John 10:10 – “The thief cometh not but to steal and to kill and to destroyed, I have come that they might have life and they might have it more abundantly.”
The Lord says there is life and then there is abundant life, and then there is more abundant life. That means there is room for expansion, there is room for enlargement. In 1 Kings 17:8-16, there is life in the form of surviving. The widow of Zarephath, her son and Elijah were together in the same house surviving on eating the same meal – bread and oil – morning and evening for years, just surviving; but then there is abundant life. In 2 Kings 4:8-17, the Bible talks about the Shunamite woman. That woman was great, rich, influential. She was living abundant life, but there is something called life more abundant.
1 Kings 4:22-23, you will see the provision of the food that was eaten in Solomon’s house every day. The incredible number of oxen, bushels of fine flour in this man’s house. They slaughter ten fattest cows in one day and then they bring twenty cows that were fed on the field and to that, hundred sheep, and then they add to that bush meat like deer, antelope, and then uncountable numbers of flowers. Now, that is life more abundant.
In the name of the one who owns the heavens and the earth, according to one of my sons, if you are merely surviving up to this moment, get ready for life more abundant.
There are certain things that must be enlarged in your life today.
1. Your vision must be enlarged – in Proverbs 29:18, the Bible says where there is no vision the people perish. You can’t talk about enlargement until you can see it; without you seeing something, you can’t even have it. In Genesis 13:14-15, the Almighty God told Abraham, ‘Whatever you have seen, I’ll give it to you.’ In Genesis 30:27-48, when our friend Jacob wanted to practically take over the flock of Laban, he reached an agreement that ‘any animal that has stripes and spots will be mine, the ones that have solid colours will be yours.’ He did something, he got some popular trees, made marks on them and made sure that when the animals are pregnant and looking at those popular trees, when they come to drink, they start delivery. They delivered kids that look like what the mother have been looking at. So, what you see is what you become. Now, the Bible made it abundantly clear in 2 Corinthians 3:18, it says, when you look at the Lord as if it’s in a glass, you are transformed from glory to glory just as the image of the one you are looking at.
What you see, you can have. When I became General Overseer, the convention before I became general overseer had less than 700 attendees and that was big. But then I wondered, this is not good enough. Then I had an opportunity of visiting Kenneth Haggin’s camp meeting and I saw about 17,000 people from all over the world in one place. On my journey home, I told God I don’t want hundreds anymore, I want thousands and the church began to grow and then I heard of Yongi Cho in South Korea and I went there because they told me he had the largest church in the world. I went there and I saw a church, a building large enough to take 50,000 people and they were holding seven services on every Sunday and the pastor was begging people that those who have come to church this Sunday must not come next Sunday so that those who could not enter now can enter. I came back, I said God, I don’t want thousands anymore I want millions. What you see you can have. Today in the name that is above every other name, your vision will be enlarged in Jesus Name.
2. Your coast must be enlarged – Isaiah 54:2-3 says, enlarge your tent, spare not, just make sure you are ready to take what is coming. In Genesis 13:14-17, God told Abraham, He said, walk up and down the land so you will be able to see more than you are seeing standing on one space or spot. As much as you can see, I give it to you.
Enlarge your coast. When we got our camp ground in America, I think about 114 acres of land and my children took me there to go and see. I was glad and when they said it’s time to go home, I told them to leave me there and come back for me tomorrow. That night I came out when it was totally dark but there was little bit of moonlight. I began to pray and thank God. It was in the cold season, so when the cold was overwhelming, I went back into the van but my spirit was still racing so after I got warm a little, I came out and suddenly I heard God saying, “take a walk, walk up and down; the more you see, the more I will give you.” That night, I walked. Today, by the grace of God, what was 114 acres is now more than 800 acres because I walked.
As I was walking, walking beyond our land, I saw a house next to our camp ground, big house, and God said look at that house, it’s yours. The following morning when my children came and I told them about the house, they said, “sir, please keep your mouth shut, this is America. If you say anything like that the owner will come with a gun and just shoot you.” Two years later, the owner of the house said he wants to sell the house and my children went to negotiate. When they agreed on the price, they told him, “Do you know that two years ago God told our father that this house is his own?” and he said, “why didn’t you tell me? For two years my wife and I have been racking our brain should we sell or should we not sell.”
3. Your capacity to be blessed – God wants to bless you but the problem is many of us don’t even have the capacity to receive the blessing. In 2 King 4:1-7, when God told that widow of a son of prophet to go and borrow vessels so that she can pour oil into the vessels, so she can be able to pay her debt; but when there were no more vessels, the oil stopped.
I will tell you a story. You remember a time I told you that I was in Britain and I ran out of money and I prayed to God to give me 50 pounds and not too long he provided the 50 pounds through wrong number telephone call. I took the 50 pounds. As I was going upstairs to sleep I was saying to God that if I had known that you will provide 50 pounds so quickly, I would have asked for 100 pounds. Few minutes later, he produced another 50 pounds. I said again, if I had known that the second 50 pounds will come so quickly, maybe I will ask for a third and in less than one hour, he had provided 50 pounds three times. Then, I became afraid. So, I said, “Lord, I’m sorry. I’m just joking, the original 50 pounds will be good enough”. So, I didn’t ask any further. Years later God told me, “Son, instead of asking for 50 pounds, you should have asked for 50,000 pounds and I would have given you”. I pray the capacity to be blessed in your life will be enlarged in Jesus Name.
4. Your self-influence – when you take the story of Elisha in 1 Kings 19:19-21, you will find out that Elisha was a man of influence. He was a rich farmer, he had at least 11 laborers working for him. Quite influential, but then he became the son of a prophet and then his influence increased. By the time you read 2 Kings 2:9-15, one of the sons of the prophets became the prophet and another one of the sons of the prophet began to bow down before him. But his influence increased to such an extent he became the controller of the future of his nation. In 2 Kings 13:14-21, he became someone who was telling the king do this and this will be the result for your nation. If the king didn’t do what he asked him to do correctly, he rebuked him. He died but his influence outlived him because his dead bones were still raising the dead.
One of my sons was talking about generation; maybe God used them to heal malaria fever, etc., and they want to forget their fathers, they want to run out and start a ministry; there is nothing wrong in starting a ministry but you need a cover. When I see people coming to me and say well God has used us to do this, and do that, I always tell them that there is a room for expansion and ask, have you been able to stop the sun from setting? Have you been able to tell the moon to stand still? There is still room ahead for enlargement, for improvement and all of you who are already anointed in the name that is above every other name, may God enlarge your anointing.
5. Your capacity to make progress – There is progress made when you are walking. In Genesis 17:1, the Almighty God said to Abraham, walk thou before me and be thou perfect, just walking. Progress when you walk. But there is running. Running is faster than walking. In 1 Kings 18:46, Elijah ran and beat the chariot of Ahab. So, there is running and there is running. There is a man who ran a marathon race of probably more than 10 kilometres because the hand of God was upon him. But there is something even faster than running; that is flying. Isaiah 40:31 says, if you wait upon the Lord, He will renew your strength and you’ll begin to fly like an eagle.
I have told you before that there’s something even greater than flying; you can travel by air, just sit down in an aeroplane and you enjoy yourself and you arrive cool, no sweating at all. One of my sons was asking me question not too long ago. He said, “daddy, we hear that witches fly.” I said, yes. He said, “why can’t Christians fly?” I said, “they can, if they get so connected to the Holy Spirit.” We have examples in the Bible in Acts 8:35-40 of a young man called Phillip. He had just baptized an Ethiopian and as they were coming out of the water, the spirit of God just picked him up and the next place he landed was several kilometres away.
If the Almighty God decides to favour you, He can pick you up and what will take 10 years to do, He can cause you to achieve it in 10 days. Your capacity to make progress shall be enlarged in Jesus’ name. When we talk about enlargement, like one of my children said, Abraham was enlarged by addition of one son of promise, another son from the bond woman. But there’s a greater enlargement that comes by multiplication and we find it in the case of a woman in Genesis 25:21. You find a woman who gave birth to a set of twins; that’s an enlargement by multiplication. Then later on, we found that the children of Jacob were 12, that’s a bigger multiplication and you know by the time the children of Israel were living Egypt, the Bible says men were more than 600,000 plus children, that is another kind of enlargement.
When God decides to cause you to make progress, he can do it so rapidly that you yourself will be amazed. Today, as I keep telling you the RCCG is in so many nations, do you know there are some of these nations that I’ve never been to. So, you cannot say I am the one that went there and started the church but God in His infinite wisdom will just pick somebody here, another one there. One fellow got a problem in his place of work, they sacked him, and he decided to ‘japa’ and when he landed where he was going, there was no RCCG there so he started one, and the church started growing.
6. God needs to enlarge your capacity for joy – You may say, do I need the capacity for joy? You see the nature of human beings have capacity for sorrow, when it comes to joy, our capacity is limited. I’ve told you before, if somebody should get up one morning and begin to shout and to praise God and then people come in and ask what is going on, and the fellow says I’m just thanking God for my wife’s safe delivery 6 months ago. The people will ask, and you are still shouting about that today? They may say maybe the fellow should be taken to a psychiatric hospital. But if a man gets up and he begins to weep and sob and the people around ask, why are you crying? And the fellow says I’m just remembering my wife who died 10 years ago, they will say sorry we understand. Our nature understands sorrow. We have capacity for sorrow but when it comes to joy, we don’t take it too kindly.
The human body can take anything bitter, but you put too much sugar in your tea, you will vomit it. Your body will tell you it is too sweet. I don’t want it sweet this way. I have told you, that is why when the Lord comes, and we go to be with Him in thousand years, I mean with Him in the air, we will come back here to spend 1,000 years before we will finally go to heaven because if He takes us too suddenly to heaven, we won’t be able to cope because the joy over there is too great. May God give unto you the capacity to receive good news on a daily basis.
And there is a way you do that. Psalm 126:5 says if you sow in tears you will reap in Joy. 2 Corinthians 9:4 says if you sow bountifully, you will reap bountifully. That means there is possibility of bountiful joy that God is ready to make available to you. I have told you before that there is joy, there is great joy, there is exceeding great joy, and there is joy unspeakable. From today onward, that thing called joy unspeakable will become your portion.
Let me be specific about certain things that must be enlarged in your life:
1.You must enlarge your faith: Enlarge your faith so that you can please God. But your faith must be enlarged so that there will be no mountain that can stop you. If your faith is enlarged according to Mark 11:23-24, and if there is any mountain at all that wants to block your way, you just command it and it will jump into the sea. But the Bible went further to say in Mark 9:23, that if the faith is large enough, there will be absolutely nothing that will be impossible for you.
Somebody says the Bible doesn’t say we should pray for faith, that faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God, and that is absolutely correct. But if you read that story in Mark 9:23 when Jesus Christ said to that man who had a big problem, if you can have faith all things are possible to him that believes, the man said, “yes Lord, I believe. help thou my unbelief”. You know what he was saying? If my faith is not big enough, enlarge it.
2.You must enlarge your gratitude: Once you learn to praise God, once you learn to be grateful, no enemy will be able to stand before you. You see the biggest problem we have as Christians, particularly in RCCG, is that we are never grateful enough because we see so many miracles happening all the time that we are no longer motivated to praise God. A woman came here carrying one baby, she shared her testimony. When she says ‘let somebody shout Hallelujah’, you can hardly hear the Hallelujah. Why? We are saying move out of the way, we know somebody is coming with 4 children. Every miracle requires praise. The very fact that you are still breathing requires praise. The word of God says let everything that has breathe praise the Lord.
Learn a lesson from Solomon. In 2 Chronicles 1:6-15 when he wanted to show God gratitude, he said, “God, thus far you have helped me, look at me I’m now a king”. The Bible says he offered a thousand burnt offerings. He did what nobody else had ever done before. God said, fine son, I’ve taken note. The second time when he was going to say thank you to God, the Bible tells us in 2 Chronicles 7:5, he offered 22,000 cows and 120 sheep. He enlarged his gratitude and do you know what happened? The Bible says in 1 Kings 4:14 and 2 Kings 4:24 that throughout his reign there was no war, they had peace all round. He increased his gratitude; God gave him everything. He asked for wisdom, understanding, long life and then God saw to it and that no enemy disturbed him. We are talking of a time when kings go to war, every year, every king wanted to increase his coast so they attack the nearest kingdom just to take over more land but in the case of Solomon, they all left him alone. You know the Bible says thou prepared a table before me in the presence of my enemy. Enlarge your gratitude!
3.Enlarge your prayer: You see, if you can pray the way God expects you to pray without ceasing, then God will make you far, far bigger than those who have been mocking you. In 1 Samuel 1:1-20, you know the story of that lady called Hannah. There were two wives of the same husband and the other was bringing forth children like rabbits but Hannah had none. The second wife was giving her horrors until one day, this lady decided to pray until God hears her. She prayed and God responded. When she was singing her song of gratitude in 1 Samuel 2:1-10, she made it clear that the mocker has been silent.
If only you will pray sufficiently, your mockers will be silent. If you enlarge your evangelism, God will answer unanswered prayers. If you evangelize the way you should, there will never again be a prayer in your life that will not be answered.
4.Enlarge your love: If you enlarge your love, you will be larger than death. Songs of Solomon 8:6 says that love is as strong as death. If you are really known for love, even if death had killed you, death can vomit you. The story of a woman called Dorcas, when she was alive, she was showing so much love to everybody. When she died, the people said no God, we won’t take this, and they sent for Peter. Peter went in, prayed and brought her back alive. Love; the Bible says you should love your neighbour like yourself. You can’t love your neighbours and see them living in sin and not witness to them. You can’t love your neighbours and know that there is a place like this where they can come and meet with the Holy Spirit and get their problems solved, and not invite them. If you enlarge your capacity to love, the Almighty God can look down from heaven and change your appointed date with death and cause you to live much longer.
Several years ago, one traditional ruler who happened to be one of my spiritual sons said to me when he was sick, that he believes his time to die has come. I laughed. He said pastor, this not a joking matter, I’m telling you the truth. I said I know how much love you have for God, but you haven’t done the work He wants you to do; he didn’t save you for saving sake, he saved you so that you can bring several other traditional rulers to Christ. I said, if God heals you, will you begin to work for him? He said let Him try me. He lived for another 12 years bringing souls into the kingdoms. If you enlarge your love for your neighbours, for your co-workers, for your co-tenants, for the work of God, for the work of the kingdom, I can assure you that you won’t die, you will live to declare the glory of God.
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