This is a chapter that I had to write. But you don’t have to read it. I’m writing about my relationship with God. I cannot omit spiritual capacity, because my faith choice has been instrumental to increasing my capacity in every area of my life. My choice to strengthen my faith has done more to enable me to grow than any of the other choices in this book.
However, if this subject offends you, as I said, you can stop reading and skip this chapter. I won’t value you less. Many of my friends are not Christians. I don’t judge others. I share my faith because I love people, but everyone makes his or her own choice in this area.
Let me start by saying that every year in December, I pray and ask God to give me a word or phrase for the coming year. It becomes a point of focus for me. In 2016, I sensed that my phrase for the year was “God Room.” Those two words led me to Ephesians 3:14–20. Throughout the year I prayed using the words of that passage as my guide while praying for myself and others. The result? I’ve had a year like no other. At nearly seventy, my capacity has enlarged and my ROI from speaking, writing, leading my companies, and partnering with others has been incredible. It’s been my greatest year ever.
I want the same for you. I want your capacity to increase. I want your return to be high on the investment you make in your work. I want your relationships to flourish. I want you to have your greatest years ahead of you. So I’m praying for you, too. Specifically, here is my prayer for an increase in your spiritual capacity, based on the passage in Ephesians:
Ephesians 3:14–17 says,
My response is to get down on my knees before the Father, this magnificent Father who parcels out all heaven and earth. I ask him to strengthen you by his Spirit—not a brute strength but a glorious inner strength—that Christ will live in you as you open the door and invite him in.1
It’s amazing and humbling to me that Christ wants to live in me. I know me, and sometimes I don’t even want to live with myself. But God does. What a beautiful picture of God that paints. If you are 1,000 steps from God, He will take 999 steps in your direction. And then He will wait for you to open your heart and ask Him into your life. God wants you to want a relationship with Him.
I took that step. For fifty-three years I have known God in this personal way. My relationship with Him has been the catalyst for all the good things that have happened to me.
One of my favorite Scriptures is Jeremiah 9:23: “Don’t let the wise brag of their wisdom. Don’t let heroes brag of their exploits. Don’t let the rich brag of their riches. If you brag, brag of this and this only: that you understand and know me.”2
I’m smiling as I read these words. People often come to me and ask for advice. It’s true that I’ve experienced a few leadership exploits that were outstanding. Financial blessings have come my way. I’ve sold millions of books. But none of these things comes anywhere close to knowing God and having a daily relationship with Him. God is my greatest gift and my greatest friend. That’s why when people ask me who I know that they should know, my answer is “You should know God. He’s my best friend.”
The passage in Ephesians continues:
And I ask him that with both feet planted firmly on love, you’ll be able to take in with all followers of Jesus the extravagant dimensions of Christ’s love. Reach out and experience the breadth! Test its length! Plumb the depths! Rise to the heights! Live full lives, full in the fullness of God.3
God wants us to live a full life with full capacity. He truly wants the best for us. Jesus said, “I have come that they might have life, and have it abundantly!”4 As you read that statement, did you notice the comma? Which side of the comma do you live on? Are you living the life of abundance you desire? That’s what Jesus offers. He offers extravagant love and life at its fullest.
Mother Teresa is quoted as saying, “The most terrible poverty is loneliness and the feeling of being unloved.” I’d like to add that the most wonderful joy is to have a relationship with God and experience His amazing love. How amazing is it? Think about the words from Ephesians and understand that you can do these things:
When Scripture says that God’s love has breadth, it means that God’s love includes everyone. God loves everyone—of every faith, of every race, of every nationality, and of any age or stage of life. Scripture says, “This is how much God loved the world: He gave his Son, his one and only Son. And this is why: so that no one need be destroyed; by believing in Him, anyone can have a whole and lasting life.”5
Sometimes when I’m communicating and speak about God’s unconditional love, I will ask people in the audience to repeat aloud after me these words:
“God loves me.” Everyone likes saying that.
“God loves you.” They like saying that.
“God loves people I don’t know.” They like this, too.
“God loves people I don’t like.” There is always a hesitation when I ask them to say this. People aren’t sure they like that. But it’s true. My friend, God’s love is broad; it includes people we have a hard time liking. You may be thinking of some of the difficult people in your life and wondering, How can God love them? Here’s how. In the words of author and professor C. S. Lewis, “God loves us, not because we are lovable but because He is love.” Stop reading for a moment and say to yourself, “God loves me.” Whether or not you’ve ever thought of it, know this: it’s true.
God asks us to test the length of his love. What is its length? Forever! God’s love is never-ending. And the best part of that is that His love doesn’t depend on me or on you. God loves you as you are, not as you would like to be, or as you appear to be, but just as you are. And nothing you can do can make Him love you more!
The people who choose to connect with God know Him and are known by Him. Jesus said, “My sheep recognize my voice. I know them and they follow me. I give them real and eternal life. They are protected from the Destroyer for good. No one can steal them from out of my hand. The Father who put them under my care is so much greater than the Destroyer and Thief. No one could ever get them away from him.”6 I don’t know about you, but I know that makes me feel secure. If I could write country music, I’d pen a song about it called “God’s Grip Don’t Slip.”
What does it mean to plumb God’s depths? The implication is that no matter how low you go, God’s love is deeper. God is forgiving. For many of us, the bad news is that our capacity to sin has taken us lower than we ever felt we would go. The good news is that God’s capacity to forgive us is greater. In fact, God not only forgives our sins, but He also forgets our sins. He said, “I will be merciful to them in their wrongdoings, and I will remember their sins no more.”7 Wow!
In our relationship with God, we are somewhat like the young son who played hide-and-seek with his father. The lad would hide behind a tree while his dad shouted, “Where’s Christopher? I can’t find Christopher!” Then the child would burst out, “Here Daddy. Look for me here behind this tree.” Most of us are torn like that, aren’t we? We alternately hide from God, yet long desperately to connect with him.
Rising to the height of God’s love means being lifted up by him. There is no one more uplifting than God. I began to experience this at the age of seventeen when I asked God into my life. Three days later I experienced what I would call a redemption lift within me. It occurred when I read these words in 2 Corinthians 5:17: “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here!”8 That day as I went to school I felt lifted by God’s love. That is the experience of every Christ follower. There is a lifting of our life that is the result of experiencing the extravagant dimensions of God’s love.
Jesus, not Norman Vincent Peale, first said, “Anything is possible if a person believes.”9 Jesus, not Robert Schuller, first said, “Everything is possible with God.”10 Jesus, not Tony Robbins, said, “If you had a mere kernel of faith… there is nothing you wouldn’t be able to tackle.”11 God wants you to reach your full capacity. He created you with a plan and gave you gifts to help you accomplish that plan. He will be the greatest lifter in your life if you let Him.
For all the negative things we think about ourselves, God has a positive answer for us.
You say, “I’m too tired.”
God says, I will give you rest. (Matthew 11:28–30)
You say, “It’s impossible.”
God says, All things are possible. (Luke 18:27)
You say, “Nobody really loves me.”
God says, I love you. (John 3:16 and John 13:34)
You say, “I can’t go on.”
God says, My grace is sufficient. (2 Corinthians 12:9 and Psalm 91:15)
You say, “I’m not able.”
God says, I am able. (2 Corinthians 9:8)
You say, “I can’t forgive myself.”
God says, I forgive you. (1 John 1:9 and Romans 8:1)
You say, “I can’t manage.”
God says, I will supply all your needs. (Philippians 4:19)
You say, “I’m afraid.”
God says, I have not given you a spirit of fear. (2 Timothy 1:7)
You say, “I’m not smart enough.”
God says, I give you wisdom. (1 Corinthians 1:30)
You say, “I feel alone.”
God says, I will never leave you or forsake you. (Hebrews 13:5)
You say, “I can’t figure things out.”
God says, I will direct your steps. (Proverbs 3:5–6)
You say, “I’m always worried and frustrated.”
God says, Cast all your cares on me. (1 Peter 5:7)
God has an answer for every question, and an assurance for every doubt we possess.
In his book A Gentle Thunder: Hearing God Through the Storm, my friend Max Lucado writes a wonderful description of how God feels about you and me:
If God had a refrigerator, your picture would be on it. If he had a wallet, your photo would be in it. He sends you flowers every spring and a sunrise every morning. Whenever you want to talk, he’ll listen. He can live anywhere in the universe, and he chose your heart. And the Christmas gift he sent you in Bethlehem? Face it, friend. He’s crazy about you.12
I don’t know that there’s a better way to say it.
Hang on my friend! You are about to read the greatest capacity statement ever written. It completes the passage from Ephesians I’ve been praying for you. As you read the words, embrace them because they are for you.
God can do anything, you know—far more than you could ever imagine or guess or request in your wildest dreams! He does it not by pushing us around but by working within us, his Spirit deeply and gently within us.13
These words apply to you, but they must be activated by your faith. Jesus said, “According to your faith will it be done to you.”14 I call this the faith factor. There are many factors that influence your capacity over which you have no control: your background, nationality, age, giftedness. These were determined by the sovereignty of God. But there is one important factor you do have control over: how much you choose to believe in God. God puts no limitation on faith; faith puts no limitation on God.
As I mentioned at the beginning of the chapter, in 2016, the phrase that impressed itself on me was God Room. Today, those are the words I use to express my faith. What do I mean by God Room? Let me explain by quoting again from the passage in Ephesians:
God can do anything.
That statement is certainly not about me. It’s not about us. It is about God. These words should set the bar of our expectations about God at a very high level. We need to be aware of how great a space there is between what we can do and what He can do. That’s God Room—room for God to do what only He can do. We do the possible. God does the impossible. That shows us who He is.
God can do anything, you know—far more than you could ever imagine or guess or request in your wildest dreams!
How much is far more? It’s not a little more or some more. It’s far more. It’s so much more that I don’t think we can comprehend it. The writer of Hebrews tried to use words to give us some kind of idea about how much more far more is: “far more than you could ever imagine or guess or request in your wildest dreams!” But even then, we don’t really get it.
Don’t even try to understand how much bigger God is than us. We can’t. No words can ever come close. God is God and we are not. That is both simple and humbling.
As I try to grasp this fact, it’s as if God is saying to me, “John, don’t ask me to cram my plan into your puny little mind, because then I will be limited to your understanding. And I’m God.” If we can explain our life and believe we can solve everything in it, then we’re not giving God room to live in it.
He does it not by pushing us around but by working within us, his Spirit deeply and gently within us.
God doesn’t force anything on us, not even his love. He offers it to us gently. And He works within us only because we choose to let Him do that. Now that is a huge capacity choice. The question we all have to answer is simply “How much room will we give God?” It’s like His love; we can experience as much as we desire.
Perhaps the most amazing thing about God Room is that God allows average people like you and me to have access to it. And as a result, God can do amazing things with and through us. One of the best descriptions of this can be found in 1 Corinthians 1:26–31. It says,
Take a good look, friends, at who you were when you got called into this life. I don’t see many of “the brightest and the best” among you, not many influential, not many from high-society families. Isn’t it obvious that God deliberately chose men and women that the culture overlooks and exploits and abuses, chose these “nobodies” to expose the hollow pretensions of the “somebodies”? That makes it quite clear that none of you can get by with blowing your own horn before God. Everything that we have—right thinking and right living, a clean slate and a fresh start—comes from God by way of Jesus Christ. That’s why we have the saying “If you’re going to blow a horn, blow a trumpet for God.”15
We don’t have much to offer God except ourselves. God wants our willingness, not our strengths. If you think you can do everything on your own and you’re searching for some secret reservoir of strength, then stop. Because there isn’t one. Focus on God’s endless resources. He can do what we cannot do. And He’s willing to do it if you’re willing to give him credit for it.
Well, that’s my prayer for you. And I will continue to pray for you.
I’m glad you decided to read this chapter. God’s invitation is extended to you. He loves you. I hope you will accept that love, if you haven’t already. Not only will it blow the cap off your capacity, it will change every aspect of your life. If you don’t yet know God, you have no idea what He can and will do for you.
1. Up until now, how did you think of God? Is what you read in the chapter consistent with your beliefs, or did you learn something new?
2. When you read that God loves you no matter what and that you can do nothing to make Him love you more than He already does, how did that make you feel?
3. What action do you intend to take in response to God’s invitation to you?