What are you increasing in?

As the years go by, we need to be increasing in things that are valuable and in these that really count for now and eternity.

 I think, we do need to evaluate and asked ourselves the question, what  am l increasing in? Hopefully it will not be sop TV shows, but things of  substance.


 Lets look a few things we should be increasing in from scripture:


 Increase in learning:

  Proverbs 1:5 
   A wise man will hear, and will increase learning; and a man of understanding shall attain unto wise counsels:


Proverbs 9: 9
 Give instruction to a wise man, and he will be yet wiser: teach a just man, and he will increase in learning.


  We need to increase in learning. Learning what? What is relevant to  making us better Christians and to help us fulfil His purpose for our lives. We  need to remain teachable.


 Increase in Christ like character:

  John 3:30
  He must increase, but I must decrease.


Galatians 2:19-20
  For I through the law am dead to the law, that I might live unto God. 

  I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but  Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the  faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me.


As we die to self, the life of Christ will become more evident in us:


 Increase in love towards others: 

1 Thessalonians 3:12-13 
   And the Lord make you to increase and abound in love  one toward another, and toward all men, even as we do toward you: 
 
  To the end he may stablish your hearts unblameable in holiness  before God, even our Father, at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ with all his saints.

 We need to be increasing in our love walk towards others. The end product of  this according to verse 13 is an established heart in holiness before God.


 Increase in the knowledge of God:

 Colossians 1:9-11 
  9For this cause we also, since the  day we heard it, do not cease to pray for you, and to desire that ye might be
filled with the knowledge of his will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding; 
 
  10That ye might walk worthy of the  Lord unto all pleasing, being fruitful in every good work, and  increasing in the knowledge of God; 

  11Strengthened with all might,  according to his glorious power, unto all patience and longsuffering with  joyfulness;


 We need to be increasing in the knowledge of God. We need to be knowing the Lord better and better as the years go by.


I heard a preacher once say ‘ don’t waste your trials’. When we go through  difficult times, we need to learn from them. Most times, we tend to understand  the ways of God better.


As the days, weeks, and years go by. We need to be careful with our time and  make a conscious effort to invest and increase in things that really matter.


Bisi Oladipupo