I Thought I Had No Vision.... Part IV

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This is turning into a longer blog post than I thought it would be when we started with this topic. I haven’t gotten very far into the conversation yet (assuming you’re conversing with me) and we’re already on part four!

I’m pondering, and I hope you’re pondering with me, over just what God wants US to do about the condition of the world. Way back in the Old Testament days of the prophet Habakkuk, he wanted to know the same thing. And the answer is the same answer God gave Habakkuk.

As today, the world was in chaos back then, too. Sometimes we’re tempted to shake our fist at God and ask Him, “What are You going to do about all of this?”

Good news, He already did His part. He’s watching us do our part.

But I’m just one person, what can I do?

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We can do what God instructs us to do. I’m not talking about things like following the ten commandments, I’m talking about what it takes TO BE ABLE TO KEEP the ten commandments. I’m talking about loving our neighbor as Jesus loves us. That was the last command, or instruction Jesus gave us before He was lifted up into the heavens right in front of His disciples. He said, “A new commandment I give unto you, That you love one another; as I have loved you, that you also love one another.” – John 13:34 KJV

In John 15:12 we read it again, “This is my commandment, That you love one another as I have loved you.”

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Earlier in the Bible we read that Jesus taught His disciples to “love your neighbor as yourself”. (Matthew 22:39) Now that He has paid the price for our sin and has risen from the grave to give us new life, He’s given us the ability to love others the same way He loves us. We can let Him love them THROUGH us. And THAT – is how we’re going to “fix” the world. The only way we can do this to let God love them through us. This is where WE need clarification. We need to see and understand God’s vision of how this works. We need to understand our part in His vision. We need His vision to become our vision. We need to see what He sees; the way He sees it.

And THAT, my friends, is what having vision is all about.

In Habakkuk’s response to God, he clearly expected God to wave a magic wand and “fix” everything, which, let’s face it, is something we’d like Him to do, too. Sometimes we insist, there must be an easier way! Yet, God tells us that His ways are higher (and better) than our ways. In Isaiah 55:9 (KJV) we read, “For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts.”

He is, after all, God. We are His creation. We are the works of His hands. He created us. And He created us in HIS image. He created us to be like Him. He is creative, He designed us to be creative. He is love. He created us to hold or contain His love, so that He can love through us. He wants us to live in Him and He wants to live inside of us. He created us to be the temple of the Holy Spirit. His desire is to live and love through us. We're vessels to contain His glory. An empty vessel helps no man.

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Or didn’t you know? Paul wrote to us in the New Testament, to those of us who have put our faith and complete trust in Jesus the Christ, our salvation, our redemption – our liberator. He said, “What? Know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost, which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own?” – 1 Corinthians 6:19 KJV

He asked the Christians of that day the same question He might ask us, “Don’t you know that you are the house of God? Don’t you know that the Holy Spirit of God lives inside of you? You are not your own, you’ve surrendered to God and His ownership and instruction!”

Summing up part four of this pondering, we need to wrap our minds around what it means to be “in Christ” and to have Him living in us. Before we can uncover God’s vision for our lives, and for the lives of all men, we need to be surrendered to Jesus Christ, body, soul and spirit. Some things are only discerned spiritually (1 Corinthians 2:14, “But the natural man receives not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.”). Our carnal minds (perceived through our senses) cannot comprehend the things of God. Once we’re born again, redeemed, or saved – we need to renew our minds with the Word of God (both logos and rhema) before we can discern the things of God. And that’s what this is about, discerning God’s vision for us.

Part five is coming soon! (It’s already written.)

It's Mine

(photo of LaMarcus Aldridge found at blazers.topbuzz.com)

While singing a song about surrendering all to God and withholding nothing, a thought crossed my mind that made me uncomfortable. What am I withholding? What parts of me am I not yielding to Him?

The first thought that popped up to answer was: Am I holding back the way I feel about myself?

What won’t I release into His hands, and more importantly, why won’t I release it? It’s really not that I can’t let go, but for some reason I choose not to, as if what I cling to is safer with me than with Him Who knows all.

He wants all of me.

My hopes, my accomplishments, my past, my present and my future; any shame or worry, all my fears and my talents, my time, my disappointments, my thoughts; my children, my finances, my worries, my dreams, my insecurities, my boastings, my secrets, the unforgiveness I harbor, my joys, my struggles – He wants it all.

He nailed my shame to the cross on Calvary, along with my sins and my shortcomings.

He can teach me through both my accomplishments and failures and He can put them in a place where they can’t distract me anymore.

He can….

What can I possibly hang on to, thinking it’s better off in my hands than His?

Don’t I truly trust Him?

I can find plenty of scripture instructing me to surrender everything to God.

Yet, with trepidation, I admit to holding back, to looking past the things I hold on to, even while singing about surrendering all…

Sometimes we don’t see things in black and white, good or bad; we see gray areas, places we don’t want to look at closely and make a commitment.

This morning our pastor asked and answered, “How do you see (with your spiritual eyes)? You’ve got to have Light!”

So, it’s back to the Word I go. His Word is Light. I need revelation and I’m thinking I’ll need some courage to go with it.

It’s a new year, with new opportunities to take a fresh look at what challenges us and where we’re going.

What are some of the things you hold back? Why? Can we commit together to seek Him through His Word, and surrender all that we are to Him?

“And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light.” – Genesis 1:3 (NIV)

Focus and Magnify

Magnification becomes more important to me the older I get. I need to magnify the words I read through the glasses on my face, now more than ever. Without the help of these magnificent image enhancers, I’d miss out on so much, especially words. The lenses clear up my misconceptions about what I see without them.

 

Magnification doesn’t actually make anything bigger, accept the appearance of what we’re looking at. Through a microscope, we can more clearly see microbes found in a drop of water, they appear larger so they’re more easily focused on, and seen as they truly are.

 

So make sense with me, of the cry of the psalmist, “O magnify the Lord with me, let’s exalt His Name together.” (Psalm 34:3)

 

My experience and ponderings lead me to believe that the more I focus on God, thus magnifying Him, the more clearly I see Him and what He’s doing in my life. The more I focus on my problems, the more magnified they become. So I can either play up my problems to the point where I can’t see anything else, or I can praise God, lifting up His Name in my home and in the marketplace and see Him move on my behalf.

 

When I magnify the Lord, as the psalmist invites, His presence appears larger to me, His image enhanced and His blessings more recognized; my purpose becomes more focused and aggravations that assail me fall to the blurrier parts of the picture, often falling off into oblivion.

 

Since I began wearing glasses some years ago, I notice more and more when driving down the street, how little I actually look at along the way. My car can take my mindless self to where I intended to go, occasionally, I admit, with some minor backtracking, almost as if I engage some sort of autopilot feature. What else do I miss out on when I’m not looking at it, or for it?

 

Come focus on the Lord with me, let’s lift up His Name everywhere!