With great delight I welcome you to the month of August, our Month of Dominion. I thank God who has kept us from Coronavirus and global death. Interestingly, to show how critical and important the issue of dominion is, God during the first creation of the human being, before clothing him with flesh He blessed him and gave him dominion. “And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.” Gen 1:28. I want to thank God for the dimensions reached so far, God is saying however that the level of dominion we have now is like scratching the surface of dominion. My encouragement to the church in this eighth month of the year is to pray individually and corporately that the Lord will open our inner eyes to have dominion afresh.  I pray this month that God will grant you dominion physically, academically, spiritually and in all aspects of your life in Jesus’ name.

What is dominion?

Dominion is defined as control or power over, or the authority to rule. For example, a king rules over a domain his jurisdiction or a territory. Dominion means sovereignty.  Dominion is to have control over something. To dominate in that particular field, be an authority and expert in that area of specialty or human endeavor. To have influence in an area be it spiritual or financial influence over an area. God did not create us as reactionaries but influencers. As individuals, that area you are begging for assistance, struggling in, is an indication that you don’t have dominion yet! Until the church understands dominion correctly, we shall only be reacting to worldly events instead of being in command of worldly events as God purposed for His church.

Finding Dominion

That the word of God promised us fruitfulness, multiplication, replenishment, subdue, and have dominion does not automatically confirm it on individual or the church. That God loves the world and sent his only begotten son to redeem mankind does not mean the whole word will be saved as we have witnessed.

Even when you have met some conditions and you now have dominion in a particular area does not mean you will have dominion in other areas. God gives us all opportunities, we choose the areas we want to take the opportunities, you choose the area you want to have dominion. God gave every believer the opportunity to have dominion over sin, but how many believers have dominion over sin, God have us Christians to have financial dominion how many of us have genuine, integrity based financial dominion. There are some who looted government funds or their companies or banks or did some unwholesome business and came to wealth and brag about financial dominion, which has no place in what God is saying. God promised us dominion over sicknesses and diseases how many are not on one medication or the other? God promised us spiritual dominion how many walk in that realm? For instance God promised “And these signs shall follow them that believe; In my name shall they cast out devils; they shall speak with new tongues; They shall take up serpents; and if they drink any deadly thing, it shall not hurt them; they shall lay hands on the sick, and they shall recover.”  Mk 16:17-18 How many walk-in this dominion. Dominion like the word love is one word we use but rarely practice. If God has promised you and I dominion we have a duty to find dominion at all cost!

1. In what area can I have dominion? You may not have dominion in all areas of human endeavor. You are not wired for that. We all need this understanding about dominion. Nobody is wired for dominion in all areas of life that except God the Almighty. The lion has dominion in the jungle but is powerless in the ocean. The eagle has dominion in the air but is powerless in the ocean, it can zoom to the ocean pick a big fish on the surface but as majestic as it is in the air with his powerful beak and expansive wings that can soar towards the sun unhindered more than 10,000 feet, if it dares to go 100 feet below the waters, it shall never return to the surface! Similarly, the whales, shacks and other fishes that rule the waters, they cannot abandon the waters for the jungles or the air they will die premature death. I am a Chemical Engineer, that is my area of dominion in the vast field of engineering, even at that, Chemical Engineering is so wide that I had my doctorate thesis in polymer engineering. Every expert is in a special field, which is where you have dominion. You must find your area of dominion.  However, God wants all, of us to collectively have dominion over the earth!

2. Time needed to have dominion. To say I am an expert in a tiny field of engineering as I mentioned above, took me to primary school for six, years, modern school for one year, five years, in secondary school, one year in post-secondary school, five years of bachelor’s in engineering, two years to pursue Master’s degree, and five years to pursue a doctorate, a journey from 1961 -1995, that is 34 years!. It means to have dominion requires time and serious effort.  The time you will spend to have dominion will depend on you and many other factors, especially the grace of God upon you.  Isaac said to Esau when you have dominion, you will break the yoke. It took Esau 21 years, from the time Jacob took his blessing and the time he came back with 400 servants to meet him. It took Joseph 13 years from the time he was sold to slavery at age 17 and by his brothers till he became Pharaoh’s second in command at age 30. Find out how many years it took David to have dominion! How many years is it taking you?

3. How do I have dominion? Except you already have dominion, this is a lifelong question. There are types of dominion and there are levels of dominion. Methuselah lived for 969 years and we could not trace his purpose. What do I commit to? What do I spend my years on? That is we also refer to as your purpose. Bear in mind there is no easy answer to that. While some people at a tender age know where they want to have dominion ninety- nine percent of humanity do not know. We have heard of people like Bill Clinton who at a tender age said he wanted to become a politician, he became a Governor and eventually President. Those examples are one in a million, majority of people in life take time to search for areas they want to have dominion in and take great effort to achieve it. There are people who discovered their talent as musicians and artists at a tender age, the likes of Bob Marley, Michelangelo. Others do a mind search, spiritual search, wisdom search and many other searches before they know what to commit to and start their dominion journey. Are you on the search for Dominion?

Areas of Dominion

As Christians today we need to revisit the issue of dominion because it is obvious, we are falling short of this important privilege. From the Genesis 1:28 proclamation it is crystal clear that God created you to have dominion. If therefore we desire dominion, we desire a great thing.  But do we really desire or have dominion, has the church lost focus? Most of the time from one generation to another, from nation to nation we are just reacting to what society is throwing at us. Church buildings are being filled with people, the conference and seminars are becoming more “powerful” according to our polls but sincerely are we having dominion as God purposed for us? Are we subduing the earth, eliminating what God does not want on earth, making the earth like heaven, are we really having dominion?

The church was created to have dominion through you and I to have influence. To galvanize the world to righteousness, prepare the earth for the coming of the Lord. The last time I checked over two- thirds of humanity are still totally in the dark regarding the gospel.

We see from church history that there are many areas we can have dominion.

“In 1975, two Christian leaders, Dr. Bill Bright and Loren Cunningham, got together to give each other a message from God.  To their amazement, each had the same message, independently given to them by God, to give to the other.

Bill Bright was the founder of the world’s largest ministry, Campus Crusade for Christ, a worldwide ministry with 26,000 full-time employees and missionaries in 191 countries.  Loren Cunningham was the founder of Youth With A Mission (YWAM), a ministry with 20,000 full-time staff of more than 150 nationalities. Both of these individuals brought the message of God's love to millions around the world.

However, God had shown both of them that many areas of modern culture still needed to be transformed by the knowledge of God's love.  The Lord showed them seven major areas of society, or “mountains” as they called them, which needed righteous people to influence them, thereby influencing untold millions who were engaged in those seven mountains of society.  About a month later, Francis Schaeffer, leader of L’Abri Fellowship, heard the same thing from God.

These seven mountains are business, government, media, arts and entertainment, education, family and religion.  God showed them in 1975, that this was the way to make the biggest difference in this world.  God wanted these men to equip people to go into these seven mountains of culture and to make positive change: to begin reconciling culture back to God's way of love.”

 In my opinion these God’s Generals heard from God and did their best. We are to take it from there, get involved and determine to have dominion. The question is are we collectively pursuing this? if we are not, then I call on ministers of the gospel to galvanize the church in this direction. We need to go and rule the world, have in government people like Joseph, delivering us from famine and leading us to prosperity, we need to be delivered from corrupters who are governing our nations. We need to take over the media, the air waves, we need to replace CNN, BBC, and all these media channels always churning out evil news promoting satanic agenda with Christ National Networks (CNN) Bible Broadcasting Corporations (BBC). We need to replace all these art and entertainments that are promoting sexuality, sensuous and sinful lifestyles with those that will promote holiness and integrity. I want to thank drama outfits like Mount Zion drama ministry for galvanizing the world towards Christ. We need more movies like Passion of Christ.   We need to replace Hollywood for Christ centered “Jesusgold”. Similar things need to be done in education and family, and particularly in religion. We need to saturate the earth with the gospel.

Misnomer, Misinformation and Misdirection

Most of us as leaders in the church emphasize building projects and the crowd. I have no objection to that but I certainly object to us consuming most of church budgets on church building projects and obviously not knowing what to do with the crowd we have. Most of our teaching is aimed at growing members to become Evangelists and Pastors as if any one that does not function in that area is not fulfilling purpose. So, you see brethren come to outshine and compete with one another as choir members, ushers and such as if that is their only area of dominion. I value church workers and value services they render but we must stop misinforming and misdirecting the church. We need to teach them about how to have dominion even beyond the seven mountains. When Daniel and his team got to Babylon the system wanted to educate them in the area of their culture but they rejected it and educated themselves in the way of God’s dominion. When the test of life came and Nebuchadnezzar himself had a dream he could not remember or interpret, when his astrologers and others failed, Daniel and his team would have failed also but they had superior knowledge from heaven because of the God they served, they were able to influence and have dominion in their generation. We have to teach this generation that dominion is not about struggle for positions. Dominion is about influence in the market place. If someone is good in mathematics as an academician, we need to teach them to know that is the area where they are to have dominion on earth, they may not need to become a pastor. There are many students in our generation who are doing well in our schools but based on the teaching we have given them as to serving in the church, they abandon their studies and go into “ministry” because they don’t even know what ministry is about, they have been taught that ministry is limited to the fivefold ministry- apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors and teachers. What is Ministry? Ministry" is from the Greek word diakoneo, meaning "to serve" or douleuo, meaning "to serve as a slave." Ministry can and should include attending to the physical, emotional, spiritual, mental, vocational, financial and various other needs of others. Ministry is not a vocabulary for the church alone as we often use it today. Some parastatals and government organizations use the word - ministry of education, defense, it is to designate people who serve the nation in that area of the nation.

Let us teach the church that those who are practicing as professionals - as accountants, doctors, artists, engineers, should see that area as the area to have dominion. Most times we talk about financial dominion! How many pastors have financial dominion? To have financial dominion is to be self-sufficient that you can buy whatever you want to buy without looking at any one for help and financial dominion can be achieved only by becoming entrepreneurs, business owners or partners.

That I am a Christian going to heaven doesn’t mean the only vocation available to me is working in the fivefold ministry. That is why the bible teaches we should teach the members not to be children. “That we henceforth be no more children, tossed to and fro, and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the sleight of men, and cunning craftiness, whereby they lie in wait to deceive” Eph 4:14

It appears one of the reasons the younger generation are leaving the church is the irrelevance of what we are teaching, we are not helping them to fulfill purpose. I always refer people at a time like this to my book- Making the Church Relevant to the Church. We must realize that the church itself is a tool to help men and women to achieve God’s purpose for them that is to help humanity find their areas of dominion!

How To Possess Dominion

1. Decipher or Receive the word! You need revelation from God your Maker to decode your areas of dominion. He sent his word and it healed them and save them from their destruction. Psalm 107:20 If you don’t receive God’s word as a Rhema word in a particular area you cannot have dominion in that area, be it spiritual, academic, financial or matrimonial. “Day unto day uttereth speech, and night unto night sheweth knowledge” Psalm 19:2. It gives me joy that God speaks.  As you begin to grow in Christ physically and spiritually God will begin to speak to you about where he wants you to have dominion. Don’t deviate from it, rather gyrate towards it. He might speak the word through reading the bible, a word of prophecy, circumstances, a voice, a suggestion from a reliable source, but find the word that shows you where you are to have dominion. Some people can call it your vision or mission. Just let that word register in your spirit

2. Ponder on the word/ Revelation. Don’t let the vision die. Digest it, pray over it, seek information over it. Mary pondered on the word the angel gave to her. David was a man after God’s heart because he pondered on his word. Joseph had trouble initially in his life because he didn’t ponder on the word. I used to have a member who had difficulty in child bearing, because anytime she was pregnant, she was quick to tell her enemies about it and as she divulged the information, she lost the pregnancy. Which area has God revealed to you to have dominion? Take time to prepare. Some of us spend the time we should spend in the closest to prepare ministry broadcasting too early and so we make mistakes and instead of dominion we are dominated.  About a decade ago there was a Christian phone company that was competing with iPhone and other phone outfits and before we know it, it completely disappeared. Abraham Lincoln is often quoted as having said, “If I had eight hours to chop down a tree, I'd spend six sharpening my axe. By failing to prepare we prepare to fail.” Prepare to have dominion.

3. Practice Or Develop The Word/ Profession. “This book of the law shall not depart out of thy mouth; but thou shalt meditate therein day and night, that thou mayest observe to do according to all that is written therein: for then thou shalt make thy way prosperous, and then thou shalt have good success.” Joshua 1:8 There is something called passion . You must be passionate about the word, your revelation. That vision, that word that God has given you as an area to have dominion must be developed passionately- it must not depart from you, you must ponder upon it and work on it. You must practice it. It is said that practice leads to perfection. No champion is impassionate and have dominion. “Seest thou a man diligent in his business? He shall stand before kings; he shall not stand before mean men” Prov 22:29. You must not only be focused you must work hard to have dominion. How did Esau have dominion, when he was told he must have dominion to break the yoke-He joined Ishmael and worked hard. Find the right people to associate with and break the yoke of poverty, curses and failures in you!

4. Perseverance on the word/ revelation- Some want cheap dominion, which does not exist anywhere. Some want fast money. Fast money, stolen money cannot give you financial dominion. The source of People who have financial dominion the likes of Bill Gate, Warren Buffett, Mark Zuckerberg is seen, their efforts, how they persevere daily with their team. People who have ministerial dominion labor daily. Recently the world has heard of Eric Yuan the ZOOM magnate. To even migrate to the USA from China he applied 8 times, in 1967 he has started working on this ZOOM project that COVID-19 helped him to boost. To have dominion in any area be willing to persevere. Challenges will come. Inability to take risks, to make sacrifices has made it difficult for Gen 1: 28 to be a reality for the vast majority of Christians. Change your story.

5. Expect to get there. Believe you shall one day have dominion. Don’t lose hope - “for then thou shalt make thy way prosperous, and then thou shalt have good success” is what the scripture says. Is it in the area of human development, technology, finance, marriage, child bearing, ministry, and career pursuit? Dominion is not an illusion, it is real. Jesus had dominion you will have dominion.

Conclusion: In the name of Jesus that promised us dominion you and I shall have dominion. We shall make heaven happy that we walked on the planet earth with the bible in our hands.