Emmanuel

S. SEKOU ABODUNRIN

That they should seek the Lord, if haply they might feel after him, and find him, though he be not far from every one of us: Acts 17:27

5. Thou hast beset me behind and before, and laid thine hand upon me.
6. Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; it is high, I cannot attain unto it.
7. Whither shall I go from thy spirit? or whither shall I flee from thy presence?
8. If I ascend up into heaven, thou art there: if I make my bed in hell, behold, thou art there. Psalm 139: 5 – 8

Paul states a bible fact in Acts 17 – God is not far from us but Man needs to perceive him. Pause and think about that – God is not far from you!

David in psalm 139 admits the profound fact that God was on every side of him. He also admits that the hand of the Lord was upon him in blessing. The knowledge of this revolutionised his thinking. He did not see God as an enemy who was standing against him, but as a friend who had taken it upon himself to encompass David with his very presence.

The knowledge that David spoke about was two fold. Firstly it was a fresh knowledge of himself. He had come to know himself in the light of a man continually encompassed with God's presence and glory. Everything around him contradicted this truth. This was a knowledge higher than his experience but given to him through the revelation of God. Secondarily it was a knowledge of the Lord not as an adversary or foe but as a friend, consort and companion. This type of knowledge should characterise the believer.

David admits a mighty fact – The presence of God is everywhere the same. This is true of heaven as well as of hell itself. David had not ascended to heaven, yet he knew that the presence of God was a reality there. The only way he'd have come to know this was by the revelation of God in his word. This is easy to admit. What the religious man fails to see is that David admits that even in hell the presence of God is a reality. In simple terms there is no such thing as the absence of God anywhere in the universe for he is everywhere and he is everywhere the same. He is not more present in heaven than he is in hell.

This is wonderful knowledge. When folks are unconscious of this bible fact, they speak of “inviting” God into where they are. This is superstitious. Rather than try to invite him though, we can humbly rest in the knowledge that he is already present. There is no place where God is not. The universe is his.

I love the humility of David. He knew a fact that many of us shy away from – We are the ones that try to run away from his presence and not he from ours. He said “Where shall I run from your presence ..”. A religious mind will not admit this. The religious mind will accuse God of deserting him, when in reality God does not desert man but it is men that desert God.

If you have read this far, you know deep within if this is a reality you live in or some theological truth that you profess. The religious mind will affirm the omnipresence of God and in the same breath say that “God left me”. In reality we are the ones that do the leaving. You must learn to affirm to yourself the abiding presence of God.

In the bible, the picture given of heaven is that of a place where God is acknowledged. You cannot escape this fact as you read through the revelation of John. In hell there is gnashing of teeth. It is easy to think God is absent from hell and present only in heaven, but the truth is that God is present but his presence does not produce freedom until it is acknowledged and embraced in one's consciousness. Hell is the federal headquarters of complaints, heaven is the practice of praise. In reality then, heaven is the way it is because God is continually praised there.

22 Then Paul stood in the midst of Mars' hill, and said, Ye men of Athens, I perceive that in all things ye are too superstitious.
28 For in him we live, and move, and have our being; Acts 17:22, 28a

It is noteworthy that the people of Athens disagreed strongly with Paul. They would have maintained that they were religious and they were, but Paul would have called it by the proper name – idolatry. Since they were wholly given to idolatry he resorted to freeing their minds by dismantling their religious reasonings with the revelation of God. The people of Athens did not deny the existence of God. The trouble was that he was unknown to them. When men desire God but mistake zeal for knowledge superstition is born inevitably. Their worship betrayed their ignorance. All religious men are superstitious men.

The superstitious bias is manifested differently in different situations, but nevertheless it is not rooted in truth. There is only one way to rid oneself of superstition and that is by receiving and walking in the knowledge of God. When Paul went to the top of Mars hill he went into the presence of intense superstition. These were learned men but Paul admits that their knowledge is sustained by superstition. What Paul said was aimed at dealing out a death blow to superstition.

The understanding of the resurrection of Jesus is the answer to superstitious thinking.

A religious mind today would not go up such a hill for it supposes that demons and the devil actually own portions of the earth. Paul admitted no such thing for in agreement with all bible people he knew that the earth is the Lord's and the fullness thereof. Until you learn to live in the light of the truth of God's presence you will find yourself walking gingerly and fearfully in the presence of such spiritual nonsense. Paul diagnosed that the problem was the superstitions of men. It wasn't that the demons or the deities that the people worshipped were powerful.

What we know as demonic power is really the power of superstition. The answer to superstition is the deliverance that comes from the proclamation and affirmation of truth especially the truth of the resurrection of Jesus. Only the revelation of God can separate men from superstition. You can use the name of Jesus to command demons to leave, but you cannot command superstition to go away. The demons will flee at the use of the name of Jesus, but will return because they find a resting place in the superstitions of men. Superstitions are more stubborn than demons.

The most stubborn superstition is religious in nature. It is possible to worship out of a superstitious mind. It has all the trappings of worship but is very far from the real thing for it is based on ignorance of the true knowledge of God – this knowledge is the meaning and import of the resurrection of Jesus. When one is unaware of this he is superstitious in all things.

15 But even unto this day, when Moses is read, the vail is upon their heart.
16 Nevertheless when it shall turn to the Lord, the vail shall be taken away.
17 Now the Lord is that Spirit: and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty. 2 cor 3:15 – 17

Where the spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty. The question then is “are there some places where the spirit of the Lord is not? The truth is that the Spirit of the Lord is everywhere. What remains for man is the knowledge of this. When this is not known, ignorance veils the heart.

When my heart is not properly adjusted to Christ Jesus I am deluded into thinking that he is not present. When this happens, the religious mind, which is also a veiled mind, believes that the Lord is absent or that he Lord has left. The Lord does not come and go, it is our hearts that get veiled by ignorance or unveiled by focusing on the Lord. If I am word-conscious, the word focuses my heart on the Lord until the awareness of God envelops me.

Paul uses the term "Moses" prior to verse 14 to refer to the Old Testament prophet Moses but from verse 14 onwards it refers not to the man, but to the Old Testament. The term "Moses" was a portable way or a shorthand for the Old Testament. The religious mind reads "Moses" without a proper understanding of the resurrection of Christ Jesus and he will be able to “prove” from "Moses" his superstitions. This is because his heart is veiled by superstitious reasoning devoid of a resurrection consciousness. The trouble is not with "Moses" but with the veiled heart. The heart then is either turned towards or away from the Lord. When the heart is turned towards the Lord an unveiling takes place and man is able to acknowledge the presence of God.

The presence of God therefore is an unveiled heart.

A veiled heart cannot walk in the truth of God even though it is deeply religious. This is because man is designed such that whatever you are conscious of will inevitably dominate your awareness, get larger in your world and become more real to you. It seems so real that God is not present when in reality he is present. Religion robs me of fellowship with God when he is so near. God is everywhere. When I feel like he is absent I have proof that my heart is not horizoned by Christ Jesus and so it is veiled. I do not cry for him to come, I cry for my heart to ascend into a fresh comprehension of the living God.

18 May be able to comprehend with all saints what is the breadth, and length, and depth, and height;
19 And to know the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge, that ye might be filled with all the fulness of God Ephesians 3: 18,19

The apostle Paul does not tell us what it is that we are to comprehend the breadth, length, depth and height of. In context I will say that it is the subject matter of the mystery that was hidden in God which God revealed through Paul for the edification of the church. Whatever it is, he is not asking that God do something again, but that the saints press into a greater comprehension in all dimensions of being. The fulness of God is Christ Jesus. When he says that we should be filled with the fulness of God he is saying we should be filled with a Christ-consciousness. This is the atmosphere of God.

The christian is not one whose sole purpose is to go to heaven, but one who is filled with the very fulness of God. According to scriptures, the key to living in this fulness of God is an awareness of God's love. Love opens you up to all that God is in you. When I feel a scarcity of his presence it is really symptomatic of a low estimation of love – the love of God. This love is not what you feel for others even though that is beautiful, nor is it what you feel towards God, but what God's heart is towards you. It is this love that holds your heart captive and delivers it into a new conception of God in all fulness.

... to be continued

WORSHIP: Baptising the senses in God - Part B

S. Sekou Abodunrin

[Please read PART A before reading this]

But the hour cometh, and now is, when the true worshipers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth: for the Father seeketh such to worship him.
God is a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth
John 4:23,24

Can you pick the triumph in Jesus as he said that – the hour cometh and now is ……..
It is as if every measure of time would either look forward or backwards to that hour. Something new and unknown to the earth was unfolded by Jesus.

God has been seeking for true worship. David and the Old Testament saints gave all that they could give, but they couldn’t give that which they didn’t have. This was because they were spiritually dead. God sent his Son as the answer in order to meet this need. We have received from him that which God seeks. We can now worship God out of his nature within our reborn spirits.

The enemy will work in such a way as to steal from you a revelation of this worship. The circumstances of life fuelled and distorted by the flesh will endeavour to hoard you and your vocabulary into a place of disagreement with love and with the word. It encourages you to think that you are all alone and so you succumb by speaking your thoughts instead of his thoughts. We are persuaded however that above all that surrounds us; we know that the one who has the last say so is installed in majesty.

When you worship out of your new nature your mind and imagination are carried past the barriers of fear.

Only perfect love can cast out this fear. This love is available in worship. How could you ever worship for any other reason asides love?

It is amazing that God is seeking for a particular type of worship when you consider that God had created multiplied billions of Angels before he created man. These already praise him night and day without ceasing. He even has angels whose sole duty it is to worship. These Angels serve God day and night worshipping and praising the most High. Yet the scriptures say that God is looking for a particular type of worship. It is nature to nature worship. God is a spirit; his life is the God-life or Zoë. He has given this life to your reborn spirit through the new birth. The life within your spirit is fully capable of corresponding to the life within God, this is spiritual worship. The Angels don’t have this life, they have angel life, just like animals have animal life and vegetables have vegetable life.

The life within you is God's own type and quality of life and the highest praise flows out of this life. We praise and worship him now no longer requiring any reason other than the fact that our nature loves to fellowship his nature. We are not trying to earn his favour, nor are we trying to score points with him. We do this not for profit, but just because we love him. He loves us first and our works second. When I know that God hotly pursues me in love, it frees me to love him without seeking to manipulate him with my actions for I know I am already loved. So I love back.

Why do we worship? Not because we want something from him or want some circumstance changed. We worship just because we choose to. When I “worship” because I want something, it means that my mind is really focused on the thing that I want and not on him. This locks the mouth in a place where the heart is not and robs God of having the mouth and heart in union. You must learn to discipline your senses in the gym of God and approach him as father of the family. There are some that need to be taken through lengthy psyches in order to locate a reason for praise. This really reflects the fact that they have not saturated their minds with him. Really you don’t need a reason to praise or worship. You have the true reason within - his love and his life. We have him.

The bible talks about two mountains. [See Hebrews 12:18 - 24]

The people in the Old Testament came to that first mountain and it was a fearful experience. The people couldn’t draw near to this mountain because of fear in their hearts, this robbed God of the fellowship he deeply desired. Even Moses the lawgiver trembled. By extension Moses cannot take you up this mountain past the barrier of fear for he himself had the same limitations.

Then we come to another mountain, the New Jerusalem on high. On this mountain there is no fear. We draw near with excitement and love because Jesus leads us into the very holiest of God. He leads us into the most holy by a new and living way.

On the first mountain there was only one son, this son is called the only begotten, for none other could lay claim to sonship. On the second mountain, the one that is available for us today, there are many sons in glory. He is no longer the only begotten, but the first born among many brethren.

You must choose to walk away from the first mountain where fear rules and whose worship is conducted in fearful trembling, and walk in the reality of this other mountain where the one on the throne is for us.

There is a tendency in some quarters to measure wealth in terms of money, gold or silver. The Apostle Peter says that these things are perishable [1 Pet 1:18, 2 Pet 3: 10 – 12]. One of these days there will be a big melt down according to the word of the Lord, the whole system will dissolve in fervent heat as God brings forth a new heaven and a new earth. God has given us clear revelation that the true riches of the earth are not perishable, this is because they are eternal - they are the humans on this earth. You have to learn to appreciate the estimation that God has placed upon man. You will survive this melt-down and pass on into the fuller plan of God. He wants you to present to him the most expensive thing on this earth – YOU! This is worship. He doesn’t want from you that which perishes, he wants the imperishable. He wants you.

You will survive the meltdown. You will outlast the sun. You will throw your hands up in worship.

You see, man is a spirit being who functions and expresses himself through a soul. Your spirit craves fellowship with the father like a flower seeks the sun. The Father also longs for you like the farmer longs for the rain. Your soul will pick impulses from the happenings in the natural world, hence when you are in worship your spirit gets into communion and your soul crawls down to oxford street lost in thought. The reason is because you haven’t gone to the gym of the soul where you focus its adoration on the truths of the word. This would have aided you in true worship, but notwithstanding there is enough within your new nature to pause, stroll down that road and drag your soul back to the place where its focus is the father and nothing else.

Your mouth is expressing in melody the adoration that your spirit “feels” towards the father. Mix it with the confession of the word to deliberately keep your soul in line. This will aid your mind and help recover your imagination in calling up images of father’s love. It will also raise your mind’s awareness of the presence of the Lord in his word.

How do you do this? The secret is in the fact that words will reframe and reassign thoughts. You take a thought and own it by saying words [Mt 6:31]. In other words your words will always arrest the progression that your soul is making. This is the true reason for what is called confession.

If you want your imagination to bring up images consistent with the nature of God you will need to declare rather boldly and consistently the things that your spirit knows to be true about God. You say this loud enough to drown the noise in your soul. Your imagination will start bearing another fruit that aids your spiritual worship. This is worship in truth. You are activating and enforcing the truth as revealed in God’s word. When this is accomplished in your soul and your mind and imagination are recovered you return to that fellowship that your spirit was having with the father and you carry on by faith. Again your soul will take a fancy journey down to the nearest Sainsbury or Tesco store. Do not panic. The fact is that the spirit is willing; it is the flesh that is weak.

The flesh will impose this wandering and roaming upon your mind and imagination especially in worship. God has always known this, but it is all new to you. This is not the devil, but the flesh in action. You lift your voice again above the “noise” in the soul and boldly declare what you know about Jesus and his sustaining power over your whole being. This is confession. This will extend the dominion of God into your soul and extend the territory of worship – this baptises your senses in God’s own wine. You have to learn to fill your mind with the word as it will aid these seasons of confession. This is not so much good statements like “By his stripes I am healed”, it is more like “he is my substitute, he is my high priest, and he is my healer”. You see, the first set of confessions was centred on a thing called healing, while the second is centred on a person called healer. Healing is what your body needs, healer is who he is. In worship I get absorbed into the atmosphere of God. I fill the whole place with the perfume of his name, his standing, and his glory. He will baptise my senses in whatever I call him.

In effect you would be giving to the father God the most precious thing – yourself. That is what he really wants and that is the hardest thing to give it seems, but as you learn the revelation of worship you take the war over your soul to a whole new level. There is a vocabulary in the word that will aid your emotions, intellect and will in pouring out the adoration locked deep within. As you give enough of yourself to him in worship, you are able to receive and retain enough of him in your walk until your very presence becomes the presence of God. He will exchange your presence with his. Currently you are so aware of your fears, so you talk your fears. You cannot help it, they are so real to you. It is a habit. As you learn the revelation of worship out of the reborn spirit and on the basis of the revealed word, you will rescue your soul from fear. That which is within your spirit will transport your emotional life across the barrier of fear and sorrow.

I am not even describing somebody who carries an anointing to lead people in worship or anything of that sort. That is different. You need to realise that when we say a person is “anointed” what really happens is that the Spirit of God takes hold of the spirit of a man, and through the spirit of the man bypasses the man’s soul and reaches out through some part of his body in order to bring the blessing to others. Please read that again. The implication is that this concept of “anointing” while valid it really leaves the man’s soul intact and unaffected! This operates as the Spirit wills. In fact if the degree of anointing is intense, the same process takes place in the person that God is trying to get to. The anointing bypasses the receiver’s mind and changes the condition in the natural. Both parties have their souls intact and unaffected. Both are still drunk in “wine”.

You might need to re-read the stuff you just read above. This describes the enigma of an anointed man whose senses are immersed in wine.

Many Christians go through this even in what’s called “worship service”. This holds true for both the one used of God to lead the worship and those cooperating with him. The senses are often submerged in wine while the mouth is uttering mysteries. You can deliberately declare war on your senses as you worship Yahweh Adonai. You can ,on purpose, mix confession with what you have been doing knowing that words will anchor the soul into the harbour of peace. As you worship out of your new nature on the basis of the revealed word you create opportunities for the Spirit of God to use your spirit to pour out into your soul. You soul gets so saturated that it pours out into your body and through your body out into the earth. This brings your senses into a fresh intoxication with things heavenly and spiritual. Practice this often until it becomes an atmosphere perceptible in your daily walk to you most importantly and to others secondarily.

What!! You feel saturated by what you have read? Hmm Relax, grab a pizza and re-read PART 1 & 2 again and again.

...to be continued

WORSHIP: Baptising the senses in God - Part A

S. Sekou Abodunrin


And be not drunk with wine, wherein is excess; but be filled with the Spirit;
Eph 5:18

When one is filled with the Spirit, he is filled with a clear understanding of the things that concern Jesus in glory. No one is able to participate in true worship that hasn’t first learned the secret of knowing what Jesus is doing for him today at the right hand of God. It is the knowledge of his service for you that enables you to participate in true service. It is not the other way round. This puts within you a well, a living well of living water. You can drink of this well anytime that you want to even when the pressure is mounting all around you. The Spirit will fill you with the knowledge that enables you to take with quiet faith his promised supply.

Please re-read what follows very slowly. Paul likened the effect of true worship to that which a man feels when he is under the influence of wine. When he said “wine” he really means that which intoxicates and empowers the flesh against the spirit. Wine dulls the senses and creates a false security temporarily. In order to prolong this false security there is need to baptise the senses in more wine. This affects how quickly the problem lays hold on our senses. You see we have been trained by experience and culture to drown our senses in a false reality through this process. You realise that wine is whatever produces this in you. Through much fellowship with wine, we are effectively hiding from facts. The amazing thing is that Paul likened being filled with the Spirit to this concept. The effect of the Spirit as wine is to dull your senses to the flesh and awaken its consciousness of the reality of God.

When you yield to the true worship rising out of your reborn spirit, it will ultimately transport your senses into a new awareness. In effect it will baptise your senses in God’s reality for you are drunk in God. Wine alters your chemical composition and so distorts your perception of reality. True worship on the other hand adjusts your senses to see clearly into God, break away from the false images imposed by the flesh on your mind and this opens you up to answers that will change the problems. In other words you are running towards facts so as to change them. See it this way – as you operate in true worship, you are reversing the effect of “wine”. It carries us past the barrier of irresponsible living. True worship dulls your sensitivity to the flesh, just like wine dulls your sensitivity to happenings around you. This comes about by lending your mouth and your imagination to the Spirit of God.

People who are drunk in wine often do not see clearly. Their vision is distorted. As we behold the glory of the Lord in the mirror we are transformed into the image that we see in the word. You are not really who you think that you are. There is more. You need to exchange vision. Somehow we must see past our current limits until what we see as the glory of the Lord is really seen for what it is - A glory he has shared with us and called us into[John 17:22]. This understanding aids your transformation. The trouble is that our experiences have imprinted on our minds what we think that we are and we have a lot of evidences for it. It will take the greatest fight in you, but you will have to see through the eyes of God’s love to go past this place of comparing spiritual things with natural. You must learn not to compare the spiritual standing of Christ with your natural weaknesses. Through worship you find it easier to compare his spiritual standing with your spiritual exaltation in Christ. It is God’s plan that as you look at Christ your senses contact the things that drive change.


Here is an exercise based on 1 john 4:17 to gain expertise in the practical application and meaning of the baptising the senses. Can you see Jesus as the very holiness and righteousness of the living God? Can you see him seated? Now, you are to worship and give thanks to God the father for Jesus the holy, glorious and righteous one. Now recall that “as he is so are we in this world” – So boldly confess that you are glorious, holy and righteous. Thank God for this slowly and repeatedly.

Worship is a door into the love of God.

It helps you receive more of that love that he has loved you with from all eternity. He cannot love you any more than he does now, but you can discover, bask and live in the reality of more of his unchanging love. Through worship you become more attuned to God’s atmosphere.

There is no end to knowing who he is, but there is a knowledge of him that is sufficient for this dimension of existence that we know as the earth. The love of God will carry you across the barriers of fear. Knowing him can bring your soul into a new set of realities, a place of being where all things are possible.

So you have a little team, and two people leave the team and you throw your hands up in despair? You should be genuinely mindful that the two have left, but very often we are in intense pain because we think that it is all about us - "they left me" - this is where we need restoration. It is not about you, but about him. Your mind gets adjusted by this and true love is born. Love for God, true love for his people – even “deserters”.

You and I are familiar with three creations - The animal, the angelic, and the human. This is the border of revelation that we can cope with, but you can be sure that in God there is a lot that we cannot wrap our brain around just yet. Generally, it seems that men cannot quite handle interaction with the angelic without seeming to loose common sense. Even John had to be instructed against angel worship in the book of revelation. What would happen if more were made obvious to us? Yet God will reveal more. You could postpone it till after death in the sweet by and by or you might as well step the game up one more level now.

We see a pattern in the way that God has created men and angels. The concept of choice is so important to him that he designed even his servants [angels] with power to choose. God has kept this pattern with you also; he has designed you with a right to choose. This is a right that is deeply costly to God for he knows that the choice can work either way, but in love he hasn’t made you a puppet. What pleasure would God get from operating you like a puppet and making you say what he wants to hear? He has billions of creatures in far flung space already serving that function. You have a right to choose confusion when all hell breaks loose around you and it is likely that you have exercised this fundamental right more than a few times or haven’t you?

Some of the angels chose to rebel against God. God’s own very creatures had turned around in rebellion. He also faced rebellion from Adam and humanity. Yet he has made you with a right and a capacity for making choices and he has not withdrawn it. He has eternity. He created it. He has angels around him in glory. Why does he not give up on man? The reason is that He wants sons and daughters who have made a choice to love him - he really wants you.

You also have a fundamental right to throw your hands up in abandonment to the love of the living God. What he wants is for you to want to worship, just because it has become an outflow of your new nature. This means so much to God.


Jesus showed us in the divine exchange called redemption, that the people of the earth are his treasure. God wants to commit enough of himself into your hands such that he can reach out through you to transform lives. This is true wealth.

The truth is that God would like to use you to win London. Or does he need to look farther? This is what it means when it says that God will commit to you the true riches. As love gets a handle on you, God can get the rare opportunity to place his treasures in your care. He knows that in the worst of times you can have the best of communion because you will throw you hands up in worship rather than speak offence to his treasured possession you will speak peace.

According to Peter, this whole structure shall melt with fervent heat. The gold, silver, and current measure of wealth will melt away. The precious human will survive this meltdown.

You matter to him.

Consider this, imagine that a certain rich man has a steward; he asks for a cup of tea, the steward makes it such that it is not hot enough. The rich man is angry; he throws the cup of tea in the steward’s face forgetting that he is addressing a fellow man. He is rich in a sense, but so poor in true riches. He doesn’t have the capacity to contain the true riches of God. Some need to be reminded that they were spared the flood in England before they can find enough reason to release worship. They are too drunk in the senses so you need to constantly shock their minds with gory tales of earthquakes, hurricanes or one disaster or the other before they express thanksgiving. Escaping these grave dangers is all the reason that they can think of. Guys, we need no reason other than that his love overflows in us. He has paid the price. We take our life in our hands and give him influence before men. Love is our motivation.

.... to be continued