Vision: October 28, 21013

TODAY’S WORD FOR MONDAY OCTOBER 28, 2013.

VISION

DEFINITION:

The act or power of sensing with the eyes; the act or power of anticipating that which or may come to me; an object of sight.

SCRIPTURE:

When your eye is good, your whole body is also filled with light. But when your eye is bad, your body is also full of darkness. Matthew 6:22

Your old men will dream dreams and your young men shall see visions. Joel 2:28

Where there is no vision the people perish. Proverbs 29:18

KNOWLEDGE AND EXPERIENCE:

When we think of the word "vision" two things come to mind. First is the "vision" we have when we see things as they are. Secondly, we think of "vision" as it relates to things in the future that we want to accomplish. In life today most people see things only as they are now and cannot, for the most part, see past today.

As believers we must have spiritual vision. Spiritual vision is to see what God wants us to do and to see ourselves from His point of view.

The good eye Jesus spoke of in Matthew 6:22 (above) is one focused on God. It brings God’s light into our life and gives us vision to see God’s purpose for us and gives us the desire to fulfill that purpose.

In Acts 9:17 God temporarily took away Paul’s physical sight to open his spiritual eyes so he could see God’s purpose for him was to take the gospel across the Roman Empire.

Nehemiah had spiritual vision. God’s purpose for Nehemiah’s life was to rebuild the broken down walls of Jerusalem. It was a monumental task, but Nehemiah organized, supervised, encouraged, and stood up against opposition and got the job done. Men of vision do not stand around and just talk about the situation. They take action and do something about it.

Someone once said that worse than blindness is living without vision. As we think back on our lives we have seen God do so much in our lives and this has been mainly because we had a vision to accomplish what sometimes seemed impossible. We must remember the words of Jesus in Matthew 20:26, "With God all things are possible."

We can remember after our sixth child, a woman Dottie knew, came up to her and asked how were we ever going to get our children through college on the income we were getting from our ministry? We certainly did not know the answer but we knew that Jesus did.

But we did believe that we needed to continually act and not just sit back and wait for something to happen. We believed God wanted us to do what we could and then He would complete the task. From the day each of our six children entered Junior High School we continually encouraged them to do their very best so that they could get the financial aid they would need to attend college. Each one responded to our vision and they all went to a Christian college because they worked hard to do their best at every level of school so that they were able to receive financial aid and low interest loans.

For us, life would have been unproductive and unsatisfying if we did not have a vision for our family and a vision even today for the world around us that needs to know Jesus.

Columbus had a vision to find the new world and he set out on a course that was unknown to man and his vision resulted in finding this new world. We have known a few Christian leaders in our life time that had a vision for the impossible. Then God took over and those visions became a reality.

Where there is no vision the people will perish. Leaders that we have known well include: Dr. Billy Graham, Dr Bob Pierce, Dr. Torrey Johnson, Dr. Bill Bright and Dr. Henrietta Mears. They all had visions that when first talked about were thought to be impossible. But look what God has done because these and others had a vision that God had given them and then they acted upon that vision. We all know about the ministries of Billy Graham.

Dr. Pierce founded with my [Ken] father World Vision which today is one of the top five charities in the world. Dr Johnson founded Youth for Christ, a youth organization that made a dramatic impact on teenagers lives for over 40 years. Dr. Bright founded Campus Crusade that started as a college ministry and today is a worldwide ministry. And finally Dr. Mears founded Gospel Light Press, the first major Sunday school material publishers in America. These people all were ordinary people that had a VISION and acted upon it believing God for the impossible.

We challenge you and your family to ask God for a special vision to further His work here on earth. Whether your vision is large or small it is important to God. We can remember our prayer over 55 years ago. It was simply for God to use us and give us a burden for a world that needed Jesus. God needs you to think and pray this way today. Then take action as God leads you.

LEARNING:

Our memory verse for this week is found in I John 4:20.

If someone says, I love God, and hates his brother, he is a liar; for the one who does not love his brother whom he has seen, cannot love God whom he has not seen.

PRAYER:

Open my eyes so I can see the world around me with a new vision of how I can reach this world with the message of Your love and Your free gift of salvation. Enable me to step out in faith believing that I can fulfill that vision because You have promised to be with me and help me. Bless my family and help us to make an impact on the world we live in.