people who talk too much.

If we bring them now, they will give you 1,000 principles that will get the job done. Some of this is what has made me tired of attending conferences, consultations. It's all about theory, theoretical talks.

When we finish, ever before we finish, someone else is already planning, when are we going to have another consultation? And you can spend your life traveling from one consultation to another consultation until you become a consultant on paper. I realized, and this, when I discovered that, first on my own life, I decided to face a very crucial issue of what must God do to make me fit to what he's talking about. And I'm going to challenge you this morning.

Nothing will change, as long as you exonerate your personal formation for what God is talking about. You will only cry and keep weeping for things that ought to have happened that has not happened. As long as you are not going to take the bull by the horn and say, Lord, here am I, make me.

It is not going to be useful if there are no people who will volunteer their lives for God's dealing, so that the things that God is advertising concerning you, you are fit for it. So the first dynamic, which we need to examine and deal with, and I say we can't deal with it exhaustively in a short meeting of this nature, but it's important to note with you that the first thing is this workmanship that God must work upon, the vessels that God uses for his work. What does he do to them? And in my note I said, for the man that God uses, that God wants to use, he captures them.

He captures, he captivates, he cultures, and then he commissions them. Can you look at all the forces that is critical in becoming a vessel that executes God's concept? What is the first C? Capture. Capture.

What is the second C? Captivate. I will speak about these things very briefly. And what does he do next to them? Cultures them.

Culture. And then he commissions them. The first thing that God does before any war can begin and before a man can become a vessel that will execute God's concept on earth, he is a captured man.

Until God captures you, you are not available for anything. Those who easily slips out of God's hands, it will take a long time before they can become anything for God. Those who are freelancers, who are roaming here and there, who if anybody wants to sit down, they just look at you like this.

They are artful dodger. They will not dodge and go away. They may have brilliant ideas, but it will take a long time before God gets them to become anything.

And let me remind you, I have told you about another dynamic which I call velocity. If your displacement is zero and you have spent two hours, what's your velocity place? Zero. What bothers me about velocity is that these are variables that you cannot stop.

Please do an experiment for me quickly. Bring out your hand if you have a wrist watch. Is there anything you can do to stop the time from kicking? Do you know that even if you decide to deceive yourself, by resetting your own time, and say, as for my own time is 10 a.m. now.

Does that affect time? The clock is only a measurement of time. It is not time. Tell yourself that your wrist watch is not time.

Whether you look at it or you don't look at it, the time is going. I think the designers of wrist watches, in the beginning, they were wiser than the ones now. I wish I returned to those days.

You know when you have a war clock, or you have those wrist watches of those days, the one we used to wear. Do you know something good about them which I think the world doesn't like now? It's the quiet clicking. The small noise you hear, chaka, chaka, chaka, chaka, chaka, chaka, chaka, chaka, chaka, chaka, chaka, chaka, chaka, chaka, chaka, chaka, chaka, chaka, chaka.

When it is 12 o'clock, the thing we do, BOOM! I wish the world remained where it used to be. It would have helped us better. It reminds me to say chaka, chaka, chaka, chaka.

Do you know what it says? I am going, I am going, I am going, I am going, I am going. Your life is going, your life is going, your life is going, your life is going. Your life has gone.

Two hours of your life has gone, has gone, has gone. And I am still going, I am going, I am going, I am going. Chaka, chaka, chaka, chaka, chaka, chaka, chaka, chaka, chaka, chaka, chaka.

I am going, going, going, going, going, going. Friends, if you will not allow the first capture, for God to capture you for his purpose, your time cannot be tied down. You are growing old.

Nobody can stop you from growing old. You are growing old. Let it not be that all your usable years have been consumed while you are still running up and down, refusing to be captured.

The first thing God does to his vessel, he captures them. Friends, capturing is like caging. Those people that God wants to make for his glory, who will fulfill his mandate in life, he cages them.

Sometimes you don't know why God has put his hands on you and you cannot do what others are doing. Because his hands and his eyes are on you for something glorious, he captures them. When God captures a man, it will look as if God decided to gag him.

It will appear as if God decided to delimit his liberty. It will appear as if God is punishing him. But it's not a punishment.

It is a deliberate love of God to bring the best out of his life. All those who are refusing for God to capture them, to sit on their lives, they are simply, simply winding away their years while they will never, never really be able to become what they ought to be for their own mandate. This may be the reason why you see some people at old age, they are looking about and saying, what have I done with my life? They can't point at it because they forever were running about in the bush refusing God to capture them.

Maybe the Lord has captured some of us here. I want you to please submit to that capture. Hallelujah.

Let me assure you, God does not capture a man to waste him. Let me assure you. And I do that honestly.

If God captures you, if God has arrested you, if God has put, you know, gags around you, it's because of what he wants to do with your life. God has no interest in capturing you to waste you. He doesn't do that.

Those of you that are younger here, I want to advise you. God does not capture a young man to waste him. In fact, I really want to pray for young people here.

May God capture you early. May you not, first of all, damage some of what you will need for the future before you finally get into God's hook. God's hook is wonderful.

Jesus said, take my yoke upon you. Learn of me. My yoke is easy.

If God doesn't capture you, the unfortunate thing is that you will still be captured. Are we together? If you are not captured by God, you will be captured by the devil. Nobody is free anyway.

Let's agree. You are not free. If you are not captured by God, you are a captive of the devil.

You can't stand in between and say, I didn't go for God and I'm not going for the devil. You are joking. It's a lie.

There's no need to argue with you over it. That's the truth. Even if you are saying, it's not so.

I'm free. I'm free. I can do what I want.

I know you are not. I know you are already a captive of someone else. But I really pray that you will be a captive of Jesus.

But for a man to become what God wants him to do, God does not only capture him. Because if it is ordinary capture, and he stops there, oh my God, there is a bad feeling of inhibition, a bad feeling of being a prisoner, a bad feeling and a struggle. The kind you see, each time you see an animal that has just been taken and put in a cage, forever that animal is looking for what? Escape.

That's why the second C is very important. What is the second C? Captivates. Now, what's the meaning of the word captivate? To captivate is to create inside of you an innate love, an innate admiration for an object that almost leaves you no choice except to glue to it.

Would that be the simple definition of captivating? So when they say this thing is captivating, what does it mean? It does what? It entrusts you, it arrests your attention, and it does not allow you to think otherwise. That's the second thing God must do to you. When he captures you, what does he do next? He captivates you.

If you are not captivated by the love of God, if you are not captivated by the goodness of Jesus, if you are not captivated by the great hope that he places before you, if you are not captivated by his glorious power, you will possibly be a Christian who is grumbling every day. If not that I'm a Christian, I know what I could have been now. This Christianity says they just put people under rules and regulations.

Whenever I see a believer who is always grumbling about Christian life as if it is too narrow, let me tell you the truth about him. In my mind, I see a man that will soon escape. I'm telling you.

I'm telling you. Sometimes you may have people in the fellowship, they may even be your children. They have not yet become captivated with God.

They have only been captured because they are in your house. As soon as they leave home, what would they do? They say, Thank God. I am free.

Money, devotion, money, devotion, money, I'm free. Fellowship, fellowship. You know the problem? Captured, not captivated.

There's something in them saying, I want to be my own. I want to go away. I want to go away.

There's nothing you can do about such, they will backslide. There's no regulation you can give them, they will go away. Because the second seed that makes a vessel for God has not happened.

He is not yet captivated. I wanted to see brother Paul, a captivated man. He said, One thing I do.

I want to know him. Because of the excellency of knowing Jesus my Lord. I can't everything but what? Lost.

Captivated. He's now fully, fully, fully happy. To be a love slave of Jesus.

He enjoys it. Can I find out, have you come away? From the level of just being a Christian because you are afraid of going to hell. Do you love to be a Christian because it is good to be a Christian? Do you love righteousness? Because honestly speaking, unrighteousness is too cumbersome.

Do you love purity of life? Because the truth of the matter is that impurity brings complications to your life. Do you love the word of God? Because it is now clear to you that that is the greatest source of wisdom. Or you are reading the Bible because your conscience is saying, Are you a serious Christian? You are not reading your Bible.

Until you become captivated with God. You are not likely to go far in your pursuit of God. Are we together? Am I communicating with you? Until you become captivated.

Until it becomes your excitement. To belong to God and to belong to his will for your life. Until it becomes your joy.

You will always struggle and fight. In fact, you will be querying everything. I know the problem.

You are not yet captivated. And when someone who is not captivated, sees those brethren that are captivated with Jesus, they are an offense to him. You say, what is it? Why is he excited about this now? What is making him happy about all of this? He has been brainwashed.

No, we are not brainwashed. We are only captivated. The love of Christ compels us.

We love Christ. So we have no other choice than to keep loving him. Praise the Lord.

Can I ask you? Are you captivated? Some of you are here. I don't believe that anybody forced you here. But some people are here, just to make sure that their wives are okay.

Say, my wife has been worrying me about peace house. Let me just go there so that I tell her that I won't. I know there are some wives that are very passionate.

They have harassed you so much with peace house tapes. They know you are not going to sit down and listen to them. But they decided that every other tape you would have put in your DVD, they packed it and they would slot in one message.

It would look as if they are the one listening to it. It's deliberate. You know that you are sitting in the parlor, you are trying to read some newspaper.

So she would just put it on somewhere and make it loud as if it is for herself in the kitchen. It's a plan. They say, oh, as she's doing that in the kitchen, she says, father, please, lord, let him hear in the name of Jesus.

Let him hear. Let him hear in the name of Jesus. Jesus, Jesus, Jesus.

You don't know how much prayers are going on in your head. They are saying, God, I visited an army officer's home one day and I knew I cannot talk now. As soon as I entered, I wanted to visit the family.

The sister has been a disciple and all of that. I said, let me visit your husband. As soon as I was stepping in and the man came out to open the door to greet me and I say, I'm brother Gwile, he said, I know you.

You are always in my bedroom. You are often in my bedroom. They don't let me sleep over.

They don't let me sleep in this house. They have punished me with you for a long time. He was saying day, day, day.

I was wondering. When I sat down, he called me, so I said, your man is around, oh. I was carrying my Bible to start talking before this time I had to close it because the man was already said, I know.

They brought you here to come again and slap me, isn't it? So I said, no, no, no. Who are those people that are used to persecuting your own bedroom like that? No, let's sit down and talk. That's how I diffused it at least so that he would not push me out of the door for that day.

When a man is not captivated, even the word of God looks like punishment. So this second C, God captivates. And one of the things I really want to pray is that you will be a captivated Christian.

You'll be excited to the point that you will not hide your identity in the office. You will not be thinking, say, if they know that I'm, if I go to peace house or I go for discipleship or I go for all this religious something, maybe my, let me just, I'm a Christian but I'm a modest one. That's a man who is not captivated.

When you are captivated, what else are we talking about? That's what has excited your life. What else does God do to a man he wants to use? What is the next C? I use the word culture deliberately. To culture is to inculcate the values, the principles that is compatible with what God is preparing you for.

There are principles, there are values, there are virtues that are compatible with your vision in life and you've got to be cultured for it. The biggest problem is that many people want to become something but they are not being cultured for it. So right inside them, the values, the virtues that are compatible for that vision is not in them.

So they are incapacitated. The time God spends to culture a man because of the kind of mandate is to fulfill in life is never a waste. Praise the Lord.

I said if we were to sit down and say let's look at this very deliberately, this would be enough for a whole meeting. But you know what God does? I remember that because of the kind of thing God is pointing for my life many years ago. One of the first things I came to understand about the nature of what I'm going to do, the nature of what I'm going to do, the kind of people, the kind of work that I have come to understand I need to do, demand something.

I didn't know but God kept talking about it. He said look, if you are going to have influence in the body of Christ and you are not going to be locked into a denomination and you are going to have this neutrality that everybody can tap into and they will feel at home with your life, then I need to enlarge your heart. Ah! This was something that is difficult to explain.

Some people think interdenominational work is an arbitrary work. No. For you to be able to carry people from different tongues, different denominations, different feelings, different way of thinking, it does not begin with organization.

It begins with some virtue that God had to culture into you. How was God going to culture this? I knew when he began to show me that, look, the problem of reaching my people, the body of Christ, and it is not your own small group. It is first and foremost the kind of heart you carry.

Do you love my people? Now they say yes, I love everybody. He said no, no, no, you don't. Suddenly, I remember how God would call me aside and say, look, do you know there is nothing wrong with that Baptist pastor, even though he is persecuting you? I said, why? He said, yes, he is doing it because he believes he loves me.

I am supposed to say you are a wolf in the sheep's skin. Is it not correct for him to suspect you? Suddenly, something changes in my heart that even this man that is doing this and is seemingly contradicting what I am doing, it is not his fault. He is serving God.

Having come to that point one night, he said, so tomorrow morning, wear your clothes and go and visit that pastor and tell him that you really appreciate the persecution he has persecuted all of you. This is what happened. I went very early, I dressed up, I went to the church, I went to his house.

He was not living in the pastorium then. His house is somewhere else. I traced him there.

When I knocked, and he saw me, he faced me like this. I said, sir, I am the one I wanted to come and visit you and greet you. He said, okay, come in, come in.

Then I saw the way he sat, like a bondu because he thought I came to fight him since we are the one that fight people with tongues. We are the one that speaks in tongues and those of them are not spiritual enough. Being an elder, I stood up and prostrated to greet him.

I said, Baba, I just felt like coming to tell you that I really appreciate what you are doing. I really discovered that what you are doing, you are doing very well. You are very zealous for God.

He was still waiting. He is asking himself, where is the couch? I went on, I said, excuse me, do you know that some of us don't understand why you do what you do? He said, how do you know? I said, I just discovered that what you are doing is that you are trying to protect the church from false doctrine. He said, you are getting reasonable now.

I said, it became, I am now understanding that we are young people and we have not grown enough to see life. Even though we are exuberant, supposing what we are running up and down is a false doctrine. He said, I wish you gather all the young people and tell them like that.

I said, so as I was praying this morning, God told me to come and apologize to you if we have in any way made life difficult for you. And I fell down and I said, just pray, just pray. And do you know what happened? The old Baba began to cry.

He began to cry. He said, Billy, now I know you are a genuine, you are a genuine child of God. If not for the church committee that says we should communicate to I have no problem with you again.

On Sunday, come to church. So on Sunday, I went to church and the Baba stood up and said, let's ask God to forgive us. Some of the things we do to these young people, sometimes we don't understand them.

May God forgive all of us. Our brother Billy, let's pray for him. I discovered that animosity is because we've not been called to love the church.

Suddenly, I just discovered that my heart is just so large and open for people, for denominations, for elders, for pastors. I love them. Whatever they are doing, I just know that they didn't know.

There are people now that they didn't know. Are you hearing me? What we are discussing here. Do you know that if they know that you're being here, this is the kind of thing that me and you were discussing.

Do you think they will attack it? But they don't know. And they are simply saying, don't go there because they will confuse you there. During student congress, we have a challenge here.

And this is part of culturing that I'm begging God to culture me for the vision that I'm supposed to carry for him. If you are not cultured for the vision, there are virtues, there are values that are only compatible for that vision that will be omitted in your life. And so you'll be incapable of entering the vision that God is showing you.

One of the parents drove here for about four hours furiously because her son came for student congress. I was still preaching like this when I think she arrived. And she went straight to the registration and said, I want to talk to the organizers of this meeting.

I think the brethren were very, I thank God for them. They found a way. Said, please wait.

We cannot disturb the message. Said, which message? I need to talk to somebody here. Our son is in this meeting and it is illegal for you people to collect people's children and come and come them somewhere here when they should be going through their lectures.

Furious. So as I finished, I went back. I met.

So when they brought her in, I was praying and said, God, give me the heart of this person. Help me to identify with her as she is feeling. She said, excuse me, I don't know what this thing is all about.

Excuse me, why do you think you will gather students at this time and deny them of their lectures and confuse them? Our son is here and he does not have our permission to be here so I have come to have him back. I should introduce I'm professor so and so and so and so and so. I said, yes.

I said, Madam, please, please, I know what it means. I said as a parent, for a child to travel five hours without your knowledge, even if it were a goat, wouldn't you look for it? And it is such a very terrible thing for our children to take us for granted. These are the people we are laboring for and they will just do that kind of thing.

I saw that tight face loosening, loosening. You see, for just loosening I'm still asking God how do I get at it? I said, please give me the name because I don't know but we will find him out and we need to deal with that kind of behavior. Two people came and they were furious but as I'm talking, something is loosening, loosening, loosening.

As soon as he says she is from this university, a professor. I have a professor here from that. I sent for her brother.

I said, brother, oh, come on. As that also, professor came and saw prov and said, ah, prov! He said, prov! Aha! Something is happening. Something is beginning to happen here.

You see, if God does not culture you for the vision God is giving you, you won't be able to do it. Some of us, we only know what God wants us to do. We don't have the value, the virtue, eh? The things that can make it happen.

So you will be laboring and working hard and there will be no result because you have not been cultured for that vision. So, the first thing God did was to transfer her heart to me. So I'm speaking as if I'm using my mouth to speak what is in her heart.

As we are talking, she said, ah. Then she said, excuse me, if not because of the timing in which you put this kind of congress, what I'm hearing, you know, unfortunately for me, Professor Oko was giving a talk to the students at that point and the talk was achieving academic excellence. And as Professor Oko was drawing issues, I didn't know she was hearing.

She said, ah, you mean these are the kind of content in this kind of meeting? I said, that's what we deal with. I said, actually what I'm telling these children is that any of them that get anything less than 2-1 is not acceptable to us. She said, eh, that's what you're telling us? I said, yes, yes, yes.

Ah. Prof, you're here? You remember that? The whole meeting finished? I said, so would you like to take the boy back? He said, no. Of course, you know, as I brought the boy, I said, what? You did this kind of thing? You gave mom this kind of heartbreak, heart attack? Were you thinking when you also become a father, something like that can happen to you? What if you were kidnapped? How can you behave like that? I'm talking as if I didn't want him to win this meeting.

I said, now, kneel down there, kneel down there, and beg mommy. You have really, really misbehaved. Why did you do that? He said, I was afraid that mommy would not allow me to come.

That's why I sneak out. I said, no, no, no, no. Mommy is intelligent.

She cares for you, and she wants the best for you. And they know what you should do at a particular time. Don't do that again.

He said, you see, that's what we are telling you. We love him. We love you.

You know we love you. That my boy continued the congress. They drove back with their empty car.

We shared. They brought some fruits on their road. They left for me.

I ate. I gave them my own fruits, my friends. I targeted the time they would get home.

I called. He said, we are just at the door. They are just opening the gate for us.

Thank you very much. The Lord bless you. We really love what you are doing.

Finish. You see, what we are talking about is that when God captures a man for a vision, he captivates him, then he cultures him. If you see us sitting here and we are doing a meeting and money is not important, and we are trusting God and we are living by faith, we were cultured for it.

It didn't happen like that. They say culturally. So you see, for a man to be a man who will execute God's concept for his life, he has to be cultured for it.

Because God already sees all the virtues that you will need to fulfill your vision. He must culture you for it. And he has seen the viruses that is going to destroy your vision.

So what does he do in culturing you for it? He creates in you the antivirus. So that ever before the viruses begin to arrive, there is already an antibody inside you that is ready to fight it. When God wants to take a man a distance, he does not only capture him, he captivates him so that he can enjoy it.

Then he begins to culture him. You see, the culturing for your future, the culturing for your vision, is what some of us have omitted. Some of us, we don't understand that divine process by which God is laboring to make you a man of the future.

There is something God does. When I go to Anglican, I am Anglican, they say Abra Gule is one of us. I went to first class and I said Abra Gule is our life member.

I went to Africantra and they said this one is our own. I went, how did it happen? There is a culture for it. It is not a pretense.

God does it because of what he wants you to do. So if we are talking about executing God's vision, bringing God's concept to personal lifetime, I want to note that the vessel is captured, is captivated, is cultured with the kind of life that is compatible and then God does what? Commissions it. God commissions it.

Because of the space that we have here, I would request us to respond to God because this is the first thing. I would like you to pray with me and say God, I am a man that is going to execute your concept in my generation. Please call me and culture me for it.

Do you know the problem? Some of our brethren already saw that maybe they are having a place in political arena. That is all they saw. But they did not understand that God will not just put you there when he has not cultured you for it.

When you are not cultured for an assignment, the first disappointment in that assignment will finish you. In fact, you will run back and say it is not possible. And if you do not run back, you get subsumed by the viruses.

We are going to pray particularly that God, there is those good works which you are prepared and prepared beforehand onto which I was created in Christ Jesus that I should walk in them. Lord, culture me for them. Create, inculcate inside of me the virtues, the values, the principles that is compatible for the vision that you are bringing my life into.

Hallelujah. Because the virtue is the very crucial implement in fulfilling God's kingdom on earth. Jesus Christ actually liking the kingdom of God as that householder who went out to recruit laborers into his vineyard.

So the capturing and the captivating and the culturing and the commissioning are the issues that comes first as a dynamic in bringing to pass God's cancer in any generation. I can go on and on but let me say to you Moses was a man born to fulfill a cancer to bring the children of Israel out of Egypt. Do you agree? That was the reason he was born.

As soon as he was born his parents saw that this boy is a proper child. But he cannot enter into that until God captured him. And he was not captured until 40 years.

The Bible says when he came to years it became clear to him that he was not born to be a pharaoh's daughter's son. And he stood out he forsook Egypt. But in his story let me show you now just in one sentence Hebrews 11 so that you can see these three things that we are talking about how it happened to him.

Hebrews 11 Hebrews 11 verse 20 24 By faith Moses when he was grown up refused to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter. He was captured. But now can you see how he was captivated? Look at verse 25 and 26 choosing rather to be mistreated with the people of God than to enjoy the fleeting pleasures of seeing.

He considered Okin James says he esteemed the reproach of Christ as greater wealth or greater riches than the treasures of Egypt. For he was looking looking to the reward. Something captivated him.

He was seeing him that was what? Invisible. Praise the Lord. But then he needed to be cultured.

All that he had in the house of palace of Egypt cannot make him to fulfill that vision. God needed to take him and send him to the house of Jethro where he was cultured for his assignment. If I don't use the word culture today I will say where he was discipled for his assignment.

But I just wanted to introduce that word today. Culturing. Because essentially biblical discipleship is the is the process by which Christ's life Christ's virtue Christ's value is inculcated in a man's life.

Until he becomes his life. I don't know if you understand what I'm saying. So discipleship is that process of culturing that brings all the virtues all the values all the character traits and all that you will need to actually fulfill the call of God.

It is in that process that God does it. Working until you become like Jesus. So if we are talking about being disciples we are not talking about somebody just putting himself on top of your head and say yeah you are my disciple.

No. We are talking of a deliberate culturing of Christ's life Christ's virtues that are virtues that God had to culture into me for me to fit into what God wants us to do. I pray that you will understand it in the name of Jesus Christ.

He had to go through that and in 40 years when God saw that it is okay he now commissioned him and his commissioning brought immediate results that we call Exodus today. Joseph had to be captured captivated by God cultured for his own assignment and then commissioned. If you take time you will have looked at the fact that a man like Nehemiah he was captured by God he was captivated by his love for the people of Israel he was captivated to the point that during the palace his heart is always back in Jerusalem saying how are my people how are they doing what is happening he was captivated and then he needed to be cultured for the assignment that he needed to carry out and by the grace of God he was commissioned for it I can go on and on and on pointing to you how they all became what they became God takes time to prepare each man for his mandate the time to manifest your life on the right platform is essentially tied to the point of your formation for your mandate Moses was born when the need for deliverance of God's people appeared so urgent his personal readiness could not be compromised he had to go through his own experience to be cut out for his own mandate brother have you just been pushing yourself forward when you should have returned to the place of divine preparation or divine culturing under the hands of the man God may have appointed to make you for his use and for your task in life are you thinking that oh no no no no I'm already I'm already a married man so I cannot submit myself to any training are you already thinking that well whether I know it I don't know it let me just go and try don't let it be burdensome for you that for the things that God wants you to do you must be cultured for it culturing is a deliberate attempt that God only gives to those he has captured he has captivated and those whom he intends to commission into their mandate in life praise the Lord praise the Lord permit me to leave all of you to all of all of you to you 2918.

Where there is no revelation, people cast off restraint. Blessed is the man who heeds and keeps God's instruction. What version did you read? NIV.

Any other version? Wait, wait. There's a man there. If people cannot see what God is doing, they stumble all over themselves.

What version have you read? That's the message. If people can't see what God is doing, they stumble over one another. Talk.

The Lord will just help us here. Praise the Lord. You see, that is the matter.

That is why I wanted to know that the second dynamic in establishing, in executing God's counsel and in fulfilling God's mandate on your life is the right vision of it. Permit me to tell you a few things about this now. You see, the vision of what God is doing with your life that He reveals to you is what keeps you in line.

Where there is no prophetic vision, the people cast off restraint. You will tumble over yourself for nothing. You will discover that you are just beating about the bush.

People dragging you here, dragging you there because the vision of what you are supposed to live for is not clear to you. When men cannot see what God is doing, they only tumble, fall over one another over and over again. For effective fulfillment of your mandate in life, this dynamic has to be very, very prominent in your understanding.

You will have thought that I should make it the first dynamic. It's not. The truth of the matter is that until God captures you, until He begins to captivate you, you are not in position to have a correct vision of where you are going in life.

That's why it comes in my own understanding. Your vision is that divine help that God gives you to show you a little of the future that He is planning for your life. And a vision, please listen to me, is there for sighting.

God allows you to see it and sometimes He keeps it so that you can focus on where you are. The biggest problem with many people is that they are obsessed with a vision to the extent that they are in haste to accept where they are as to be prepared for it. So they die a mere visionary.

A visionary is important, a man who sees a vision. But a visionary is not anything yet until he becomes a missionary. Praise the Lord.

But vision must come in order to set your life to a focus, in order to give your life a perspective, in order to give you an insight to where is God carrying my life. When God gives you a vision, many, many, many times, please hear me, visions are invisible to your colleagues. They are unable to see it.

But that is what signals you out from among the crowd. God gives you a vision. You have seen the invisible.

And as you have seen the invisible, what God wants to do with your life, and the way God is showing what He wanted to accomplish with you, it restrains you. It compares you. It keeps you in line.

I don't know how to put it now. It prepares your life to a focus. When I talk of vision, I do not just mean a mere dream that you have in your unconscious state.

I'm only talking about the opening of your eyes to see into the days ahead, even though it is presently invisible to our natural colleagues. A vision is catching a perspective of what God wants to do in your life and through you in the future. A vision is the insight God gives a man into what lies ahead of him and what he is meant to accomplish with his mandate.

It is what gives focus to a man's life's pursuits. It becomes the pursuit of his own heart. Sometimes a vision comes in a dream, it may come in a trance, but let me say it is not the dream that matters, but what do you understand of it? What is the interpretation you get from such? And it is not one dream that becomes your life's vision.

It is a cumulative dealing of God on your life that forms the focus of your life and determines what you spend your life doing. May I suggest to those of you in politics, don't get into politics or business or academics or anything for that matter unless there's a clear vision of what you are meant to do with that mandate, with that thing that you are seeking to enter. A vision is more engaging than a mere ambition or a competition with your rivals.

A vision is not just an ambition. A vision is not just that I saw a brother do something, let me also do it. Competition never becomes a vision.

Are we together? Competition only brings you confusion. And the moment you start competing with somebody, you can only become a poor adaptation of that man. A man with a genuine vision does not compete with anybody because honestly speaking, whether people are there or not, he is going somewhere.

Can I pause by saying God, when he wants to bless a man and want to help him to fulfill his mandate for his life, God creates opportunity for you to catch the vision of it. God uses different means to envision a man. God sometimes uses difficult things, disappointments to open your eyes to the possibilities ahead of you.

Some other time, God wants to give you a vision of what your life is going to be like in the future by showing you what your life should not be. So sometimes it is a reaction against something that you hate, that God uses to open your eyes to what he actually is beholding for you. I am saying all of this hoping that when we come into the practical time of talking, as you bring your own questions and some of you that have great experiences among us, we can learn from you together.

I'm only throwing all of this as tips. A vision may come directly out of what God said particularly to you, or it may arise out of a body that comes upon your heart about a need or a challenge in your constituency or in the world in which you feel absolutely responsible under God to do something about. I said when you have accepted the necessity, God begins to now give you a vision of it.

I told a story the other day, but I don't have time to tell you the story now. I was telling the story of what got me into the kind of things that I'm involved in, and if I tell you how it all happened, you say wow. Sometimes God just allows you because he wants to give you a vision for a future of your life.

He allows you to bump on certain bumps. I said God, why this? Why this is happening? And when you begin to ask why, why, why, why not this? Lord, why? You are beginning to enroute for a divine vision. God will visit you in the name of Jesus Christ.

It is the vision that defines your mission. A mission without a vision is an aimless venture and a mere drift into nothingness. Vision is what harnesses all the strength of a man to a focus.

It is what God gives a man to do and accomplish in his lifetime, and that is what now forms the basis of his labor in life. If you are a teacher, for example, and you don't have vision for students, you'll be frustrated. Am I right? One of the things that I met when I'm interacting with teachers, when I was a teacher, I'm still a teacher, is that I found that many of our colleagues, they came to teaching as a job.

Are you hearing me? They are teachers as a job. They are not teachers by vision. So they come to the class and say, hey look, if you bring out your book, fine.

If you don't bring out your book, I will fail you. Can do me nothing. Your father may be governor, but in this class, I'm the governor here.

Now, why will a teacher be talking like that? You know why he's talking like that? He has no vision for what he's doing. He doesn't know that this child that you are talking to, tiny as he is today, there's a future for him. And you dare not leave anything in his memory that will be negative, because when he will have overcome you, you will stand at the foot of the ladder, not knowing how to present yourself, because you have no vision.

If you are in the university and you are just there, and there's no vision, you can be doing all the activities. Very soon you will be exhausted. And you start asking, I've done all the research, what is it they're going to do? What is this life all about? So that's why you see a professor who is supposed to, you just see him going to play IU with people in the village.

Yes. Then he's drinking. He says, prof, what are you doing? He has ended, he has come to the height of his academic pursuit, and he has found that there's nothing to live for in it, because he went into it originally with a what? A vision.

A vision is what sustains you, even at old age. A vision does not allow visionaries to grow old. Oh, am I communicating with you? When a man is carrying a vision, he sees something that will not let him die.

That old Simeon said, I'll not die until I see the Lord and his Christ. The day he handled Christ, he said, Father, now let your servant depart in peace from my eyes. I've seen the salvation of the Lord.

Vision keeps a man alive. Many people die quickly because there's no vision for living. Don't go into any venture until you have caught a vision for it.

Praise the Lord. Are you in politics? What's your vision for your state or for your local government? What do you envision? The area you are ruling as a traditional ruler, what do you envision it to become in another 10 years? Do you have a vision for it? As a preacher, what is your vision all about? What are you looking for in the ministry? What is the invisible aspect of your pursuit that keeps you running ahead of your colleague? That's a vision. If I put it now very simply, I'd say the vision is the invisible aspect of a man's pursuit that keeps him running ahead of his colleague.

If you are able to articulately answer these few questions I've been raising, you will have stated your vision and which will become the crux of your mission in life. Where there is no prophetic vision, brother, the people languish and cast off restraint. There's no coordination in what they do.

Activities do not beget vision and may not culminate into a sustainable vision for life. Rather, it is a vision that generates, gives focus, and harnesses all your activities. They only become, all those activities only become means of achieving the vision.

The Lord Jesus walked with a clear vision of what he came to the earth to do. If you read Luke 1, 45 to 50, you read Luke 4, verse 16 to 21, you see Jesus stating clearly his vision. And we studied this morning Hebrews 10 from verse 5 to 10, and we read John 12, 23 to 28, you will find Christ articulately expressing his vision for living.

He knows why he came, he's looking for it. Can I tell you what one of the verses, I'm excited if I did say, and I, if I be lifted up from the earth, I will draw all men unto myself. You know what Jesus saw? He saw all of us.

He saw me, he saw you, he saw this crowd, he saw numerous uncountable crowd all over the world, worshiping and calling on his name ever before he went to the cross. Are you hearing me? He went to the cross, listen, because he already envisions that many of you will be brought to the kingdom of God. He saw us.

That was why the Bible said he endured the cross, because he saw it. I pray that God will make us men of vision, men who can see a future as to deliberately engage ourselves, jump on the vehicle that will bring our vision to pass. After I've dealt with vision, the next thing I will have been talking about this moment is vehicle.

Jesus saw that, yes, multitude are coming to believe in the Lord, many will be brought to glory, but he knew that the vehicle that will bring that to pass is the cross. He saw it. And so he jumped on that vehicle.

Nobody understands why a great man of God with great power will allow himself to be crucified and not call fire down on the people. They saw immediate deliverance. He had a vision of men and women like myself and yourself.

Praise the Lord. Praise the Lord. He maintained a single eye on it.

He knew the progress he was making from point to point until he finished. By the time he finished, he said, I have finished the work you gave me to do. What of Paul? Was Paul also a man who walked with a vision? He said, I cannot disobey.

What? The heavenly vision. Now that's what happened to all of them, and I'm praying that for me and for you also, your vision will become clearer before you leave here in the name of Jesus. At times, a vision is developed directly from the word of God revealed to a man peculiarly.

That's what I said this morning. I do not want to repeat that. The scripture is actually the authentic source of every lasting vision for life and for ministry.

John the Baptist read Isaiah 40, and he knew it was what he was born to fulfill. It became his vision for living and for his ministry. It defined his mission in life.

It became the bedrock of his message to his own generation, and when he was accomplishing the vision God gave him, he declared it among the people. He did not drift into what others were trying to force on him. He was happy to decrease why Christ, whom he came to introduce to the world, increased.

Some other times, a vision is born out of encounters with challenges of life that men and women are facing around you. I've said that. Do you have eyes to see the plight of men in our neighborhood, in our land, as to develop a vision to bring solution to these challenges with the opportunity that God has given you? A vision makes a man to walk with a single eye.

It brings his life to a single focus. It delimits and sets boundaries for his operations. It is not a jack-of-all-trades.

A vision helps a man to concentrate his energy and resources on the particular area of his calling. It brings the best out of his life and makes him full of light. You remember Matthew 6 22 says the light of the body is the eye.

If therefore your eye be single, what will happen to the whole body? Your whole body shall be full of light. Are you a man in government? Are you a man in business? Are you a man in academics? Do you feel that you have an obligation to respond to the pull of men here and there because you want to carry the crowd along? If you do that, you will only be rendered impotent. You are not called to do everything at the same time.

You need to work and work within the vision that God has given you. Are you a preacher in our meeting today? Many preachers have been drawn into competition with others and they are not doing all that others are doing just to be relevant. You will only become a poor adaptation of others that way.

You are not caught and designed for everything. What you are raised by God to contribute to his kingdom on earth is what will make you relevant and that must be the fulcrum of your vision in life. All those who fulfill their mandate in life worked and I want to note the word all of them they work within the vision that God gave them.

A vision does not allow a man to dissipate but rather he brings all his graces to bear upon the pivot of his calling. There's a lot of diffusion and dissipation when a man does not have a clear vision for his life and for what he was meant to accomplish. He's easily carried off with every wind of doctrine.

He's dragged into every new thing happening in town. He does not, he does so many things and never finishes any. A man that does not have a single eye is a man in darkness.

Let's ask do you have a clear vision for your life? Can you articulate it in few words what you are about in life? What are you in academics to do? What are you in medical practice to achieve? What are you in the judiciary for? I know to be a lawyer is lucrative. Is that all? Is that all? If it is money, do you know after you have made money for a little while you might even lose your steam of practicing law. And so you find so many many they have left it.

They are now selling things. They are now into estate selling, selling lands. Some are selling photographs because the steam of being a lawyer has finished.

It was not a vision that took them there. So it is not breaking forth. Everything has finished and they are now saying what am I here for again? Let's ask what's your vision? What are you living for? You cannot become what God wants you to be if all is just a job.

If it is just a job that is occupying your time. Let me suggest to you it's not good enough. You cannot become a man tomorrow if the vision of that tomorrow is not laid in your heart today.

You will bring a new dimension for your inner vision when you are able to discover what is it that I'm born and born again to add to my generation. Are you in civil service? And that's a place where you can be and lose your vision completely. You know why? Because it's a routine.

And you can just be in the civil service without a clear vision of being there. And so you are only pushing files. But if God gives you a vision, I want to be in the civil service because that's where every policy that will affect people are interpreted and properly arranged for execution.

Go and do that for me there. It is not bureaucracy that will bring your promotion. Your vision will make a way for you there.

Before you know it, they will make you secretary to many, many boards because you are the one who interprets what all of them are saying that they don't know how to say. Everybody will be struggling that I want him to be our secretary. I want him to be on this board.

Because whatever we say, if we articulate it and if we ask him to supervise it, everything will be done. What's your vision for being where you are? Fulfillment is actually possible when from the onset you are sure of your targets and what you set out to achieve. It says the goals for your labels and it's also the basis of your evaluation.

You don't measure success by mere comparison with people around you. It is your vision that measures your success. Am I communicating with you? Are you satisfied internally? Is the push in your heart to come, to serve, being released with every passing day? Refulfillment for a genuine person is not what people are saying.

It is your heart that confirms to you that you are being fulfilled. I don't know whether I am not complicating issues. A man of vision does not derive his fulfillment from onlookers.

What makes a man of vision fulfilled is that the invisible thing that he saw, they are beginning to become what? Visible, touchable, palpable, communicable. When a man of vision begins to see the invisible becoming visible, something is released in him saying, yes, this is what God said I will become. I'm going there.

Even detractors, they cannot discourage him. Praise singers, they don't add to his speed. You only know his head.

You know sometimes people come and say, oh brother, praise God. I know you are doing well. A man of vision says, thank you.

You've not seen anything yet. Why do you clap for a little thing that you have seen when a greater thing is remaining invisible yet? Follow me. So when you see men that have vision, what satisfies them is not even the comment of ignorant, impressionable people.

What moves him on is something in him. That's why he can keep running even if all of you choose to discourage him. May I pray that God will make you men of vision.

May I ask God that he will bless you with a prophetic insight into your future, so that as you rise from here, executing that counsel will be the fulfillment of that which heaven has put in your life in the name of Jesus. Can I warn you on one matter because I know this where I will stop. When I have chance, I will deal with the vehicle later, but I will stop here now.

A man who does not know your vision is not in the best place to evaluate you. In the same manner, those who do not and who are not passionate about your vision will not be able to evaluate you. So do not wait for the evaluation of men who are ignorant of the distance you are meant to cover in life.

Do not accept the evaluation of prayer singers who only talk about your past achievement, but who are ignorant of the denominator of your mandate. Are you with me? Do you know that people that don't know what God wants to do with your life, they are not the best to evaluate you. I didn't understand this for a while.

I always go for people to evaluate what I'm doing, who are not in any way passionate about what I'm doing, and in those days I suffered. If I preach one message, all this group of pastors, they will gather and say, why did you say that? Why did you say that? It cannot work. At the time I'm apologizing, I'm sorry, but that's, I try not to say it, but that's how the Holy Spirit is.

If I say anything, they misquoted me. And they are always very quick. One day, one day, I prayed until I was really discouraged.

I was really discouraged, I'm telling you. I felt, let me leave this matter. Nobody believes me.

And as I was praying, the Lord graciously came to me and said, did they call you? Did they know where I'm going with you? Were they there when I told you what I want to do with your life? Why are you letting those who don't know where you are going, to tell you where you should go? I said, but dear brethren, he said, uh-huh. Do you not know that there is no man that I gave an assignment, that does not first face the molestation of men by the wayside? Some of them are attacking your vision simply because of jealousy. They are asking themselves, why is he the one that did that, and not us? And so when you came to show them, they say, what is, what are you doing? Even if an ordinary grasshopper falls on you, you have overcome great work, and you have no portion in it.

Ah, my spirit jumped up. I said, Lord, it's okay now. So one day, the unfortunate meeting started again, and they started talking.

But they don't know that. They don't know that blackmailer has changed. They don't know that something has happened.

When they finished talking, I stood up. I said, thank you very much. I appreciate you for what you have said.

But whether you like it or not, I'm going on. And I want you to know from today, that your opinion about what I'm saying, or I'm not saying, is not important. I've not said you should not talk, but I just want you to know from today, that whatever you say is not important.

God bless you. Ah, the meeting changed. The same people said, no, it's not that we're against you.

I say, even if you're against me, no problem. I say, even if you don't want it, no problem. And if I perish, pursuing what I'm pursuing is not your problem.

Let me perish. Thank you, sir. After that day, God said, yeah, you are now understanding.

And you don't need to go up and down. Keep doing what I'm showing you. If it's of the Lord, it will stand.

Please, brothers and sisters, don't let those who do not have the denominator of your mandate, don't let them value you. Because they don't know your scope. They don't know what God wants to do with you.

Have I said nobody should value you? Please, allow people to value you, who values your vision. Are we together? Allow people to evaluate you, who are passionate about what God wants you to become. Listen to the instructions of those who, in the sincerity of their hearts, they are designing you to be your best.

They may be used to knock your head, to correct you, to change you, to chastise you. That's good. But never succumb to a man who is only envious of what God wants you to become.

And it is not difficult to know them. Very easy to discover them. They see whatever you did, whether it's right.

His first smell is that of rejection. Even when you come and say it's like this, they say, huh? Even if it's like that, uncle. When you see a fire extinguisher and your fire is young, what do you do? You run away.

Keep your fire for a while. When it has grown big, they can't quench it again. Bring it to them and say, this is my fire.

Even if they blow it, it's only blow on them. You must move and labor in the pursuit of the mandate of God for your life by keeping your eyes not only on the things that men could see or can't as an achievement, but you must keep your eyes on the scope. What lies ahead, what I refer to as your denominator, which most men do not see.

Your vision will give you a true evaluation of how far you have gone in the pursuit of your mandate. Your vision will help you to measure whether the time that you have expended is commensurate and reasonable with what lies unexplored while your time goes away steadily. Praise the Lord.

Up on your feet. Let's pray together.