By Apostle Joy Museba

Philemon 1:10-13

“While here in jail,  I have fathered a child, so to speak. And here he is, hand-carrying this letter–Onesimus! He was useless to you before; now he’s useful to both of us. I’m sending him back to you, but it feels like I’m cutting off my right arm in doing so. I wanted in the worst way to keep him here as your stand-in to help out while I’m in jail for the Message.”

This scripture is transformational. It is a scripture that clearly states that transformation is possible. Useless things can be made useful. Useless people can be made useful. Even though I am going to explain the word ‘useless’ or ‘unprofitable’  to you, what it means in this scripture I may want to take it as it is, verbatim.

At a point, there is someone who insulted you telling you that you are useless. What we want to deal with here is just beyond being useless because sometimes you are useful but you can be insulted or you may be cursed that you are useless. Those curses need to be reversed, be changed, and if that curse came in the form of a word we have to convert that curse using words that the same curse may be converted into becoming a blessing. Transformation is possible. Change is possible and this morning I’m carrying a grace and anointing for change.

If you know you are unprofitable I want you to depart from this place profitable. If you know you are profitable but you were cursed and insulted through words that you are useless we want to deal with that curse. We want to uproot it and we want to throw it away. We want those who work with you to give you the respect you deserve to give you the honor you deserve and treat you like a human. You deserve that because you carry the image and the likeness of God.

We are getting a man here called Onesimus. Onesimus means profitable or useful. He was given a good name but however the man lived a life that was contrary to his name. Though he was called profitable, he was unprofitable. Though he was called useful, he was useless. Though he was called benefit, he was a liability. He is a man with a good name but living a life completely contrary to his name. The significance of names in Bible times was that a name stands as a prophecy to the person named. So if a person is named pain like Jabez it is a prophecy that his life is going to be full of pain and toiling. It took a prayer to reverse the pain, the struggle, and the toil when he said ‘that You would bless me indeed and enlarge my territory. Let Your hand be with me and keep me from harm that I may be free from pain’ because he was dealing with a prophecy uttered at birth (1 Chronicles 4:9-10). That prophecy had weight and power to define his life in the future.

They are just not names, they are prophecies. Prophecy given to a person is like a magnet. It attracts the details of the prophecy. A prophecy of a blessing will attract good things to the person blessed. A prophecy of a curse will attract wickedness to the person who has been cursed.

When a person is given a prophecy it might not be fulfilled the day they are given the prophecy. Even when you are blessed the blessing may not make you rich or flourish the day you have been blessed but in the process of time, you become blessed. When you are cursed you do not wake up poor the next day. It is in the process of time that you find yourself in a poverty-stricken destination and you wonder what happened to you and yet you grew into it. There are people who get so concerned about their state today not knowing they have been developing and progressing into that state for a long time. If you see a person who is stuck and stranded in life do not think there is only one thing that happened to that person there are a lot of things that have been happening and the person has been progressing to that state.

I believe a person can not just die even when there is no God or devil involved. A person is sacred and can not just die. If you get sick and die I would also want to find out for how long were you sick. People would say it was a short illness but when we get into the details of the matter the short illness is only the time we were told but the person might have been sick for months or years. The person can be deteriorating and the sickness will be progressing and not being attended to. This is one level of foolishness exhibited by Christians mistaking it for faith. When you get sick you get to the clinic before the sickness has progressed because a stitch in time saves nine. You need to nip it in the bud, the day you get sick you feel that something is not right with me and we do not have to let the disease progress to other stages and phases before attending to it. When you go to the doctor the day you fall sick you are likely to recover quickly. When you go after three days or months you need good time to recover, if you are to recover anyway.

You will find there are people who get sick and they do not do anything about it. They claim and demand yet their claims and demands are not from a point of understanding but a point of ignorance. Faith comes by hearing the Word and the Word of God which means that there is no faith without information. You have to demonstrate faith that is informed. To be a Christian does not mean you do not take medication. Remember is there no balm in Gilead (Jeremiah 8:22)? Any medication that was invented was invented  because God gave ideas to scientists. That’s a good idea in a tablet, in a drip, in an injection. You do not have to look at a drip or injection as an evil thing. You are not of less faith if you are taking tablets, you are a person of great understanding. Some of you are going to be healed of any condition even HIV but when the day comes you have to be alive and if you are going to be healed after years you need to be taking your medication to sustain you till then. At that time you are checked and they tell you you are free. Your blood pressure is normal. Your sugar level is normal. You can say you are now free from taking your medication but it would have sustained you to that extent. If you say I will wait for God you will die and you get to heaven and God will ask you why did you die when I gave scientists ideas to sustain you to have a life?

The problem we have in Africa is that we do not want to know. People do not even go to the doctor for a checkup. They can’t even check what amount is left in their wallets they just want to use it. We do not want to have that kind of reality. Some are limping and it is a very small problem when checked the doctor might say you need to cycle for three weeks. That person can even think that it’s a huge problem and can opt for herbal treatment. There’s no sickness that can not be treated at the hospital. If they fail, there are specialists for that illness. God is the one who gave us doctors. Even Jesus moved around with a doctor, a physician, Doctor Luke even though He was never sick.

There are certain things like fasting that you need to do with understanding. Fasting is abstaining from food and/or drink for a period for prayer. It can be breakfast if you are taking your breakfast religiously. Remember it’s not how you afflict your body that gives you breakthrough. It is your understanding and how you focus on God in the time you separated yourself. There are issues we learned. Some people died after fasting for thirty days because they had underlying conditions and they deteriorated in terms of their hydration and nutrition supply during the thirty days. This is why you need a father above you, a person who guides you. It is not the consistency of fasting, it is the improvement of understanding that makes you better. A long fasting should be accompanied by a better understanding of spiritual and physical things. There are people who push longer and harder and they die for God. The point is not to die for God but to live for God. Martyrs die for God but we are here to live. You choose but we all meet in heaven, as long as you are doing it for Him.

Fasting on an interview day? You need a word from your man of God. You have prayed and now you need a man of God to say a word. It is a blessing that will make you become. Within you lies the power of becoming. The power to become great, wealthy, and an authority it is within you. You don’t start being great, you become. Become means ‘coming to be’ so it means you will come to be great from a certain state.

You come from a state, what is that? Onesimus! He was formerly useless but he is now useful. What made him useful is he became a child, submitted, and found a mentor in prison. Paul was arrested for preaching. Onesimus was in prison for other things including borrowing money, and debts. On verse 18 it will show you how useless this guy was, he was taking everyone’s money and not returning it. Verse 18 “If he damaged anything or owes you anything, chalk it up to my account.”

The father said he was going to take care of the damages. A man whose name means profit is in the business of borrowing and damaging. As you are departing from this place you have to be aware that there is something great that the Lord is doing with His people. You are going to move from the group labeled unprofitable were you know you have not made a profit in 2023. You do not have anything to point out that you have been profitable this year. There are things you have been doing but there has been no profit and we are going to move you so that you may become profitable.

Verse 10 “While here in jail, I’ve fathered a child, so to speak. And here he is, hand-carrying this letter–Onesimus!”

There are two important words there. Paul found a child in Onesimus and Onesimus found a father in Paul. It is not only about you finding a father that counts. It’s also about your father finding a child in you. It is not about you finding a woman but the woman submitting to you.

Ephesians 5:25

“Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it;”

Husbands love their wives as Christ loved the church. They ask how should we love our wives.

How did He love the church? While we were sinners He loved us. He loved us before we were perfect and He gave His life for us. Christ did not sacrifice for a perfect church. Some men complain about their women not being lovable comparing them with those who are but those women you see as loveable became loveable because of being loved. Women submit to their husbands. Husbands being told of love because there are problems with men, men can have relations with a woman and not be attached. This should also tell you what it means to women, love is automatic when they come closer to you because when they get close love is involved. Men are being told to love and not women because for women love is automatic. Men have issues because love is coded in them in the form of respect. You can not love a man disrespectfully, it means to him you do not love him. Most men date those lower than them because they know submission is automatic. If you think a weak person, a person you are funding is submitting to you then something is wrong with you. What you call submission is weakness, poverty. You need a challenging woman who still comes and submits. You need a person who is in a position of power.

The fact that she does not have money and submits it is a fake submission. True submission is when she has money but still asks or consults you. Some of these coming to you are not submitting but looking for funding. If you have a woman with her own money and she asks then that is true submission. Allow them to make their own money and if they consult you, you know that this is respect. But you are trying to overprotect your territory and be the only one making money, bring the food on the table.

You need a helper, you need a woman who is profitable and useful. If you are a husband with a primary school teacher’s mentality you will not succeed in teaching your wife everything. You are not the one to do that, let her go where these things are trained by professionals. This is a church of champions and giants and whenever we gather it is a gathering of champions. We have to keep sharpening each other so that there is no one called useless, who is in a place of usefulness and profitability.

He found a father, he found a mentor. This is the beginning. You can’t be better if you are not mentored, male or female. You need a voice that speaks and when they speak you hear. Do you have a person who can stop you when you are about to do something? A person who when they say something you listen? You don’t need a doll that stands as your mentor and you don’t even follow their instructions. Some say he is my father or my mentor but you do not take that person’s instructions, you keep doing what you want. You force the mentor to follow what you want when you consult him. A mentor should find a mentee in you. A father should find a child in you. Do not think it is just about the father, it is also about the son. The transformation came to the man when he became a child to a father he had found and he became a mentee to the mentor he had found. He became a child and he was taught until his term in prison was over. The father wrote a letter and gave it to him and in the letter he wrote receive my son Onesimus who was formerly useless. It is in a letter you are carrying. Some of you thought you lost certain opportunities. We are writing a spiritual letter to you. You are taking it back to the same place and we are addressing situations. People who called you useless will find it in your father’s handwriting that we are agreeing that he was useless but it is a thing of the past, the person is now useful to me and also to you.

You are to be profitable. Your name is Onesimus, profit is coming. Paul is saying sending him to you is like cutting my right arm, it means he is now useful.

May I declare that even if you know for sure that you were useless and you have accepted it, I am here to tell you that transformation is possible? Formerly useless people can become useful. If you were cursed with a curse of being useless.

I stand here as a voice, a prophet over your life that the words of being useless are changed today from a curse to a blessing.

You are going to be useful!

You are going to be profitable in the mighty name of Jesus!

We are useful people because of the grace of God.