Gregory Dickow - Expect Increase: 7 Things God Wants to Increase in Your Life
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Man, I'm telling you, God said, "Believe me for increase", he said, "Believe me for increase, not decrease", because we all went into this mode. I think all over the world, we went into this mode like, "OK, we got to learn to manage how we're going to handle, how we're going to deal with less income in our lives, less income in our families, less income, we're going to have to handle less people in church". And the fact is, is we're reaching more people in church now. We're reaching, I don't even have the statistics, but, I've been told at least two to three times more people are experiencing our church than they were before this hit. And I'm not saying that God sent this. I don't believe God sends any disease. God sent Jesus. God sent his word to heal you and deliver you from destruction.
Psalm 107:20, says God sent Jesus to bring salvation and healing. But God does bend the things that the enemy sends, amen, he does bend what the enemy sends. And so everybody was getting ready for going into decrease mode, going into preservation mode, going into starvation mode, everybody was getting no toilet paper was so hard to find hand sanitizer. I don't know what the other things were necessarily, but... and God just, he just made it clear to me, "Believe me, for increase, not decrease". And then he laughed with me, and he said something funny to me and he said, "You can have decrease on your own".
See, we don't need God to have decreased, we have decrease on our own. He said, "But with me, I will give you increase". So I know, it's bold for me to talk about that in a time where everybody's sort of trying to trying to preserve. And God wants us to be set free, to believe him. Because if we can't believe him in tough times, are we really believing him in the good times? Or are we believing in the good things during the good times? Or are we believe in God is the giver in the good times and that God is the supplier In the tough times to? God will supply at all times. And you know what's left for me to do? The Bible says, "I will bless the Lord at all times, and his praise shall continually be in my mouth".
Let's come to the table that he set for us. It's a table of increase. "Well, Lord, in this pandemic, you could actually bring increase to my finances, you could actually bring increase to my joy, you could actually bring increased to my peace"? Yes. He's the God of increase. You know, in Genesis 26, it says there was a famine in the land and Isaac went to the king of the Philistines. And the Philistines represent the world system. You know, the Philistines represent those without a covenant, remember? Goliath was the philistine, and he was the uncircumcised philistine. The circumcision represented the covenant. So the Philistines represented being without a covenant. Isaac was a man who had a covenant. But this man who had a covenant decides he's going to go down to talk to the Philistines about the famine.
And God interrupts him and says, "No, son, you don't go to rely on the uncircumcised lack of covenant world system for me to supply in your life. I'm going to bless you, I'm going to increase you". And the Lord said, "Don't go down to Egypt", don't go down to the world, don't go down to the Philistines, don't go down to the world system. Don't go relying on what this world can do for you. God said, "I want to do it for you". He said, "I'll multiply you". Go to the land that I tell you, and I'm going to multiply you and I'm going to increase you. And the devil is a liar, trying to tell you that you're done, you'll never start your business again. Yes, you will.
You know what? One door closes in, a better door opens, because God is the God of open doors. He will open the doors that no man can shut. God is the God of open heavens. God is the God of open doors. God is the God of open pastures. God is the God of open blessing. God is the God of more than enough. And he's going to show up in that way in your life if you'll let him. So Isaac sold in the land and he reaped that same year the land of famine in the year of famine. And he reaped one hundred fold. And the Lord blessed him and the Lord blessed him. And he became rich and continue to grow richer until he became very wealthy, and I'm not here to talk to you about, you know, an offering and God will make you wealthy.
I'm here to tell you that you have a covenant with the God of increase, and I'm here to just tell you the truth about what God wants to do in your life, whether we're in a land of famine, whether in a land of viruses, whether we're in a land of sickness or disease, whether we're going to be betrayed, whether we're going to be denied, whether we're going to be whether we're going to suffer some some difficult times. God is going to show himself strong on your behalf and in your life.
Let me read you a scripture. What a Jabez say. Lord bless me. Indeed, he was in pain and in his pain. He said, Lord bless me, enlarge my territory. It's in the crisis that we can call on the God of increase, it's in crisis that we can call on the God of Breakthrough, it's in crisis, we can call on the God of more than enough El Shaddai, Jehovah Jireh, the God who will provide the God who sent water out of a rock, who sent Manna out of heaven, who sent a meet in a raven's mouth for Elijah, a meal in a little widow's jar to feed them for three and a half years. He's your God. He's the God of increase, he said to me, and I'm passing it on, believe me, for increase, not decrease, you can have decrease all on your own. You don't need my help with that. But with me, I will give you increase. I'm holding on to that seven areas of your life that God wants to increase you in.
By the way, Deuteronomy 111 sets the stage when he says, May the Lord God of your fathers increase you a thousand fold more than you are and bless you just as he has promised you. This is a blessing and increase is God's idea throughout the Bible. So No. One, God wants to increase you in strength. Isaiah 40 verse twenty nine to those. Who grow weary and tired. He says he will increase your strength and your power.
Number one, he's going to increase your strength and increase your might. You feel weak, you feel weary, he's going to give you strength.
The second thing that God wants to increase in our lives. His power is in some seventy five or 10 in the new living translation for God says I will break the strength of the wicked, but I will increase the power of the Godly that psalm seventy five or ten in the new living translation. I will break the strength of the wicked, but I will increase the power of the Godly. In Proverbs 11, twenty four in the message Bible, the world of the generous gets larger and larger, the world of the stingy gets smaller and smaller.
This is the third thing that God wants to increase in our lives is he will increase our resources. He will increase our resources and his provision for our lives. You see the world of the generous, he says, gets larger and larger. The devil says, if you're generous, if you give what you have. You're going to be without it, and so you're going to become less, but God is counter. The world's wisdom, God's wisdom is higher, and when you when you're generous, your life gets better. When you're generous, your life grows. When you're generous, your world gets larger and larger. It's the stingy whose world gets smaller and smaller, not the generous.
The world would say, hold on, hold on, hold on to what you have, or you're going to get smaller and smaller, less and less, and you'll never know what times are going to come. Bad times are going to come. That's why we need to understand how to thrive in any time, because the same God who's your God of increased today was the God who increased them a thousand fold in Deuteronomy. He's the God who increase them in First Corinthians 3, He's the God who increases in Luke 2, he's the guy who increases in Second Corinthians 8, he's the God who increases in times of crisis, in times of famine, in times of toughness, in times of difficulty.
In Times Square, where we don't know where we're going to get our next meal, God is the God of increase. And all she had was a barrel, a meal and a jar of oil. Her and her son were going to eat it and die. And Elijah said, no, make a cake for me first and then for yourself. And the barrel of meal never ended for three and a half years, and the jar of oil never went dry for three and a half years. That's the God. Of increase, that's the God. Who sent you his best when he sent you Jesus and said he who did not withhold his own son for you? How would he withhold any good thing? Well, to think that God is stingy is the greatest insult. It's the greatest affront towards God, the greatest misconception.
The fourth thing God wants to increase you in is the knowledge of God in Colossians, one Tenet says, and you make worthy of the Lord fully pleasing him, being fruitful in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God. And that word knowledge is the precise and correct knowledge of God. God wants us. God wants to increase us in our knowledge of God. He wants us to have an accurate understanding. Of how much he loves you, how good he is, how faithful he is, how patient he is, how abundant he is, how caring he is. God wants to increase you in accurate, precise and correct knowledge of him.
Number five, God wants to increase you in the love of God in First Thessalonians three 12, it says, May the Lord make you increase and abound in love. One for another and for all people, just as we do for you, God, I'm praying this for us, that God would cause us to increase and abound in love for one another and for all people. But you see, it starts with the church, it starts at home, it starts in the family, in the family and in the family of God and then all people. I love that verse.
I love that verse and number 6, God wants to increase you in seeing souls saved. That's so important. That's so mine every every Wednesday, every Sunday, we're having an invitation for salvation and you have an opportunity to take people to our website. You can click on Life Changes, church dot com slash salvation, and that'll take you to our salvation page. And you can send that all over the world to your loved ones, to your family members. But God wants to increase us in seeing souls saved, Acts 6:4-7, and the Word of God kept on spreading and the number of the disciples continued to increase greatly in Jerusalem. And a great many of the priests were becoming obedient to the faith.
Even the religious people were getting saved because of the God of increase, even if in the religious people were giving up their religion and coming to Jesus, the real Jesus, God wants to increase us seeing souls saved as the word keeps on spreading, the number of disciples is going to continue to increase greatly. I'm so excited about that. I cannot tell you how thrilled I am. The Word of God has to spread so increase can spread and increase of souls and increase the disciples and increase of people coming to Jesus.
And then number seven, God wants to increase the church. He wants to increase the church. He wants the church to grow in its size, not in a building, but he wants the church to grow in its size of people and members and disciples and in its impact and its influence. Nothing's brought me more joy lately than helping other churches. In the last few weeks, we've been giving to, you know, to smaller churches that are struggling more, that are in remote, more remote parts of the world, whether it's in Peru, whether it's in India, whether it's in some of the churches that got hit the hardest and the the people that got hit the hardest in Italy and in Turkey and in Spain, Spain is really has probably the worst per million people. It's gotten hit more per million than any other nation.
And so we want to help people there and our little church in India, our partner church there with 30 people, the membership is 30 people. But the impact that they had just in the last few days. They took food that you helped provide through this church and 80 families were fed, 30 members in the church and three almost three times as many families were fed and provided for by you and by this church. It's just really amazing and an incredible feeling. And I want you to feel that. I want you to feel what I feel like we're giving. These are the seven areas now that God wants to increase in your life, and I'm going to pray for this increase in your life and I'm going to and I want to show you how God does it.
And I want to quickly take you to one more passage of scripture, the Book of Ruth, chapter two, verse 16 of Ruth, chapter to Boaz says, And you shall purposely pull out for her. She worked all day and night. But Boaz says you shall purposely pull out for her some grain from the bundles and leave it that she may glean and do not rebuke her. Do you see what I'm seeing in this verse? This is she she gathered in verse 15 like a 10 day supply in one day, she gathered a 10 day supply in ephah is what it's called here in the Bible. She gathered in ephah. In one day, she got an earful of barley, which lasted 10 days, and she got it in one day. Now she worked hard. Don't get me wrong, but notice what happened.
Boaz, who represents Jesus. He's the owner of the field he secretly told his staff of reefers. Let grain from the bundles fall purposely for her, let the grain. You guys worked for put it right in front of her, so all she has to do is pick it up, do the work for her. Oh my God, if you could get a hold of this. Boaz says while she's out there doing her thing, while you're doing your thing, while you're believe in God, and while you're going to work, and while you're getting your business off the ground, and while you're working your Boaz off, OK, Jesus is working for you. Jesus is arranging for increase in your life. Jesus is having his angels arrange for your harvest to be so much more than you could possibly work for, so much more than you could possibly earn, so much more than what you could possibly gather yourself or reap yourself because of the labor that it took all those men to do. And all she had to do is pick it up and how blessed she was.
You are, Ruth. And Jesus is Boaz, and he does the same thing for us, he's going to cause people, he's going to cause the government, he's going to cause circumstances in our lives to drop blessings on our way to work on our way to church. As we're planting our seed, as we're doing what is normal and routine, we're giving our tithe and all of a sudden checks come in the mail. We're going to work doing our daily job. And all of a sudden increase is coming to you because God wants you to tap in. He wants you to know that while you're serving in his field, while you're trusting him and doing what you know to do, he's going to make sure angels and people drop purposely put grain in front of you bundles of grain 10 times more than what you could gather yourself. He's the God of increase.