Faith To Receive Results by Pastor Anwinli Ojeikere: MP3 Download & Sermon Notes

Faith to Receive Results

I heard strongly in my spirit that we are entering a new season, that there is a shift. When you truly perceive something from God, it does not come to you alone; it is a word flowing in the atmosphere, and those with hearing ears pick it up. So be sensitive to take note of what is about to happen in this season. I do not know what the new thing is for you, but there is something new.

Hebrews 11:30-35 By faith the walls of Jericho fell; by faith Rahab was preserved; and the writer runs out of time to tell of Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephthah, David, Samuel, and the prophets who through faith subdued kingdoms, worked righteousness, obtained promises, stopped the mouths of lions, quenched the violence of fire, escaped the edge of the sword, were made strong out of weakness, and saw women receive their dead raised to life again. All of this could only happen by faith.

When you are praying for a shift or a new season, there is something you must activate, and it is faith. Faith never makes sense, but it always makes miracles. Faith has nothing to do with your senses; common sense and the faith realm cannot mix. When you tell someone you are stepping into something and they cannot comprehend it, do not blame them and do not argue it; purge your heart of their words, and sometimes you must disconnect from those who cannot understand where you are going. You do not need to understand the faith realm. It does not need your analysis; it needs your movement.

What You See Activates Faith

The first thing that builds faith to receive results is what you see, and I am not talking about your physical eyes. I have met a man who is physically blind yet full of sight: he is enlarging, thinking, and doing much, because he refuses to look at his defect. You can have physical eyes and yet lack sight. There are people you sit with and you go low, and people you sit with and you go high. What you see, your perception, your spiritual sight, your vision, is the prerequisite that activates faith.

Numbers 13:30-33 Consider two categories of people who faced the same oppressors. Caleb quieted the people and said, "Let us go up at once and take possession, for we are well able to overcome it." But the other spies gave a bad report and said, "We were like grasshoppers in our own sight, and so we were in their sight." Notice: nobody called them grasshoppers; they named themselves that first. The greatest discourager is you. Nobody can shut your vision except you.

Once, a woman who is like a mother to me told me I was too feeble to take my conference into a bigger space. I had to check the meaning of the word, and it stung. But I looked at myself and said, there is a giant on your inside; you may appear frail, but you are not. I kept moving with what God told me, and in the end that same person came and said, "You are victorious." Anybody will say anything to shut you down, and sometimes it is genuine concern rather than malice, but until you see yourself as big, no comment can shut your sight.

1 Samuel 17 David was only sent to carry bread to his brothers, and neither Saul nor Goliath regarded him. But he did not see himself as small; because he had killed the lion and the bear, he asked who this uncircumcised Philistine was. The truth you tell yourself is what stays with you and what you grow with. Faith is not the absence of fear; faith is fear acted out. You are the one pregnant with the vision, and just as no one else can carry or push a woman's pregnancy for her, no one else can push what God has placed in you. Until you see yourself as one carrying something with the capacity to deliver it, nobody can shut what you have seen.

See It Before You Take It

Joshua 6:1-2 Jericho was securely shut up, and the Lord said to Joshua, "See! I have given Jericho into your hand, its king and its mighty men of valour." God said "See" before He gave a single instruction to march. Someone can give you a prophecy, but if you do not see yourself in it, it cannot amount to anything. They had to see themselves victorious before the marching, so that when they marched, they marched as people who already had sight.

Genesis 21:14-19 When Hagar's water was used up in the wilderness, she placed the boy under a shrub, sat at a distance so as not to watch him die, and wept. God heard the lad and spoke to her, but then He did something specific: He opened her eyes, and she saw a well of water. The well was already there; she was simply too focused on her problem to see the provision. Scripture does not say God provided a well; it says He opened her eyes. So many of us are too focused on the symptoms, the lack, the family problem, the heartbreak, to see that the solution has been there all along. It was already settled; you only need your eyes opened.

2 Kings 6:16-19 When the Syrian army surrounded Dothan, Elisha told his frightened servant, "Those who are with us are more than those who are with them," but the servant was not convinced. So Elisha prayed, "Lord, open his eyes that he may see," and the young man saw the mountain full of horses and chariots of fire. Sight activates faith. If Elisha had only told him about the chariots, he would not have believed; he needed to see for himself. In the same way, a pastor can preach every morning that you are great, wealthy, and about to marry, but if you do not see it, nothing happens. It is not that the prophecy is wrong; it is that you have not had the right sight. Sight wombs prophecy. Later Elisha prayed that the enemy be struck with blindness and led them the wrong way, because when you see wrongly, you move in the wrong direction. Love is not blind; you are the one blind to what has already been shown you. It is your spiritual lens.

Train and Guard Your Attention

In your journey toward right sight, there are people you must unfollow, whether celebrities on social media, or even friends and fellow choir members with a wrong mindset. People who are biologically related to you are not automatically destiny-related. Unfollow, so that you can see well.

To activate sight, train your attention and force yourself to focus on the right things, because what you consistently focus on shapes the outcome of your life. You must not be everywhere; not every piece of news must be your news. If something pollutes you, do not listen to it, do not watch it, and do not stay in that conversation.

Acts 3:1-5 When the lame man at the Beautiful gate saw Peter and John, he was simply looking for the next person to beg, so used to begging that his attention drifted. Peter fixed his eyes on him and said, "Look at us," commanding his attention before performing any miracle. You must force your attention, or you begin to drift and end up confused about where you are.

Coming from a broken home, I once hated men and did not want to hear about marriage, because of the way I saw my father treat my mother. Then I visited a friend's home and watched a loving marriage, an anniversary celebrated, affection I did not know existed. I kept going back, deliberately training my eyes to see a different picture of marriage. Do not underestimate this: one pastor laying hands on you will not stop you from repeating the cycle of your parents if you do not change your narrative by forcing your eyes to see differently. Deliverance happens, but you must be intentional. If you never look at people yielding results, no amount of prayer will activate what you have not trained yourself to see.

Lay It Aside

Hebrews 12:1-2 Since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, we must lay aside every weight and the sin that so easily ensnares us, and run with endurance the race set before us, looking unto Jesus. There are things you must lay aside: offences, bitterness, the past relationship that hurt you, the pastor who wounded you, the business that failed, the person you begged who turned their back on you. You cannot even see the race until you lay these things aside. There is nothing wrong with sitting to evaluate, but when you spend your time being bitter, you produce only fear, not faith. Lay it aside, so that you will not be in your forties still living the wounds of your thirties.

Years ago I lost a child. I said, "God, You hate me; do not use me again." But I would not be standing and enlarging today if I had not laid that season aside. I was serving the Lord when it happened; it was not a season of backsliding. Daniel 3 We are not connected to God for the harvest but because we love Him, so like Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, even if deliverance does not come as we hoped, we will still not bow. Your faith will be tested, and there will be moments when it seems God is not there. What helped me through was the power of sight, praying continually, "Lord, help me to lay it aside." As I stayed there, God began to show me pictures of others who had endured far more, and they became my mirror of encouragement.

Prayer: Open My Eyes

Lord, I come to You honestly, without pretending, naked before You, because You know the weight inside me. Help me to lay it aside. For the person I am carrying, help my friend, help my spouse, and turn back the one moving in the wrong direction. As Elisha prayed, open my eyes that I may see; I do not want to see wrongly, and I am tired of deceiving myself.

Jeremiah 33:3 Call to Me, and I will answer you, and show you great and mighty things which you do not know.

Lord, show me the great and mighty things. Open my eyes to see. Show me greater things.

Receive it now. Fresh fire, fresh fire. Your sight is restored. Receive the prophetic, receive peace, receive fresh fire. Take it.