Developing A Spiritual Vision For 2011 - Part Two

I want to continue today some thoughts about our need to develop a spiritual vision for our lives in 2011 - praying for God to reveal one scripture to guide our path/prepare us to deal with life's circumstances throughout 2011. In part one of this discussion, I focused on Proverbs 29: 18, "Without revelation people run wild, but one who keeps the law will be happy." (Holman translation). I closed the discussion by revealing what I referred to as "Reality One." I stated, "The reality is - without a spiritual vision for your life, you will run wild." That's where I want to begin in this discussion.

Reality # 1: Without Spiritual vision for your life, you will run wild. That's a reality. That's what the Bible tells us. Without a spiritual vision for your life, you're going to run wild. I'm telling you we've got a lot of wild-eyed Christians right now. You will run on your own. You'll run loosely, you will run freely, you will run unrestrained. You will run shamelessly. You will run naked (Young's Literal Translation puts it), and you know one of the real tragedies of running naked? Is you don't even know you're naked. That's what John wrote about in Revelation 3, of the lukewarm church, you don't even know your own condition, that you're blind, and naked, and weak, and in need because you don't have the Word of God pouring into you.

In the Message, Proverbs 29: 18 reads, "If people can't see what God is doing, they stumble all over themselves; But when they attend to what he reveals, they are most blessed." In this case, I think we can learn from this translation as well! There seems to be a LOT of times that we are stumbling all over ourselves and accomplishing nothing for the Kingdom. Conversely, when we attend to that which God reveals to us/calls us to do in His Word, we are indeed blessed!

With a spiritual vision for your life, you will discover the good life God intends for you. I believe Jesus stated He came to give us "life more abundantly (John 10: 10)." That's a pretty exciting statement. If I can develop a spiritual vision for my life, I can begin to live and discover the good life that God intends for me. And that is true for all! Don't you want the good life God intends for you in your life? Then follow the counsel of God's Word and discover life to the fullest.

Many churches today (and we as an association) have established vision statements or purpose statements. If they set out to achieve their purpose as a church, then they are likely to achieve their goals. If they wander aimlessly - doing a little of this and a little of that - doing what "feels good for the moment" or just that which is popular to the masses - then they may last for a season but they will not achieve the life more abundantly that God has in store for those that devote themselves to following the precepts of God's Word.

As an association, Tar River has established it's primary purpose many years ago. It's purpose is to strengthen the local church. It is our aim to walk alongside our member churches and assist them/resource them/equip them through training and modeling so that the church, the Bride of Christ, will prosper as God directs. If we fail to live by that purpose, we may do a lot of things - even things that are good - but if not in accordance with what God would have us to do, then we will just stumble all over ourselves doing a lot of busy-ness stuff, but we will NOT experience the blessedness of operating in God's Will.

Some of you have heard my story of serving on the Mental Health Board many years ago. I had been appointed to represent the needs of those addicted to drugs and alcohol - a noble cause. I was honored. I set out to do the best job that I could. After a while, they asked me to serve as chair of the board and then politics entered the picture. My life became consumed with meeting after meeting; working lunched with directors and committee chairs from other public service agencies; lobbied state legislators for services to meet the needs of the people I represented and all the others with mental health needs. There were even times the regular meeting went LONG we would go into what the press reported as an "executive session (the press was released and our purpose was SUPPOSED to be dealing with issues of a confidential nature). Reality - the other members of the board ate supper while I rushed out a side door and drove to the church and conducted prayer meeting at the church. I would return and call the press back into the meeting and report, "there is no public action necessary for any items discussed while the board was in executive session.

I became so busy with the work of the board, my life was consumed! When I was not in a meeting, I was meeting with people to prepare for the meeting or talking with a reporter about what was determined at the meeting, etc. etc.

The church I served sent me on a spiritual retreat. There I went to my first session. The leader is well known NOW, but I had never heard of him. His name was Greg Laurie. He made this statement, "This was not what I had planned to say but someone in here needs to hear this; 'Noble causes do not replace God's call for your life.'" I thought - what a great saying and wrote it down.

I went to my second session. I do not remember the name of the individual that was leading the session but he began by saying: "I did not have this in my plans, but someone here needs to hear this statement - noble causes do not replace God's call for your life." I quickly looked around the room to see what individual was in my first session and needed to hear this word - which I was beginning to realize was indeed a word from the Lord.

Now it was time for my third session. I know the presenter was a member of Billy Graham's family, but I can not recall the name. You guessed it - again I heard the words - "noble causes do not replace God's call for your life." I fully realized, that word was for me and as the presenter continued to present, I wrote out my letter of resignation as Chairman of the Mental Health Board and a letter to the County Commissioners stating that I would not accept reappointment to the board. I realized I had allowed a noble cause to replace God's call on my life at that time. He had called me as pastor of Massey Hill Baptist Church, not Chairman of the Board."

Today I strive to be where God wants me to be and not allow noble causes to crowd Him out. Problem is, I still get distracted. That's why I believe we need to continually review our purpose for the cause of Christ and attempt to live in obedience to His call. If we are not careful we get super-busy with lots of good stuff - even noble stuff - yet we are operating outside of God's calling upon our lives. We need to HEAR God - that's why we really need to be in His Word. Again, I challenge you to pray and asking God to reveal a scripture to help you throughout 2011.

We will look at this more throughout our days of prayer as member churches. Until then, pray that all of us will really HEAR God and do those things that He is calling us to do as His disciples.

Develop A Spiritual Vision For 2011

Over the next few days it is my plan to share with you some thoughts about the importance, significance, and POWER of prayer in our lives. I will admit to you that the premise for my writings will come from readings of works by others on the subject – particularly those of Ronnie Floyd and Gregory Frizzell, but they (hopefully) will be nuggets of information that will serve to help you as you seek God's Will for your life in 2011.

The first thing I will challenge you to do is to pray for God to reveal to you a scripture passage for 2011. We actually should have been praying about this prior to the beginning of 2011, but now is OK as well! In your prayer, pray something like this: “Lord (and maybe reflect upon that word LORD), I want You to give me one verse in my life that will help me through 2011.” Yes – we will need more than ONE verse to guide us throughout the year, but there is scripture that God can lead you to right now and some time during the year your will discover why God wanted you to have that one verse for 2011. Pray earnestly for w “word from the Lord” for you in 2011!

I really feel convicted to share with you some thoughts on developing a spiritual vision for our lives. I believe we wander aimlessly in the wilderness way to much when God is inviting us to enter into His “Promise Land.” Proverbs 29: 18 reads (KJV), “Where there is no vision, the people perish: but he that keepeth the law, happy is he.” Let me share the same verse with you from other translations:

(ESV) “Where there is no prophetic vision the people cast off restraint, but blessed is he who keeps the law.”

(Holman Christian Standard) “Without revelation people run wild, but one who keeps the law will be happy.”

(New Living Translation) “Where people do not accept divine guidance, they run wild; but whoever obeys the law is happy.”

(Amplified) “Where there is no vision [no redemptive revelation of God], the people perish; but he who keeps the law [of God, which includes that of man]--blessed (happy, fortunate, and enviable) is he.”

To meditate upon this one verse helps us see the need to implant the word of God into our own hearts. Implanted so that we might have a well of resources to come to when we need that “Word of the Lord” to provide guidance, help, strength for the circumstances of life that come our way! We need to develop a spiritual vision for our lives.

Let's re-visit Proverbs 29: 18 and focus on it a bit. I want you to notice that the first part of the verse talks bout what WILL happen if we do not do something. The second part of the verse talks about what WILL happen if we do something. This is important for us to take note! Let me point out to you that the one I memorized as a child (KJV) leaves out an important aspect. The KJV does not detail the type of vision (spiritual guidance/revelation of the Lord). I think it is important that we more fully understand the importance of developing a spiritual vision for our lives. Without divine vision/guidance Proverbs 29: 18 declares that we run wild.

I believe there are a couple of questions we really need to think through in your life – and we need to be honest with ourselves, because if we’re not honest with ourselves, then it’s not going to help us to go through the motions of asking these questions:

The first question is “Who do you let speak into your life?” Another way you could say that is, who are you letting pour into your life? Even another way to ask it is “who do you give access to your heart?” If you are reading this as an e-zine or blog, or have a SmartPhone, Ipad, etc. then you should understand. With a simple sweeping of the finger you can define music, get music, understand music, you can listen to podcasts, you can go to iTunes University, view videos from anywhere. You can do whatever you want to do. You download it to your computer, then you download it to this simple, little device and you carry it with you wherever you go. See anything similar to what we need to do in a spiritual sense? If we are connected to God's Word, then it is downloaded to our hearts, and as we go we carry it around with us! (By the way—are YOU using those high tech devices to grow spiritually? Maybe another blog.)

The real question becomes – what are you letting into your life? pour into your heart? give access to your private information? I could, I could take these same devices and listen to stuff that doesn’t help me spiritually. I could pour into my mind all kind of music that disrupts my spirit rather than calms my spirit. I could pour into my life all kind of teaching that would be erroneous because it doesn’t matter everybody’s got podcasts. That’s not the issue. It’s not the device. The issue is what are you going to do in your life, and who is pouring into your life? Who do you give access to your heart?

You say, is that really all that important? I guarantee you it’s important. Go back to Proverbs 29: 18 –   “Without revelation…” what does that mean? “Without prophetic vision…” “Without divine instruction…” Without divine guidance…” Without the Word. When a lack of the Word is poured into your heart in hearing and obeying, here’s what the Scripture says is going to happen. You’re going to run wild.
When you and I do study His Word. When divine revelation does come into our lives. When we do pour the Word of God into our lives – it causes us to set parameters in our lives. A Christian that does not pour the Word into their life is like, like a parent, or like a child that does not have a parent that ever tells them no. That child runs wild. We accomplish nothing for the kingdom running wild and operating outside of God's Word and God's Will.

But the Scripture here then says, “…but one who keeps the law,” .they will be happy when they accept divine guidance. They will be happy when they keep the law of God. When they listen to the Word, and they obey the Word, they will be happy. What does it mean to be happy? Does happy mean you walk around with a smile on your face, and you know, you’re just the happiest little Jesus follower that’s ever lived? Probably not. What that means is that you will be blessed. You will be fulfilled.

The reality is – without a spiritual vision for your life, you will run wild. We will address this reality in our next issue. For now, meditate upon what Proverbs 29: 18 means for your life and earnestly pray that God will give you a scripture for 2011.

Project Father's Day

As I read through my mail this morning I noticed a brochure. Normally, I would have just trashed the advertisement. It was a brochure promoting "PROJECT FATHER'S DAY". If you have never seen one, your pastor gets such cards regularly promoting some emphasis for Mother's Day, Father's Day, Race Relations Sunday, etc. There is no way we can keep up with all the promo materials we receive.

You will note that I said, "I NOTICED a brochure...." The "headlines" for the promotion were compelling. Sure - it is advertising a Father's Day promotion in the local church (you can go to www.maninthemirror.org and get the details). And yes - I am facilitating a men's group at my church right now with one of the books they are highlighting. And truly it is a way to "Reach every husband, father, and son in your church this Father's Day for about $1 each," BUT the words leaped from the page to my heart strings and I felt compelled to both pray over these facts in our member churches and to write this blog asking you to pray with me. If the men of our churches experienced the transforming power accessible to them through the Holy Spirit as a result of our fervent prayer, there would be "revival in our land."

What was the compelling information that was shared in this brochure? Please read it with an awareness in our churches and throughout our communties:

For EVERY 10 MEN in YOUR church.......

10 are STRUGGLING to balance work and family,
9 WILL HAVE children who leave the church,
5 will have a SERIOUS problem with pornography,
4 WILL GET divorced, and
ONLY 1 has a biblical worldview.

These facts are alarming!!!! With Christ as Savior and Lord - our lives are empowered through the Holy Spirit to be "more than conquerors." Yet - only 1 of 10 in our churches would even think in that frame. Serious problems exist within our curched families (hear me -- CHURCHED families) that are tearing families apart and lending itself toward an ever increasing divorce rate. 50% of our men have a SERIOUS problem with pornography (and this includes laity and clergy) that both reflects dissatisfaction and problems in their life and contributes to an abundance of other problems that exist within our homes and churches (and society as a whole). Our daily struggles to balance the demands of life rip into our marriage relationships; our relationships with our children; affect morale and productivity in the work place; other interpersonal relationships, etc. etc.

I am not writing this to encourage you to participate in
"PROJECT FATHER'S DAY. However, I am writing you to encourage you to join me in praying for this situation. I am also asking that you commit with me to be men and women of faith; striving to live in accordance with a Biblical worldview; and striving to balance our lives by seeking FIRST and FOREMOST -- above EVERYTHING else - His righteousness.

Personally devote MORE TIME to "being still" and LISTENING to God in the midst of your day. Corporately - lead your church to face the realities before them and sure them up to be beacons of hope in the midst of chaos, turmoil, and despair. Pray WITHOUT CEASING -- but understand the prayers of a "righteous man" (or woman) "availeth much." So -- we begin with OURSELVES and not the church in total. Just some thoughts to consider as you prepare for a season where many churches emphasize the family - that time between Mothers' Day and Fathers' Day.