Awaken Your God Given-Dream!

So far in our Awaken series we looked at Awaken the Church, Awaken Your Salvation, Awaken Your God-given Love, and Awaken Your God-given Vision. Today we are going to look at Awaken Your God-given Dream. Wait a minute, isn’t vision the same thing as dream. Not really. The word vision means: the ability to think about or plan the future with imagination or wisdom. The word dream means: a strongly desired goal or purpose.

Acts 2:14–18 (NKJV)

14But Peter, standing up with the eleven, raised his voice and said to them, “Men of Judea and all who dwell in Jerusalem, let this be known to you, and heed my words. 

15For these are not drunk, as you suppose, since it is only the third hour of the day. 

16But this is what was spoken by the prophet Joel: 

17‘And it shall come to pass in the last days, says God, That I will pour out of My Spirit on all flesh; Your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, Your young men shall see visions, Your old men shall dream dreams. 

18And on My menservants and on My maidservants I will pour out My Spirit in those days; And they shall prophesy.

In this passage of scripture Luke uses the word horasis (hada cease) which means the act of seeing the sense of sight, the eyes. The word dreams is the word enypniazomai (inoopdeazo) which means to dream (divinely suggested) dreams. So there is a difference and while the prophet Joel says that young men will see visions and old men will dream dreams, God-given visions and dreams play a part in all of our lives. So let’s awaken our God-given dreams!

Genesis 37:5–11 (NLT)

5 One night Joseph had a dream, and when he told his brothers about it, they hated him more than ever. 

6“Listen to this dream,” he said. 

7“We were out in the field, tying up bundles of grain. Suddenly my bundle stood up, and your bundles all gathered around and bowed low before mine!” 

8 His brothers responded, “So you think you will be our king, do you? Do you actually think you will reign over us?” And they hated him all the more because of his dreams and the way he talked about them. 

9 Soon Joseph had another dream, and again he told his brothers about it. “Listen, I have had another dream,” he said. “The sun, moon, and eleven stars bowed low before me!” 

10 This time he told the dream to his father as well as to his brothers, but his father scolded him. “What kind of dream is that?” he asked. “Will your mother and I and your brothers actually come and bow to the ground before you?” 

11 But while his brothers were jealous of Joseph, his father wondered what the dreams meant.

God-given Dreams Defy Present Circumstances!

Joseph was the youngest of the brothers and if there was one mistake he made, being the youngest, was telling his brothers about his dream. The dream was not a vision because if Joseph had a vision for being above his brothers, he would have started a plan to get to Egypt. He had no ability to plan the steps needed to get to be second in command to pharoah, all he had was a dream! We need to Awaken God’s Dream in our lives. We need to dream the way kids can dream of being president or an all star athlete, or a millionaire. Of course those might not be God-given, but kids do know how to dream, we call it imagination.

Daniel 2:1–28 (NLT)

1One night during the second year of his reign, Nebuchadnezzar had such disturbing dreams that he couldn’t sleep. 

2He called in his magicians, enchanters, sorcerers, and astrologers, and he demanded that they tell him what he had dreamed. As they stood before the king, 

3he said, “I have had a dream that deeply troubles me, and I must know what it means.” 

4Then the astrologers answered the king in Aramaic, “Long live the king! Tell us the dream, and we will tell you what it means.” 

5But the king said to the astrologers, “I am serious about this. If you don’t tell me what my dream was and what it means, you will be torn limb from limb, and your houses will be turned into heaps of rubble! 

6But if you tell me what I dreamed and what the dream means, I will give you many wonderful gifts and honors. Just tell me the dream and what it means!” 

7They said again, “Please, Your Majesty. Tell us the dream, and we will tell you what it means.” 

8The king replied, “I know what you are doing! You’re stalling for time because you know I am serious when I say, 

9‘If you don’t tell me the dream, you are doomed.’ So you have conspired to tell me lies, hoping I will change my mind. But tell me the dream, and then I’ll know that you can tell me what it means.” 

10The astrologers replied to the king, “No one on earth can tell the king his dream! And no king, however great and powerful, has ever asked such a thing of any magician, enchanter, or astrologer! 

11The king’s demand is impossible. No one except the gods can tell you your dream, and they do not live here among people.” 

12The king was furious when he heard this, and he ordered that all the wise men of Babylon be executed. 

13And because of the king’s decree, men were sent to find and kill Daniel and his friends. 

14When Arioch, the commander of the king’s guard, came to kill them, Daniel handled the situation with wisdom and discretion. 

15He asked Arioch, “Why has the king issued such a harsh decree?” So Arioch told him all that had happened. 

16Daniel went at once to see the king and requested more time to tell the king what the dream meant. 

17Then Daniel went home and told his friends Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah what had happened. 

18He urged them to ask the God of heaven to show them his mercy by telling them the secret, so they would not be executed along with the other wise men of Babylon. 

19That night the secret was revealed to Daniel in a vision. Then Daniel praised the God of heaven. 

20He said, “Praise the name of God forever and ever, for he has all wisdom and power. 

21He controls the course of world events; he removes kings and sets up other kings. He gives wisdom to the wise and knowledge to the scholars. 

22He reveals deep and mysterious things and knows what lies hidden in darkness, though he is surrounded by light. 

23I thank and praise you, God of my ancestors, for you have given me wisdom and strength. You have told me what we asked of you and revealed to us what the king demanded.” 

24Then Daniel went in to see Arioch, whom the king had ordered to execute the wise men of Babylon. Daniel said to him, “Don’t kill the wise men. Take me to the king, and I will tell him the meaning of his dream.” 

25Arioch quickly took Daniel to the king and said, “I have found one of the captives from Judah who will tell the king the meaning of his dream!” 

26The king said to Daniel (also known as Belteshazzar), “Is this true? Can you tell me what my dream was and what it means?” 

27Daniel replied, “There are no wise men, enchanters, magicians, or fortune-tellers who can reveal the king’s secret. 

28But there is a God in heaven who reveals secrets, and he has shown King Nebuchadnezzar what will happen in the future. Now I will tell you your dream and the visions you saw as you lay on your bed.

God-given Dreams Shape Destinies!

All the wise men of Babylon, including Daniel and his three and his friends, were to be killed because no one could interpret Nebuchadnezzar’s dream. But God can interpret dreams because dreams like this are given by God. So a God fearing man like Daniel, gets to know the secret of the dream because it is revealed by God. Because of God giving the interpretation to Daniel, lives were spared. Many times dreams are the keys to our destinies.

Ephesians 2:8–13 (NLT)

8God saved you by his grace when you believed. And you can’t take credit for this; it is a gift from God. 

9Salvation is not a reward for the good things we have done, so none of us can boast about it. 

10For we are God’s masterpiece. He has created us anew in Christ Jesus, so we can do the good things he planned for us long ago. 

11Don’t forget that you Gentiles used to be outsiders. You were called “uncircumcised heathens” by the Jews, who were proud of their circumcision, even though it affected only their bodies and not their hearts. 

12In those days you were living apart from Christ. You were excluded from citizenship among the people of Israel, and you did not know the covenant promises God had made to them. You lived in this world without God and without hope. 

13But now you have been united with Christ Jesus. Once you were far away from God, but now you have been brought near to him through the blood of Christ.

Salvation was God’s Dream For Us!

We were saved when we believed in the work that Jesus did on the cross for us. We didn’t do anything on our own, or rather couldn’t do anything on our own to be saved. He died to save all of us, not just the Jews. But when you think about it, Jesus coming and laying down His life for us was the culmination of God’s “dream”. When we receive Jesus, our dreamer becomes alive again because now we’re in the family of God and our Father is the greatest dreamer ever. Think about it, Abraham had no vision of becoming a dad at his age. God gave him that dream when he told him to look at the stars and if you can count them that’s how many descendants you will have. What? That’s a bigger dream than is possible. And it must have seamed like a dream to Abraham. God’s dream for us in greater than anything we can envision with our own faculties. Awaken that God-given dream!

Philippians 3:12–14 (NLT)

12 I don’t mean to say that I have already achieved these things or that I have already reached perfection. But I press on to possess that perfection for which Christ Jesus first possessed me. 

13 No, dear brothers and sisters, I have not achieved it, but I focus on this one thing: Forgetting the past and looking forward to what lies ahead, 

14 I press on to reach the end of the race and receive the heavenly prize for which God, through Christ Jesus, is calling us.

We Need Our God-given Dream to Press On!

Having a God-given Vision is much needed to achieve steps towards our life’s goals. But when we achieve these visions, it is our God-given Dream that keeps us going. It’s the dream of seeing our entire family serving God. It’s the dream of seeing Hawaii become a Christian state. It’s the dream of seeing the latter days being greater that the former days. Let’s Awaken our God-given Dreams!