How's Your Vision? Are You Sure?

"Where there is no vision, the people perish:

but he that keepeth the law, happy is he."

Proverbs 29:18

In circles of Christians, the first half of this scripture is quoted fairly often.

I do not ever recall hearing the second half quoted with it.

But, maybe that's my bad.

Anyway, obviously this vision has something to do with His Word

(i.e. he that keepth the law, happy is he)!

The Strongs Concordance says that the Hebrew for this use of vision

translates into:

prophecy, oracles (as from God) a dream, a revelation, a sight.

Would you say that this vision that we will perish without,

MUST come from revelation from God's Word?

Yeah, me too! ;)

I am so grateful for what He reveals to us

through His Word, by His Holy Spirit.

Last January I started a home Bible Study for women,

on the topic of "Knowing God as our Covering."

It has been such a blessing in so many ways.

But, the first thing that happened, as I started studying the topic in Genesis,

is I "stumbled across" something I never knew.

And it has impacted my faith every since.

I just "see it" and hear the echoes of the impact all the time.

2008

As we go into the year of 2008,

many of us are considering the desires, dreams and burdens of our hearts.

And we are looking forward,

then looking around us,

and seeing a w-i-d-e gap.

Many times, wider than we would like,

between where we are NOW,

and how we live,

and

where and how we WANT to be living.

Solution
I'd like to offer the thought,

that we need to

look into God more,
into His Word more,

to get our vision and our heart right.

As we press into Him this way,

He works out things inside of us.
The work He does within us,

brings us into a place,
where we can then be trusted with the desires of our heart.

We all know that

"Hope deferred maketh the heart sick:

but when the desire cometh, it is a tree of life." Proverbs 13:12.

And we look (rightly so) to

Psalms 37:4 "Delight thyself also in the LORD:

and he shall give thee the desires of thine heart.

But, HOW do we delight in Him?

I mean, in WHAT way is He looking for us to do that?

Six times in the Psalms, that delight is referred to as time in His Word.

Here is the first time,

Psalm 1:2-3
"But his delight is in the law of the LORD;

and in his law doth he meditate day and night.
And he shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water,

that bringeth forth his fruit in his season;

his leaf also shall not wither; and whatsoever he doeth shall prosper."

See, delight in His word, and success follows,

not because it is a magic formula,
but BECAUSE He CHANGES us;
our desires, motives, and our VISION!!

If you doubt the connection of our vision,

let me take you back to that revelation

I got in studying Genesis last January.

I pray it explodes like a shining light for you...

In Genesis 2 we're told Adam and Eve were naked and unashamed.

The absence of a sin nature made them at ease in their bareness,

because they were pure of heart.

They did not have the conflict of spirit over flesh.

But the best part is what "unashamed" means in the original Hebrew

as it was recorded here.

It means they weren't delayed, disappointed or dry!

Their sin nature is what changed their viewpoint

(and thus our viewpoint) of what they saw.

See, Vs 25 of Ch 2 says they were not ashamed,

and then as soon as they eat that fruit,

vs 7 of Ch 3 says,

“And the eyes of them both were opened,

and they knew that they were naked;

and they sewed fig leaves together, and made themselves aprons.”

The FIRST thing that happened when they developed a sin nature,

and lost that wonderful quality of being at ease in their bareness,

and being pure of heart, is they NOW saw with their natural eyes only.

The study of the word “opened” shows this particular use of the word

is seldom, and specific to the opening of the senses, especially the eyes.

It's when we became lost creatures truly.

It now required FAITH; faith in what we could no longer see,

for us to be connected with God.

We all know we were severed spiritually from that vital connection with God then.

We had entered a state that made us dependant on our 5 natural senses,

whereas to move in the things that really matter,

we MUST rely on our spiritual ability to see things God’s way.

What way is that?

Hebrews 11:1

“Now faith is the substance of things hoped for,

the evidence of things not seen.”

This verse just means so much more to me now, how about you?

What happened to Adam and Eve,

is their view was now physical, limited and distorted/skewed.

Their viewpoint brought shame, disappointment & delay, dryness.

To say in vs 25 Ch 2 that “they were not ashamed”,

and then to say their “eyes were opened” after eating the fruit.

And that they "knew" they were naked,

and they immediately started sewing fig leaves,

and hid from God’s presence, shows the presence of shame,

which means the presence of disappointment and DELAY, dryness.

Today we STILL suffer the distorted, limited view of our natural eyes.

God HAS restored to us the ability to see with our spiritual eyes –

which is to see the end from the beginning,

to see the order, the plan, the purpose –

to be at ease & NOT be disappointed –

NOT to be delayed, NOT to be dry!

But it requires the renewal of our mind (Romans 12)

and effort, to apply ourselves to the disciplines of faith.



Adam & Eve now saw a view with their natural eye

– eye is compared to fountain in the Hebrew.

As I thought about this, I thought “Odd, fountains give out – eyes take in,"

but, as I considered the eye – when it sees with its natural sight –

the natural, temporal conditions, and then reports those findings to our mind,

the mind and body then respond accordingly.

{i.e. the eye as a fountain, feeds the data it “sees” to the mind,

and the mind then tells the body what to do}.

That is what our carnal man does.

It's only NATURAL! :)

What God wants us to do, what we need to do,

is let our spirit man be so strong;

in the presence of the Lord in our life,

the Word at work in us, that we are not moved by what our natural eye sees

(which would bring delay, dryness, disappointment).

What Does this Look Like? How Does it Work?

Instead of being moved by our outward circumstances,

we merely take what that eye sees as a weather report,

so to speak, subject to change!

Then we let the Holy Spirit minister to us the Word for that particular situation,

and cause faith to flow in the spoken word from our mouth (Romans 10:9-10),

so that we are speaking life, speaking God’s truth,

speaking God’s healing, justice, mercy, provision, order,

whatever the case may be.

He IS all - sufficient.

What Jesus purchased for us includes the ability to have our mind renewed,

and our spirit having been transformed by the new birth,

gives us the ability to be able to learn to SEE like Him again –

the end from the beginning,

the order, the purpose,

our view is enlarged to see the BIG PICTURE!

Ask God how your vision is.

We often suffer from a limited view point.

Hannah did, Abraham and Sarah did.

Only when they could see things God's way did they get their dream.

Check out these scriptures for yourself.

Dare to let God renew your mind!

You probably, (as big as you think your dream is), have limited Him!

So, how's your vision? Little fuzzy? Yeah, me too!