How to Take Maximum Advantage Of The Grace Of God
Sunday AM Session: Pastor Jonathan Shuttlesworth
Disclaimer: This article is the best attempt to capture the wisdom and knowledge delivered during this inaugural camp meeting. It's a literal impossibility to put into words the anointing contained in this message and in the ones that will proceed it. It's written to inspire you to click the link at the end of the article, tune into the broadcast and receive as much as you can through listening to the full Word of God that was preached. God Bless you!
When Paul wrote to the church in Galatia, he said, “I do not frustrate the grace of God.”
The prevalent teaching in America today is that whatever God wants for your life will happen because we all have the same grace. Let’s get something straight, everyone has access to the grace of God, but the grace of God has to be accessed.
The grace of God has to be accessed, and the grace of God can be frustrated. I wanted to take the opening meeting of What No Eye Has Seen, to make this known: Every meeting is going to fire on all cylinders. This is not a church convention. This is not an excuse to have extra services. Every speaker has been carefully chosen by God.
There’s no mistaking that this camp meeting and the ministers scheduled to preach came together by the quickening of the Holy Spirit. I gave our staff five weeks notice to put this entire camp meeting together. At first I thought to myself, ‘maybe I’m disorganized’, but then I spoke with Joel Osteen’s former chief of staff. He told me a story of when Joel Olsteen called them to tell them the Lord spoke to him to start traveling to cities in America and he gave them a list of cities.
Joel Olsteen told his staff he wanted to hold his meetings in the hockey arenas within the cities on his list. The list was given to his staff in April. The next question his staff asked was when the meetings would begin. Joel Olsteen said June. His staff assumed that gave them 14 months to plan and make it happen. They were wrong. Joel Olsteen was referring to the upcoming June. The June that was two months away.
The Holy Ghost is a quickening spirit. You're rarely going to have God speak to you about something He wants you to do two years down the line.
The Bible shows us examples of God wanting things acted upon immediately.
“Now, Abraham depart from your house now.”
So I was quick. Nothing will ever be done at this church for the purpose of tradition alone. However, I do feel in my spirit that when the Lord put this camp meeting on my heart, that it’s to be an annual event. There will be a What No Eye Has Seen 2024 and 2025, until the return of the Lord Jesus Christ.
This is not a church convention. It's not a denominational gathering. It's not just a yearly get together, where we’ll vote on church issues. Zero voting of any kind will take place here. This is a gathering of champions in the body of Christ. Both the speakers and the people who attend are champions. There are ministers present from all over the world and God is going to use the servants to leave a deposit in you.
The same attitude people have towards financial blessing is present in their spiritual life. It’s an attitude that believes, whatever God wants to happen is going to happen. God doesn't need us. God can do it anyway. But that’s not what God’s Word says. God put people on Earth who carry something from heaven.
The book of Hebrews speaks of men who this world is not worthy. Men like TL Osbourne preached during a time when missionaries traveled to foreign countries, learned the local language, adopted the culture and slowly led people to the Lord, one by one. If a missionary led 8-10 people to the Lord in a year, it was a good year.
TL Osborn had an encounter with Jesus Christ, and he received a revelation that caused him to operate differently. He began to put a stage up overseas. God showed him how to draw people in and preach the gospel of Jesus Christ. He began to preach faith into people that caused the blind to see, the deaf to hear and all kinds of miracles to occur.
He traveled to Jamaica to preach and 48 students from the national deaf school came to the meeting. On the first night, 46 of the 48 students miraculously heard and spoke. The second night, the remaining two were healed. On the third night, the teachers from the deaf school came to believe that God would help them find employment because the government shut the school down for lack of deaf students.
Another TL Osborn story worth mentioning is when he traveled to speak in Uganda. He was given one of the most esteemed pastors to be his interpreter. TL Osborn turned him down and appointed an 18 year old, who happened to be present on the platform, to interpret for him instead, as led by the Spirit. That young man ended up accompanying TL Osborn on his crusade all throughout Uganda. On the last night of the crusade he poured whatever oil was left in his jug over the young man’s head. That young man is Robert Kayanja. He’s the pastor of the largest church in Uganda, Miracle Center, in Kampala. His church seats 10,000 people. TL Osbourne was not an ordinary man. He was a man who carried God’s power.
Robert Kayanja is a powerful man of God in his own right. He held 70 Days of Glory seven times throughout the1960s. The first time resulted in an altar stacked with wheelchairs, walkers and crutches. The second round caused Imams, leaders of the Muslim church, to receive salvation as they laid their Muslim garments down at the altar. The third round triggered famous DJs and professional athletes to come forward and give their lives to God. Pastor Kayanja broadcasted the meetings on national television. It yielded true repentance that shook the country.
Fast forward to the present day. Uganda was recently visited by Vice President, Kamala Harris. She offered Uganda millions of dollars to adopt LQBTQ ideologies and policies. Fortunately, she was asked to keep her money and fly back to America. That stance didn’t just happen. Pastor Kayanja’s ministry, inspired by TL Osborn, changed the course of an entire nation.
Not everyone operates on the same level of God’s grace. You would have to disregard the book of Ezekiel to believe otherwise. The Bible speaks of the supernatural river that flowed ankle deep, knee deep, waist deep, and overhead (Ez. 47:3-5).
The previous three years, America endured the most wicked assault it's ever experienced. Meetings like the one we’re having now were never supposed to happen again. The devil attempted to shut down the church because he knew what was coming. He knew that if he didn’t succeed, our 18-month old church would foster in the greatest move of God that has ever hit the United States of America. The same way the devil tried to kill all the baby boys in Egypt because he knew Moses was coming and tried to do the same thing in Bethlehem because he knew Jesus was on His way, he knew what the church of the Lord Jesus Christ would produce in the last days. The devil knows what Joel saw in chapter 2 verse 28,
“And it shall come to pass afterward that I will pour out My Spirit on all flesh; Your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your old men shall dream dreams, your young men shall see visions.”
He knew it was coming. So he tried to stop it. But the devil did what he does best, he failed. We now have a three year window where God is going to do a multiplied work and you're not going to watch it happen. You’re reading this because God wants you to be a part of what’s happening in Jesus' name.
I wanted to use the opening service to tell you how to get maximum value from this type of meeting. After decades of being a pastor’s kid, I've learned how to miss it and how to get it.
Although Pastor Rodney Howard Browne and I are friends, I don’t attend his meetings to show support. I’m there to receive from the Lord. Many times I've sat in a meeting and I couldn't tell you one thing that happened because the Holy Spirit was speaking his own sermon to me while I was there.
Many of the ideas that we’ve adopted at Revival Today Church that have triggered enormous increase and blessing came in spirit anointed meetings. When you're in a heavily charged atmosphere of the Holy Ghost, where the presence of God flows, ideas begin to come from the Holy Ghost. Do this. Go forward. Walk in this direction. God will give you ideas for your business.
So how do you maximize the grace of God that will be flowing from this pulpit each day and night? I want to use the Bible to show you how to take maximum advantage of the grace of God.
Recognize The Hour of Your Visitation
“They will crush you into the ground, and your children with you. Your enemies will not leave a single stone in place, because you did not recognize it when God visited you.”
The New King James Version says it this way,
“and level you, and your children within you, to the ground; and they will not leave in you one stone upon another, because you did not know the time of your visitation.”
People viewed Elijah as Israel’s troublemaker. Some people misidentify the time of their visitation as an enemy, while others are indifferent.
Most people can't recognize the hour when God visited them. Most people only appreciate people after they're dead. They don't recognize the hour of their visitation. Everyone loves Smith Wigglesworth now. They realize he was a gift from God who carried a special gift.
However, when he was alive, those who invited him in as a guest speaker were stripped of their credentials by their denomination. He raised 21 people from the dead. He was one of the most controversial ministers that’s ever lived.
Lester Sumrall visited Smith Wigglesworth in England twice a day towards the end of his life. Wigglesworth told Sumrall that he was the only minister who had visited him in a year and a half. When Wigglesworth died he became a hero. After people are dead and gone, you can use your imagination to romanticize them to be whoever you want them to be. Men like Wigglesworth were sent to their generation by God.
If you're not careful, you'll make the same mistake and believe all the great men of God are dead and gone. God said in His Word, He never leaves any generation without a witness (Acts 14:17).
When Jesus turned the water into wine, the master of ceremonies remarked,
“Every man at the beginning sets out the good wine, and when the guests have well drunk, then the inferior. You have kept the good wine until now!”
The men and women God reserved for this generation in these last days will do even greater works than those who came before them.
Joel 2:28 and Acts 2:17 tells us what will happen in the last days. In the midst of everything negative happening in the world, God is going to pour out His spirit on all flesh. God is raising up the strongest church that's ever existed in the 2000 year history of the church. Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania is a part of that strong church!
If you’re reading this, you understand that God places grace in people and allows others to tap into it. God doesn’t bestow grace on people so they can show off. Grace is impartable. The things of the Spirit are released to the hearer.
Jesus called His disciples together and breathed on them and said, “Receive ye the Holy Ghost.” It's not just the information and notes of a sermon that produces. There is a spiritual transference that occurs when you open your heart.
Last year, when we hosted 40 Days of Glory, the ruling against the EPA was released. The ruling upheld the constitution and deemed it unlawful for them to enforce all the wicked covid protocols.
During the three weeks of revival in Texas, the Supreme Court ruled in favor of freedom last week. When the Word of God goes forth it affects you and your nation. It drags the devil’s sorry butt back into oblivion. You can expect another victory for America this week! As we speak, there’s a bill being proposed to strip funding from any legislation from the United Nations and the World Economic Forum. The tide has turned!
You have to make sure, in the midst of the changing tide, that you don’t follow in the footsteps of the previous generations of Christians. Christians seem to only know how to get in gear when they're pressed or feel under attack. It shouldn’t take stage four cancer to get Christians in church. You should have the same commitment to God, His house, and His Word when you’re financially stable as when you’re in financial turmoil.
God is merciful, but understand that even with momentum on your side, you have to keep your foot on the gas. Put the other heel of your boot on the devil's head and experience the greatest move of God this nation’s ever seen. These meetings will play a part in that.
2. Honor Men of God
The Bible teaches us to honor men of God.
“He who receives a prophet in the name of a prophet shall receive a prophet’s reward. And he who receives a righteous man in the name of a righteous man shall receive a righteous man’s reward.”
Some time ago, I preached at a youth camp where some major miracles took place. Among those in attendance were two girls who had been cutting themselves on the hip for a year and a half. While at the altar, I called them out and said, “There’s a spirit that derives pleasure from seeing you destroy and mutilate your body. The Lord has delivered you from that spirit tonight.” They fell out under the power.
The next day, they testified. As they were changing for bed, the 18 months of scar tissue that had built up where they had cut themselves was gone. As one girl went to tell her friend, her friend was coming to tell her that hers vanished as well. They were both delivered and all traces of the assault were gone.
One morning service they had the camp nurse speak. She talked about how God didn’t need me to do anything. Even though many of the youth wanted me to pray for them, it wasn’t necessary because God didn’t need me. God could do whatever He wanted to do all by Himself. I changed my sermon that night and preached against what she said. I don’t spend time away from my family preaching for no reason. Whatever God wants done, He can’t do without me.
I’m not saying this to boast. I’m using it as an example. America has devalued pastors. Like it or not, God uses people.
I don’t receive my dad as my buddy, or friend, or even my dad. I receive him, in my spirit, as a man of God. He’s a man of God who’s been given a gift by God for a specific purpose on this earth. The same goes for my Uncle Ted. I don’t speak to him like he’s my uncle. I receive from the gift of God that’s on the inside of him.
The Bible says,
“Therefore, from now on, we regard no one according to the flesh. Even though we have known Christ according to the flesh, yet now we know Him thus no longer.”
The church has referred to each other as brother and sister for ages. It’s an acknowledgement of who we are as members of the body of Christ. You no longer see the person next to you according to who they are in the flesh. The person to your right is not simply an accountant, they’re your brother in Christ and someone who God’s hand is upon.
If you don't receive a prophet in the name of a prophet, you'll miss the reward that God sent them to bring you. Don’t identify Jesse Duplantis based on who he is in the flesh. He’s not just some pastor from Louisiana with a jet. View him and other men of God as people who God has blessed with a gift to deliver to their generation. Then, you’ll be able to receive from them.
There’s a noticeable difference between the woman in 1 Kings, chapter 17 and the woman in 2 Kings, chapter 4. In first Kings, the woman planned to eat one last meal with her son and die. When she received Elijah as a man of God, her whole life changed, but before she did that, life for her was bleak. She was planning to die. But Elijah couldn’t help her until she accepted him as a man speaking a word from the Lord. Likewise, no man of God can help you until you receive them as someone God’s gifted to your generation.
“Then He went out from there and came to His own country, and His disciples followed Him. And when the Sabbath had come, He began to teach in the synagogue. And many hearing Him were astonished, saying, “Where did this Man get these things? And what wisdom is this which is given to Him, that such mighty works are performed by His hands! Is this not the carpenter, the Son of Mary, and brother of James, Joses, Judas, and Simon? And are not His sisters here with us?” So they were offended at Him. But Jesus said to them, “A prophet is not without honor except in his own country, among his own relatives, and in his own house.” Now He could do no mighty work there, except that He laid His hands on a few sick people and healed them. And He marveled because of their unbelief. Then He went about the villages in a circuit, teaching.”
They scoffed at Jesus.
Who's this guy?
Wasn't he a carpenter two years ago?
Hey, Bob. Didn't help you build your bookshelves?
And now He’s the son of God, yeah, I'll pass.
In contrast, the woman in 2 Kings chapter 4 recognized Elijah as a man of God and built an addition on her house for him to stay as he was passing through. As soon as she honored the gift in Elijah, that gift continued to produce for her. It is my sincere prayer that the best of what God puts in these men's spirit will flow into every one of you as you tap into it In Jesus’ mighty name.
You have to ensure you don’t allow yourself to become familiar with an anointing. Attend every session as though you’re coming to receive something from Jesus, through these men and women.
Say this: God uses people.
Christ is the head, we are the body. If your head wants a Mountain Dew out of your refrigerator, but your body is unwilling to get up off of the living room couch, you remain thirsty. When the head of the church, Jesus, wants something done, He needs the body, the church, to cooperate.
3. Understand the Differences In Men of God
“Now the sons of Eli were corrupt; they did not know the Lord. And the priests’ custom with the people was that when any man offered a sacrifice, the priest’s servant would come with a three-pronged fleshhook in his hand while the meat was boiling. Then he would thrust it into the pan, or kettle, or caldron, or pot; and the priest would take for himself all that the fleshhook brought up. So they did in Shiloh to all the Israelites who came there. Also, before they burned the fat, the priest’s servant would come and say to the man who sacrificed, “Give meat for roasting to the priest, for he will not take boiled meat from you, but raw.” And if the man said to him, “They should really burn the fat first; then you may take as much as your heart desires,” he would then answer him, “No, but you must give it now; and if not, I will take it by force.” Therefore the sin of the young men was very great before the Lord, for men abhorred the offering of the Lord.
Not all men of God are the same.
Shortly after God rebuked Eli’s son’s He exalted Samuel.
“So Samuel grew, and the Lord was with him and let none of his words fall to the ground.”
We see another example of the difference between people who call themselves men of God and actual men of God.
“Then some of the itinerant Jewish exorcists took it upon themselves to call the name of the Lord Jesus over those who had evil spirits, saying, “We exorcise you by the Jesus whom Paul preaches.” Also there were seven sons of Sceva, a Jewish chief priest, who did so. And the evil spirit answered and said, “Jesus I know, and Paul I know; but who are you?” Then the man in whom the evil spirit was leaped on them, overpowered them, and prevailed against them, so that they fled out of that house naked and wounded.
Those men may have known the right words to say, but there was no power behind them. The demons knew it. Not only did they refuse to come out, they beat the men up and sent them on their way.
These men who will speak this week are seasoned veterans of the faith, whom God has used to shake regions. The quality of your life will largely be determined by the quality of the hands that are laid on your head. There are people who when they lay hands on you and pray for you, things change. There's a release of the Spirit of God into your spirit. I pray the flow of the Holy Ghost will move unhindered from this pulpit into every hungry receptive heart.
I want to close by sharing something my Uncle Ted told me. He said when Isaac dug his well, the Philistines stopped it up. Anytime something's dug in the spirit and a well springs forth, the enemy comes and tries to stop it up. He told me Kathryn Kuhlman, among others, dug a well in Pittsburgh in the spirit, and it touched the whole country. Now others have come and stopped it up.
There are churches in the area that make comments like,
“What they used to do back then doesn't work anymore.”
“What brother Hagin used to do doesn't work anymore.”
“The Holy Spirit doesn't work now.”
That's called stopping up a well. Then a new river begins to flow and it brings fentanyl and mental disorders, but the well of salvation brings healing. It purifies and cleanses the mind.
My uncle likened our Wednesday and Sunday services to digging a well, but this camp meeting is like taking an excavator to the well. The devil threw dirt over the well in an attempt to stop the flow of the Holy Spirit from reaching a new generation, but the well is opening once again in Pittsburgh and it will affect the nations of the world.
4. Do Your Part To Receive
In Mark chapter six, we read it’s possible for God to come to a place with a desire to do mighty works, but if the people refuse His messenger, He can’t operate the way He wants to.
The devil can’t stop a man of God. All he can do is what he did to Jesus in Mark chapter six. The devil can't stop the flow of the Word of God, he can only get you to disparage the messenger.
“Then the Spirit entered me when He spoke to me, and set me on my feet; and I heard Him who spoke to me.”
The primary way to receive impartation is evident from Jesus’ ministry. Jesus taught, then preached, then healed. In Acts chapter 14, the man who was crippled from birth listened to Paul preach. When Paul noticed the man, he realized he had faith to be healed. Faith is a spiritual force.
The impartation of the Word put power inside a crippled man and instantly he stood to his feet and began to walk. The Bible does the work. Jesus had compassion on the multitude, so He taught them many things out of the Word. The Spirit came and they were joyed. The sad began to rejoice. Something was firing into them.
“When I call to remembrance the genuine faith that is in you, which dwelt first in your grandmother Lois and your mother Eunice, and I am persuaded is in you also. Therefore I remind you to stir up the gift of God which is in you through the laying on of my hands. For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind.”
This scripture is an example of imparted faith. Who you surround yourself with matters. Timothy received an impartation of faith. Not only can you receive impartation, you can give impartation. The same way families pass down alcoholism and mental disorders, you can pass down faith and an insatiable love for God. Your children and grandchildren will reap the benefits of this week in your life.
God doesn’t determine what you receive, you do. He’s set the table for everyone. If you want to sit and watch other people eat, you're welcome to, but if you want to go up to the buffet until the manager kicks you out, it’s completely up to you.
The Bible says in Acts 10:34, “God is no respecter of persons.” That means what he'll do for one he'll do for anyone. There is no cost to hear the Word of God.
Simon the sorcerer offered Peter money because he wanted to receive the power Peter demonstrated. Peter replied and said, “May your money perish with you for thinking the gifts of God could be purchased with money” (Acts 8:20).
The gifts of God can't be bought, but they can't be received. The price you pay to receive is hunger and thirst. In the original language, it's a starvation hunger and a dying of thirst.
“As the deer pants for the water brooks, so pants my soul for You, O God.”
I want to encourage you to force your flesh to come to every meeting hungry. Congratulations in advance on the best week you've ever had. No Eye Has Seen 2023 is a time when the Spirit will be poured out on anyone who’s hungry and thirsty.
