Leader's Vision

"However, I consider my life worth nothing, if only I may finish the race and complete the task the Lord Jesus has given me-the task of testifying to the gospel of God's grace." Acts 20: 24.

The key to all that happened in Paul's godly life began with what he calls in Acts 20: 19, " a heavenly vision", to which Paul further testifies he was not "disobedient". One great preacher said,"The difference between mediocrity and greatness in the work of our Lord is but onething-"Vision". We must have a generation of preachers, teachers, and workers who have a vision of seeing people coming to Christ.

Proverbs 29: 18 is most familiar to us when it declares, " where there is no vision, the people perish". But do not allow your familiarity with this passage rob you of its importance. Here is a solemn word for a solemn time. We live in tremendous days, days of discovery and advance when men reach for the very stars and widen their horizons on every side. Yet they are solemn days, for while we live on the edge of an atomic volcano, the world population increases with explosive force, yet multimillions live undernourished and die unevangelized. For much of this need there is deep concern and vision in the hearts of many who are not Christians. What vision have we?

We read in 1 Samuel 3:1 of how there was no "open vision". The realities of the spiritual world were hidden so that men failed to see beyond the phenomena of life into the real world of God. Spiritual blindness had ovetaken them. The high priest Eli, old and sightless, was symbolic of the spiritual state of the people. Eli, Samson, King Zedekiah and the Laodicean Church were all blind and all represented the end of an era. There is always the danger that the Church may slowly lose her eyesight.

The vision of Ezekiel: You will notice it begins with the Prophet saying that he 'saw'. Prophets were called 'seers' for the simple reason that they 'saw' what others did not. They saw beyond and into the things with spiritual perception. And this is what we need today!-Christians who see. John 4:35.

In the first chapter we read that Ezekiel had visions of God. Not one vision but many. We need a continual vision of God, for it is always our vision, our conception and understanding of Him that undermines all else. The vision had profound effect on the prophet, for it humbled and broke him and brought him to the feet of the One he had seen, to lay strengthless until the Spirit of God ' entered into him'. So it is always. When we see the Lord,we are broken, only to be filled afresh with the Holy Spirit of God. And if I may add my testimony-it is my greatest need to see Jesus Christ and go on seeing Him.

The Valley of dry bones: Another of Ezekiel's visions is found in Ch 37. Where he was shown a great valley full of dry bones. He saw Israel as they were without God, and we need to see people around us as they are without God, ruins and relics of a fallen race. They were many and very dry. How many there are in this day of population explosions! How dry is their life without God! We need to see them- as Jesus saw Lazarus, dead and decaying; Bartimeaus, blind and poor; Magdalene, passion-torn; Zaccheus, lost; the crowds hungry and wandering, as sheep without a shepherd.

We need to see men as they can be when grace has touched them, to see Cephas in Simon, Paul in Saul and Israel in Jacob, to see men moved by the Spirit of God, made alive and new, changed, joined together, made into a living army of God. Where there is no vision people perish. This is the vision we need. Have you got any vision of God and for God?

Lord, wilt thou not revive us again that Thy people may rejoice in Thee? Amen!