YOU CAN’T BE IN THIS CHURCH AND BE STRUGGLING FINANCIALLY
FASTING WITHOUT PRAYER WILL AMOUNT TO RELIGIOUS HUNGER STRIKE OR AT BEST DIETING. IT IS PRAYER THAT GIVES VALUE TO FASTING
FASTING IS NOT A TIME OF WAITING FOR 6 O’CLOCK. IT IS A TIME OF ENGAGING ACTIVELY IN THE PRAYER ALTAR AND SEARCHING OF SCRIPTURES ON SUBJECTS OF INTEREST TO YOU
PRAYER AND FASTING BECOME MORE PROFITABLE WHEN IT IS FOCUSED ON A CRAVE TO PLEASE GOD AND A DESIRE TO ADVANCE HIS KINGDOM
DON’T JUST BE RELIGIOUSLY SEATED IN THE CHURCH, FIND A PLACE FOR YOURSELF IN GOD’S AGENDA.
CHRISTIANITY WILL NOT BE ANYTHING DIFFERENT FROM ANY OTHER RELIGION APART FROM THE POWER BASE
WHEN WE WERE GROWING UP IN MINISTRY, MOST NIGERIAN MINISTRIES DEPEND ON AMERICAN MINISTRIES FOR BACKUP MONEY TO RUN.
I DETESTED IT. IF IT IS THE SAME GOD, HE IS NOT THE GOD OF COLOUR.
WE ARE HERE TODAY BY GRACE, NOT A DIME OF AMERICAN MONEY FROM ANY MINISTRY IS IN THIS PLACE.
IN 1977, A.W. TOZER TAUGHT ME THE HARDER YOU GO AFTER GOD, THE HIGHER YOU FLY. SO I DON’T NEED ENCOURAGEMENT. NEITHER CAN I BE DISCOURAGED.
DON’T HANG AROUND THOSE WHO DON’T HAVE REGARD FOR GOD. DON’T FIND YOURSELF IN THE MIDST OF SCORNERS.
– Bishop David Oyedepo at Pre 21 Days of Fasting and Prayer Communion Service || Faith Tabernacle, Canaanland.
Jesus thank you again for bringing us into this brand new year and for getting us to the point where we are stepping into these 21 days of prayer and fasting. Receive all our praise in the name of Jesus. Let everyone return empowered to the next level from these fasting and prayer. Church Gist
Let no one remain the same at the end of this episode. Let your agenda both as a church and as individuals this year come to pass speedily. Let your word flow freely this morning, let it impact every life in an unforgettable manner.
It is your greatest year ever, we are just stepping into it. Please do yourself a favour by going through the Prophetic Focus epistle of every month. Church Gist. That is what sets the pace for the month. We need the right bearing to have a great journey. Take time out of that and ensure you are on key with God’s agenda for each month.
We start our Sunday Series today captioned: ENGAGING THE POWER OF PRAYER AND FASTING FOR DOMINION.
Prayer and fasting is a covenant platform that releases unction and confers dominion. Isaiah 58:6. Yokes are broken by the anointing so prayer and fasting is a platform for the unleashing of the anointing. Isaiah 58:8. The dominion of light over darkness is unquestionable. So enlightenment or illumination confers authority on the believer to rule and reign in this world of wickedness. Church Gist. Power and Authority has their fountain in the mystery of prayer and fasting. Therefore expect dramatic change of levels in your spiritual life, as you engage wholeheartedly with understanding in these 21 days of prayer and fasting.
We are in the last days and the Bible defines the last days as the days of His power which shall bring His enemies under His footstool. That is the days of the anointing and outbreak of light that subdues the powers of darkness. Luke 5:34-35. It was a pointer to our responsibilities in the last days. Jesus left, fasting began and we saw the effect of it all through scriptures. We are in the days of His power, we are in the days of prayer and fasting which are covenant facilitators of power and authority. Church Gist. The last days began since the day Jesus left. Acts 2:16-17. So we are in the days of prayer and fasting in the Body of Christ. Please enjoy it, key into it. We live in a world of wickedness, enjoy the demand for empowerment from the altar of prayer and fasting. Enjoy it! Don’t sell yourself as a cheap prey for the enemy. Don’t sell your birthright for a morsel of meat. 1 John 5:19. Psalm 74:20. Luke 10:19. Many are being hit and hurt day by day because of the absence of power.
T.L. Osborn is gone to heaven. He saw a vision which he related to us that he stood in front of our home in those days in America and saw the devil on that street and some of his demons were trying to branch off in our house and he said “stop that! I have warned you never to step into that place”. He went off and those demons tried to enter again and he said “but I warned you never to step foot into that place”. There are no-go areas. From this fasting and prayer, you will be turned into a no-go area for the devil. Church Gist. Don’t just be religiously seated in the church, find a place for yourself in God’s agenda. Christianity will not be anything different from any other religion apart from the power base. John 1:12. The Kingdom of God is not in word but in power, outside power there is nothing to it. This month as you engage in this prayer and fasting episode, things will turn in every area of your life.
Matthew 9:14-16.
Among other things, fasting spiritually expedites answers to prayers. Isaiah 58:9. So prayer and fasting are like hands in gloves. Fasting without prayer will amount to religious hunger strike or at best dieting. It is prayer that gives value to fasting. If you can no longer pray, stop the fast. It will not deliver much. Throughout these three weeks, your prayer life will change level. Church Gist. So prayer and fasting is about when not if. Matthew 6:6,17-18. They are ordained our companions in this adventure. Prayer and fasting are ordained companions for every believer in this adventure. When thou fast, not if you fast. What a privilege we have in the 21 days of prayer and fasting beginning from tomorrow.
Prayer and fasting become more profitable when it is focused on a crave to please God and a desire to advance His kingdom. Matthew 6:10. 2 Peter 3:9. Number 1 Capital Will of God is to see people saved. Church Gist. Let your prayer play its own part in that agenda first thing. Matthew 6:33. Let’s have God and His kingdom as our priority in prayers and watch how other things will flow freely. It is your turn for a change of story.
The last days are here. They are called the days of God’s power facilitated by prayer and fasting as a major platform. Jesus returned in the power of the Spirit after His 40 days of fasting and prayer episode. That hasn’t changed. He is our perfect example. Luke 4:14. Psalm 63:1-3. There is a thirsting of the soul and a longing of the flesh to receive the power of God. Isaiah 41:17-18. John 7:37-39. Isaiah 58:6. Every unwanted habit will fly off your life. Every mark of the wicked will disappear on their own. So fasting and prayer is principally for the empowerment of God’s people. Through access to fresh oil and revelation and illumination in the Word of God that shatters the power of darkness. Church Gist. John 1:5. There is an outbreak of light. That is why you don’t only pray in a fast, you search the scriptures for light in your areas of concern. There are things I never saw except in the course of prayer and fasting. I read the book of Copeland four times but when I got into prayer and fasting, I saw. There is a way you hear, there is the one you see. There are two different things. When I saw it, I knew I saw it. You will see things this time that will rewrite your story supernaturally.
Many of us have heard in this Church “seek ye first the Kingdom of God”. You have heard it too many times but perhaps you are yet to see it. It will sound like a burden to you because you are yet to see it. When I saw it, I knew I saw it. I saw it so much so that I entered into a covenant with my life. 46 years have come and gone and I have not one day regretted it because I saw it. “all the land which thou seest unto thee will I give it”. The prayer and fasting platform empowers believers to see what God is saying. When you see it, you have committed God to confirm it as you walk in the light of what you see. I saw hitch-free marriage by myself. I read 8 books on marriage and I never found it in any book but I saw it. I knew when I saw it. I announced it without any ill feeling. Now, the world is seeing it. So fasting is not a time of waiting for 6’o clock. It is a time of engaging actively in the prayer altar and searching of scriptures on subjects of interest to you. May this one be completely different in everyone’s life. You can’t be in this Church and still be struggling financially. Church Gist. So pick one book or two and sit down. Enough is enough! One of my mentors said to me “open that bag and take as much money as you want” I said I don’t want. I will rather learn how to get it than have someone give it to me. Look on me, as I do, do likewise. Give me, Give me never prospers people. If you can pay your way to Church and they are carrying you, you should feel uncomfortable. You should be looking for a way to pay for other people to Church. I was carrying people with my Beetle from Church to the Filling Station where they can get bus as the Head Pastor of the Church. Wake up!
When we were growing up in ministry, most Nigerian ministries depend on American backup to run. I detested it. If it is the same God, He is not the God of colour. We are here today by grace, not a dime of American money from any ministry is in this place. Let’s wake up and take responsibility. People run around carrying their money to native doctors who can not help them. They have no evidence, no testimony. Their children are down and you want them to raise your children. What a way of thinking upside down. If he has a way of raising children won’t he raise his own children first. You want him to prosper you and He is sleeping on a mat, you are sleeping on a bed. Do you think he doesn’t want to sleep on the bed too? And yet you go to him and give him money. Come to Church! “Eh you see I can’t go oh”. Church Gist. Don’t go, your going is not adding one thing to God. Because I knew God doesn’t need me, I need Him, I have been running after Him all these years. In 1977, A.W. Tozer taught me the harder you go after God, the higher you fly. So I don’t need encouragement. Neither can I be discouraged. You have been around, am I easy to discourage? There is no opportunity for that. Someone is here, your faith is getting on fire this year. Because this will be your most colourful adventure since you met Jesus. Your spiritual life, your social life will change levels.
Interestingly, the last days are also the days of vengeance. Luke 4:18. Isaiah 61:2. Vengeance is God’s weapon to comfort His people. The enemy has been having a free day in your life, God said I have appointed a day of vengeance to bring about your comfort. So the latter days began with the day of vengeance. We saw that executed to Simeon in Acts 8. Somebody say reaction! That is the Holy Ghost at work. Elymas showed up in Acts 13:8-12 to resist the Word of God and Paul looked at him filled with the Holy Ghost, immediately he was struck blind. The day of vengeance is here, no devil should mess up with your life. No devil should be permitted to mess up with your life. It is religious madness to start praying for robbers to prosper. He said, “thou shalt not suffer a witch to live”. It is a commandment. You don’t watch murderers and bless them. You curse them in the name of the Lord. Isaiah 61:2.
It is not your turn for a change of story without vengeance. The reason why the enemy is having a free day tormenting God’s people is because they don’t understand the mystery of vengeance as God’s plan for their comfort. Therefore every agent of the devil after you, your children, members of your family, will pay for it during this fast. No devil or His agent attacks me for free. No, I made up my mind a long time. Oh God of vengeance, arise. Part of our requirement this end time is to pray vengeance on our enemy. God is waiting on you to call for vengeance. All the agents of the devil after this Church goes down in the course of this fast. The Psalmist, a man after God’s heart said let God arise and let His enemies be scattered. Fight them that fight against me oh God. Bring out your sword and your spear. Let their ways be slippery. This is practical Christianity. The days of struggling under the wicked in your life are finally over. Church Gist. Until vengeance answers in your life, the wicked will never give up. God said I will bring one more plague upon Pharaoh and upon Egypt and he will let you go. God brought vengeance upon all the firstborns of Egypt. From Pharaoh to his officers, everyone both firstborn and beast, died on the same day. Pharaoh called on Moses and said, “please start going, we are all dead men”. Whatever has been holding you down at one spot and won’t let you go must come down this time. Whatever won’t let your children go must go down for you this time.
These last days are the days of His power accompanied with His vengeance. Every arrow of the wicked shot at any one of us returns back to sender this time. You will hear amazing news of God’s acts of vengeance in the camp of your enemy. Isaiah 43:13-17. That is God’s verdict on your enemies. You will hear news. Haven’t been redeemed as a lively stone with Jesus the chief cornerstone on your inside, any devil that comes against you shall be broken into pieces. Any one you come against shall be grinded into powder. This shall be your most glorious year ever because all your enemies shall be swallowed and drowned in the sea. Most of the time until vengeance answers the wicked will never give up. We are called to demand vengeance not to wait for it. Church Gist. Psalm 94:1-6. Stop watching them. What you don’t want, you don’t watch. What you don’t resist has a right to remain. What you don’t confront you cannot conquer. Every barricade on your part must scatter this time. Luke 18:7-8. Every of your calls for vengeance shall answer speedily. The day I will pray to bless killers will not meet me on this earth. My job is to pray against them. We just make ourselves meal’s meat for the enemy. It is time to walk in the light of God. This God kills and He makes alive. 1 Samuel 2:6. A.A. Allen taught me that in 1979. It depends on which side you want to fall. Whatever won’t let you go this year must go for you. Whatever won’t let your family go must go for you. Whatever won’t let your children go must go for you. Exodus 4:22-23. For everyone serving God, God is saying anything that won’t let you go, I will kill the thing. This shall be a year of abundance of rest for you. We have to demand for it, we don’t wait for it. We are in for the best of time.
Faith for vengeance must come back to the Church for her to fulfill God’s end-time agenda.
Profitable approach to prayer and fasting.
What must be in place for prayer and fasting to deliver its goods in my life?
1. There is a demand for repentance from things we know displease God.
Repentance is not just confession of sins, it is turning away from it after being forgiven by God. Go and sin no more lest a worse than this happen to you. Proverbs 28:13. It is not just confessing, confessing and forsaking then you have mercy. Why is this so necessary? Isaiah 59:1-2. Without praying, fasting is religious punishment. It adds zero spiritual value without prayers. Prayer has no meaning without answers and sin is a barrier between us and the prayer line. Therefore, begin this episode by striping yourself naked before the Lord. I don’t want to waste my time and energy these 21 days. This and this don’t please you in my life. Jesus forgive me and empower me to turn from them. Church Gist. I want a thorough and heavy connectivity these three weeks that will change my life forever. Without repentance, it will be an adventure in futility. There will not be more to it. There will not be anything to remember. Consciously and genuinely come to Him. As He justifies you, your prayer line will open up. In the precious name of Jesus, no one will get to a standstill in this prayer time. You will not only pray, but God will also answer you by His voice. Moses called on God and He answered him by a voice. You will hear God the clearest way this time.
Repentance is very critical to having the best of time in this fasting season. 1 John 1:8-9. Proverbs 1:23. So there is a turning required for us to experience the outpouring of His Spirit and the revelation of His word which are the two major returns on prayer and fasting. The demand is turn ye at my reproof. That I think should be the first thing to do today, after this service. You don’t wait till tomorrow to line up, get set for it. You don’t start planning what you are going to write down inside the exam hall, you start planning for it before the exam. Church Gist. Every genuine repentance shall receive free forgiveness. David the anointed of God was encumbered with sin but repented His way back to the heart of God. You know his story. He committed murder and adultery at the same time. He repented in dust and ashes and God restored unto Him the joy of salvation and restored His dignity because He turned. He turned and God wrote it off. Every genuine turning, God will write it off. How do I know he turned? Psalm 89:20. A turning is fundamental to experiencing the blessings of fasting and prayer. Grace to turn in truth and in deed back to your God, receive it right now in Jesus name.
For our fasting and prayer to be profitable, we must refuse to be offended in God. The Lord told me yesterday and I spoke to our leaders in Church, stop timing God. Tell them “my time is not in their hand, their time is in my hand”. Psalm 31:15. He should have done it, if He wanted to do anything. Who told you? He makes all things beautiful in His time. Stop being offended in God, don’t lose your head. Matthew 11:6. John said to Jesus, are you truly the Messiah and you heard I am in prison? What are you doing there? Nonsense! He lost his head. Don’t be offended in God. No one can manage your life and my life better than He does. Refuse to be offended. Come celebrating Him, He will keep changing your story. Many have been offended because of the time they gave God. Do you see students giving invigilators time? Invigilators said exams start by 8am, you say no! I will not be available by 8am, I will be available by 10am. Stop timing God, it is spiritual foolishness. Just keep following Him and He will keep making all things beautiful in His time. You are in for the best of times. If I am offended in my Helper, where will my help come from. Church Gist. When you come celebrating the Lord, here is what He said: Psalm 92:1-3,10. Come celebrating God, it will keep changing your story. Stop being offended. Come celebrating. Everyone shall be out of every unwanted situation this time. Refuse to be offended in God, your prayer will have express access. Psalm 34:1. What did God say? I have found David my servant, a man after my heart. I will bless the Lord at all times. Zero complains, zero murmurings, just blessing the Lord because all that you have, all that you are and where you stand is all by the grace of God. Your prayer shall not be hindered.
2. We must engage our hearts in seeking to please God and the interest of His kingdom as our priority.
Psalm 34:10. Let God be at the centre of your crave during this time and you will see the difference in the name of Jesus. Church Gist. Jeremiah 30:19-22. Seeking after God’s interest changes people’s level. Be a partner of this in Jesus’ name.
3. We must define our specific goals in this upcoming fast.
It is easier for us to get this by using the guidelines of Isaiah 58:6-14. Let’s major on the major. Lord empower my spiritual life into next level. When it is well with us spiritually, it will be well with us everywhere. Let’s major in God’s major for prayer and fasting, it is for empowerment and for dominion. Empowerment for effective stewardship and triumphant living. Seeking enlightenment and illumination from the Word of God on areas of interest to you with an enough is enough drive. There is an answer for me here, let me see what way out you have made for me and then He will keep guiding your steps. Let’s take on specific issues that require attention. 2 Chronicles 20:3. Jehoshaphat gathered together the whole of Judah and they waited on the Lord in a fast for three days because the enemies besieged them on every side. Church Gist. There was no natural way out but God stepped in, turned His hand against their enemies and gave them open victory. Engage in specific issues of concern to you during this fast. Lay them out. Your health is long overdue for full restoration. Your family is long overdue for peace and harmony. Your business is long overdue for change of level. Your spiritual life is long overdue for a new level. Focus on issues of specific interest to you in this fast and He will answer us speedily. He will hear His voice. As we close this morning, I like you to prepare yourself for the best of time in these 21 days of prayer and fasting, and you shall have it as you desire it. Mark 11:24. Jesus is Lord!
Among the prophetic lifelines is that there shall be wild spiritual awakening among God’s people in this Church, may you never miss your place in that. Therefore be watchful of the thoughts of your heart. Be careful with the words of your mouth. Block your spiritual leakages. Set your eyes on your God. It shall be on to every one according to His faith. Don’t let anyone’s unbelief make your faith of no effect. Don’t spread your pearls before wines. Don’t hang around those who don’t have regard for God. Don’t find yourself in the midst of scorners. Please watch! The enemy is looking for who to devour. He is looking for who to make suffer for nothing. He will not catch you. Church Gist. Well this Prophetic Focus, I don’t know what it is all about. Because you don’t believe in it, it cannot answer in your life. Just coming down to Church and getting ready to encounter God, you are missing it. God didn’t tell you to come to Canaanland, it is me He told and I told you. I told this country in 2015 that they are heading for trouble, haven’t they seen it? Plenty of trouble that they looked for and they found it.
– Have the best of time in the next 21 days od your life.
– At work, at home and in church, you will be hearing from God.
– The discipline of searching through scriptures, receive it right now.
– The discipline of cutting out time to pray and seek the face of God receive it right now.
– You are bound to experience the most adventurous 3 weeks of your life since you met Jesus.
– Every prayer prayed will receive answers.
– Every vengeance prayed shall receive answers.
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