Building Your Vision

·       Why do we exist?

·       What we are doing here?

·       What we are trying to accomplish?

·       What is the purpose of our life?

Having a clear vision is vital in your personal life and throughout your time on earth! 

·       The church has so many people who are believers but have no Vision for the future,

·       People who have lost their motivation; they have lost their courage and their focus and are no longer living the life that Jesus promised to them.

·       God’s solution for a distracted, defeated, disappointed, discouraged life is not to inject us with feeling, but to fill us with the Vision.

DO NOT BE LED BY THE WINDS OF LIFE: Many people are being “led by the winds of life” instead of being guided by a Vision.

·       There are many 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.

Proverbs 29:18-27 Where there is no vision, the people perish: but he that keepeth the law, happy is he.

A person without Vision is worse than a person without sight. 

·       A person without vision will be slave to the present reality, things that are currently happening will take his focus

·       A slave to their circumstances, to their mood, challenges, 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 further than your eyes can look! 

The essence of Vision is the ability to see further than your eyes can look.

·       Only by seeing what is not there can you bring something new. Creative and exciting into existence.  

2 Corinthians 5:7  “For we live by faith, not by sight.” 

·       You can have a good sight but not have Vision. You see all around you and you are so busy with the present but not specific about what you want for your future.

·       People who fulfilled their purpose in history only did so because they could see things that were not there.

·       Can you imagine J.F. Kennedy imagining landing of the moon in 1960?

·       Charles Spurgeon envisioned widespread missionary expansion.

·       Vision is seeing the future before it comes into being. I want to see farther than my eyes can look.

·       When young people have no vision for their spiritual life, no vision. of the future, no vision of work, their lives get stagnant.

·       They just fall into things and follow winds of life as it blows.

Your Vision will lead you to your destination. 

Joel 2:28-32  And it shall come to pass afterward, that I will pour out my spirit upon all flesh; and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your old men shall dream dreams, your young men shall see visions: 

·       The young must have a Holy Spirit inspired vision on their future.

·       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. Without vision you may end up being just a busy body without focus.

“If you are working on something exciting that you really care about, you don’t have to be pushed. The vision pulls you.” – Steve Jobs.

·       When you have a vision; it pulls you forward.

·       If you live based on what your eyes see every day, you will be depressed. 

Personal Vision for your life.

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. 

·       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 a sense of focus, motivation and direction.

·       God’s Vision has protection and provision in it.  

“Proverbs 29:18 KJV  “Where there is no Vision, the people perish.

·       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.

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 beginning this church started with no funds, no money, very few people and no building or audio equipment but this church was started with a Vision.

 Vision has the ability to pull on itself and attract, resources and talents. 

·       When I moved here, I didn’t know the culture, I didn’t have the nothing, but God gave me a Vision. I wrote it down and emailed it to my sister. At that time, things were very challenging as we tried to settle down.

·       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

Habakkuk positioned himself properly so that he could hear from God. 

Vision comes from God’s voice! 

The Vision for your life is not on success, or college. College will give you a degree, but the voice of God will give you a Vision for your life. 

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.

The builder usually works to fulfil the wishes and desire of the owners. 

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. Rom 8:12.

·       That’s why you must be able to recognize the voice of God and His plan for your life. 

Exodus 25:40 Be sure that you make everything according to the pattern I have shown you here on the mountain.”

·       Moises built a tabernacle according to the pattern shown in heaven.

·       Salomon built the temple according to the plan given to him by David. Salomon lived and fulfilled his daddy’s dream. 

·       Noah followed every instruction God had given him in building the ark.

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. 

John 5:19 NIV “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.”

·       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.  

How can you hear the voice of the Lord?  

1.   To hear God’s VOICE, you need to be near God. 

Song :

Nearer, my God, to Thee,  Nearer to Thee;E'en though it be a cross  That raiseth me,Still all my song shall beNearer, my God, to Thee,Nearer, my God, to Thee,  Nearer to Thee.

Though, like a wanderer,  The sun gone down,Darkness comes over me,  My rest a stone;Yet in my dreams I'd beNearer, my God, to Thee,Nearer, my God, to Thee,  Nearer to Thee.

They who cannot serve God by preaching need not regret it if they can be mighty in prayer. The true strength of the church lies there. This is the sinew which moves the arm of omnipotence. If a man can but pray, he can do anything. He knows how to overcome the Lord in prayer has heaven and earth at his disposal. There is nothing, man, which you cannot accomplish if you can but prevail with God in prayer. Charles H Spurgeon.

·       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. Because He expects those who want to hear him to be very close to Him. 

2.   to be familiar with his Voice we have to be filled with his Word.

·       God wrote one book, if you want to know his voice, you have to learn the Bible, study the Bible, memorize the Bible, because God’s voice and God’s Word cannot contradict themselves.

3.   lower the NOISE, so you can hear God’s voice 

“Be still and know that I am God”. Psalms 46:10 NIV

·       Imagine talking to someone when the music is on, the washing machine is on and the dryer too, and she is working on something.

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 through our spirit.

CONCLUSION-Write the Vision And make it plain on tablets

Habakkuk 2:2  “Then the Lord answered me and said: “Write the Vision And make it plain on tablets, That he may run who reads it.”

·       Vision works when we walk towards it. 

·       You need to write down the Vision! On a paper, on a board, on your tablet, on your bedroom door, on a wall. It has to be written somewhere. 

·       Don’t keep it in your mind only, it has to be physically written. Habakkuk 2:2

·       You have to see and always read the Vision! Because you may write it but never have read it.  

·       Stop reading other people vision and dreams on social media 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.

Jeremiah 29:11 “For I know the plans I have for you, “declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.”

Do not, I pray you, because the thing happens to seem new, or too enthusiastic, or too far ahead, be snubbed into putting it into a corner, but take care of it, and nurture it. And if it be not of God, a little experience will disabuse you of it let us hope. But if it be of the Lord, you will grow in your attachment to it, and by and by God will find an opportunity for you to make it practical. Charles Spurgeon.