Isaiah 54: Enlarge Your Tent, Grow in Capacity

Introduction

Nine months of 2026 have gone by. Shola Adeaga, at Jesus House in London, takes stock: a fast year, with high points, testimonies, and a "breathtaking" provision from God, but also shocks and storms, in the Church as in each person's life. For the last three months of the year, he shares what is "bubbling" in his spirit: "There is still much more. These last three months of 2026 will be the months of restoration."

His key text is Isaiah 54:2-4. In an English translation, verse 2 opens with a promise: "Increase is coming." Then comes the call: enlarge your tent, add extensions to your dwelling. The pastor ties this passage to the word God gave the Church for 2026, "Go." That word, he says, is not only about movement. Going in circles gets you nowhere, and moving in the wrong direction hurts you and others. "As we go, we also grow," and that is how capacity is built.

He defines capacity as "the ability or potential to receive something from God, to handle it and to use it appropriately." An entrepreneur who prays for increase without growing in humility, wisdom and integrity would face a tragedy if God blessed his business. Someone who waits for a marriage without growing in love would not be able to carry what God gives. "Don't just go, grow. The size of the container determines the amount of the blessing." The pastor adds that everything he has written challenges him first.

Outline of the Message

1. Enlarge the Place of Your Tent: Make Room for God

• The first call concerns your relationship with God. "We can accomplish nothing without God." Jesus says so in John 15:5: "I am the vine. You are the branches. ... apart from me you can do nothing."
• Moses is called a "man of God." By the pastor's count, he went up the mountain about three times to stay forty days and forty nights. Yet in Exodus 33 he still asks: "if I have found favor in your sight, show me now your ways." Despite his closeness to God, he knew there was more. "If that is true of Moses, what about you and me?"
• David, the man after God's own heart, prepares the gold and silver for the temple his son will build. But before handing over the materials, he first tells him: "You, Solomon my son, know the God of your father, and serve him with a perfect heart and with a willing mind" (1 Chronicles 28:9).
• Making room for God also means growing in faith. Two weeks ago, a woman shared a testimony with him that challenged his own faith. He sensed God saying to him: "If you want this kind of testimony, increase your faith." We need to enlarge our vision of who God is and what he can do (Hebrews 11:1).

2. Stretch Out the Curtains: Grow in Obedience

• To pitch a tent, poles were set in the ground and the cloths were stretched over them. The pastor draws this principle from it: "Growth and increase will always require stretching."
• "Between where you are and where God wants you to be, the bridge across that gap is obedience."
• In Luke 5, Jesus says to Simon: "Put out into the deep, and let down your nets for a catch." Simon answers that they have worked all night and caught nothing, "But at your word I will let down the net." The nets begin to break. This passage was among the words the Church received at the start of the year.
• We trust God for big things, but we struggle with the small things he asks of us: forgiving, showing mercy, giving. "Stretch your obedience, and God will fill your net."
• Stretching also means developing your abilities: learning, improving your skills, developing your gifts. Without that capacity, we will not be able to handle what we ask of God.

3. Do Not Hold Back: Remove the Limits

• God says to Joshua: "Go." It is the same word the Church received. Three times, in Joshua 1:6-9, he repeats to him: "Be strong and courageous," and he adds: "Don't be afraid, neither be dismayed, for Yahweh your God is with you wherever you go."
• "We can have the promise of God's presence, but limit that presence by our fears."
• Anything that holds back the work of God must be removed: procrastination, discouragement, impostor syndrome. "I am talking to myself," the pastor insists.
• When Peter is overcome with awe at the miraculous catch of fish, Jesus tells him not to be afraid (Luke 5:10). The pastor quotes The Passion translation: "Don't surrender to your fear." Fear keeps your capacity from stretching.

4. Lengthen Your Cords: Extend Your Reach

• Peter and his companions had fished all night, but in the shallow water. "We were doing this, but in the wrong place." Jesus sends them into the deep.
• God's message: enlarge your vision, take new territory, there are new opportunities.
• On the way back from Sheffield, the pastor learned that his young niece was earning extra income through a new activity. He humbled himself and called her to have her explain it to him.
• "Make new friends, widen your community, because you do not know by what means God will bring increase into your life."

5. Strengthen Your Stakes: Character

• In a tent, the most important element is neither the cloth nor the poles, but the stakes that hold it in place. They represent the foundation of everything: character.
• We ask for increase, but God may answer: "If I brought you increase as you are, it would destroy you."
• As a student, around 24 or 25, the pastor went into business with friends in Lagos. A deal was about to close, he was already planning what he would do with the money, and everything collapsed that very day. He had promised himself he would be a millionaire at 30, then at 40, 50, 60. One day, he sensed God saying to him: "If I had let you become a millionaire, it would have derailed you." He adds with humor: "By the grace of God, at 70, I will be a millionaire."
• "God is more interested in building your character than in giving you what you want." Joseph went through thirteen years during which God was building his capacity. Psalm 105:16-19 tells of the famine, Joseph sold as a slave, his feet bound in fetters, and the time when, according to the translation cited, "the Lord tested Joseph's character."
• The Holy Spirit's greatest work is not to bless us, but to make us more and more like Christ. "The dysfunctions of life are dysfunctions of relationships," because we are not growing. Your capacity to expand must go hand in hand with your growth in character.

6. Try Again

• "You can learn a lot about a person from the way they react to setbacks." Do not let your past pains, disappointments and failures keep you from moving toward your future.
• Isaiah 54 was a prophetic message for a people bruised by exile and storms. God was announcing increase, but a people tested like that might not pay attention to it.
• "For a righteous man falls seven times, and rises up again" (Proverbs 24:16). Micah says it too: "When I fall, I will arise. When I sit in darkness, Yahweh will be a light to me" (Micah 7:8).
• Peter had toiled all night, but he said: "At your word." "God says you must try again." Your marriage is being tested, your business is not working: try again, because God has promised that increase is coming.

7. Expect Increase and Pursue It

• In 1 Samuel 30, David and his men come back from battle and find that their families, their children and their flocks have been taken. They weep. The men talk of stoning David. "But David strengthened himself in Yahweh his God" (verse 6): he enlarged his capacity of faith.
• He asks the priest Abiathar for the ephod and inquires of Yahweh, who answers him: "Pursue, for you shall surely overtake them, and without fail recover all" (verse 8).
• "To recover, you have to pursue." The pastor declares that, before the end of 2026, those who are listening will recover what has been lost.
• To Jacob, God promises: "Behold, I am with you, and will keep you wherever you go ... For I will not leave you, until I have done that which I have spoken of to you" (Genesis 28:15).
• The pastor invites everyone to make Jabez's prayer their own: "Oh that you would bless me indeed, and enlarge my border, and that your hand would be with me ..." And God granted him what he asked (1 Chronicles 4:10). He ends with a call to make room for Jesus, to open your heart and to begin a relationship with him.

Key Takeaways

• Moving forward is not enough: God wants you to grow so that you have the capacity to receive what he wants to do.
• The first place to make room is for God himself: knowledge, intimacy and faith.
• Obedience is the bridge between where you are and where God wants to lead you, even in small things.
• Character is the stake that holds the tent. God cares more about your character than about what you want.
• After a failure, get up, try again and pursue what God has promised.

Personal Application

1. In what area are you praying for increase without having developed the capacity to carry it?
2. Like Moses, do you still ask to know God's ways more, or do you think you already have enough room for him?
3. What small thing is God asking of you right now (forgiving, showing mercy, giving) that you struggle to do?
4. What fear, discouragement or procrastination limits what God wants to do in your life?
5. What past failure keeps you from trying again, and what would you do if you did it "at his word"?

Verses Cited

• Isaiah 54:2-4
• John 15:5
• Exodus 33:12-13
• 1 Chronicles 28:9-10
• Hebrews 11:1
• Luke 5:4-10
• Joshua 1:6-9
• Psalm 105:16-19
• Proverbs 24:16
• Micah 7:8
• 1 Samuel 30:1-8
• Genesis 28:15
• 1 Chronicles 4:10

Frequently Asked Questions

What does "enlarge the place of your tent" mean in Isaiah 54:2?

For Shola Adeaga, it is first of all about making room for God: growing in the knowledge of God, in intimacy with him and in faith. Without Jesus, we can do nothing (John 15:5). The rest of the verse (stretch out the curtains, lengthen the cords, strengthen the stakes) describes the growth that gives you the capacity to receive what God wants to do.

Why is character compared to the stakes of the tent?

The preacher explains that, in a tent, the most important element is neither the cloth nor the poles, but the stakes that hold it in place. They are the foundation, and that foundation is character. Increase received without character could destroy the one who receives it. Joseph was tested for thirteen years before his dreams came true (Psalm 105:16-19).

What should you do after a failure, according to this message?

Try again. A righteous man falls seven times and rises up again (Proverbs 24:16). Peter had worked all night and caught nothing, but he let down the net at Jesus' word. Shola Adeaga encourages you not to let past disappointments keep you from moving forward, and to pursue as David did, to whom God said: "Pursue" (1 Samuel 30:8).