If you have been with our ministry for a very long time, you may remember this. I once received a prophetic word that was the oddest thing to me. The word was… “God is taking you into a place of intimacy with Him. God has great things for you, but you can’t receive them until you increase your capacity to receive. In these intimate times with God, you will increase your capacity to receive all God has for you.”
I remember thinking then, “That’s crazy. I can receive anything God has for me.” I was wrong, and I soon learned how wrong I was. The truth is that when our faith is increased, enlargement comes. How much we receive is entirely up to us.
So, I find myself in another season where God is saying, “You need to increase your capacity to receive.”
These days, when He says this to me, I become excited because I have seen this principle work over and over in my life. I know if He is speaking to increase your faith to receive it, it is because He has something for me that is bigger than I can imagine, and therefore bigger than what I can receive AT THIS MOMENT. If I can’t imagine it, I can’t receive it. Increase must come in my faith and in my thought life.
We are in a season where God has great things in store for us. He has been giving me dreams that confirm this feeling.
Many of us will receive them. We will heed this word and get about the business of increasing our faith, which will enable us to receive ALL God has for us.
Sadly, some will not; some will read this word and think, “Yea, I have heard this before and nothing ever happens.” Those folks will change nothing, and they will receive nothing – DO NOT BE ONE OF THOSE.
God can only give me what I have the capacity to receive. Remember the widow woman?
In 2 Kings 4:2-6; So, Elisha said to her, “What shall I do for you? Tell me, what do you have in the house?” And she said, “Your maidservant has nothing in the house but a jar of oil.” Then he said, “Go, borrow vessels from everywhere, from all your neighbors–empty vessels; do not gather just a few. And when you have come in, you shall shut the door behind you and your sons; then pour it into all those vessels and set aside the full ones.” So, she went from him and shut the door behind her and her sons, who brought the vessels to her; and she poured it out. Now it came to pass, when the vessels were full, that she said to her son, “Bring me another vessel.” And he said to her, “There is not another vessel.” So, the oil ceased.
The oil only ceased when she had no more containers to hold it. If she had gathered a hundred more containers, increasing her capacity to receive, the oil would have continued to flow. It is the same with us. Our faith receives and produces what it has the capacity to receive. When our faith increases, our capacity increases and we increase. Praise the Lord!
You may be asking; How do I increase my faith? I can show you in the Word of God.
Let’s look at Romans 4:16-21.
Therefore it is of faith that it might be according to grace, so that the promise might be sure to all the seed, not only to those who are of the law, but also to those who are of the faith of Abraham, who is the father of us all (as it is written, “I have made you a father of many nations”) in the presence of Him whom he believed–God, who gives life to the dead and calls those things which do not exist as though they did; who, contrary to hope, in hope believed, so that he became the father of many nations, according to what was spoken, “So shall your descendants be.” And not being weak in faith, he did not consider his own body, already dead (since he was about a hundred years old), and the deadness of Sarah’s womb. He did not waver at the promise of God through unbelief, but was strengthened in faith, giving glory to God, and being fully convinced that what He had promised He was also able to perform.
This awesome set of scriptures shows us how to increase our faith.
First, we see how God works. He calls those things which do not exist as though they do. We must declare and decree what the Word of God says amid impossibilities. We can’t look at how it currently is; we must call those things that be not as though they ALREADY are.
Secondly, Abraham hoped against hope – he believed when there was no reason, at least not one he could see, to believe. His faith was grounded in the promise of God alone.
Third, he did not consider his own body or Sarah’s body. They were well past child-bearing age, but Abraham refused to consider that; he refused to think about it and let it move him. He stood firm on God’s promise. We must refuse to believe anything inconsistent with the Word of God. We, too, must refuse to let anything move us from His promises.
Fourth, he allowed no unbelief. He refused doubt and unbelief.
Fifth, he was strengthened in faith. This word strengthened means he increased in faith and continued increasing. One translation says, “he increased in faith by giving glory to God.”
Keith Moore once said that a heart of thanksgiving increases your capacity to receive.
If we complain and talk negatively about the promises of God, we are wavering, and we will not receive from the Lord. However, if we cultivate a heart of thanksgiving amid our stand of faith, if we continue to give God glory while waiting for the manifestation of the promise of God, our faith increases. Isn’t that awesome!
Finally, Abraham was fully convinced that God would do what He said He would do.
That is how we increase our faith. Does God have something so big for you that you don’t have the faith to receive it? Do you feel it stirring inside of you? If so, begin today to strengthen your faith and enlarge your capacity to receive. If you do that, when your capacity to receive is in line with His promise, the manifestation will come. He cannot deny Himself or His Word. Our job is to increase our capacity to receive; His job is to manifest the promise. And He is not a man that He should lie. Praise God!
All the things I mentioned are vital: confession, hope, refusing to look at circumstances, and refusing unbelief. These are all essential things but remember the main thing: sitting at the feet of Jesus, spending time in the presence of the Lord. This will increase your capacity like nothing else. Don’t neglect intimate times with God. As Jesus told Martha, “Mary has chosen the most important thing, sitting at My feet, spending time with me.”
So it is with us.
