Pastor’s Weekly Note, January 6, 2012
My uncle Bill used to love to do logic problems… you know, the kind where you would be given all different kinds of information, and your job was to figure out an order, a sequence or a pattern. I remember watching him work through a couple of those and seeing him write down all the different possibilities before settling on what he felt was the right answer. Most of the time, he was correct in what he figured out.
I couldn’t do those problems. After a reasonable length of time of deducing and figuring, I always thought I had the right answer. But when it would come time to compare my answer with the real solution, I was most often wrong.
Talk about frustrating.
I’m glad those problems weren’t real life. If they were, I’d be in some serious trouble!
Those types of puzzles, however, do have somewhat of a similarity to real life. In those puzzles, when you get what you believe is the right answer and you compare it to the true correct answer, you can look back over your figuring and see where you made your mistake(s).
That’s kind of like living your life without a clear, guiding vision for your life. You get toward the end of your days and look back on your accomplishments and wonder if you did the right things, went in the right direction, accomplished what you were supposed to.
Last week we started a series in the book of Nehemiah looking at vision. We saw several advantages of having vision in our lives, and really the freedom that you gain when you operate with vision. But one point I shared, I didn’t dwell very long on… the fact that if you’re a believer in Christ, you are not your own. You have been bought with a price.
It is so easy to live for ourselves. Isn’t that how many products are marketed and sold today? “You owe it to yourself.” “Be all that you can be.” “I’m loving it.” The list is really endless.
Let me remind you once again, Christian. When you became a Christian, when I became a Christian, we lost our right to dream dreams, and establish goals, and establish visions for our life to the exclusion of Christ’s command to make disciples of all nations.
That has a direct effect upon our church. And we’ll see that this week as we look at Nehemiah 2:1-8.
What it boils down to is that vision builds our faith by serving as a constant reminder of our dependence on God. And that is ultimately what God is after, inside of each of us.
We’ve been talking about that for some time. It’s the whole thought of walking in the Spirit, of allowing the Christ in you to live through you, of walking like Jesus walked. And that doesn’t happen through your own control… it is a supernatural thing. A God thing.
It directly affects us as a church, as well. If we’re to be operating according to vision, then we need to be organized that way. We need to be operating strategically, and we need to budget in order to accomplish our vision. My guess is that will make things look differently than they do now. But ultimately, we need to remember that it’s not about us… it is all about Him, and doing the things He wants us to be doing.
Are You Ready,
Grace and Peace
Pastor Russ
