Develop A Spritual Vision in 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.