Restoring The Order 2026 (day 6) by Apostle Joshua Selman: MP3 Download & Sermon Notes

A Word for the Hour

Habakkuk said he would stand upon his watch and set himself upon the tower to see what the Lord would say to him. Habakkuk 2:1 It is important to bring a word in season, and the assignment placed on the heart for this hour was to teach on the glory of God, a dimension not many believers truly understand, and to connect the manifested presence of God to what happens when he shows up. It is not enough to know that he can come; it is necessary to know what comes when he comes.

Spirit of the living God, we open our hearts tonight and yield our minds to the influence of your person. Quicken us and grant us understanding, for the entrance of your word gives light and understanding to the simple. We receive understanding tonight in Jesus' marvelous name.

Leviticus 9:6

This is a profound scripture: Moses declared that when the people did what the Lord commanded, the glory of the Lord would appear to them. Many love meetings where the presence of God is revealed, yet few have taken the time to actually study the glory of God.

The Three Dimensions of God's Presence

• Omnipresence. His ability to be everywhere at the same time. The psalmist asked where he could hide from God's presence, since even the deepest part of the earth and the highest of the heavens are filled with him.
• The Emmanuel dimension. Where two or three are gathered in his name, he is present in their midst.
• Shakinah, his manifested presence. This is the dimension in which he reveals himself in a way that all things, animate and inanimate, recognize that he is there. These dimensions of his presence do not function at the same level; he is everywhere, but his manifested presence is not everywhere.

Understanding the Word Glory

The glory of God comes from the Hebrew word kabod, or cavod, rendered in Greek as doxa. It was originally not a religious word but an ancient expression used to quantify the worth of a person or thing, examining the distinctive qualities that make it desirable, valuable, even expensive, what could be called its weightiness. To study the glory of anything, therefore, is to break it down into the qualities that make it worthy of honor.

The glory of God is the aggregate of all the dimensions of God that make him worthy of worship, praise, and allegiance: his goodness, his wisdom, his mercy, his kindness. When Moses asked to see God's glory, God answered that he would cause his goodness to pass before him, showing that goodness is only one aspect of a much larger glory.

• The glory of God represents his manifested presence, alongside the resources and blessings that come with that presence.
• The glory of God is revealed to men in weights and measures. 2 Corinthians 4:17 Present affliction, which is light and momentary, works out an eternal weight of glory that comes in layers and in levels.
• A believer's dominion in the kingdom is predicated on the weight of glory that is active in their life. Two believers can be equally born again and filled with the Spirit, yet their possibilities can differ vastly, not because of God's love or of predestination, but because one, through the sacrifice of alignment, has been able to trap a certain weight, a certain texture, of the glory of God in their life. That weight is what causes someone to become a blessing to those around them.

Five Platforms for Experiencing the Glory of God

1. The Prayer Platform

   Luke 9:29 As Jesus prayed, the fashion of his countenance was altered and his clothing became white and glistening. The shakinah that followed covered the sleeping disciples, who awoke and asked what was happening even though they had been asleep; the glory had rested upon them regardless. Prayer is a scripturally authorized platform for accessing the glory of God.

2. The Word Study Platform

   2 Corinthians 3:18 As believers behold the Lord as in a mirror, they are changed, quickened, and revitalized into the same image, from glory to glory, by the Spirit of God.
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Apostle Joshua Selman
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3. The Worship Platform

   2 Chronicles 5:13-14 When the trumpeters and singers were as one, praising and thanking the Lord for his goodness and enduring mercy, the place was filled with a cloud because of the presence of the Lord, so that the priests could no longer stand to minister.

4. The Obedience Platform

   Exodus 25:9, 40:33-34 As Moses built the tabernacle in the wilderness, the Lord repeatedly instructed him to build exactly according to the pattern he had been shown. When Moses finished the work according to that pattern, a cloud covered the tent of the congregation and the glory of the Lord filled the tabernacle.

5. The Sacrifice Platform

   2 Chronicles 7:1-3 At the dedication of the temple in Jerusalem, once Solomon had set the burnt offering and all the sacrifices in place and finished praying, fire came down from heaven and consumed the offerings, and the glory of the Lord filled the house.

Two Elements of True Worship

Every approach to God in worship carries two dimensions: ministering unto God, and receiving from God.

Ministering unto God. Psalm 103:1 Bless the Lord uses the Hebrew word barak, which does not mean to speak or to prophesy but to stoop down, to kneel, as in reverence and worship. The picture of barak is seen in the woman with the alabaster box: her tears worshipped, her hair worshipped, her wealth worshipped, every part of her worshipped him, even while the disciples focused only on how expensive her worship appeared. It was as the church at Antioch ministered unto the Lord that the Holy Spirit spoke and set apart Paul and Barnabas.

The character of ministering unto the Lord is that it carries no requests; it is a heart of gratitude, surrender, and reverence. There is nothing wrong with bringing requests to God, but the moment a request enters, one is no longer purely ministering unto him. Israel understood this: even in captivity, they sang of his goodness and enduring mercy without mentioning their trouble, and the more they extolled him, the more he lifted them. Scripture says, I will call upon the Lord, who is worthy to be praised, so shall I be saved from my enemy. The assignment is not to be saved by looking at the problem or by talking to people about it, but to invoke the presence of God so that it rests upon the situation and it must change.

Receiving from God. By his very nature, God is a giver, and when the saints minister to him sufficiently and truthfully, he responds. That response is what is called his shakinah, his glory, making his presence felt, known, and experienced in the midst of his people. The glory of God was never meant to be a pursuit; it was meant to be a response. When worship gravitates toward a particular dimension of God, his wisdom, his majesty, that is often the very dimension he intends to quicken and grow within the worshipper.

Encounters and Interventions

Every time the shakinah of God is revealed in a place, it brings two experiences.

• Encounters cause conformity to his image and person in ever greater measure. Their assignment is realignment, the circumcision of the heart, death to the flesh, making a person more like Christ. Encounters do not themselves bring healing or breakthrough.
• Interventions are responsible for healings, breakthroughs, and deliverances.

When the glory shows up, it is within the power of the recipient to embrace one, the other, or both. Some receive healing and deliverance yet never truly become like Christ; others grow in alignment to his image without ever experiencing a dramatic breakthrough. Most believers expect only interventions, celebrating the presence of God chiefly for the healing or the breakthrough it produced, yet that is only the lesser benefit of the glory. The greater benefit is transformation, being changed as we behold him. There is a dimension a believer can rise to in the spirit where certain interventions are no longer even needed, because the believer has ascended above the realm that allows for those situations in the first place, much as an aircraft at forty thousand feet is no longer troubled by the traffic and obstacles that trouble those still on the ground.

The Eight Riches of the Glory

Ephesians 3:16 and Philippians 4:19 speak of God granting according to the riches of his glory, and of God supplying every need according to those riches. When the resources that come with the glory are received, there is no need they cannot solve. These resources may be compared to a heavy souvenir given at an occasion in honor of the host, a bag that must be carried home and unwrapped to discover its full contents; when his presence comes and rests, he likewise distributes tokens.

1. Wisdom

   A resource that cannot be purchased anywhere; it is received directly from the glory.

2. Understanding

   The faculty of comprehension.

3. Guidance and direction

   In the place of worship, God can reveal the next strategy for the years ahead and show things to come by the Holy Spirit. Those who always seem to be ahead of their time are not merely fortunate; they have learned to derive profit from the glory.

4. Skill

   A dimension of skill and competence that is not a learned ability but an impartation. Certain abilities, including the capacity to interpret scripture with unusual clarity, come directly from time spent in his presence, in a way no textbook alone can provide.

5. Favor

   That which attracts people, opportunities, and resources.

6. Utterance

   Not grammatical eloquence but the capacity to communicate spiritual realities in a way all people can comprehend, regardless of their intellectual advancement. It is what empowers songs and declarations that carry weight, ministering grace to those who hear, so that even an uneducated person who has stayed long in God's presence can speak in a way that indicts the heart, as though writing ordinances directly upon it.

7. Strength

   Isaiah 40:28-31 Even the young will grow weary, yet those who wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength, running without weariness and walking without fainting. This strength is not bodily vitality alone; it is a sustaining renewal that keeps a believer rising, more and more, rather than declining after reaching a plateau.

8. The spirit of faith

   Certain kingdom assignments require a capacity to trust God beyond ordinary calculation, an impartation of faith to accomplish what only his faith can achieve. An early instruction to host a program in the largest indoor arena in Manchester, on a weekday, before any national conference had yet been held, seemed to defy the ordinary patterns of church growth, yet it was fulfilled by the spirit of faith received through pressing into his presence.

The Heart Posture That Unlocks the Glory

Jeremiah 17:10 The Lord searches the heart and tries the reins, giving to every man according to his ways and the fruit of his doings. While a person sings or prays, God is searching the heart; sincerity, not correctness of technique, determines what is received. Even hunger and desire for personal benefit can produce worship that appears accurate on the outside while there remains corruption within. Scripture says of King Amaziah that he did what was right in the sight of the Lord, but not with a perfect heart.

The greatest secret concerning the glory is a heart posture that is yielded, surrendered, consecrated, and aligned; this is the true order of worship. A voice can be excellent and the skill impeccable, yet what God is truly after is a heart of love, reverence, surrender, and honor. God is a God of pattern, yet his greatest desire in working with people is not the correctness of their compliance but the sincerity of their heart. Some who did not follow every pattern precisely have still received an experience their compliance alone could never earn, because the purity of their heart secured it. When Jesus restored Peter, his question was not whether Peter knew how to fish, but whether Peter loved him.

There is a move in the body of Christ turning people from users, who worship only to obtain benefits, to lovers, who worship God for who he is regardless of what he gives. To say, Lord, if you never bless me, my worship will not stop, and mean it, is the greatest protocol of the glory.

Father, let there be a circumcision within our hearts. Turn us from users to lovers, from transactional worshippers who treat worship only as a vehicle to obtain things, into people who are presence conscious above all else.

There will be an emergence of men and women who understand the glory: surrendered, consecrated, yielded, who love God beyond the things he gives and love his presence beyond the blessings that come with it. A prophetic wave of new songs will rise in the body of Christ, songs that become ladders in the spirit, carrying believers into deep encounters with him. Wherever there has been weariness, sickness, discouragement, or the right mechanics without the presence, from this hour the fullness, the richness, and the weight of God's glory will rest and be experienced.