Let’s start off with a word of prayer, Amen.

“Lord Jesus, we give thanks to you for your word, we pray that you’ll increase our capacity, let us know our destiny in you, so that we follow you all the days of our life. Thank you Jesus, in your name we pray, Amen! Hallelujah!”

A few weeks back we had our first bible sharing session, where we got everyone to share something from the bible that we’ve received throughout that week. I praise and give thanks to God for your willingness to meditate on the word of God. So I shared with you guys about Capacity.

Capacity extent of how much God can use you in His plan. So the first week, I manage to tell you guys that capacity can measured by this formula:

Capacity= Prayer x faith x Perseverance

After that week, we didn’t manage to have any EG meetings on Sunday, but I’ve posted a word document on the EG blog page, showing the second part of this Capacity thing I’m telling you about. So today, I’m going to touch on Faith and Perseverance at the same time.

So what is perseverance? Perseverance is being able to maintain to a purpose or a goal even in times of difficulties. Even when you felt that you’re in your deepest valley, are you still able to keep your focus on God? Even throughout times of difficulties, you are still able to have the same faith level in God, if not higher, that is persevering!

You guys know sailing? It is a sport that depends a lot on wind. Imagine we all go sailing today, bright sunny day, gentle wind, good weather. So we set off on our sailing boat, sailing from Singapore to Pula Ubin. We started off, and the wind was for us, blowing towards Pula Ubin, pushing our sailing boat closer and closer to Pula Ubin. But halfway through the wind changes it’s blowing direction, it is now against us. So what now? Are we going to just sit on the boat and crying, start grumbling about the wind? If we were to do that, we will never reach Pula Ubin. We will be blown off to somewhere else.

When we are sailing in the boat of our life and when the wind starts blowing against us. Our Christian life is not that smooth anymore, we start to face persecution, we face difficulties, are we just going to give up? No, we are not! We are going to persevere through all these and keep our focus on God! Amen!

In our life, we have many problems flooding into our world, seem like you’re drowning in all your problems, but persevere, keep your focus on God, and he will bring you out of it, You can rise above all your problems! God says in His words (NLT) :

“When you go through deep waters and great troubles, I will be with you.”

So in your deep waters, great troubles, don’t give up! Persevere through it and know that God is with you.

But as human beings, we all need assurance. When we persevere through the darkest times, we need something to grab on, we need perhaps a beam of light to help us, to guide us out of our darkness. And this beam of light that will help us, that will guide us is God Himself. His spirit that dwell among us. But we can’t see the holy as a person, standing in front of us every time.

So that is where faith comes in. In the bible it says in Hebrews 11:1:

“Now faith is the substance of things hope for, evidence of things unseen.”

In another word, the evidence of the presence of the spirit, can be seen through faith. When the spirit is here, there is faith here. When the spirit is there, there is faith there. Because faith is the evidence for the spirit, who is unseen.

So in order for us to persevere through whatever we’re going through now, We need to have the spirit in us, to guide us. And in order to have the spirit in us, we need to have faith in us.

So bottom line is: “To persevere, the must be spirit. To have the spirit, there must faith.”

How do we get faith? There are two easy ways. First way, you guys know it. It is obtained through reading the word of God. In the bible it says in Romans 10:17 (NKJV):

“Faith comes by hearing and hearing the word of God.”

Second way is to have a relationship with God. Because the bible says in John 1:1 (NIV)

“In the beginning, there was the word, and the word was with God, and the word was God.”

So having a close relationship with God, strengthens your faith in the same way as reading His word. That’s why if you Love Jess, you must Love His word. One last illustration and we will end.

Look at the example of Joshua, in Joshua 11:6 (NKJV):

“Do not be afraid because of them, for tomorrow about this time i will deliver all of them slain before Israel.”

When we start the act of persevere, it shows that we have reached our limit of expectations. Our problems are causing us discomfort, that is the time when we need faith, the time where we need to speak the word of God.

Look, Joshua is fighting a war, and the war is beginning to excide his expectations. Joshua, being a man of faith, he started to fear, he is starting to feel the discomfort in it. And he looked to God, and God says: “...For tomorrow about this time...” God didn’t say, straight away I’ll deliver them, God requires Joshua to stretch his faith, persevering till the next day.

God requires us to persevere with faith in Him. So from today on, Let’s serve God in a greater way, by increasing in our areas of prayer, faith and perseverance! Amen!

Last week we’ve talk a Fair bit on Capacity, I told you guys about what capacity is and how capacity can and will affect our spiritual walk with God. If you want God to use you in a greater way, then you got to have greater capacity for God to use you. Amen!

So I told you that our “Spiritual capacity=Prayer + Faith + Perseverance”. So in order to increase our spiritual capacity today, we need to increase ourselves in the aspect of prayer, faith and perseverance. Today, I’m going to share with you, how do we increase in the aspect of prayer.

First, I want you to ask yourself, what is prayer to you? Some may say: “Oh, prayer is a time where I seek God when I need a blessing.” Some may also say: “Prayer is how strong I am in God’s kingdom.” But I want you to know today, prayer is the measurement of how much you love God and how much you are dependent to Him. If you say you love God, You will be praying to God.

There are two kinds of prayer that all of us have been practicing. First is speaking in tongues, and the second is to pray in words. You may of heard some of your Christians saying this; “The gift of speaking in tongues is not for us now, it is only for the disciples in the apostles time.” But look at the truth now, are we not living in the time of Acts now? Are we not the disciples Of Jesus? Yes! We are! In the book of Jeremiah says this:

“Before I formed you in the womb, I knew you, before you were born, I’ve set you apart; I‘ve appointed you…”

Look guys, before we are even born, God has set us apart, chosen us, and appointed us as His servant even before we were born! How great is our God. So we have the gift to speak in tongues, but it is a 100%God, yet also 100%man thing, God has given you the gift, it is up to you if you want to receive it and use it. We must learn to speak in tongues because it is important. Look at this:

1Cor14:18

“I thank God that I speak in tongues more than anyone of you.”

If speaking in tongue is not important, why would Paul speak in tongues so much. So guys, lets learn to speak in tongues today.

So, for those who can speak in tongues, they may say: “Oh, since Apostle Paul says that speaking tongue is so important, why not we just pray in tongue, there is no need for us to pray in words anymore.” But I tell you, that is far from the truth. Didn’t Jesus teach us to pray in words? Yes he did, he gave us a prayer to model after, and that prayer was in words. The Lord’s Prayer is what I am referring to. So today, let us start speaking in tongues and also pray in words.

Sometimes we pray much, giving excuses like: “I don’t know what to pray?” But the Bible has given us help on the aspect of prayer. In Rom 8:26:

“In the same the spirit helps us in our weaknesses, we do not know what we ought to pray for, but the spirit himself intercedes for us with groans that words cannot express.”

See, when we don’t know what to pray for, the holy spirit that is in you, will help you in your prayer, that is why, we want to speak in tongues, so that we can be more sensitive to the spirit, so that we can know the spirit better. But we cannot be speaking in tongues for one the whole quiet time right? So now we are going to learn how to pray through the Lord’s Prayer.

Matt 6:9-13

“⁹This, then, is how you should pray:
" 'Our Father in heaven,
hallowed be your name,
¹⁰your kingdom come,
your will be done
on earth as it is in heaven.
¹¹Give us today our daily bread.
¹²Forgive us our debts,
as we also have forgiven our debtors.
¹³And lead us not into temptation,
but deliver us from the evil one.'”

The Lord’s Prayer is separated into 5 parts, that means the Lord’s Prayer teaches to pray in 5 aspects:

1. Praise God in our Prayer

That is what it meant in verse 9. To acknowledge God’s holiness and exalt Him, because He is worthy.

2. Acknowledge the will that God has for you

That is what was mention in verse 10. To let God’s plan for you in heaven, come into reality on earth.

3. Pray for your needs

That is shown in verse 11. Pray for your daily needs.

4. Asking for forgiveness

Shown in verse 12.

5. Ask for protection

In verse 13. Protection in all aspects.

The bible has already teach us, tell us how and what to pray for. What excuses then shall we say we can’t pray? Why not all of us start to increase our capacity today, by first increasing our level of prayer. Amen. Let’s spend some time in prayer now…

Before I start on my sharing with you guys, I want to share with you a testimony that I’ve heard. There was a man who works in a big company. He is very successful in life, he is not only a Manager in the company, and he is perhaps the CEO, Director or even the founder of the company. He is doing so well that his assets total up to about $3 million. But in the recent finical crisis, this man losses everything that he had, the company closed down, he losses all his $3million dollars!

But this man didn’t just fall back and started blaming God on what happened to him, instead, he was found serving in church even more. When the pastors of the church heard about what has happened to this man, they went and cared about him. But the amazing thing was that his replied was: “Pastors, I’m so excited because I know that the day ahead is going to be very interesting.”

You see, when this man’s job is taken away from him, he was able to see God and his works more clearly. Many of us has different distractions in our life, for some of us, this distractions maybe branded goods, fun in the world, or even studies and family. Yes even our families and our studies.

In the bible, Jesus taught the people saying, if you do not hate your father or mother, do not hate your son, your daughter, your wife, or even your own life. You cannot be a follower of Jesus. Does Jesus really want you to hate all these people that he has mentioned? Of course not, what the bible meant was to love Jesus more than all the other things that are in your life. In the same way, God is not asking you to give up your studies or to disobey your family; he is telling you that he is higher than all these things.

So what is it in this man that he could react in this manner? Let me tell you the answer, it is his capacity that enables him to react in a positive way. So our capacity is very important to us. If your pastor were to come to you and say, “You got to lead the prayer meetings for an hour next week.” What will your reaction be? Will you push the offer away and say you can’t do it or will you accept it and face the new challenge with faith? If you are someone with capacity, you will be able to take up whatever responsibilities that are given to you. Look at this verse now, 1Cor 10:13:

“No temptation has seized you except what is common to man. And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear…”

So in the same way, god will not give you any responsibilities that you cannot handle. So whenever God give you a new responsibility through the pastor or through the church, have courage to take it! Because it is because God trust in you, that’s why he gives you that chance.

Now, what comes into your mind when I say the word ‘capacity’? What do you mean by the capacity of the fish tank? It is the amount of water that the tank can hold. So the capacity of the tank is equal to the volume of the tank. Hence the formula of the capacity of the tank is length x Breath x Height. So, now, what is our spiritual maturity? Is there a formula for spiritual maturity? Yes there is! The formula for spiritual capacity is:

Spiritual capacity= Faith x Perseverance x Prayer

*For Audio or more full sharing session on this day click "play" below