February 23, 2020
Vision For New Heights: How Does Vision Come? | Rev Dr. Taiye Adeola
TEXT: HABAKKUK 2:1-3; PROVERBS 29:18
Last Sunday we started our discussions on the necessity for a Vision for new heights. We gave a definition of vision as “Foresight based on Insight with the benefit of Hindsight” and discussed four things to do with a vision – Write it down, Make it plain, Sell it and be patient with it. Today, I want us to look at How Vision Come drawing examples from the scripture.
- VISION COMES BY REVELATION. God reveals His heart to his people, he shows what he is about to do to his children through various means. It could be my dream, trance or clear vision. Prophet Isaiah in chapter 6:1 said, “In the year that king Uzziah died I also saw the lord …” In Revelation chapter 1 the Bible records “the revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave unto him, to shew unto his servants, things which must shortly come to pass; and he sent and signified it by his angel unto his servant John”.What I am saying is that God reveals matters about a man’s life, a church, a nation etc to his own. Joseph is a very good example. He got revelations about his future through dreams. In Genesis37:5 Joseph dreamed a dream, Gen 37:9 And Joseph dreamed yet another dream; Joseph got hold of his future through the dreams that God showed him. Joseph’s dreams were not ordinary, they were not psychological, Joseph’s dreams were divine revelations about his future. Not mere fantasy carried over to sleep. It is possible based on our relationship with God that he will pre-play our future so that we will be guided as we work towards its revelation.
- VISION COMES BY IMPARTATION. Here again, I am talking about divine impartation. As a result of the revelation, there can be divine impartation. You can receive grace or anointing for a vision when your life is imparted. You can receive a word, direction, or instruction. The experience of Jeremiah comes to mind here. In Jeremiah 1 from verse 4 the Bible records “the word of the Lord came to me saying, “before I formed you in the womb I know you, before you were born I set you apart; I appointed you as a prophet to the nations”. Ah, Sovereign Lord, I said I do not know how to speak, I am only a child, but the Lord said to me do not say I am only a child, you must go to everyone I send you to and say whatever I command you. Do not be afraid of them for I am with you and will rescue you declares the lord”. Now, this is the impartation, the thing that affected and transformed Jeremiah’s life to catch the vision as a man who will declare the counsel of God verse 9. ”Then the Lord reached out his hand touched my mouth and said to me, “ Behold, I have put my words in thy mouth See, I have this day set thee over the nations and over the kingdoms to uproot and tear down, to destroy and overthrow, to build and to plant”. From then God started to give Jeremiah definite revelations. The experience of Isaiah as recorded in Isaiah 6 is also an example. After Isaiah saw the glory of the lord and his holiness and cried woe unto himself. There was an impartation. Isaiah 6:6-7 says “then one of the seraphs flew to me with a live coal in his hands which he had taken with thongs from the altar, with it he touched my mouth and said ‘ see this has touched your lips, your guilt is taken away and your sins atoned for” it was after this that he was commissioned. Vision coming by impartation means your life is affected by a divine intervention bestowing grace and ability for a task you never thought was achievable through you. From then you begin to see yourself pursuing that thing – why? Your life has been imparted. It can be through words of wisdom, words of knowledge; it can be through insight that comes through your studying of God’s word or listening to his servant as you are doing now.
- VISION COMES BY INSPIRATION – To be inspired is to be motivated or mobilized from within to do a thing. Your attention suddenly gets drawn to it and it becomes bright in your heart to a point of generating strength towards its pursuit. When you have inspiration it comes like an idea but it is not just an idea, it is an impression upon your heart that generates an enthusiastic desire for the pursuit of that thing. Inspiration can come through diverse means – God’s word, situations, environment, friends, discussions and so on can be used by the Holy Spirit to inspire you. Business ideas, project execution, scriptwriting, music composition, ministry activities can all be inspired by the Holy Spirit using any means. In Acts 14, we have an example, let us read from verse 8. “And there sat a certain man at Lystra, impotent in his feet, being a cripple from his mother’s womb, who never had walked: 9 The same heard Paul speak: who stedfastly beholding him, and perceiving that he had faith to be healed, 10 Said with a loud voice, Stand upright on thy feet. And he leaped and walked. 11 And when the people saw what Paul had done, they lifted up their voices, saying in the speech of Lycaonia, The gods are come down to us in the likeness of men’’.
- VISION COMES BY DIVINE INSTRUCTION – The Holy Spirit inspires through various means; you can get a vision through direct instruction from God. God can be so direct in saying my child do this or that. In such cases you are left with no option than to begin to run with that instruction. Refusal to do so means not moving on. A story was told of a graduate who God instructed to be frying bean cake she carried out the instruction and prospered by it. In Acts 13:2 the Bible records “While they were worshiping the Lord and fasting, the Holy Spirit said, “Set apart for me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them.”
These four things that I have spoken about as how vision comes don’t just happen. Revelations don’t just come; there are conditions that aid the coming of vision. We can call them vision agents or conditioners. I will discuss three of such.
VISION AGENTS
- DISSATISFACTION: Be dissatisfied with things that are not right around you. Be it physical, spiritual, academics, economic, etc. If you are not dissatisfied with things that are not right around you, you will not have a vision for a change. In chapter one of the book of Habakkuk, we see the complaints of the prophet against the evil around him (Habk.1:1-4), he complained to God and in verse one of chapter two, he decided to wait and hear what God will say about his complaints.
Many people’s situation has remained the same because they are satisfied with the status quo. If you do not develop a dislike or hatred for failure, you will not get a vision for success, if you are not dissatisfied with sinfulness and unrighteousness you will never get a vision for righteousness and holiness, if you do not dislike mediocrity, vision for excellence will not come. I ask you, for how long have you coped with what is not right around you or about you? How many of you are beginning to accept what is not right and you are living by it? That is not the right attitude, you must be dissatisfied until you get a vision of what is right and pursue what is right and realize it.
In Nigeria today, everybody seems just to be accepting the wrong things and for as long as we have this attitude Nigeria will not progress. Examples abound of wrong things that seem to have become our way of life. For example, see how strange it has become to have electricity for long. Imagine how people scream and rejoice when the light comes on. Abnormality has become our way of life. What about water, or what do we say of the injustice in the land, corruption, and unrighteousness in the land, people in government who lead us do whatever they like and we just adjust and carry on without doing anything; people do not carry out their normal responsibilities without gratification and everybody thinks it is okay, it is normal; we must get us dissatisfied with wrong things so that we can have a vision for a new Nigeria.
I encourage you to begin to look inward and begin to hate with a passion, everything that is not right about you and around you catch a vision for something better, higher, bigger, greater, trust God for change.
Listen to this:
Situational dissatisfaction will bring a great vision.
Cost dissatisfaction will give birth to an alternative vision
Service dissatisfaction will bring improvement vision
Design\product dissatisfaction will bring an inventive vision
Status dissatisfaction will bring an elevating vision
I challenge someone here this morning to be dissatisfied with spiritual stagnancy and catch a vision for progress, be dissatisfied with failure, hate poverty and trust God for success and prosperity. Do not get carried away by the fact that it has always been like that in your family. Your case can start the change; you can be a departure from what it has been if you catch a vision for something new; new height; change. Habakkuk was dissatisfied with what was wrong around him and he complained to God, then God gave him a vision.
- READINESS FOR SOMETHING NEW: It is not enough to just be dissatisfied. You must put yourself in readiness for a new situation. These means be prepared, stand upon your watch. Habakkuk says, “I will stand upon my watch”. I will get myself ready; I will maintain my expectations until I find myself in the new situation that I expect. Habakkuk waited until he heard from God. Standing upon your watch will call for taking a stand and maintain it. It means you are determined to receive from God. You wait on him for instruction, for the direction you watch out for his acts, ways, doing. The bible says when you wait upon the Lord your strength is renewed. This means you have a place to seek his face, you relate with your maker who is able to shape your destiny. Many of us do not find direction because we do not stand before the lord to watch out for what he wants to say to us. We are carried away by the distractions around us. I encourage you to stand before him in prayers, fellowship, and communion. God gives direction, he gives divine guidance but we must wait in his presence with a consciousness to receive from him. Be prepared to receive instructions for a change. You must expect and get ready for what you have asked from God. The vision that you have, be ready for its manifestation and execution. Prepare to run with the vision. The type of preparation or readiness will be defined by the nature and scope of the vision, so understand what the vision is and be ready. The new height that you trust God for, are you ready? If God answers that prayer today, are you prepared for what the new height will take, are you actually expecting what you have prayed about?
- POSITION YOURSELF: The third thing is positioning yourself. You must position yourself well because it determines your reception and reflection. Many of us have not moved or experienced the destiny change or even catch the vision because of our location. Where you are stationed; where you stand, where you live. Isaiah said in chapter 6:5 “I am a man of unclean lips, I live among people of unclean lips” if you live among uncleanness the tendency for it to affect you is there, even if you do not become unclean. When Isaiah found himself in the midst of God’s holiness, he was affected by it. In verse 7, the angel of the Lord touched his mouth with coal. If you are not well positioned, you will not see the right thing and you will not do the right thing. Your angle of positioning or let’s put it this way, where you stand with God determines the much of him that you will see and get to know and how many messages you will get from him to move on in life.
Every child of God needs God to shine, to excel, to succeed, to progress, your life becomes a reflection of God himself. Let us look at the example of the moon and star in relation to the sun. They use the light of the sun; the reflection is however determined by the positioning.
If you are wrongly located, you will get a wrong vision and if you have the right vision, in the wrong location your vision is truncated. Your location determines the reception or conception of a vision and the execution of it. For some, it is not that God does not speak but they have the wrong location. The place you stay in relation to God determines how much he will speak to you or relate to you. You must position yourself to receive clear instructions about where to be.
If you are an associate of mediocre, what are you going to become? If you are a friend of the unserious bunch in school, what are you working to become? If you surround yourself with aimless boys & girls of no purpose (NFA) what are you planning to become? Young lady if you locate yourself amidst wayward and ungodly girls, what are you planning to become? If you plant yourself where you will eat junks, it will show in your body. You must be well positioned-why? Things do not just happen.
Mary positioned herself to receive the miracle of giving birth to the savior of the world- she was a virgin and God-fearing. Gideon had something inside of him that God saw and used, “Go in this thy might” (Judges 6:14).
In positioning yourself you position yourself to see. See nothing other than what God wants you to see. See with your eyes of imagination. In Genesis 13:14-17, God instructed Abraham to step out and see. You cannot go further than you see in a vision. You must also position yourself to hear. Hear God and carry out his instructions. I see God asking some of us to relocate today. Change your position in relation to God; be well located inside of him. Some of us will have to relocate in terms of the friends we keep, the job we do, the location of our business, do you know that some people lose their blessings because of the house they live in. they will just be struggling until God just leads them by revelation to move out of such place.
Can you ask yourself, what is my location or position as far as God is concerned? Some of us are so far from God and it shows on us. It is reflected in the way we reason and do things. Our approach to the things of the kingdom is a reflection of our closeness or how far we are from God.
Some are a little closer. Such people may have a form of godliness, but the power thereof is denied. Such people could be men and women, boys and girls found in the house of God or around the things of God but do not absolutely give it all to God. It will show in the way we handle the word and how we understand the mind of God. In the scriptures, we have men that located themselves in God that they were called friends of God. The bible talks about Moses as a man with whom God spoke face to face. Remember, at a point, the reflection of the glory of God on the face of Moses was so much, it was shinning so much that people could not look at his face. I challenge you to position yourself well so that you can receive from God and truly reflect him. You will certainly find direction, instruction, insight in God, so stay connected.
Listen to the sermon below: