IF YOU CANNOT SEE WHAT GOD HAS DONE, YOU WILL NEVER SEE WHAT GOD WILL DO.
APPRECIATION FOR WHAT GOD HAS DONE BEFORE IS QUALIFICATION FOR WHAT HE IS YET TO DO; TO APPRECIATE WHAT HE HAS DONE BEFORE IS TO PRECIPITATE WHAT HE IS YET TO DO.
THE ABSENCE OF APPRECIATION IS INVITATION FOR DESTRUCTION.
IF GOD HAS DELIVERED YOU FROM DEATH OR AFFLICTION BEFORE, WHO SAYS HE CANNOT DELIVER YOU FROM DEATH AGAIN?
IF HE HAS DONE IT BEFORE, HE CAN DO IT AGAIN.
WHAT THE EYES SEE, THE HAND WILL SOON HANDLE. IF THE devil CAN’T STOP YOU FROM SEEING IT, HE WON’T STOP YOU FROM TOUCHING IT.
-Pastor Paul Enenche on “EXPEDITING OR AMPLIFYING ANSWERED PRAYER”
Preservation and Power Communion Service, Dunamis International Gospel Centre.
Father, we give You the praise and the honour because You are God. Thank You for the privilege of knowing You and the privilege of relationship; we have come here today to put our faith, hope, trust and confidence in You and we know we will never be put to shame.
Father, breathe upon Your Word tonight, let not one person leave here the same; as individuals we trust that we will not be put to shame, as families, we trust that we will not be put to shame; as a nation, we trust we will not be put to shame, as a church, the Body of Christ, we trust we will not believe You in vain. Thank You Master, in Jesus precious name.
I welcome everyone here this night in Jesus precious name.
We are going to be looking at a very special subject tonight and that is:
“EXPEDITING OR AMPLIFYING ANSWERED PRAYER”
Our objective is to understand the factors that facilitate answered prayer.
Psalm 100:1-5
In the physical there are things called catalysts that speed up the process of chemical reactions in the laboratory. In electrical, there are also amplifiers that you use to amplify the effect of sound. For example, I am speaking now, my voice is being amplified by the use of this microphone. Church Gist. If I take this off, you can’t hear what I am saying, just because I have removed this amplification. All truths are parallel, in the realm of the spirit, there are things that can amplify the impact of your prayer, just what you just saw, that can make prayer to become more impactful, that can make your voice in the Spirit stronger, louder and make your answer quicker and faster.
We are going to be looking at those factors from today till Sunday and I want you to take them very seriously. It is one thing to pray, but it is another thing to pray with this prayer catalysts, prayer amplifiers and prayer booster. So, we are looking at the catalysts, the factors that expedite answered prayer:
1). Praying with gratitude; praying with appreciation. Praying with appreciation is a great amplification of prayer effect, prayer result or prayer outcome. Church Gist. We are talking about approaching God and before you started asking for anything, you first of all began with thanking; your asking becomes preceded with your thanking (Psalm 100:4, Philippines 4:6 (MSG))
Take the note of the following:
a). Appreciation for what God has done before is qualification for what He is yet to do. Whatever God has done before, when you appreciate Him for them, you qualify yourself for what He is yet to do. The meaning of that is, murmuring, complaining or ingratitude equals disqualification in the Presence and in the sight of God. Actually, lack of appreciation can lead to destruction (1 Corinthians 10:10). The absence of appreciation is invitation for destruction.
Appreciation for what God has done before is qualification for what He is yet to do; to appreciate what He has done before is to precipitate what He is yet to do. Here is the diagnosis for why most people don’t receive anything from God; the other day, my wife and I, we were driving through this premises and then, in one of the evenings, we saw how lighted the whole of this place was and all of that and then, the road and everything and how sweatlessly God did everything and we came out of the car and lay flat on the bare floor; it wasn’t premeditated, there was no rug on the ground, right in the car park there. One of the young men was capturing it by himself, on his own capturing. Church Gist. When God sees things like this, you don’t need to beg Him to do things. When one person is healed of a headache, the way we celebrate here; I remember we were in a crusade some years ago in a part of the Country and after they presented the testimony, we danced. One of the men there told me; “Are you not wasting too much time on this; there are so many testimonies, go straight and take the testimonies instead of stopping and dancing and dancing.”
He functions also in the realm of the miraculous and crusades and so one. He felt it was a waste of time. That waste of time brought us here; that waste of time causes us to go from crusade to crusade without taking one dime of offering and yet, millions are spent and then, it is just going and then, things are happening at an alarming rate. Church Gist. The music concert we are holding this Friday, some music ministers are coming with four, five of their team, some more, because some want to come with their drummer, instrumentalist and so because for most of them, it is not possible to minister without their whole setting. They were telling me about the airfare of the people; you know how cheap the airfare is now – airfare in seven zeros; only airfare yet, not accomodation yet – no sweat, no cry, no tears. We are the one who invited them and we are coming to do warfare in the night and praise until the devil checks back to hell.
God’s servant, Bishop Oyedepo said, “Appreciation is application for more.” When you appreciate God, you are applying for more.
b). Appreciation for what He has done before is faith release for what He is yet to do. That is, “Lord, I believe that You did it before, You can do it again. I trust You.” Appreciation is a conviction and every time God sees faith, He moves into operation; when you are thanking God, you are saying, “It is not my hand that did this, my wisdom didn’t do this, my expertise did not do this; nothing about me did this but You.”
Psalm 106:12
It is those who believe that give thanks and praise. Church Gist. Those who doubt don’t praise; they can’t thank, they are not joyful because in their eyes or in the mind, it looks like the devil has won. Do we have any examples of people who praised or gave thanks and their thanks produce results?
i). King Solomon began with appreciation for the dedication of the temple of Solomon (2 Chronicles 6:12-15, 2 Chronicles 7:1. After he finished thanking and finished giving praises, fire fell and consume the burnt offering and the sacrifice and the glory of the Lord filled the house. Church Gist. Appreciation will effortlessly cause you to secure divine attention effortlessly and intervention. They were meant to set their offerings on fire and burn them by themselves, but the fire from Heaven came down. If you need to see fire from Heaven, let appreciation become the initiation of your supplication. Let appreciation precede your praying.
ii). Our Master Jesus, He always gave thanks before he made request (John 6:11-12, John 11:41-44). His prayers were preceded with appreciation and thanksgiving and they never failed to produce results. Take note again of two more things:
a). What God has done before is the seed for what He will do again. That is, you use what He has done before in your life or in the life of anybody else and sow it as a seed in appreciation. Then you get set for the harvest (1 Samuel 17:34-37). Church Gist. If God has delivered you from death before, who says He cannot deliver you from death again? If God has delivered you from sickness and affliction, before who says that He cannot do it again? If He has done it before, He can do it again; we know what He will do next once we know what He did before and appreciation is the avenue which we sow that seed.
b). If you cannot see what God has done, you will never see what God will do. If you are too blind to notice what He already did, nothing will cure that blindness that will make you to see what He will do. If He has done it before and you can see that He has done it before, your eyes will be fully opened to see that He will do it again.
Lift your right hand and say:
“He has done it before, He will do it again in my life and I appreciate You Lord because You have done it before and I know You will do it again!”
Let us draw strength from what God has done before, it doesn’t matter how little it is, appreciate God for those little things and He will show you that He will do mega things. I remember how at a point in my life, I went through the University, looking literally unto none but God. God positioned one or two people around me, but I looked absolutely unto nobody but God. Church Gist. I have told the story some time before, that was the seed that was sown in my life today, to look up to not a mortal man in ministry or for anything, because God pass me through a training where you look up to Him and Him alone brutally.
When I went through the University, I did not go to look at the notice board for any exam, to find out whether I have passed or failed; failure was not an option. No, failure failed anatomy, physiology, biochemistry – it wasn’t an option. It couldn’t be; it didn’t cross the mind. So, today I don’t do things with failure in mind. No!
Somebody asked me, he said “when you were stepping into ministry, what was your plan in case it failed?” Church Gist. I said, there was no plan because failure was not an option. One young man who was like a boy in the University in those days came in here this morning and he was talking to the Receptionist at the reception. He said, “whatever you people are seeing today, it didn’t start today.” He was just charging them up and before I walked in and he shouted and ran at me: “Whatever you people are seeing today, it didn’t start today.” He said, “the way he is talking now is the way he has been talking. He said at that time, they pursued cultists into the bush with barehand in the middle of the night: 2:00 am, 3:00 am with people carrying gun shooting AK-47 and what you are shooting was tongues and they are receding into the bush.
You leverage on how God brought you and what He has done with you and for you before and you appreciate Him and you don’t forget it and you continue to go.
- I see something happening to somebody here today!
Is there at least anything you want to thank God for? Would you lift your hands and just thank Him
2). Praying with vision; this is praying with the outcome of the prayer in mind. Praying from the provision of seeing how the answer looks like when it happens (Ephesians 3:20, Isaiah 65:24). It is praying from the position where the answer is not strange to you, it is praying from the position where, you know how what you are looking for looks like. Church Gist. Sometimes, when some people come to me and they say, they are trusting God for a life partner, husband or wife, I said, can you write for me on a piece of paper, the characteristics of the person you want to marry? Can you describe? Because right in the depth of you, they should be an understanding of the kind of person you will live with the rest of your life – deep calleth unto deep.
There should be an understanding and that is done deliberately because what you cannot describe, you can never discover. How can you discover it if you don’t know how it looks like? There are many people around, so how will you know who is who? Everybody is wearing suit, so you cannot tell. This is what it means by praying with vision and there are two things that this does for you:
a). Praying with vision is praying by faith because faith sees the invisible (Hebrews 11:27) and when God sees faith He moves into action. You are seeing what is yet to be, you are seeing how your company looks like, you are seeing how your marriage, your family and children look like. Church Gist. You are seeing how the ministry, far before we stepped into ministry, I said that this ministry (to those who were in fellowship with us), I said to them; “This ministry will be a birthing place, a revival ground, where people will come from all over the world to catch fire and take it to their nations. I said, it will be a fire exportation ground. One of the young men was reminding me the other day and he said, do you remember you used to say these things in the early nineties, little – little meetings, living room meetings, little solemn assembly; you said these things. Now, we are seeing 40 countries at once.
It is praying by faith and when God sees faith, He moves.
b). Praying with vision is praying into manifestation because what man sees determines what God gives (Genesis 13:15). “This shop is an empty shop, nobody attends the shop.” No, anoint that shop and every time you begin to pray for the shop, begin to see the people lining up in your shop and begin to make orders that you have to meet from other shops.
I told you the story before of what Paul Yonggi Cho did to a woman who came and said, “Daughter is a bad girl, she is following men from one hotel to another, just a useless girl and the man of God said, “Shut up, why are you talking about your daughter like that? Do you want her to die that way?” Church Gist. She said, no!
He said alright, what kind of picture of your daughter do you see? He said, I see a good girl, morally, upright girl, spiritual, interested in the things of God and married to a pastor.” He said alright, that is what you should write down, begin to see these things and begin to say them
One day, this girl was in a hotel with a man, 2:00 am and she couldn’t do what she normally does with the men. She stepped out of that hotel in the middle of the night, knocked at the door of her mother’s house and said, “Mama, I am sorry.”
What happened?
She said, “I am just coming from the hotel, but for one reason or the other, conviction. She gave her life to Christ, rededicated herself, became serious with God and suddenly found a man to marry and who was the man? A pastor.
A young man joined the gang and became an armed robber, the boy told me the story one day; he said one day they went to rob in a part of the north. He said that, by the time they were in the operation before you knew it, security, police, everybody came; he said they were about seven of them. Church Gist. He said, there was a big wall, how he jumped and found himself on the other side of the wall, he didn’t know. But the six people were gun down. Only him survived. You know why? He said all the time, the mother saw and said, “Don’t waste your time. You can’t be a bad boy. You are a pastor.”
My mother used to tell us when we were children, “don’t waste your time, you can’t spoil.” This mother told the boy and the boy was the only one spared from the robbery and at the end of the day, he became a pastor. What man sees determines what God give. God is about to deliver something in your hand!
- Every negative picture you have of your life, destiny, future and career, that negative picture is cancelled right now!
I was talking with someone the other day, she said she didn’t like to see herself in the mirror. It looks awful to such a point where somebody say you are looking fine, she takes it as a insult. The devil painted a very ugly picture of a decent looking person. First of all, the demon was dealt with and I said, write on a piece of paper; “I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Church Gist. I am decent, I am adorable and likeable.” Under few days, she said I couldn’t believe what I saw on the mirror: for the first time, I saw me. Which means, the devil has planted the demonic face. Nobody can buy you higher than what you offer life. We are like grasshoppers in our own side, so were we in the side. The devil can never look at you better than you look at yourself.
Do we have any example in scripture of people whose outcome became good because of the vision they had?
a). Job (Job 14:14, Job 42:10,12). Everything changed because Job saw change coming.
- Your change is coming in this season in the name of Jesus!
- Everything that is negative and is not correct is deleted out of your life right now!
- I see change coming, receive it now!
- Change for your children, loved ones, wife, husband; I see that change coming now in Jesus precious name!
b). David – David saw himself taking the head of Goliath even when there was no sword in his hand and he eventually did it. He saw the outcome of the battle, even before the battle commenced (1 Samuel 17:45-47, 49-51). So David prevailed over the Philistines with a sling and with a stone and smote the Philistine and slew him but there was no sword in the hand of David. Church Gist. What the eyes see, the hand will soon handle. What your eyes see, your eyes in the Spirit; your hand in the physical will soon handle it. If the devil can’t stop you from seeing it, he won’t stop you from touching it. If he can’t stop you from seeing that anointing, that mantle, realm of supernatural supply, if he can’t stop you from seeing your healing and miracle; the devil won’t be able to stop you from touching it.
- I see a delivered Nigeria, a new Nigeria, a liberated Nigeria. I see Nigeria where things will work and because we see it, we shall touch it!
Take note of these two things:
i). Praying with vision is functioning in the future before it arrives. That is, you are practically accelerating the future because the vision is for an appointed time that he may run that readeth (Habakkuk 2:2). Church Gist. Visions make runners; people run when then see where there are going; they run, you don’t walk or crawl; you run.
ii). What you see coming determines what comes; what you see happening determines what you see happens (Jeremiah 1:11-12).
3). Praying with Intercession, that is, sowing the seed of prayer into the lives of others; it is key to getting answers in our own lives (Matthew 7:12, Luke 6:38, Galatians 6:7). Church Gist. If you say somebody should smile, no devil is devilish enough to keep the tears on your eyes. So take note of two things:
a). Life functions by the seed principle; what we reap is determined by what we sow. As God helps me, I pray consistently and as I am talking now, I am going to intestify it for people ahead of me; Papa Oyedepo, Daddy G.O, Pastor Kumuyi; people that I know in ministry. I pray with all my heart. Church Gist. There are those who are angry at where those people are; I have seen some pastors saying, “Oh, what do they want to achieve again? They have already defeated everybody – that is a pastor talking. He has a competition mentality. I say, “Father, may they not sleep until they finish everything You brought them into this world for. Every single deposit in Bishop Oyedepo’s life, may it be downloaded. Everything You have in mind for Pastor E. A Adeboye, may one day not be less; may he fulfill all You called him to do. Every church they must plant, may they plant it. Every outreach, every crusade; anything they are meant to do in this life, may they get it done.”
Oh, can I say that he should fulfill his life’s assignment and the devil says I don’t fulfill mine? They have not born that witch and devil. Hate me, you are wasting your hatred. Envy me, you are wasting your emotion. Jealous me, you are wasting your jealousy. Life is so easy; nobody’s achievement is stopping your own. Nobody’s success is a reason for another person’s failure. Church Gist. There are many birds in the sky, all of them are flying and none of them are colliding. When was the last time you heard that two birds collided in the air? There are billions of stars in the sky, all of them are shinning. There is no star shinning that dim the shinning of another one. There are many elephants in the forest, they don’t run into each other; just yeyecious mentality.
So, I pray with all my heart; “succeed, be successful, deploy your potential, bring out everything God put inside you; I am indirectly praying for myself.” You know, mentality is the mother of reality; as he thinketh in his heart, so is he. The way people think determines the way they live. Church Gist. Pray for your brother in church, your sister, that is why when you are trying to stop people, you are stopping yourself. No need for quarreling with anybody in church, including quarreling over seat position. What is seat compared to where you are going? I don’t care where I sit, all I am looking for is what sits inside me.
b). What you make happen for others determines what God will make happen for you – this is a direct word from Mike Murdock. You see how Joseph interpreted the dreams of others and God interpreted his dream (Genesis 41:13-14). You are trusting God for the fruit of the womb, but you forgot yourself for a while and you focus on someone else trusting God for the fruit of the womb, you are a pastor in ministry and you took somebody, another pastor as a project of prayer, even if it is for a season, you are not yet married but there is someone who is more unmarried than you; you are not married at 26, this one is not married at 46. That is more unmarried.
I heard a woman praying in meeting and she said, “Lord, even if You don’t heal me today, all these people in serious pain, heal them first. That was a prayer of a sick person in a crusade setting; ‘Forget about me, their pain is worse than mine.'” God healed her and healed everybody. Church Gist. I am going to share two examples:
i). Hannah. When you look at the prayer of Hannah critically, she wasn’t praying for a child for herself, she was praying for a child for the House of God because she knew the temple needed a priest, the sons of Eli were useless children and the temple needed a priest and she was praying to meet the need of the House (1 Samuel 1:11) and God began to give her own children because Samuel belonged to the temple.
ii). Job (Job 42:10). These were the friends that Job called ‘physicians of no value.’ That is, useless doctors. He called them miserable counselors. That is, those whose advise will worsen your misery. If you had problem before, when then talk to you, it multiplied. These were people accusing Job that Job was the reason for his problem, if you didn’t do this, you wouldn’t have seen that (Job 16:2); I have heard many such things; miserable comforters are ye all.
Do you know when Job got that affliction, the people sat with Job, the Bible says they didn’t utter one word for one week, they just sat with him (Job 2:13). Have you seen such people? At the end of the seven days, they began to whip him; “I thought you said you are righteous, have you ever seen a righteous suffer before? If you can’t help him, at least leave him. Church Gist.” You see Job, we have been suspecting, nobody can be successful suddenly like this. It is your iniquity, don’t lie; own up, confess, even confess what you haven’t done.” At the end, God said, all you people, none of you have talked right like my servant Job, go now; let him pray for you. Otherwise, I will deal with you. That was the people that went to Job, that Job was still praying for. How many times have you prayed for your friends, talk less of your enemies?
People who hate you, people who want you dead, people who accuse you, confront you, antagonize you, resist you, accuse you and when Job passed that test, God turned his captivity (Job 42:7-10). Job didn’t say, “go and die! Sir, God, I will disobey You in this one; these people are devils, whoever prays for the devil?” He prayed for them and God turned the captivity of Job.
- Somebody’s captivity is about to be turned!
Two things:
1). Life lived for self is lived for loss. Anyone who is just living, everything you pray about is just about yourself; life lived for self is lived for loss, but life lived beyond self is lived for gain because at that time, your life has become a seed and the fruit must be the outcome. When you are living for others, you are living as a seed and wherever there is seed, there must be harvest.
2). Living for others is living in love and love never fails (1 Corinthians 13:8). Include appreciation, vision and intercession in your prayer life and you will see more drastic prayer results. For the next one, two or three days, stop asking anything for yourself, let’s say and begin to appreciate God for the things He has done already and begin to see where you are going ahead of time and pick up an issue and pray about them. Church Gist. Nigeria is begging for prayers; pick up our country and something else and just forget about yourself for a while and after a while, you will look and you will have nothing to pray about.
I pray for so many people and if you ask me now, what is your prayer request? I will be looking, including “I am going to America, what can I buy for you?” I can’t think, I don’t know what you will buy for me. Even my wife asked me, “What can I get for you from the UK?
Response: I am not sure. Nothing occurs to me for you to buy for me and it is not today, twenty years ago. I remember one woman in our Area One church, she was going to London and she said, what can I buy for you?
Nothing!
She said, “You mean nothing?”
Nothing occurred to me.
- I see God deleting whatever is called a concern in your life!
How many of you know that, any genuine pastor, whenever you are preaching, you also learn things as you are talking? The teacher knows the subject more by more teaching. Church Gist. Papa Oyedepo told me, you know when we are talking, it is not us talking. It is God talking through us. So, whatever God is saying is also applicable to us. So, it is not a matter of, this is for the people, it is for all of us.
Lift up your hands and your voice and let’s appreciate God and say, Father, thank You for this night, thank You for qYour Word to me today, I am grateful. I thank You for Your Word to me today, be glorified Lord in Jesus’ name.
PRAYERS:
- Father, I receive the grace to apply the Word I have just heard; I receive that grace to apply Your Word in my life now, in the name of Jesus.
Proverbs 19:21
- Father, l ask that You will establish Your counsel for my life, family, destiny, for the church in Nigeria and for this church, Dunamis; establish Your counsel for Nigeria in this season; Father establish Your counsel oh Lord in the name of Jesus.
Job 5:12
- Father, I ask that You will disappoint the agenda of the enemy in my life, family, destiny, the church, Dunamis and in our nation, Nigeria; disappoint the devices of the enemy, wicked, terrorists, bandits, kidnappers and the wicked rulers of our nation. Disappoint the devices of the wicked, oh Lord in the name of Jesus.
Lamentations 3:32
The only utterance that has the right to come to pass is what God said. Question to ask yourself is, “When they sent to you from the village that the devil wizard said, himself not you is the next person to die.” The question you ask yourself is; who said it? Church Gist. That determines whether it can come to pass. If it is a wizard that said it, it is trashable; if it is a killer who said, it is trashable. Who is he that saith and it cometh to pass when the Lord commandeth it not?
It is the equivalent of, in gathering they shall gather, but not by me. So, it is not a matter of who gathered? The question is, who gathered them? So, who gathered them is the same as who said? I have never feared the threat of a man or the devil, because the question is, who said it? Somebody said they sent them a threat on phone. I said, reply the person in tongues – “Lagadabash, pakoko….” You see, when they start reading it, the devil inside them; you see, nobody can be a killer without being possessed; full of demons, for the thief cometh not, but to steal, kill and destroy. Church Gist. That scatters the brain of that devil first. I told one pastor to do like that, he said like how? So, I typed it and sent to him. I said, just forward it. You know what they did? They wrote him a letter and put AK-47 bullet and it was sent to him. So, I said, reply them in tongues, he said like how? So, I said, I will reply it for you. So I replied and he forwarded it to them. They called on the spot, they said, what is the meaning of this? He told them and said, it is incantation from my high priest. That was how the matter died; died with profuse apologies.
The other one, they told the woman, “Sorry, it wasn’t your number.” So, if they said it, who said? Lift up your hands now and say after me:
- Father in the name of Jesus, today, I decree against every utterance from the pit of hell against my life, family, destiny, the Church, the Body of Christ and out Nation; every utterance, decree and threat of the devil and his agent from the pit of hell against our lives and families, we decree it is cancelled now!
- Father, we ask that You will step into the battle in our nation and take out the devil and his agents out of Nigeria in this night of judgmental praise. Oh God, in Nigeria, in my life, family, destiny, the Church and in Nigeria, arise and let your enemies be scattered, in the name of Jesus.
(Altar Call)
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