Focus: Don't Settle For Less!

Text: 1Chron.4:10

"And Jabez called on the God of Israel, saying, Oh that thou wouldest bless me indeed, and ENLARGE my coast…"

There's something called the sin of moderation. That sin is settling for less than you are capable of, and being satisfied with little when God has so much in store for you. 

That sin involves being satisfied with being average, ordinary, or common. Living for less is indeed living a life of no aspirations and no inspiration or motivation. It is living a life of no vision, and certainly no ambition. It is a life of no intense desire to achieve anything out of the ordinary, and no intentionality to rise above the level of mediocrity. 

Living for less means unwillingness to rise above the mundane and unreadiness to embrace the sublime.

It is life that is utterly self-centered and self-engrossed. It is important to know that a vision your size is a vision too small to impress and attract the world around you. Jacob says of his son Joseph, "Joseph is a fruitful bough, even a fruitful bough by a well; whose branches run over the wall" (Gen.49:22). The bottom line is "run over the wall." 

Joseph's branches run over the wall. His branches could not be restricted, limited, or hindered. Running over the wall implies breaking barriers and rising above boundaries. It implies going beyond borders and spreading one's tentacles. Jabez is not satisfied with less. He desperately desires for a change in his life. He desires for a bigger space. He refuses to be confined. He longed for a broadened horizon. He doesn't want to keep tolerating mundaneness or mediocrity. He is dissatisfied with living for less. He refuses to get addicted to low living. He abhors the average life and desires for an uplifted one. He doesn't believe that being born poor means you living and dying poor. He longs for more in life.
So Jabez looks for help from God. He prays for God to bless and change his life, and God listens and responds to his prayers, with the result that he becomes more honorable than his brothers. He rises in rank and broadens his space with the help of God. 

God is forever interested in broadening spaces.

Noah said to Japheth, "God shall ENLARGE Japheth, and he shall dwell in the tents of Shem…" (Gen.9:27). God is the one who enlarges men and space. God says to his people, "ENLARGE the place of thy tent, and let them stretch forth the curtains of thine habitations: spare not, lengthen thy cords, and strengthen thy stakes" (Isa.54:2). God says to Moses concerning Israel, "For I will cast out the nations before thee, and ENLARGE thy borders: neither shall any man desire thy land, when thou shalt go up to appear before the LORD thy God thrice in the year" (Ex.34:24). 

God is always in support of enlargement in all facets of life.

While Jabez desired for material or physical enlargement, the psalmist longed for spiritual expansion. He says, "I will run the way of thy commandments, when thou shalt enlarge my heart" (Ps.119:32). 

We all need to expand our space for God to fit in. God is able to do much more than we ask or think. There's a bigger space for us to conquer and possess. It is time for us to expand our capacity and base for God. We are meant to not only conquer our space, but also to occupy and expand it. God wants growth and expansion. He designed for us to move from glory to glory, from grace to grace, from strength to strength, and from faith to faith. 

We cannot afford to be satisfied with smallness, sameness, and staleness. We have to make room to add virtue to our faith and the rest of the beautiful attitudes pointed out by Peter, the apostle. The Lord Jesus Christ says to His disciples, "But ye shall receive power, after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you: and ye shall be witnesses unto me both in JERUSALEM, and in all JUDAEA, and in SAMARIA, and unto the uttermost part of the EARTH" (Act.1:8). 

We can see from this Scripture that God is interested and committed to extending and expanding the gospel outreach - from Jerusalem to Judaea to Samaria, and to the entire world. God goes for the whole, not for a bit. Don't settle for less; let's go for more - for the best!

by Bishop Moses E. Peter