Math has never been my strong suit. I was reminded of that this past week when I tried to help my 7th grader study for his nine weeks math exam. Most math problems boggle my mind, but I do like the word problems where you have to figure out what process to use to get the right answer. Every process has another process that can completely reverse your answer; adding has subtracting and multiplying has division. And that is where my math skills top out.
I have found that God’s favorite math processes are addition and multiplication. Look to Abraham, your father. When I called him he was only one man, and I blessed him and made him many. Isaiah 51:12. Talk about multiplying! God promised Abraham that he would make his descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky and the sand on the seashore. Those are numbers too numerous to even count. Talk about boggling the mind!
That is the kind of math that should get believers excited. We serve the God of increase. Where there is faith and obedience, there is increase. Abraham was chosen, but Abraham had to choose obedience. By faith Abraham, when called to go to a place he would later receive as his inheritance, obeyed and went, even though he did not know where he was going. By faith Abraham, when God tested him, offered Isaac as a sacrifice. He who has received the promises was about to sacrifice his one and only son, even though God said to him, “It is through Isaac that your offspring will be reckoned.” Abraham reasoned that God could raise the dead, and figuratively speaking, he did. Hebrews 11:8, 17, 18, 19.
Sometimes our reasoning skills become as rigid as a math test. “If I go through this process, then it will equal out to x, y, or, z.” But reasoning with faith is totally different than solving a math problem. You can be like Abraham and be in the negative: old, with a barren wife, and living in a foreign land. But God’s math intervenes and then you become Father Abraham with the biggest family in the history of families.
Where there is faith, where there is obedience and where there is God’s Word…increase is sure to follow. In Acts we read that those who accepted his message were baptized, and about 3,000 were added to their number that day. That particular day was addition, but fast forward two thousand years and today 2.5 billion Christians is evidence that God multiplies.
Perhaps the enemy has been subtracting and dividing in your life recently. Satan would love nothing more than to undo all that God has done in your life and leave you in the negative. In those times, we must remind Satan that his math operations are inferior to almighty God. God is always working on our behalf to increase and bring victory.
If you feel it is difficult to even have faith that God will bring increase, consider the apostles plea to Jesus in Luke 17:5 “Increase our faith!”. Confess with the raw honesty of the man who said, “I do believe; help me overcome my unbelief.” Mark 9:24. Hold on to faith in God who wants to bring increase to you.
