What Happens When You Lose Sight of the Vision

Good morning family.

As always it is an honor and a privilege to be able to stand here before you I don't take it lightly. And so I thank God and I thank my pastor for allowing me the opportunity to exercise the gift that God is giving me in your presence. So before we get started, I would like to open up in prayer. So father, I thank you for this day. I thank you for your goodness. And your mercy, I thank you for your love and kindness father asked that as we come here to hear what it is that you have to say Lord that you have your way that you come and rest in this place and that you do exactly what it is that you want to do 5. I pray that you hide me behind your cross and every word that comes from my mouth flows directly from your heart. I thank you for the spirit that makes preaching easy and I give you praise for now in the mighty name of Jesus Amen. All right. So for those of you who are joining us for the first to second time as Pastor said we haven't talked in for the month of January about vision. And so we're going to do a quick recap before we jump into what the Lord laid on my heart. I'm really really excited about this message. Got it kind of threw this at me when we first started fasting and so I'm really excited to deliver this to you. So last week we talked about the slight difference between dreams and visions. And so the the acronym for dreams that Pastor gave us was divinely revealed events, awaiting manifestation again, divinely revealed events, awaiting manifestation. And so we drove into a little bit of what it means to dream and and how to dream and a pastor talk to us about my grandfather who he said was the greatest dreamer he ever knew and so I think it is important for us to always remember that you know, God listens to our dreams and and previously the week before we talked about what a vision has to have. And so there were some key components that pass instead of vision needed to have and so those components were it needed to be written. I need to be easily understood. It must be a definitive in your heart and it must be worth waiting for I saw those were the key components of vision that Pastor gave us the first week that we started talking about this so this week. I will talk to you about what happens when you lose sight of the vision.

I know for myself there recently there have been situations where God had cast of vision for me and but it had it was three for five years ago that he cast his vision. And so I found myself falling into these situations of what we called Vision drift and that I started drifting away God had moved but I was moving away from the original place that God have placed me in order to be able to accomplish the thing that God wanted me to accomplish and so as I've started fasting God's heart started to talk to me about this and talk to me about what was really happening because I was taking a person. I was actually upset with God about what was going on, but God had to reveal to me some things to make to make it very clear that it wasn't him, but it was me and so it's it's not an uncommon thing to lose sight of vision a butt is important to understand why is it important to rehearse your vision because there are some consequences To losing side of division. So the principal text that we've been using throughout this whole series has been habakkuk 2 to 3, and it says then the Lord answered me and said record the vision and inscribe it on tablets that the one who reads it may run for the vision is yet for the appointed time. It hastens toward the goal and will not fail though it tarries wait for it for it will certainly come it will not delay. So this is the thing that I always find about this passage. Is that a bag of says though it tarries wait for it. Just don't wait you wait. I don't know about you, but I don't like waiting. And so the interesting I find about how God is for train. This is that he's saying though it waits you wait because it won't be late. But in our humanity and in US existing and time because God has no sense of time. So with us existed in time when it gets easy to wait for a couple of months or maybe even a year or two, but once we start to surpass that point waiting then requires effort and it requires us to be intentional in our Wiki so in in God talking to me about this one of the things that I pulled out of her back or was that when you when God gives you a vision the reason why he has for you to write it down so that you can rehearse it so you can get it in your spirit in those times when you want to give up when you want to quit that you are able to go back to the thing that God told you and say that I'm waiting for this to happen because I believe it with all my heart. I believe with everything that I have that this is the word of God and that it will come to pass. now

One of the things that God told me when when talking about this out. I wanted I was trying to figure out

How I could display or a portray using the word of God the consequences of a losing side of the vision. So in order to do that weird look at Genesis. Okay. So we all know the story of the creation of man. All right, and if we think back to Genesis 2 1517, this is when God is casting a vision for Adam. Okay, you told Adam that he put them in the he put them in the middle of the garden and he told him to cultivate the land in to keep it. All right, and then he gives them a command. He says that from any of these trees you can eat except for the one in the center from that tree do not eat of it because the day you do you were surely die. Okay. And so what I asked. I said, okay, what is it that you're trying to tell me and sew in? This situation remember this is before Eve comes along. So God gives Adam both a call in a purpose and then tells him this is what happens. If you don't follow your call and your purpose he cast The Vision for okay, and so then comes along. And God doesn't pass the vision for Eve. He leaves it up to Adam the casa Vision fries. Alright, so Adam is it is supposed to be casting this Vision out for even you know, the Bible was written interesting Lee and that in Genesis. We don't know how much time really went by as all of this is happening in a matter of a couple of verses but Adam was in the garden before God made Eve or how long they were in the garden together before he was tempted by the devil. So Genesis 3 1 through 9 is where we when we see the temptation of Eve in the fall of Man. All right, and so I'm a Rita Amrita little bit of this and it says not a serpent was more craft than any beast of the field with the Lord God that the Lord God had made he said to the woman indeed has God said You shall not eat from any tree in the garden. The woman said to the serpent from the fruit of the tree of the garden we may eat but from the fruit of the tree, which is in the middle of the garden. God has said You shall not eat from it or touch it or you will die. So the first problem is that you added to God's word. Chichi. I said don't eat and she said you can't eat or touch it. Okay, so keep note of that. In the serpent said to the woman you surely will not die for God knows that in the day that you eat from it. Your eyes will be open and you will be like God knowing good and evil with a woman saw that the tree was good for food and that it was a delight to the eyes and that the tree was desirable to make one why she took from its fruit and ate cuz she all she gave also to her husband with her and he ate then the eyes of both of them were open and they knew that they were naked and they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves one coverings. They heard the sound of the Lord God Walking In The Garden in the cool of the day in the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God Among the Trees of the garden then the Lord God Called To The Man and said, where are you? All right. So as God gives this was giving this to me again. What is it that you're trying to tell me? What is it that you want that you're trying to get me to realizing that I can give to your people to attend to help them understand the importance of focusing on vision. And so he gave me four effects of losing sight of the vision for effects of losing side of division. Okay? And the first one is you develop your own interpretation of the vision. When you lose sight of the vision you develop your own interpretation of it. All right, if we look at Genesis 3 3 1 through 3. This is where the enemy is coming to Eve and essentially saying that I did. Did I really say that you can eat this? He's he's he's he's he's posing a question to her. All right, and she was crazy enough answer answer against God has said Robin say that they couldn't touch it. He's a simply said not to eat from it. Okay, and so is this what God was revealing to me was that this is the beginning stages of losing side of vision? And that I now have these questions playing in my mind what a guy really say that. Is that really what you really meant by that? Is it really going to do what he said he's going to do. And so in trying to answer those questions if I don't have the vision and now if I don't have the vision in front of me, if it's not something that's in my heart that I love her Hurst I can misinterpret without his head.

And the misinterpretation may seem small but in Psalms 119:11 David said the word I have treasured in my heart so that I might not sin against thee. What's David saying David saying that Hurst it's inside of me is a part of me that I know who you are. But no one can come to me and tell me anything different if someone comes to me and says something contrary to what the word of God says. I come to them and say it's not so that you alive from the pit of Hell. Because that's not what God said about me. But you only get that if you have it in your heart, if you're rehearsing the vision and you're staying focused on that and so again, this is the beginning stages of losing side of division. And and once again this this part about Eve adding to the word of God seems harmless, it seems insignificant. But if we're reading the word of God, we have to understand that every word is significant in that there's a reason why I was placed there. That every word in the Bible has a significance to and there's something to be gained out of it. So what is just for the sake of being put there but God wanted us to know that there is something significant about the fact that you added to the word of God. That our job is not the answer to word of God. I got a job is to take the word of God for what it is and apply to our lives the way that God intends for us to apply to it. We can't take away from it. We can add to it is the word of God and there is no changing it. But here we see that Eve changes it so what happens because you changed it at least just a number to Italy you leave room for deception.

Just because you develop your own interpretation you then leave room to be deceived. Alright, so we look at verse for this is where the enemy is saying to Eve. That where's it at? He said you surely will not die. Well, how you know that where you did one guy told me? what to do How can I take the word of another person about something that God told me?

Do they have the power and the ability to change the word of God? But because I've lost sight of the vision of lost side of the mark because I stopped looking where I'm supposed to be looking now. It sounds reasonable.

Now I have it in my mind because I'm trying to rationalize why things haven't happened the way that God said they would and why I'm still in this season of waiting and why I'm still going through everything that I'm going through and sold the sound very convincing. The last sounds real good.

And so because Eve had not have the word written on her heart because Adam was not casting the vision appropriately to her. It left her open to be deceived by the devil.

and

I guess for me the thing that really tripped me out about this passage is that I'm trying to figure out how she thought that a snake could tell her the truth.

I just bet I'm just like what in your right mind made you feel like he could tell you the truth.

Because 1st Peter 5 through 8 says be of sober Spirit be on the alert your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion seeking someone to devour.

we walk around day in and day out just What's on a chair as if there is not Warfare around us every single day as if there is not an enemy who is trying to destroy the plan of God in our lives as we don't have a purpose that significant worth destroying.

and so we get any spaces where we are no longer protecting. The very thing that God is giving us we act as if the vision needs no protection just because God said it that means it's going to happen in as if we don't have a role to play in protecting the fact that the vision comes to pass now. God doesn't need us to make it happen. Let's be clear about that is a meatus to make it happen. He can do it all on his own he chooses to invite us in in the process to go along with him. But it requires us to do something. We can't just think that just because God said it that means that up. That's all that has to happen. Now I can sit here and wait for the miraculous to show up. When we getting those spaces, we allow ourselves to being in a place to be the sieves. The word gets contorted in our minds and now once again the LIE of the enemy where they're coming directly from him or he's using someone to feed you a lie. Sounds like it could be the truth and because the word is in my heart. I can't divide. And I can easily say that's not true. That's not what God said because I know what God said, okay. so

we have to think to ourselves. Why do we continue to leave room for the enemy to come in and wreak havoc on our lives and to to to destroy the very thing that God has a given us and and So eventually leads to your image of God becoming distorted. Look at Genesis the three and five and that's where the enemies hell is Eve. You surely will not die for God knows that in the day you eat from it. Your eyes will be opened and you will be like God knowing Good and Evil. So now the enemy has portrayed God as a liar. He's betrayed him as someone who can't be trusted. He's betrayed him as someone who doesn't have your best interest at heart that he's withholding good things from you. But you would have never believed that if you knew what God really sad. If she had that have been her Focus the entire time. and so she can he convinces Eve that God is not who he says he is and the thing that God was talking to me about during this he's at he's told me he was like allowing someone else to cast a vision of me for you. Is like putting a it's like you haven't perfect 20/20 vision but going and putting on somebody's dirty glasses.

But now you can't see me, right? But now your vision is obstructed at you had a clear side of lying to me you you had Clear Sight lines to see exactly who I was and in what it is that I have for you what it is that I told you but now you're allowing someone else's words to shape. Are you see me? You're allowing someone else's words to to this disrupt in this third division I cast for you as if I would like as if I'm not good ask if I've ever lied to you before.

It's all we look at numbers 23-19 this this scripture messed me up because one of the things that I was struggling with was a promise that God has given me 5 years ago and it still hasn't happened. And so I went through this period of a couple of weeks of not really a communing with God cuz I was mad Goodbye, I feel like I have the right to be mad. He proved me wrong real quick.

Because in the first day or two of my fast you brought me into this passes and it says God is not a man that he should lie. Nor son of man that he should repent has he said and he will not do or has he spoken and it will not make it good. So right here we have proof. That there's no way that God can say something and not do it. The only thing that stands in the way of him doing it is you our own will is the only thing that stands in the way of God accomplishing what he wants to do in our lives. Because if he said it he had all intentions of doing it. It's just a matter of us understanding that just because he said it doesn't mean it's going to happen right now doesn't mean it's going to happen in this moment doesn't mean that there may not be some. Of time that may pass before work before it happens. And we see that all throughout the Bible think about the promise of that guy named Abraham. He told Sarah that she added that she will Bear Child in her old age of Abraham go with it.

So when when we when we when we allow our vision to get distorted and leaves to our last point that is you can dump missing your appointment with God.

Genesis 3:19 and it says that the Lord walked into the midst of the garden and said to the man, where are you? Why did God say where are you? It's not like he didn't know where Adam was. He's God.

But it was that Adam wasn't where she was supposed to be. That God and Adam had an appointed meeting time in a meeting place. But because of what had they had done at a missed his appointment.

When we when we look at that the significance of that of missing your appointment with God, that's one of them that I don't want to miss a lot of appointments. I'm late to appointments. It's hard for me to get to work on time. But an appointment with God would seem like an appointment that I wouldn't want to miss.

But that's exactly what happens. When we lose sight of our vision when we lose sight of the vision that God has cast for us and

So in all of this and everything that God has revealed to me in in this. the one thing that he has had on my heart for like the last 2 weeks.

Is that the vision must be protected? And the only way to protect the vision is to be willing to go to war. That we have to be willing to fight for what God has promised us that is not just a thing that the enemy is going to let happen. He is our adversary. He has no intentions of just letting it happen. So the only way for us to ensure that we get all that God has for us to accomplish is that we have to be willing to step onto the battlefield. We have to be willing to put on our armor you have to be willing to allow God to 2x squared us into war didn't give us armor for it to stay clean. If a far too long, our armor has been clean for far too long. We've been willing to sit aside and just let the enemy come and take everything that he has four of us. But God told me when I was spray that you said this is the year that you go take back everything that got that the enemy took. Did you go get you a piece that you go get your opportunities that you go get everything that the enemies thought that he stole from you that you go take it back but it starts with knowing it starts with realigning yourself with God and what what God wants for you to do in until we do that none of it matters until we get on God's page and we get on his timeline and we get where he wants us to be and none of it matters. Is all mine couragement to you for 2019. Is the fight. fight like never before be willing to get dirty. Because it will pay off. That I know we all have things that the enemy has taken from us. He thinks he gets to keep them. But God said go get what's rightfully yours.

That's my time. Thank you.

I think I think I think we have a preacher in the house cuz somebody says a man.

Listen, I'm going to tell you how how good this is she. When she first started when she first told me she wanted to she felt God was, to preach I would work with her with her notes and things like that. And actually I actually prepared meals for her and I will say we're here some notes, you know. Then I told her I said Prepare prepare your notes and I'll help you with him. So I worked with her on her notes last night. She send them to me and I told her I said I just looked at I glanced at it. I don't even you know, I trust you and I can see the maturity the process, you know, G, that's Jesus is Jesus is discipling model was watch me do it. Do it with me. Now. Let me watch you do it now you go do it and so she's at that do it with me. Let me watch you do a stage and I'm really enjoying how she's how she's handling is so let's give her another hand.