Why do we exist? What we are doing here? What we are trying to accomplish? What is the purpose of our life? Today we are going to learn a lot of things that can personally help you with your own life and through your time on earth. I want to talk about the Vision!
I can see many people in the church, people who are believers but have no Vision for the future, they have lost their motivation, they have lost their courage and their focus and are no longer living the life that Jesus promised to them.
I believe that God’s solution for a distracted, defeated, disappointed, discouraged life is not to inject us with feeling, but to fill us with the Vision.
I see many people being “led by the winds of life” instead of being guided by a Vision. I see young people with stagnant life, without a vision of the future, men and women who have sight but no Vision! There is no vision for the future and therefore life is stagnant, and void of meaning. Without vision you will get nowhere.
I really believe that A person without Vision is worse than a person without sight.
A person without vision will be slave to their reality, a slave to their circumstances, to their mood, to the weather change, to what’s happening with the government, to what’s happening politically, instead going in the direction that God has outlined for you.
If you want to be a faithful believer You need to see farther than your eyes can look!
I’m talking about vision! The essence of Vision is the ability to see farther than your eyes can look.
Only by seeing what is not there can you bring something new, creative and exciting into existence. Only by seeing something that is not there.
“For we live by faith, not by sight.” 2 Corinthians 5:7 NIV
You can have a good sight but not have Vision.
People who fulfilled their purpose in history only did so because they could see things that were not there. Vision is seeing the future before it comes into being. I want to see farther than my eyes can look.
It’s so sad to see young people who have no vision of the spiritual life, no vision of the future, no vision of work, and their lives are stagnant.
Remember: Your Vision will lead you to your destination.
What is your Vision for your spiritual life or your professional life? What is your Vision for your marriage, for your children, financial life and your heath? Without vision you will get nowhere.
An 85 years old pastor once said:
“If you look at the world, you’ll be distressed. If you look within, you’ll be depressed. If you look at God you’ll be at rest.”
Corrie Ten Boom
If you live based on what your eyes see every day, you will be depressed.
Vision is a gift from God. One of the greatest things you can get from God after you received salvation and the gift of the Holy Spirit is a Personal Vision for your life.
In fact the cause of distraction, defeat and disappointment is really a loss of Vision.
Life of Vision inspires action. Life of vision becomes a practical guide for creating plans, setting goals and objectives. Life of Vision helps to evaluate our life, it provides focus, it guides our faith, it gives us motivation, it produces discipline, it opens doors for miracles, and gives life a purpose.
A person without Vision will be a slave to their reality.
A Vision is when you have a Picture of the desired Future. You see and believe before you receive it.
That Vision will keep you on course of discipline, that vision will give you sense of focus, motivation and direction. God’s Vision has protection and provision in it.
“Where there is no Vision, the people perish.”
Proverbs 29:18 KJV
If you look at Joseph’s life (Jacob’s son) God gave him a dream (a Vision) at a young age.
God gave Abraham a Vision at the very young age of his marriage that he would have many children.
God gave Israel a dream of a promised land.
God gave Jesus a dream that the nations would be saved.
God gave the church a dream of reaching the multitudes and disciple them for the Kingdom of God.
That’s why I said that a person without Vision is worse than a person without sight because a person without vision will be slave to their reality, and you won’t believe in God’s vision.
In the begging this church started with no funds, no money, very few people and no English but this church was started with a Vision.
There were no people, no money, not a lot of talent, no English language, no resources, no connection, but there was a Vision.
Vision has the ability to pull on itself and attract things, resources and talents.
Years ago I was a young man and God used my pastor to plant a vision in my heart. My pastor had vision of multitudes being saved.
God gave me a Vision that Shalom Ireland will multiply and we would be hundreds and thousands in Ireland, then it would expand in Europe and spread from here to all the nations.
When I moved here I didn’t know the culture, I didn’t have the English language but God gave me a Vision.
That Vision became the goal that I started to outline my life for it. It gave my life a focus, it gave my life discipline, it gave my life motivation, it gave my life determination.
Today I see a little bit of that Vision already taking place. But I know that this is just the beginning, we are only getting started.
I want to encourage each one of you to have a Vision for your life, because without a vision you will abort the plan of God for your life.
1 “I will stand my watch and set myself on the rampart, And watch to see what He will say to me, And what I will answer when I am corrected.
2 Then the Lord answered me and said: “Write the VISION And make it plain on tablets, That he may run who reads it.”
Habakkuk 2:1-2 NKJV
What happened with Habakkuk is that he positioned himself properly so that he could hear from God.
Is God’s voice in my Vision? Vision comes from God’s voice!
The Vision for your life is not on success, or seminar or college. College will give you a degree but the voice of God will give you a Vision for your life.
Let me give an example: When you have a plan to build a house, before starting construction plans you need to develop a plan, you need to have a vision of a house, you need to put it in a paper and the house first exists on a paper before it exists in a place where you can see it.
The builder comes and takes what is in the paper and makes it real.
In the world of construction, The builder usually works to fulfil the wishes and desire of the owners. Not the other way.
The builder doesn’t build whatever he wants, he builds what is on the plan, according with the heart and desire of the owners.
You and I are builders on this earth! God has a plan for your life but you are not building a life based on your desires and your delights.
This is why the builder needs to be faithful to the plan that is on the paper so that what is built brings pleasure to the owner. As a Christian you don’t build your life according to the desires and standards of this world.
That’s why you must be able to recognise the voice of God and His plan for your life.
““Be sure that you make everything according to the pattern I have shown you here on the mountain.”
Exodus 25:40 NLT
Moises built a tabernacle according to the pattern shown in heaven.
Bible says that Salomon built the temple according to the plan given to him by David. Salomon lived and fulfilled his daddy’s dream.
As a builder we are living for God’s plan. You need to listen to God and go after His vision so you can have it in your mind first before you see it in your life.
God wants to reveal it to us but we must first have good communication and hear his voice and that’s why we need to position ourselves where we can hear His voice.
“Jesus gave them this answer: “Very truly I tell you, the Son can do nothing by himself; he can do only what he sees his Father doing.”
John 5:19 NIV
Even Jesus did not say and did not do what he wanted but he listened to what the father said! This is why it is important to be under spiritual authority and not to do and say what we want but what we listened and received.
Jesus did not preach his own sermons, He did not do His own works but what He saw His father do and say! Jesus was a builder of the father’s blueprint.
Your life on earth is not to develop your Vision, it’s to discover your Vision from the Heavenly Father. His voice is my vision and my job is to be connected to Him so that I build according to his plan, his pattern, and his blueprint.
When you build your life according to his plan His Name is Glorified on earth.
Your Vision comes from hearing Gods voice.
Years ago, I lived in a city in Brazil and God gave me the direction to move to another place. This time I was going through a great spiritual struggle, and I left my house at 10 o’clock at night and went to pray in the forest.
When I was there alone praying and crying, God spoke to me. And it was the first time I heard God’s voice. It was an audible voice that if I had a recorder, I think I could have recorded it. That day God told me that I would leave that city, I would go to Uberlandia, there He would prepare me and send me to the nations! But at that time He didn’t say which Nation I was going to.
But years later, God gave me a vision and told me that I should go to Ireland. That’s why Fabiana and I are here. Because of a Vision.
How can you hear the voice of the Lord? I will give you three very simple practical tips.
– To hear God’s voice you need to be near God.
– In order to be familiar with his Voice we have to be filled with his Word.
- When we lower the noise, we will hear his Voice.
We need to be filled with God’s Word if you want to be familiar with his voice.
God wrote one book, if you want to know his voice, you have to learn the Bible, study the Bible, memorise the Bible, because God’s voice and God’s Word can not contradict themselves.
In order to know Gods voice (because our Vision and future depend on it) we have to be near God.
God doesn’t scream, He whispers. Why is that?
Because He expects those who want to hear him to be very close to Him.
“He says, “Be still, and know that I am God”. Psalms 46:10 NIV
Be still, be quiet and you will know the voice of God. The problem is not that God doesn’t speak; He speaks! The problem is the gap between us and him that makes it impossible for us to hear him.
The last point is: When we lower the noise we can hear God’s voice
Last week Fabiana was talking to me but the music was on, the washing machine was on and the dryer too, I was working and I couldn’t hear her at all.
That’s why the Bible says: be still and you will know I’m God.
You need to find quietness so you can hear his voice! Because His voice is your Vision!
For you to find your Vision you need to find the Lord and be near Him.
God speak in many ways: Audible Voice, Inaudible Voice, through Angels, Visions, Dreams, the Bible and People. God can even use Nature and circumstances to speak, He can use Prophets to speak too but the main way that God speaks is through the Scripture and thought our spirit.
His Voice is your Vision!
“Then the Lord answered me and said: “Write the Vision And make it plain on tablets, That he may run who reads it.”
Habakkuk 2:2 NKJV
I want to conclude saying: Vision works when we walk towards it.
God give us the Vision to change directions and give us motivation.
You need to write down the Vision! On a paper, on a board, on your tablet, on the your bedroom’s door, on a wall. It has to be written somewhere.
Don’t keep it in your mind only, it has to be physically written.
You have to see and always read the Vision! Because you may write it but never have read it.
“Write the Vision And make it plain on tablets, That he may run who reads it”
God expect you read it. Then put it on a sticky paper in the bathroom, in the kitchen or on the refrigerator, to remind you. If you have a vision and a plan then the house will be built, your dream will be fulfilled.
Stop reading others people vision and dreams on social media or the news but, focus on God’s Vision for you.
Every day open up your time in prayer with your vision, read it to yourself, remind yourself, pray and declare and discipline yourself to walk to the vision that God gave you !
Your vision will lead you to your destination
God bless and keep you!