Tuesday 31 March 2020
One man of you puts to flight a thousand, since it is the Lord your God who fights for you, just as he promised you.
What is God’s vision for your life? What does the Lord show you as vision for our church? We will be sharing this morning the beginning of what we sense God calling us to do and reach for. But how do we know if vision is from God or from ourselves?
Firstly, any vision must be in line with scripture and be clearly a means in which the Kingdom of God is extended in to the world and grows, Jesus used several parables to illustrate the nature of God’s Kingdom; one of the most famous is that of the mustard seed. Here the Kingdom is likened to the smallest of seeds that will eventually grow into the greatest of trees where the birds of the air can take shelter. The idea is that the Kingdom of God is growing – it starts as a small seed both in the lives of believers and in the wider world and grows bigger. The illustration of the birds roosting in the tree points to the fact that all people from all backgrounds are welcomed into the kingdom. This means both the sharing of the Gospel for man’s personal salvation but also that God’s will is being worked out on earth is as it would be heaven so that does include good works, so that human life can flourish, and injustices are changed.
Secondly, vision from God for your own life, or for a church or ministry will always be far more than can be done through human endeavour, if we can achieve vision through our own resources that it usually is man’s vision as man will achieve it quite happily without God’s involvement. The vision we are presenting today is not achievable by our own efforts or good ideas but only through extraordinary prayer, faith and obedience to do as the Lord asks. In fact, the vision we will share today is impossible from even its smallest outset as only God can change hearts and lives and only the Holy Spirit moving can give birth to life in others.
We want our church to be a resourcing church, preparing people to pray, engage in spiritual warfare, start discovery groups, and plant churches and to become a training and sending centre for those He will save and bring to us to restore and prepare for Kingdom service elsewhere. But we also want to still be a centre of prayer, worship, teaching, healing and restoration for the building up of Gods people and the transformation of our own community. Only God can do this, but our part is to obediently and faithfully prepare Isaiah 54 v 2 says: "Enlarge the place of your tent and let them stretch out the curtains of your dwellings; Do not spare; Lengthen your cords and strengthen your stakes."
Let’s take the next steps today and purpose in our heart to peruse such a vision
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Isaiah 54:1-8
Few of us are tempted today to dream too big. Rather, our vision shrinks to the size of our limited experience. Yet all things are possible for those who believe in the God who created the heavens and the earth. In our disbelief, we can ask God for inspiration to believe. Then he may give us a vision of divine size.