Expansion
Dear Friends,
Over the years different people living in different continents have given me the same passage of scripture Isaiah 54: 2 - 3 as a message from God.
"Enlarge the place of your tent, stretch your tent curtains wide, do not hold back; lengthen your cords, strengthen your stakes. For you will spread out to the right and to the left''.
As you can imagine I have been prayerfully pondering these verses over the years!
God is ready to do a bigger thing. God has a bigger plan for our work. "Enlarge the place of your tent, stretch your tent curtains wide." Go to the next place where God wants us to go? "Lengthen your cord, strengthen your stakes, for you will spread out to the right and to the left.''
I have felt the Lord asking us a question: “Will you Grow?”.
God wants to do a bigger work in our life and ministry. God has a bigger purpose. But for that to take place WE must enlarge our capacity for God.
1 Chronicles 4:10: Jabez cried out to God, "Oh, that you would bless me and enlarge my territory! Let your hand be with me, and keep me from harm so that I will be free from pain." And God granted his request.
It’s not wrong for us to ask God to bless us. I believe that is a good prayer for us all to pray. Now the thing that made it right for Jabez was because he wanted to be used to maximum capacity. His prayer was not self centred but rather it was centred upon allowing God to expand his area of influence.
God wants to expand our influence for His purpose. Here is a powerful principle in life: we live to give. It is a principle that is woven into the fabric of creation. Did you know that Salmon fish spend the last days of their lives battling upstream to spawn? They have this intuitive sense that they exist for the purpose of birthing new life.
And for us it’s the Spirit that dwells in us which God wants to release through our life. It’s not our ability, it’s our expandability. God needs expandable tents. God uses elastic vessels who are able to change and grow with what God is doing.
We have to expand our capacity to increase our influence for God. Expand our plans so as to work according to Christ's kingdom expansion agenda. Faith is a concrete action. It is not holding to a belief in our head. It is a concrete action that requires us to enlarge our capacity for what God wants to do.
However, stretching has the tendency to cause pain. When we stretch we are working a certain set of muscles. So in order for us to stretch ourselves to what God asks us to become, its going to require some pain on our part both personally and as a ministry.
How big is our tent? In this verse Isaiah says you need to spread out to the right and the left. We need to make our mark on a land that does not yet know who we are.
In other words we need to expand our influence. But we reap what we sow. Our return will only be as great as our investment. When we enlarge our capacity for God by stretching our investment of faith, God will expand our influence.
The missionary William Carey said, Expect great things from God; attempt great things for God'. Amen let's do that!
Well,...all the above to say we are now seeing some fulfilment to the 'word' above. After five years in our current offices we have outgrown them and are moving to bigger offices which will be a better base to manage our growing ministry of proclamation, training, mentoring and resourcing.
I wouldn't be surprised that much of what I have said above is relevant to you and we pray that you too would enlarge your capacity for God.
Shalom,
J.John
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