Sunday Service – 24th April 2022
For many people, faith is a mystery and even scripture says that, faith is a mystery , But even though faith is a spiritual mystery, it is also a workable, practical reality .So, faith is workable until you see the result of it. Our objective in this study is to know how to work faith, to deploy the force of faith so we can see visible and tangible results.
The reason why we must work faith, so we can see visible, tangible result is because, many things depend on our faith.
1). Your victory depends on your faith (1 John 5:4). So, there’s no victory without faith. Defeat is inevitable without faith.
2). Your life depends on your faith, because the just shall live by faith (Habakkuk 2:4). So, it is possible to be cut short without faith.
3). Your health and your wholeness depend on your faith (Matthew 9:22, Mark 10:52). Our health and our wholeness are anchored on our faith.
4). Our stand and stability in life is dependent on our faith (Romans 5:2, 1 Corinthians 16:13).
What is the faith process; what process do we put in place to cause the force of faith to be released, so we can see results?
1). Word-revelation/Word-insight. Faith begins when you arrive at the Word point on particular situations; looking for and locating the position of God, out of scripture for particular situations that concern you. That is, “on this matter of my health or marriage or enemy attack, what is the position of God?” When I look for the position of God, when I locate the position of God on particular issues of concern, faith begins.
You may know what the circumstance has said, you may know what the economy has said, you may know what the devil or the report has said, but the question is; what has God said? When you know what God is saying, when you have seen what God is saying; you are at the beginning of faith.
The circumstance said that nobody in your family should rise above a certain level. But the Bible said, the path of the just is a shining light that shineth more and more unto the perfect day.
The circumstance of your community said that there’s a ceiling, a limit, but the Word says that you are seated in Heavenly places in Christ Jesus, far above principalities and powers. Faith begins when you know what God has said (Romans 10:8, 17).
The Word is the fuel of faith (Acts 6:7). This is important because, the Word of God is the seed of faith (Luke 8:11, 1 Peter 1:23I want you to hear something that will change your life forever. What do you do with seed? You plant it, so you can reap a harvest.
Any area of life where you need harvest, where you need fruit or result, in that area, locate the seed Word. “I need the harvest of divine protection; I don’t want any devil to waste my life before my time; what do I do?” I step into scripture to locate the seed Word that will guarantee my preservation (Psalm 105:15, Psalm 91:1, 7).
When I carry those seeds and sow them in the soil of my heart, they produce the fruit according to their kind.
2). Heart conviction. The revelation of the Word is to produce a conviction in your heart. The Word you just received, is designed to affect what you believe and this is important, because you cannot believe the wrong thing and see the right result. Many people believe the wrong thing and they are expecting to see the right result.
For example, some people believe that God heals only those He want to heal and those He doesn’t want, He doesn’t heal them and they are expecting healing from God.
So, how do you know you are among those God does not want to heal? So, when you believe wrongly like that, it is not possible to see the right results (Romans 10:10, Mark 9:23).
I’ll like you to understand that the things you hear, for example, what you are hearing now, what you listen to from the CDs, tape messages and all those kinds of things, a major purpose of what they are meant to do is to change your belief (Acts 14:8-10). What you hear, what you saw out of scripture is designed to affect what you believe. If what you hear does not change your belief, it is a waste of hearing.
3). When you get the Word revelation, it leads you to heart conviction and from heart conviction to mindset transformation.
What you have received from the scripture, what you have believed begins to change your mind, your way of thinking (Romans 12:1-2).
The revelation flows into conviction and then into mental transformation. Let me say something to you; faith people, they have a different mindset from other people. For example, faith people don’t behave beggarly.
Their mind does not accommodate anything that looks like they are beggars. They don’t operate like that (Genesis 14:21-23). When Abraham’s wife died, they gave him free burial ground. He said, “I don’t want to collect this thing free; you are giving me this thing out of pity; not out of favour. I don’t like pity. Tell me the price, I want to pay for it.” Personally, what I hate the most in life is, “Eyah, sorry.” I have no accommodation for it. Abraham said, “give me the price of it, I’ll pay cash.” They begged him, he said no and he paid cash for it, because faith changes your way of thinking.
Ordinary people think like paupers and beggars; you don’t think like that. You don’t think inferior to anybody under Heaven. When your mind changes like that, people will think you are proud or arrogant, no! Pride is an exaggerated estimation of yourself. You don’t exaggerate your estimation of yourself, you just have an accurate estimation of yourself. Now, when you undervalue yourself, that is not humility, that is stupidity. When you are moving about apologizing; “Oh, I’m sorry. Did I offend you?”. Somebody came some time ago, she said she came from America; she was ostentatious and braggadocious. We were in Area One then. She said she came to see if there’s anything, whether she can help the Church in any way. I looked at her and said, “you are too small to help the Church. If you need help, tell us; our assignment is to help people.”
The pride broke on the spot, because they think that you are in Africa, so you are in need of help. No, we send help out of this Country and it is true; our people have made themselves stupid in the eyes of the world. They will snap pictures of people in the villages and send abroad and say, “we need help, send us money.” No, not all of us are like that! Faith changes your mindset
Faith people also think very big; they don’t have microscopic mentality. They have an elastic mind; they think very big. When you see things out of the Word, it affects your belief and then it begins to affect the way you think; your mind is expanded, your mind is changing
John 6:5-6
Here, you are seeing like twenty thousand people, because the Bible says five thousand men, apart from women and children and I’m sure you are aware that anywhere there’s miracle, women are more. They have a lot of prayer requests for husband, children, mother and father and if each man has a wife and then two or three children, you are looking at almost twenty thousand and somebody is saying, “Where can we get bread to buy?” He’s not saying, “How can we get money to feed these people?” The problem was not the lack of money; it is lack of availability of the bread. That is a very large way of thinking.
It’s one thing to think of feeding one person, two three or four; you are talking of feeding twenty thousand people at once and to worsen it, the feeding is going to happen by miracle. That is how the people of faith think. At times, our people will say to me; “We need to buy this or buy that.” I’ll say, “Why haven’t we bought it?” They said, “Well, trusting God for the money, the money is too high.” I said, “Is the money up to ten billion?” Then, they started laughing and said, “No, it can’t be near that.” So, what are you talking about?
He owns the Universe; He owns the silver and gold. The earth and all its fullness, they all belong to Him. You are the source of everything.
That song came when this house was in construction. He owns the Universe. If we were to calculate the price of constructing this place before starting, we wouldn’t have started. So, this is how it works. You cannot get new light and think old thoughts. It’s not possible!
When the revelation comes, it brings about the conviction and then, from the conviction, it goes to mind transformation; the way you think changes all of a sudden, everything becomes possible.Why is it important for our mind to think? Your thought determines your result (Proverbs 4:23. Also, it is important to know that God answers thought (Ephesians 3:20). So, God is listening to what we are thinking, so He can answer our thinking.
4). Vision impartation. This is the realm where you don’t just receive or believe the Word, it didn’t just change your mind; it has formed your picture; your mental picture is affected.
You didn’t just hear the Word; you can see what the Word is saying; your mental picture is affected (Habakkuk 2:1-3).
You are no longer seeing where you are; you are now seeing where God wants you to be. You are no longer seeing how things have been; you are now seeing how things should be (2 Corinthians 4:17-18). One translation says, anything we can see around us is subject to change; where you live now is subject to change, the medical report in your hand is subject to change. One day my wife and I, we were driving into Area One church. We saw vehicles all the way to the junction and people running to the service and the Church was filled, people were standing by the aisle.
This was an early morning dew service, like 6:00am and I told her and said, people should beware what they see, because whether it is positive or negative, you’ll see it in the physical. Let the scripture become the picture and then it will frame your future. That is what faith is about. That is, you are practically seeing yourself and your children and your family worshipping God in the eyes of your mind, yet you are not yet married. You are seeing yourself signing amounts that will amaze you, yet you are still trying to make ends meet in some ways.
Seeing the invisible is a dimension of faith; seeing it before it happens is a dimension of faith and seeing the invisible becomes key to
doing the impossible. Yonggi Cho said, at a point he had to close his eyes while preaching to the church and he was screaming when the Church was not full and they said, what are you doing? He said, I’m preaching to crowds that you cannot see. He would say, those of you sitting outside, say amen, when the people inside were not filled. So, they said their Pastor has run mad. But that madness continued until he built the biggest, largest church in the whole world.
There are times you can use physical picture to assist the scriptural picture. God told Abraham, “Look at the stars; if you can see them, that is how your offspring will be” (Genesis 13:14-15). When you are praying most times, don’t see the problem; picture the answer. “Lord, why am I not yet married?” No! “Lord, thank You for my wedding.” See yourself marching and then be blasting in tongues on top of that picture. That is creative intercession.
You are seeing a picture and creating it in the physical. You are seeing yourself going to the labour room with your wife and then, they say, congratulations, your wife just delivered triplets and you saw yourself coming to the altar and celebrating that victory and you are seeing that and you are praying while you are seeing that. When you can see it, you must seize it (Genesis 13:15). If you can see it, God will deliver it. See it while you pray it; see the victory at the place of prayer, at the point of intercession (Ephesians 3:20).
God is watching for what you are asking and watching for what you are imagining in the process of the asking and in the imagining of what you are asking, then the power to deliver it is released.
The remaining four, I am going to mention them and then go in detail with them in the second service:
5). Forceful declaration (2 Corinthians 4:13). That is, you saw it in the Word, it changed your heart’s belief and mindset, you saw the picture, then here you come; “the devil that can kill me before my time does not exist. All the witches in my village are too few in number to stop me from getting married. No ancestral curse can limit my destiny, except God is not on the throne.” You saw it and it intoxicates you. That is what makes some of us talk the way we talk and you know, most drunkards must talk. They may not talk sense but they have to talk, in fact, they’ll be whistling or singing.
So, these things come out of your mouth effortlessly; “food has finished.” “Never, food does not finish in this house, things only need replacement. Do you want to finish it with your mouth?” He says, as you have spoken in my ears, so will I do. If you say food is finished, food has to finish. Our children, everybody knows it; nothing finishes. Accountant can’t say there’s no money. Why? There’s money. You may not see it but it is there.
6). Corresponding action. You behave your belief because faith always has works (James 2:26). Archbishop Idahaosa of blessed memory, he had a leg pain one day and he did everything and the leg was still paining him and he had service to go and he said, “Leg, I am going to preach now, when you are ready, join me there.” He went straight and the preaching happened
If you believe that your God will supply all your needs, then you’ll look up to Him absolutely, not man. You will never by mistake tell any man, “You are my last hope.” It can never come out of your mouth, even in the dream. You don’t act beggarly; you act royal and in dignity.
You see, plus one minus one is zero. You say the positive, you act the negative. “Lord, let there be no rain.” Then you carry umbrella. Corresponding action is behaving your belief
7). Excited celebration (Psalm 106:12)
Give God thanks, even before you see the answer. You are just happy because it will happen.
8). Steadfast determination. You take a stand; you don’t shift position.
I saw it in the Word, I believed it in my heart, it had changed the way I think, it has given me a picture, I am declaring it authoritatively, I am acting accordingly; I believe that there’s work for me somewhere, I’m not sleeping at home. I stand up and go to look for work, I am excited in celebration, then I stay put until the answer comes. There is something I have called the ‘FAITH FORCE CYCLE.’ When you follow this faith force cycle, then you stay put; “satan, I must marry.” If you stay put for a while and it is still delaying a bit, you start the process again. You go back to the Word, look for new light. Light is in degrees; there’s candle light, flood light, LED light, oxyacetylene flame, there’s the sunlight. If the light you saw couldn’t tackle the darkest; look for brighter light, then let that brighter light charge your conviction again and change your mind further and change your picture further and give you more audacious declaration and more corresponding action and then, excited celebration and you tell the devil, “This time, I dey” and if He delays you small, look for more light.
- When you go home, study this cycle, work this cycle.
- For some people here, under the next one week, you will see results that will shock you!
- For some people here, before one month is over, you will see results that will amaze you!
- Something is changing in somebody’s life here today!
Apply your life to this faith force cycle and begin to see explosive results and manifestations.
