YOUR EXPECTATION WILL NOT BE CUT OFF!

By Pastor Michael Olawore
 New Wine Church, London

Sunday 18 December 2011

Foundation Scripture: Proverbs 23: 18; Proverbs 24: 14
“Your expectation shall not be cut off!” This is the declaration of the Lord to you today. In saying this, I am presupposing that your expectation is founded in the will of God for your life. I am therefore encouraging you that insofar that your expectation is founded on the will of God; it shall not be cut off. In Luke 22 Jesus prayed ‘Let your will be done’, therefore the will of God for your life, the purpose of God, the spoken word and the written word of God will be performed in your life. There are just over two weeks left of 2011 and although you may not yet have seen the manifestation of what you had been expecting this year, I have come to declare to you that in that your expectations were founded on and in line with the word of God, your expectation will not be cut off!
The will of God is your assurance of victory in the midst of the battle. The will of God is your peace, the will of God is your joy, the will of God is your prosperity, the will of God is your deliverance and the will of God is your restoration. Everything that Jesus came to deliver is the will of God for your life and inasmuch as your expectation is founded on the will of God, your expectation will not be cut off! In John 10: 10 Jesus declared that He came to give us ‘life more abundantly’ and I declare the abundant life is yours, now! I repeat, the word of the Lord to this house is that your expectation in Him will not be cut off.
Proverbs 23:18 (KJV) says ‘For surely there is an end; and thine expectation shall not be cut off.’ Proverbs 24: 14 says ‘So shall the knowledge of wisdom be unto thy soul: when thou hast found it, then there shall be a reward, and thy expectation shall not be cut off.  From this we can understand that our hope will not be cut off or disappointed; your hope will not be disappointed. In Proverbs 23: 18 the promise is prefaced with ‘surely’ – this means definitely, without fail, certainly. This should fill you with joy because you can be confident that there will be an end to whatever challenges or confronts you and in addition to that, your expectation will not be cut off. There will be an end to affliction, and end to failure, an end to worry and an end to anxiety; there will be an end to disappointment, an end to lack, an end to debt and an end to insufficiency; there will be an end to intimidation, an end to nightmares and an end to demonic interference; surely there is an end – in addition to that your expectation will be granted – it will not be cut off!
It is a travesty to go through life devoid of expectation. You need expectation – expectation is the vehicle that takes you from where you are to where God plans for you to be; transporting you from your ‘now’ to your future. A man without expectation has deprived himself of life. Expectation is more than just wishing –it is a confident assurance – irrespective of any factual situation or ‘professional’ evaluation or opinion. The Law of Expectation establishes that whatever a man expects a man attracts. Your expectation therefore operates much like a magnet, connecting your expectation to you.
With that in mind, I ask you, ‘What is your expectation?’ What are you expecting for 2012 in fact, what are expecting for the remainder of 2011? What are your expectations regarding the prophetic promises of God that have been released into your life?’ What were your expectations in coming to church today? Did you come because that’s what you do on a Sunday – is it business as usual or did you come with an expectation?  Expectation involves having anticipation, an eagerness, a longing and an outlook of possibility and grounds for hope. Expectation gives you the grounds to state “I have anticipation with confidence of fulfilment; I am longing for something to come to pass. I am expecting that which God has promised me to be manifested to happen. I know my change has come!”
You can break out of anything that the enemy throws at you by simply establishing your expectation on the will and the promises of God for your life. The enemy wants to put you into a position whereby all you can see is the negative situation that he places you in, however, if you can shift your gaze away from the enemy’s picture and instead focus your expectation on the promises of God, you can break free. We see this principle at work in the book of Job 3: 25, albeit in a contrary sense when Job said ‘For the thing I greatly feared has come upon me, and what I dreaded has happened to me’. Expectation will always happen. Job’s negative expectation resulted in disaster whereas expectation based upon God’s word releases confidence and hope; it prevents weariness setting in and stops you from giving up in life. Whatever is deprived of expectation is devoid of life; the best way to stifle the life of  a thing is to starve it of expectation – on the other hand, achievement is borne of expectation – a child, for example, if filled with expectation will achieve and fulfil, if not exceed that expectation. When Jacob served his father-in-law Laban, he placed striped rods before the sheep before they mated and they reproduced according to what they saw. Expectation gives birth to manifestation. You have a God-given ability to make a demand on your future – it is your expectation that connects you to the supernatural miracle-working power of God and it is therefore crucial to your success.  I ask you therefore, ‘What are you pregnant with?’ what are you expectant with for the remainder of this year – what are you expectant with for 2012?’
With this in mind, let’s look at the account of the man who was begging by the Beautiful Gate in Acts 3: we are told that the man sat begging by the Beautiful Gate and upon seeing Peter and John, he asked them for some money. Notice that Peter and John were going to the Temple to participate in the afternoon prayers although for the lame man, this marked his moment of opportunity; God met with him where he was; help was sent to him. In the same way I declare to you that God will meet you and send help to you. The lame man’s life was filled with questions but God sent the answer –when questions and answers collide, change is inevitable – I declare that before the end of this year change will come to your life. You will not carry the questions of life in to 2012 – there will be answers in your life. God has sent help to you. Wherever the enemy may have held you, I declare that your help has come. The days of looking for help are over – I declare that help comes looking for you.
When help comes however, you must be able to operate in discernment and be able to recognise opportunity and visitation. The lame man asked Peter and John for alms in the same way that he had asked everyone else passing. He didn’t realise that what stood before him was far more than the opportunity to receive alms, but the opportunity to receive a permanent answer to his situation. Peter was carrying the answer but the lame man’s failure to discern operated as a hindrance to the flow of power. We are told that Peter and John looked at him intently and Peter instructed him to look at them. It was clear that the man had physically seen them as he had asked them for alms and therefore why, you may ask, did Peter instruct him to look at them? Peter needed him to discern what he was and therefore in this instruction, he was essentially telling saying ‘unless you discern who I am, you will not be able to discern and receive what I am carrying’. Having given Peter and John his attention, in Acts 3: 5 we are told that he was ‘expecting to receive something of them’.  At this point, I believe, the lame man had begun to recognise that they carried something significant, his expectation was elevated beyond the possibility of just receiving alms and expectation having been ignited, and he connected with the power of God.
Peter could not give him what he had until he discerned what Peter had and expectation was stirred up. You cannot afford to go through life devoid of expectation. There is something that God wants to do in your life in 2012 and indeed, the remainder of 2011 and your expectation is the key – it is the mother of the miraculous in your life. The woman with the issue of blood who pressed through the crowds surrounding Jesus repeating ‘if I can only touch the hem of his garment, I will be made whole’ was filled with expectation that her healing would manifest and that change would come. In the same way, I declare to you that your change has come.
My expectation is such that, despite what we are going through as a church, my mind is at rest. We are not jittery, anxious or filled with worry, despite what the facts or the ‘professionals’ may say. We are connected with the heavenly purpose and we can be confidently assured that all shall be well. There has to be something on the inside of you that is ready to receive what God has promised you and that is your expectation. It is a confident assurance that you will not remain where you are. 2012 will be a glorious year and you will lay hold of God’s plan for you. I challenge you to expect your future to be glorious and bright.  
Looking back at the account in Acts 3, the man, whom previously had sat begging at the entrance of the Beautiful Gate, never having previously been able to get beyond this position, now entered the Temple walking, leaping and praising God. In the same way, we as a church have been promised that we are entering our ‘season of beyond’ – we too are going beyond our previous position, into our season of beyond, walking leaping and praising God! The enemy will look for you at your previous position but you will have moved on. God will surprise you this year – you will leap, dance and praise the Lord. In this account, everyone saw the previously lame man walking, leaping and praising his way into the Temple – in the same way, your victory will be a public one – everyone will see you leaping, dancing and praising God! God has promised something spectacular will happen – this is the season – you will walk, you will leap, you will praise God. Your expectation will not be cut off!