I’ll tell you something. There is something that you need to increase on in any walk of faith that you have, and that thing is the word “expectation.” What is your expectation? Pause. Selah. Think. What is really your expectation? What is your expectation when you get up in the morning? What is your expectation when you come to church? What is your expectation when you bring out your seed? What is your expectation when you pray to God? What is our expectation in The Carpenter’s Ministry?
You need to raise your expectation. If that is all I say to you today, it is enough! I came with something to share with you but I just kept hearing in my spirit, “Expectation; My people have carefully lowered their expectation to safe, comfortable zone. Jack your expectations high.” God doesn’t operate in the safe zone. That is one thing about God that is dangerous. Dangerous people operate outside of the safe zone. Your expectations have been carefully cocooned in your comfort zones. God says,“I’m bigger than any comfort zone. I can’t be caged; I can’t be contained. You cage and you contain Me when you reduce your expectation.”
What is your expectation? What is our expectation? Is our expectation in TCC really that the world will hear the Word of God from this place? Is our expectation truly that the books coming from our printing press, publishing house will become worldwide bestsellers, not because of the people writing the books, but because of the stuff inside the books? What is our expectation? Is our expectation that television from this ministry will be known worldwide, and souls will be saved, healed and delivered with the same Word we have been enjoying for twenty-seven years?
What is your expectation? Your expectation will either drive your seed or kill your seed. What is your expectation? You function with expectations as a human being. When you wake up in the morning without a medical condition, you expect to put your legs on the ground and they will obey you. If you live in a house where water runs, you expect water whenever you open the tap. If it doesn’t, something is wrong. If you were expecting visitors, you clean your house extra. Expectation! Why is a pregnant woman called an expectant mother? Because she doesn’t give birth to a child and get shocked, “Eh, was it a child? I thought it would be a dog.” No! What you see and what you experience will only match or exceed your expectation. So, you determine your visitation by your expectation. What kind of visitation are you expecting from God? That is what you will experience.
Somebody shout “hallelujah!” What is your expectation? You may be forty-four years old and just got married. Will your expectation be to have a child in nine months, or is your expectation that you are going to have problems because you are forty-four, so you prepare for a journey. What is your expectation?
My expectation as the pastor of The Carpenter’s Church is that more and more people are going to have dreams about TCC. My expectation is that more and more people would wake up in the morning, and be guided and led by the Holy Spirit to this place. That is my expectation! My expectation is that the Word will continue to grow and grow in grace, and change lives in this place. That is my expectation! So, each time I open my Bible to study, that expectation is before me and I say, “Lord, Your grace, Your grace in greater levels and greater dimensions.” Grace in place of grace that is my expectation. My expectation is that I will hear His voice and know His voice; the stranger will not speak to me.
What is your expectation? Do you expect to be promoted or do you expect to be fired? Listen to me: The greatest source of your expectation is from the wealth of the “bigness” of God that you know exists in you. The economy will not dim your expectation. What you see in your bank account should not dim your expectation. You say, “Ah, but that is unrealistic. It’s unreal.” That is the problem! “A false reality, a reality that doesn’t match up with My words,” says God. “I am the reality! It is My reality that becomes your tangibility,” says the Spirit of God. “I am the reality. The reality is not the numbers on your account statement. The reality is not how many contracts you have. The reality is Me,” says God. “For your healing, the reality is Me, Rophe. For your provision, the reality is Me, Jireh. I am your reality, quit looking at the reality you can touch and make Me your reality, and then I will become your tangibility.”
What is your expectation? It takes courage to expect great things. It takes courage to believe God for the impossible. It takes courage to step out of the comfort zone. It takes courage to operate outside the box, and that is who you are. That is what is strange and unique about TCC. You operate outside the box; you dream outside the safe zone. You are like the prophet who with open eyes sees the visions of God. He doesn’t wait to be comfortably asleep. When His eyes are wide open, his physical eyes are accounting with what he is seeing but there is something greater than what he is seeing, and with eyes wide open; seeing not denying what his senses are recording, he can still see visions of God. That is who you are. That is how we will experience the bigness God spoke to us about. Today, go home and meditate on expectations.
What is really your expectation? When you praise God, why do you praise Him? Is it because it is what we need to do at a particular time in the service?“You should praise Me,” says God’s Spirit, “because I am the fulfiller of the expectations that come from Me.” That is why you should praise Him now. You should praise Him as the One who fulfills those big dreams you’ve been trying to sit on — when something wants to come up and you press it down. God sent me here this night to tell you, “Stop pressing down those expectations I’m putting in you. Give Me something to fulfill. Give Me something big to fulfill, give Me something bigger than you, give me something you cannot fulfill on your own. I am the fulfiller of your expectation.”
“What then? Does this negate My principles of progression? No! At whatever level you are, expect great things from Me, and to the next level, expect good things from Me. Even the next level, expect great things from Me.”
I expect that people will write cheques to complete the building of phases of the auditorium. Whether they are members of The Carpenter’s Church or not, as long as he or she is a human being with two legs and not animal, I expect that somebody will come and say, “All the chairs in this church, here is a cheque, buy the chairs.” That is my expectation! Someone will say, “What will the flooring for this place cost? I was sent here by God.” Maybe outside the country they’d say, “I stumbled across your website and the Spirit of the Lord told me, ask them what is left for the finishing of the auditorium and give them a cheque.” You say, “Ah, is it possible?” That is your problem, but I’m not in that zone with you, and if I were you I will follow this shepherd as she follows Christ. If I were you, I’d follow her as she follows Christ. Big!
Some of you don’t dare to have expectations because you are afraid to be disappointed, therefore you don’t even speak your expectations in case it doesn’t happen. That is why it doesn’t happen for you. When you know the God you serve, when you know that He is the fulfiller. “What is your expectation for your business next year? What is your expectation for your marriage this year? What is your expectation for the grace upon your life? What is your expectation? Raise them high, raise them higher than your logic, higher than your senses, higher than your abilities, and raise your expectations to the realm where I live,” says God. “Raise them, raise them beyond your reasoning, raise them beyond your brain power, raise them beyond who you know, for I have people in every city. In every city, I have people. In every place you want to enter, I have people, but they will not come out to meet you except with bold expectation you walk in; and as you walk in, the doors will open unto you and you will find out that I already have people there waiting for you.”
What is your expectation? What is your expectation when you lead people in praise? Do you expect healings and miracles to take place, or do you just come and sing on stage? For every single thing you do, stretch your mind and raise your expectations. Pastor Sola and I are raising them even higher for this ministry. Pastors, we are raising them higher for this ministry. God told us to fly and shatter every ceiling. We are shattering it! Look at the strange army of men of God we have, starting from me. Look at the strange, unusual and unlikely vessels that we have in this place. These are the people that do big things for God. The people that don’t fit into the mold, and God is so going to use us to do great and mighty things in my generation and generations yet unborn, because my imaginations are of Him. My expectations are of Him — the fulfiller of visions, the fulfiller of dreams and the fulfiller of expectations. You need to give a shout of praise.
Get out of the comfort zone! Some of you have ceilings, barriers, safe zones, glory be to God that they are glass ceilings, they can break, and they will break with your praise right now. So I want to hear your praise match your unusual and strange expectation. They are breaking, the ceilings are breaking, and impossibilities are melting away. Strange, strange, strange answers are being received this night. Strange opportunities for TCC, strange opportunities for you.
Strange opportunities. I look up now and the ceilings are shattered, direct access to the open heavens. No more limits, no more barriers, we are out of the safe zone, we are out of the comfort zone. We are walking on the water now. We are dancing with His Spirit now. The music comes straight from the open heavens because the ceilings are broken. We can hear clearly now, we can see clearly now, we can reach out boldly now because the ceilings are shattered and the heavens are opened. Opportunities are racing towards us, favour is colliding with us, rules are being broken for us, laws are being changed for us.
Pastor Sola and I declare as your pastors that you will retain those high expectations. Even as you go about with this corporate anointing, you will retain those high expectations. Nay, they will grow and grow and grow. “What you received here is just the beginning, but remember this,” says the Spirit of God, “Shatter the glass ceiling. Break it with your praise and there will be full access. It is open, it has always been there for you but the ceiling you put, you will bring it down. Get ready for open doors. Get ready for opportunities; get ready to get out of obscurity. Have I not called you My showpiece? Get ready to get on display for My glory and for the benefit of mankind.”
Pastor Sola and I bless you as your pastors, and we declare your expectations will not be cut short. They will not only be met, they will be exceeded by our big God in the Name of Jesus Christ.