Welcome to The University of God.
We want to thank all of you who sent your questions in to us.
As our mentor Prophet TB Joshua told us:
If you are interested in the subject and are eager to learn,
you will always strive to sit at the front,
ask questions and engage with the teacher.
Remember in the University of God,
the heart, man's spirit is the workshop,
and the Holy Spirit, the Divine Teacher.
Yes, exactly and that is the promise of God
that Jesus gave us in the Book of Matthew 7:7
that if you seek Him, you'll find Him.
If you seek Him with all your heart.
Remember, to seek the Kingdom of God
is to have the Kingdom of God.
Yes, God doesn't mind, doubt or questions,
as long as those questions cause us to seek Him,
to draw closer to Him, to seek His Word,
God’s Word is the final authority settling
all questions and problems.
Today, under the guidance of the Holy Spirit,
we are going to examine some of your questions
in the light of God's Word.
Let me take you to the Bible.
The Book of Psalm 115:4-7 in depicting idols,
gives us a graphic picture of the five senses.
God gave us the five main senses
that enable us to interact with the physical world
in which we live as human beings.
The basic function of these five senses is to help us communicate
adequately with the people around us.
They also help us to locate, identify
and apprehend the surrounding objects and navigate safely
through our environment.
These senses are all connected.
I mean, they work together
and send to the brain the input signals
or information from the environment,
our brain, the laboratory of sense knowledge
processes all this information,
identifies those signals through the database of our memory
and provides the right response.
All this happens in real time.
So let's look at those five senses.
With the sense of sight, we can see and identify the things
God created, objects and the people around us.
The sight is the main sense
to navigate safely through our environment,
to drive, to walk, to read.
With the sense of hearing,
even without visual contact, we can have a clear knowledge
of our immediate environment
by distinguishing the specific sound they emit.
For example, the sound of a bird or recognising a friend's voice.
With a sense of smell
we can perceive the odours, the fragrance,
and check whether something is good or maybe the food is spoiled.
With the sense of taste,
we can assess the sweetness or bitterness of food
before consuming it.
With the sense of feeling or touch,
we can sense the ambient temperature
to know the proper clothes to wear to protect our body conseqently.
We can feel the weight or hardness of an object.
For example, this food smells nice.
What's your favourite food, Racine?
Jollof rice.
This food smells nice - yes, I want to taste it.
Or these clothes are beautiful -
I want to buy them.
Or it's too cold and windy today -
I don't want to go to the beach anymore.
You can notice how influential
our senses can be on our choices and actions.
Consider the use of our senses.
For example, you are driving.
All of a sudden, a pedestrian crosses the road.
As a driver, you find yourself immediately
with a decision, a response to take.
Either you pull the brake,
or when your speed is too fast,
you have to steer away from the person.
You can see all the senses work together.
I see.
I pull the brake; I turn the wheel.
So all these actions happen simultaneously in real time.
They are all connected.
They work together.
You can notice how influential
our senses can be on our choices and actions.
What we see, hear, smell, taste, feel can influence our thoughts.
What do I mean by influencing our thoughts?
I mean, they have an influence on our desires and will.
Our thoughts can influence our action or inaction.
Why?
Because man exercises the will through his mind.
That's the sense of discretion or reasoning.
Human beings are different from animals.
A human being is not a robot.
He's a free moral agent.
Because of all the interactive inferences from the environment
that require the right response or attitude,
God wants to have independent mind -
a mind that thinks by itself.
God has given to man
the ability to think and choose between what is relevant or not -
that's common sense,
to choose between what is right or wrong,
that's sense of judgment,
to choose between good and bad - that's moral sense.
That's the outcome of senses of reasoning and responsibility -
necessary for life in community or society.
Man depending on his lifespan, grows physically
from embryo to toddler
through childhood, adolescence, adulthood and old age.
We can see that physical growth is a function of time.
As we grow in age,
we go through the stages of the human life.
Man is not only a physical person
but an intellectual and moral person.
Exactly.
And it's important to remember that
since life and its responsibilities are in stages,
man also must grow in intellectual maturity.
How?
Intellectual growth is a function of learning -
learning from what we do.
Learning from what we study, what happens around us
and learning what from what happens to us.
Have you wondered whenever a person meets a new person
in a new relationship?
The first questions they mutually ask about themselves
will be about their background, education, occupation in life.
Very few will address their spiritual life.
So that is what makes the difference between man's point of view
and God's point of view.
Yes, in Galatians 5,
God wouldn't have commanded us to walk in the Spirit
if He had not designed us to operate in the Spirit.
The Bible said that God has created man,
human beings, in His own image and likeness.
The Book of Job 33:4 says
man is the greatest product of the Holy Spirit;
man is a divine work of art.
Why?
Because mankind is designed to think, to talk,
to act and to plan with God.
Man is therefore designed to live in tune with God.
Are we living in tune with God?
Always remember God is Spirit.
So the question that we need to ask ourselves is:
What is man?
The Bible is the believer's database for his personal opinion.
What does the Bible say about man, about you and I?
The Bible says in the book 1Thessalonians 5:23
that man is a spiritual being
but has a soul and a body.
In other words, man has a physical and spiritual nature.
Man is not only a physical, intellectual person;
he's also a moral and spiritual person,
because we are made to be like God
in our heart and God is Spirit.
So take note.
Whenever the Bible refers to man's heart,
it refers to man’s spirit - the spirit of man.
That's why in the Book of 1 Samuel 16:7, Matthew 15:8,
the Bible stresses that
when it comes to rightful judgment, God's perspective,
about man always point to man's heart, man's spirit.
This means that God sees man as a spirit being,
living in a physical body.
Man’s spirit is the part of man that has spiritual consciousness.
I mean, spiritual awareness.
Man’s spirit is a part of man
that is connected to the spirit realm
and receives inspiration and revelation from God, who is Spirit.
Let us think now of a biblical character
who was really in tune with God in spirit.
We have to remember Moses.
Consider the attitude of Moses
as he and his people were trapped
in between the Red Sea and the pursuing Egyptian armies.
Surely, the people of Israel had every reason
to think that the end had come
considering the size and military might of the Egyptian armies.
We can read about this in the Book of Exodus 14:10.
The Israelites therefore cried out not only in fear,
but also in rebellion and anger directed against Moses and his God.
They allowed their senses to dictate the direction of their faith
and got overwhelmed by fear
and completely forgot all the miracles that God had performed for them
and done on their behalf.
Rather than getting offended by
his people's reactions - a lack of faith,
Moses was calm, calculated and determined.
Even in the midst of extreme provocation,
the Bible says he was very calm, confident and peaceable.
Why?
Because his focus was on God.
I mean, his spirit was connected to God.
And that is why he could overcome what his senses were telling him.
True - a spiritual man and a man of faith - Moses.
A lot of lessons to learn from him.
The question is why man cannot use his senses to see God?
That's the question.
The answer to this question is straightforward.
God is Spirit.
Therefore, we cannot know God by our feelings
and senses or external human faculties
because God is invisible, incorporeal, immaterial.
He's a supreme being who lives in the realm above the senses.
He lives in the spirit.
Therefore, to seek God, you must be in the spirit.
And you can only see Him and relate with Him
in the spirit realm by revelation.
What do we mean by revelation?
Revelation brings to our spiritual senses
the reality of spiritual things that cannot be perceived
by our natural human senses.
As we have natural organs embedded in our physical body
that feed our human senses with information
from the environment
like our eyes, our ears, our hands, etc
God has also endowed us with spiritual senses
as well, embedded in our spirit.
The main spiritual sense God has planted within our spirit
is our conscience.
The conscience is the organ of the spirit to discern spiritual things.
That's what Prophet TB Joshua calls a sense of righteousness.
Let's listen to what Apostle Paul said in the Book of Romans 8:16.
What does this mean?
This means that a sense of righteousness
brings an awareness of self knowing.
I mean, awareness of who you are in Christ Jesus.
The question is: How does this awareness come?
That awareness comes through revelation
when the Holy Spirit bears witness to our spirit.
How does the Holy Spirit bear witness to our spirit?
Through our conscience.
Paul further explained in Romans 9:1.
Therefore, 1 Corinthians 2:9-15 teaches that that our natural senses
cannot apprehend nor know the things of God or things of the Spirit
because they can only be discerned spiritually.
And if all this seems a bit much for you, don't worry.
In the foundation series as we continue, all this will be broken down.
So you can really understand
how we can relate to God through our spirit and
what actually is man - his spirit, his body, his soul.
So stay tuned as you get more of that on the foundation series
coming up soon.
So when it comes to the knowledge of man,
our senses cannot see the heart or spirit of man.
They can only see man's physical body because that is
the part of man that is connected to this visible world.
The realm of the senses.
Man's body and senses cannot connect to the spiritual realm.
It is only man's spirit which is the spiritual part of man
that can connect to the spirit realm, which is God's dimension.
True, that is it.
The question is: How do we look into that dimension?
To log on to that realm of the spirit,
man must be in the spirit led by the Holy Spirit.
Our spirit, our heart is the communication point,
contact point for the Holy Spirit.
The Holy Spirit uses our heart
to communicate with us.
And God speaks to our heart, to our spirit, not our ears.
I advise you to read the Book of Acts 17 -
when the people of Athens were seeking God
with their senses and sense knowledge
in order to seek and worship God.
Since all men have a spirit, we have to ask ourselves the question
Why is it that most humans seem to have no relationship with God?
The truth is that God has designed humans
to operate in both natural and spiritual realms.
But most of us live in the senses, I mean in the natural.
And we are dull when it comes to the things of the Spirit.
Because as the Scripture says in the Book of 1 Corinthians 2:9
the things of the Spirit are indistinct.
We can't see them.
And the Bible further says in 1 Corinthians 15:46-47,
1 Corinthians 15:46.
These scriptures we have just read identify two types of men.
The natural man and the spiritually minded man.
The natural man is spiritually blind and dull in comprehension
to the unseen realm.
The spirit world is absolutely closed to his spiritual vision.
It is only when the Holy Spirit illumines his spiritual eyes
that he can see and understand the things of the Spirit.
Ephesians 1:7-18 says that the Lord our God, Jesus Christ,
the Father of Glory, may give us the Spirit of Revelation
and wisdom in the knowledge of Him
that the eyes of our understanding may be opened
So we may know what is the hope of His calling
and what are the riches of His glory
in His inheritance of the saints.
First Corinthians two from verse nine.
So the question is: How do we connect to the Spirit?
How do you connect to the Spirit?
By faith.
Believing in Christ Jesus - that is our only connection.
So how do we live by faith?
Remember, we live by faith
when we recognize our union with Jesus Christ in the spirit.
To live by faith,
our spirit must govern our senses,
and for our spirit to govern our senses,
our mind must be renewed by knowing the Word
and acting on it.
So how do we know that our mind is renewed?
Good question.
Our mind is renewed
when we begin to think not about our weaknesses
and shortcomings, but of our righteousness in Christ Jesus.
2 Corinthians 12:7-10
It is all about the Apostle Paul's experience with the thorn.
You see, when Paul was afflicted by a thorn in his flesh,
he prayed to God many times for God to remove that thorn.
But God said to him: “My grace is sufficient for you.”
Why?
For my strength is made perfect in weakness.
Immediately, the revelation of the will of God came to Him,
Paul never complained anymore.
And he said, Brother, when I'm weak, I am strong.
His mind was renewed and he stopped worrying
about the thorn in his flesh.
So let us summarize the answer to all these questions.
The natural man -
the man of the senses is only conscious of his body
and has no awareness of the spirit realm.
Why is it so?
The Bible says that since the fall of man,
man has lost his spirit consciousness
because of sin and operates only in the natural.
We can read about this in Genesis 6:3.
The natural man's spirit is dead to God because of sin
ever since Adam,
the human body, which the Bible refers to as the outer self,
the outward man or the old man is the physical part of man
designed by God to interact with the visible or the physical world.
That's true.
While the spirit of man
is the spiritual part of man designed by God
to interact or communicate with the invisible
or spiritual world where God dwells.
The spiritual man is therefore,
the one whose spirit has been recreated or regenerated
by God's power at the point of spiritual rebirth by faith
in Christ Jesus.
That's what Jesus meant when He said to Nicodemus
in the Book of John 3:3.
You need to be born again.
Jesus answered and said to him, "Most assuredly,
I say to you, unless a man is born again,
he cannot see the Kingdom of God." (John 3:3)
And we have time for just a few more questions
So what do you mean by “on the outside”?
By “outside”, we mean what is visible, material, physical -
things you can see with your natural eyes,
hear with your ears,
things you can feel or know intellectually.
In opposite, on the inside refers
to the things that we cannot see, like man's heart, man spirit,
which is man's spiritual entity that only God can see.
That is why, concerning human beings,
one needs to be guided by divine revelation
to get to the heart of the matter when it comes to judgment.
We know this.
We know that we should not judge anyone by appearance
because only God knows the true condition
of the human heart.
When it comes to the things of God who is unseen,
we need to be in the spirit
because only faith pleases God.
Hebrews 11:6
Without faith, it is impossible to please Him,
for he who comes to God must believe that God is
and that He is the Rewarder of those who diligently seek Him.
We diligently seek Him, as we have said today, by faith.
Remember, faith focuses on God who is unseen,
while the natural sight focuses on the outside,
what is visible,
what is tangible, what is concrete.
Therefore a spiritual man, I mean, the man of faith
is not satisfied by sense knowledge but looks beyond it,
because the Bible says in 2 Corinthians 5:7,
we walk by faith, not by sight.
Yes, faith is from man's spirit.
I mean the invisible world or the spiritual world.
And sight is from man's body,
the visible world or the natural world.
And the Bible further says in 1 Samuel 16:6-13
all about Samuel and David, the first king of Israel.
Samuel, the prophet was sent to the house of Jesse in Bethlehem
to anoint the new appointed King of Israel.
When he came, he looked at the most handsome son of Jesse
as being the chosen king but God rejected him
and chose the one who was neglected,
the young and rustic shepherd boy, David
Ask Prophet Samuel in the Book of 1 Samuel 16:7
and he would teach you that
we should learn to focus not on the outside
I mean, not on the outward qualities of man which are visible.
But rather we should focus on the inside by looking inwardly
at the heart with the help of the Holy Spirit.
If we want to see things the way God sees them about man.
So thank you so much.
Yes, that was a short look into what it means – ‘outside’ and ‘inside’.
And yes, we all need to develop our inner man, our spiritual man.
And with the help of the Holy Spirit daily, every moment we can.
First, there's need to know what faith is.
The problem of faith is made simply to understand
when we know that faith is simply acting
on what God has said.
The main issue of our faith is the genuineness of that faith.
For faith to be genuine, it must be based on God’s Word,
which is Spirit and life. (John 6:63)
Man speaks ordinary words
but God speaks Words that are Spirit and life.
But for man’s word to become God’s Word,
it must be affected by the Holy Spirit with life.
The question is: Can man speak the Words of life?
Man speaks ordinary words
but man can speak Words of life that are spirit and life
when they are affected by the Holy Spirit.
Those Words must be affected by the Holy Spirit with life.
What do I mean by life in the Word?
God’s Word is Spirit and life
because it has the ability to produce a spiritual force
that grows and develops within our heart called faith.
It is that faith that moves our words to work wonders.
That's Bible faith.
Bible faith is called the spirit of faith.
I read.
So faith takes place in two places:
With our heart we believe it;
With our mouth we confess, and faith is both.
You know, the example of the seven sons of Sceva shows that
genuine faith is not imitation.
Faith must arise in each person's heart
or in a conviction, which leads to real movement
or real confession of faith.
For faith to be genuine, the heart and the mouth should never conflict.
In other words, we should mean what we say.
This means we should believe what we confess.
Do you believe what you confess?
Do you mean what you say?
Because scriptural faith or biblical faith is expressed
by believing with the heart and confessing with the mouth.
The mouth must have the heart's full agreement
before there can be an acceptable or genuine confession of faith.
Very true.
That's the key, an agreement.
The question is: How can faith develop?
The development of God’s Word in your heart,
gives birth to belief in your heart.
Romans 10:17
Faith grows as we hear and obey God’s Word.
How does one move from sense knowledge to revelation knowledge?
Yes, that is what all of us as believers need to ask ourselves.
Let's remember what happened to the servant of Elisha.
With his physical eyes,
the servant of Elisha saw the immediate danger and fear gripped him.
When his master prayed to God to open his spiritual eyes.
His eyes were opened and in the spirit,
he saw angels around him.
And what happened?
His fear disappeared.
Yes.
So to move from sense knowledge to revelation knowledge
is a matter of yielding your heart to the Holy Spirit.
It is the Holy Spirit who opens the eyes of our faith
to see the hidden truth in God’s Word.
Meditation in the Word of God brings revelation.
That's the key.
We meditate till God give us a clear light, a clear understanding.
So when you meditate on the Word of God,
allowing the Holy Spirit to take the lead, revelation will come
and when revelation comes, it will carry you
beyond the realm of senses into the very presence of God
in the spirit and there you will see clearly;
there the spiritual understanding comes.
Put yourself in the Scripture
and hear God saying to you,
Those that are with you are more than those that are against you.
Many today in their homes are overwhelmed by their circumstances
because we look at it in the natural
and you become overwhelmed and fear comes and doubt comes.
So there is need for us to shift our focus
from natural to spiritual.
So to move from sense knowledge to revelation
is by grace.
All you need to do is to humble yourself
under the guidance of the Holy Spirit – the Spirit of Revelation.
That change, that move is little by little,
every day, little by little, every moment, little by little.
It's a journey and a journey of a thousand miles starts with one step.
So we're so happy today
that you joined us to take that step, that step into the spiritual
by joining us on the programme today.
So that journey today has started with this step that you've taken.
And remember the FOUNDATION SERIES,
the DIVINE LECTURES
that you've been seeing on The University of God -
You don't just need to watch them once
you know, the Word of God is not time bound.
Every Word of God is Spirit and Life.
Take time to watch again and again,
go over the Bible passages, meditate on the hidden truth there
and if you want to look for where those teachings are,
you can check in the description below.
There's a link and if you have any more questions, remember,
as you meditate on these teachings, questions will arise in your heart
and you can send your questions to us by going
to our website - theuog.org - going to the contact section
and sending us a message.
And we'll go through all your questions and by the grace of God,
answer them under the guidance of the Holy Spirit.
There is no shortcut to spiritual maturity.
Our earthly understanding must give way to spiritual understanding or revelation, to reach maturity. ” – Prophet TB Joshua
or revelation to reach maturity.
All the teachings we are giving you are not time bound.
Please go over it, meditate on it,
and ask the Holy Ghost to help you
to have a better understanding of it.
That's the only way faith can grow into our lives.
That we have a revelation does not mean
we can force you to believe it;
you must have your own revelation and conviction.
How does it come?
Read it, meditate on it.
Allow the Spirit of God to enhance your understanding.
We need to be mature as Christians
because we are in an environment that is very challenging
and God wants you to live by faith, to be strong in the faith.
How can you do that?
You can achieve that only by developing your relationship
with the wonderful unseen Guest - the Holy Spirit.
How? Atrack his attention.
And you can only do that when you meditate on the Word and pray
and He will come and enhance the spiritual coasts,
in Jesus’ name.
Just as Nicodemus came to Jesus in the night to ask questions,
to find out and develop faith in Jesus,
you too can watch this and ask questions in your heart to God
and the Holy Spirit,
the Helper, the Counselor will come and answer your questions
through the Word of God.
Yes, that is why everything is in the light of God’s Word.
Amen. Saints, brothers, sisters, believers all over the world,
we are going to pray for you.
We have seen so many emails.
We went through all the questions and answers.
We've seen a lot of people are going through agony,
pain and difficulties.
So we are going to pray together, believe in God
that God Almighty will meet you at the point of your essential need,
for Jesus does nothing without His Word.
Don't forget, God’s Word has priority over the name.
That's why we give you this teaching.
But we stand in the presence of God praying for you,
and God will locate you in His mercy, in Jesus’ name.
So, continue to join us here on The University of God.
Sense knowledge ceases when revelation comes.