IT IS NOT UNSPIRITUAL TO BE CHALLENGED BUT IT IS UNSCRIPTURAL TO BE DEFEATED.

IT TAKES CONTINUOUS LABOUR IN THE WORD TO KEEP ONE’S FAITH GROWING. EVERY FAITH GIANT IN THE KINGDOM IS A WORD ADDICT.

NOTHING OF VALUE IS FREE. IF FAITH ANSWERS ALL QUESTIONS THEN IT CANNOT BE FREE, YOU MUST PAY THE PRICE OF BUILDING

IT TAKES BEING DULL TO FOLLOW AN IDOL

LET GOD BE YOUR ONLY SOURCE OF EXPECTATION. HE NEVER FAILS THOSE WHO TRUST IN HIM.

FAITH WITHOUT A GOOD CONSCIENCE EQUALS A SHIPWRECK

JOY IS THE COVENANT PLATFORM FOR TAKING DELIVERY OF PROPHECIES. PROPHECIES WILL NOT BE FULFILLED IN THE LIFE OF A COMPLAINER.

“EVERYONE WRITES HIS OWN HEADLINE”. WHAT AWAITS YOU TOMORROW IS A FUNCTION OF THE CHOICE YOU MAKE TODAY.

• Bishop David Oyedepo on UNDERSTANDING WHAT IT TAKES TO BUILD YOUR FAITH at Midweek Communion Service || Canaanland

Every change of story is triggered by insight. 2 Corinthians 3:18. Just one word from heaven. A word came from Oral Roberts in 1977 to be precise on the story of the eagle. It gave me a very strong taste for challenges. The mother Eagle takes the baby eagle up and it’s having a nice time and suddenly it removes her wing and the baby goes ‘wicked! wicked! witch! witch’ but it is developing its wings. So I began to enjoy challenges as God’s agenda for development of my wings so I won’t die an eaglet. Church Gist. Any eaglet that hates to go through that challenge will die in the nest. Oral is in heaven, he won’t know what he did for me that day. He just changed my perspective that challenges do not mean you are a failure, it just means you are on your way to becoming a champion. You are just on the highway to championship. Nothing strengthens the believer like light, nothing changes the believer’s story like light.

Prayers – lift up your hands to heaven and ask for light. Just one statement, Lord. Lord let me catch the light you have reserved for me that will strengthen me for the days ahead.

Lord visit each one as we have prayed tonight, let no one leave here without a word from you. Let that word trigger unending testimonies to the glory and praise of your name.

When you see a gold medalist in the wrestling contest – any World Wrestling Heavyweight Champion has received some heavyweight blows. The intestine cried, the lungs grinned, he was on his way to carrying the belt. Without those things you are not a candidate for the belt. It is not unspiritual to be challenged but it is unscriptural to be defeated. So smile at those challenges they are there for development of your wings as you overcome them by faith. You overcome obstacles not food.

UNDERSTANDING THE DEMANDS OF BUILDING YOUR FAITH

We understand that faith grows primarily by the word and by prayers. How by prayers? We ask God to open our eyes to behold the wonders in his word. We pray to access it, you don’t just take your Bible like a geography book or like a chemistry book. You take your Bible as a spiritual bank of treasures to access it. I have had to pray for access for a few things in my life, I have had to break the air of darkness that is trying to hold it back from me so I could access it. Prayer does not build faith on it’s own. Prayer grants us access to the word by which faith is built. Going to work is not equal to nutrition, you go to work you earn a pay, you buy food and eat, that is nutrition. You can be going to work for life if you don’t eat, you just die straight. We pray to access the treasures in the word which builds our faith and commits God to perform his word in our lives. Church Gist. Stop taking your Bible like a newspaper you won’t get anything out of it. I grew to know my mother putting her Bible under her pillow since she couldn’t read that God should be reading it to her. We serve an awesome God. Don’t think that you are going to pray into realms of faith, you pray into realms of insight and the insights build your faith and faith puts you on top. Jude 1:20. Faith comes by hearing and understanding the word of God. It is not only hearing (Acts 8:30), hearing is not enough, reading is not enough, you must read to the point of understanding or faith is not there. Faith is triggered by our spiritual understanding of the truth. It takes continuous labour in the word to keep one’s faith growing. Every faith giant in the kingdom is a word addict. They are just drinking, it has become an addiction. When we stop growing in the word we stop growing in faith. Church Gist. It is our growth in the word that grows our faith. When T.L. Osborn’s wife went home, he turned their swimming pool into a library. His bedroom is facing the books like this. When he opens his eyes, he sees the books. He still published a book just about four months before he went to be with the Lord. They are all addicts of the word. You don’t toy with the word and grow your faith, do you toy with food and grow your strength. Nothing of value is free. If faith answers all questions then it cannot be free, you must pay the price of building your faith. Hebrews 4:10.

Faith is a personal spiritual asset, faith to a believer is like the natural heart to a man. It is personal to you, it is not transferable. That is why when someone’s heart fails and other men and women are around who truly love him but yet they can’t share their heart with him. Salvation is personal to you, it is not our faith. The just shall live by HIS faith. So it is our personal responsibility to keep our faith alive, strong and going. For our faith to continue to grow we must take note of the following:

1. God must be our only source of expectation for faith to work.
   Psalm 62:5
   Just as we have heart failure in the natural, we have faith failure in the supernatural. When our source of expectation is not in God, faith has failed. The source must be preserved for faith to produce. Psalm 121:1&2, 108:12, Matthew 6:22.

I had an encounter that God used to strengthen my faith to next levels. We were in prayers on September 6th 1983, just about five or four other brothers with me. We were in that prayer meeting on the mat, we were there for three days waiting on the Lord asking God for direction. I was in Psalm 34:5, he said my son you have two eyes, can you make one to look up and one to look down? I tried it and it didn’t work. He said anytime you are looking onto man, never claim to be looking onto me. If you look onto me, you will never be ashamed. Let God be your only source of expectation. He never fails those who trust in Him. From that time on, I don’t look at anyone, I don’t even look at myself. I only look at what He can do. I am too small to handle His plan, His plan is according to His size. Your child can’t handle your budget, he doesn’t even have the income. How can he handle it? It doesn’t make sense to him. I can’t handle God’s purpose, He has the wherewithal to do it. Just let Him be your only source of expectation, you won’t know frustration, you won’t know devastation. He will just take over. I see God take over your issues.

2. For our faith to continue to grow, we must beware of bowing to other gods.
   There are many people, particularly in Africa where they have a lot of support herbs. They call it herbs but they are hurts, they are self acquired hurts. They promise you open doors but they are there to close the doors. They promise you peace but they are there to close the doors. Beware of bowing to other gods, we serve a jealous God. Faith will fail flat when there is another god behind the scene in your life. It is a risk to stand in the middle of the road. There are many believers today that have things in their pocket, things underneath their pillow, things in their car, they are just suffering affliction here and there. Church Gist. Everything about them is turbulence, the things they put in their pillow is the one fighting them at night. It will nullify the effect of your faith. The young men said we will never bow to your god, do your worst, they bounced gallantly to the fiery furnace and they came out gloriously because they trusted in their God. He changed their body to accommodate the fire. They came out to be rulers in the land where they are supposed to be destroyed. Bowing to any other god nullifies the effect of your faith.

I was thanking God for his help over my life the past 53 years since I came to know Jesus and He said to me quietly “you make the choice and I supply the grace”. You better make the choice today to make God your only god. Daniel 6:5-23. Another god will destroy your glorious destiny, don’t subscribe. Psalm 16:4. Another god multiplies sorrow for the believer. Do you know that anybody at my privileged place by the grace of God will always look for something as backup in case the power they are carrying fails. I have no backup. He is my front-up, my back up, my side up and there is no agent of darkness in this country or this world that can say ‘where are you going?’. When He is only your God, He goes in front of you, He walks behind you, He walks inside you, you are just an impossible vessel to be handled by the devil. Strive to be there. Church Gist. I have never sought help from any other source for 54 years running. 41 years running in the ministry I have never known a setback. We are an amazement to the world today by the raw hand of God. May that raw hand of God be your portion from today. All these ‘let’s go somewhere where they will see vision for you’ is another god. Are you blind can’t you see the vision for yourself? You go there and the man points a dirty rod in your direction and says “you have 17 hours more to live”. You are the one who went there. You start shaking, he says “don’t shake, I will do sacrifice with blue cow, they don’t sell them in open market, one of them is 3.2 million, they buy them only at night. I will buy them and bury them and anyone who wants you to die will be buried”. You are the one who played into their net. And that one is a Winner? That cannot be you. That will not be you.

Jeremiah 17:5-8. The difference is wide, please make your choice. There is nowhere grace will land without you making your choice. A million multiplied by nothing is nothing. You can be a Winner for 50 years if you have another god nothing will work. The choice is yours to make. If you sleep with anything tonight you are the one looking for trouble. When I was growing up in those days vehicles had accidents a lot, some of them had charms in front. With all these things tied in front of these vehicles and they still had accidents and died, what is the use of all these charms? One bush man in one forest, he has no bed, the windows in his house are not covered is going to give you what will make you prosper and you agree. Church Gist. If he knows what will make you prosper, won’t he prosper. It takes been dull to follow an idol but you have a sound mind, a gift of God. I am too smart for that. I am too smart to be fooled by the devil, I am too smart for false prophets to get me derailed. I shut the devil when I came out with a vow ‘whatever you cannot do Jesus, let it remain undone’. Whatever you can’t give me, may I never have it. Where you can’t take me let me never get there. You don’t know the joy of salvation until you know faith. You see trouble and you celebrate because inside the trouble you see triumph.

3. For faith to work we must beware of evil conscience.

Evil conscience will always make a shipwreck of faith. It will render faith null and void. 1 Timothy 1:19. You don’t steal and ask God to bless the stolen items. You don’t cheat in an exam and ask God for them not to catch you. You don’t change figures in your office and ask God to cover it. Faith without a good conscience equals a shipwreck. We had some security men in those days in our home when we were in Lagos, one day there was a development and I called one of them, his name was Miller. Miller, come here what do you have under your bed? He started stammering, I said they will follow you there. They followed him there and brought the box out, there was plenty of money that they stole and put an anointing oil bottle inside. The anointing failed. Church Gist. Faith requires a good conscience to work. All the blessing on that oil didn’t work because it takes good conscience to work. Stop tempting God, stop posing to be doing what you are not doing. Faith demands a good conscience to work. Without good conscience, your mantle will turn to rag, smelling rag which holds no value. These are things that made some people say it doesn’t work. Examine yourself if you are in the faith or not. Check inside of you, are you looking only to God or you have some other practices around you?

4. To keep our faith growing we must keep the joy of the Lord alive in us.

• joy is a covenant requirement for accessing revelation. Isaiah 12:3, Romans 11:33. You can have a bucket but you need a rope to draw the water from the well. Joy is the rope which enables your labour in the word to draw water, to draw revelation for your refreshing. Joy and rejoicing leads to realms of abundance of revelation. Philippians 4:4, 1 Thessalonians 5:16. 2 Peter 3:15. Paul was a man of unusual insight acknowledged by the Apostles but he was a man of rejoicing, joy unspeakable full of glory. He was a man of unusual joy. You find somebody under attack and he will be rejoicing, Sir, all these complaining and murmuring, you just block your access to light and you will be walking in ignorance all the way. Show me a man that walks in joy, he takes his Bible and there is an outbreak of revelation. Church Gist. Joy keeps our access to the deep things of God alive and so our faith keeps growing. Faith grows by revelation and we can only access that fullness of joy, not partial joy, not mechanical joy, fullness of joy. Psalm 16:11. Somebody asked me many years ago “Brother David do you ever have problems? I said maybe it came and I didn’t know. The joy of salvation is killing me. After everything, heaven is home. The devil won’t have put territory here, it is our right to take our territories and make the most of it.

Also importantly we live in very prophetic days of the church of Christ, joy is the covenant platform for taking delivery of prophecies. Habakkuk 3:17-19. You want to see prophecies fulfilled? Rejoice for evermore. Prophecies will not be fulfilled in the life of a complainer. Your honour is just at the door, don’t send it away. Please rejoice. If it were not for God you won’t be where you are. Church Gist. ‘God look at where I am’ if it weren’t for God you wouldn’t be on the earth at all. He is watching you night and day and you said He hasn’t done anything. May God not leave you to yourself. You will see how helpless you are. May God not leave any of us to themselves.

One of those great ministers said something and it got to me, he said “everyone writes his own headline”. What awaits you tomorrow is a function of the choice you make today. This year is a defining year for you and it shall be made fully manifest.

Prayers – If anything came across to you, thank God for it and take grace to engage with it.

As you partake of this blood tonight, your faith never fails just like Christ. The Christ-like kind of grace comes on you. Each one’s eyes will open to another level, to deeper realms in the name of Jesus.

Give God thanks for this encounter tonight.

Until you are tired of blessings, don’t be tired of serving.

• Grace to keep on and on serving your God and the interest of His kingdom receive it now.
• Grace to keep serving God as a delight of your soul until Jesus comes, receive it now.
• There shall be no break in your serving God.
• No one will suffer any breakdown in health this year. No emotional breakdown in the name of Jesus.

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