Luke chapter 14
Today we are walking in: Possess the Passion of Vision
Habakkuk 2:2
And the LORD answered me, and said, Write the vision, and make it plain upon tables, that he may run that readeth it.
VISION
Today we look to the word VISION- H2377 chazown- vision(in ecstatic state), visions (in night), oracle, prophecy (divine communication), vision (as title of book of prophecy) from H2372; a sight (mentally), i.e. a dream, revelation, or oracle:—vision. to see, perceive, look, behold, prophesy, provide, to see, behold, to see as a seer in the ecstatic state, to see, perceive with the intelligence, to see (by experience), to provide
The Torah testifies........
Numbers 24:4
He hath said, which heard the words of God, which saw the vision H2377 of the Almighty, falling into a trance, but having his eyes open:
Numbers 24:16
He hath said, which heard the words of God, and knew the knowledge of the Most High, which saw the vision H2377 of the Almighty, falling into a trance, but having his eyes open:
The prophets proclaim.........
1 Samuel 3:1
And the child Samuel ministered unto the LORD before Eli. And the word of the LORD was precious in those days;there was no open vision H2377.
Jeremiah 14:14
Then the LORD said unto me, The prophets prophesy lies in my name: I sent them not, neither have I commanded them, neither spake unto them: they prophesy unto you a false vision H2377 and divination, and a thing of nought, and the deceit of their heart.
The writings bear witness.........
1 Chronicles 17:15
According to all these words, and according to all this vision H2377, so did Nathan speak unto David.
Psalm 89:19
Then thou spakest in vision H2377 to thy holy one, and saidst, I have laid help upon one that is mighty; I have exalted one chosen out of the people.
Principle #4:
Possess the Passion of Vision
For the people worked with all their heart.
—Nehemiah 4:6
The fourth principle for fulfilling personal vision is that you’ll never be successful without passion. Passionate people are those who have discovered something more important than life itself. Yahusha told His disciples, in essence,“If you are not willing to take up death and follow Me, then you can’t be My disciples; you can’t go on with Me.” (See Luke 14:27.) He also said, in effect,“If you seek to save your life, you will lose it. Yet if you are willing to lose it for vision of your life, you will truly live.” (See Matthew 16:25.) Giving up false visions and ambition for your genuine vision is the path to true life.
How Badly Do You Want Your Vision?
Are you hungry for your vision? How badly do you want what you’re going after? Passion is stamina that says,“I’m going to go after this, no matter what happens. If I have to wait ten years, I’m going to get it.” Again, let me say especially to young people that if you want to go all the way to your dream, you can’t sit back and expect everything to be easy. You must have purpose that
produces passion. You must have the attitude of those who worked on the wall with Nehemiah: “So we rebuilt the wall till all of it reached half its height, for the people worked with all their heart” (Nehemiah 4:6).
Remember that, after Nehemiah saw in his heart a vision of the rebuilt wall, he returned to his job, but he was no longer satisfied with it. He was depressed until he was working on the vision. The depression came from his passion for change. I believe that Nehemiah was the kind of man who couldn’t hide what he felt. He was sad because he didn’t like the way the future looked for his people.
When you have a vision, you are sad about where you are because you want to be where your true joy is. People who are satisfied with a lesser existence,
however, will never go where they need to be. Not only sadness at your present conditions, but also anger, can drive you to a new vision and take you to new
horizons. You will never be successful until you are angry about not doing what you know you should be doing. If you’re happy about what you’re doing, you’re going to end up settling right there.
Vision Is the Precedent for Passion
One of the reasons I keep stressing your need for a clear guiding purpose in life is that vision is the precedent for passion. The majority of people in the earth really have no passion for life because there is no vision in their hearts. In 2 Corinthians, we find a unique passage that shows the passion Paul had for his vision. Some people had challenged Paul’s right to be an apostle. They said Paul was not really called by Yah and that he was not worthy of the respect he was getting. They themselves were false apostles, yet they attacked Paul’s credibility
and spiritual qualifications and drew people away from the truth. Paul responded by addressing the Corinthian believers who were being led away from faith in Yahusha Hamachiach by these false apostles. He wrote that, even if what he was about to say sounded ridiculous and foolish, he would say it anyway to prove he was an apostle so that they would return to the true Gospel:
Are [these other men] Hebrews? So am I. Are they Israelites? So am I. Are they Abraham’s descendants? So am I. Are they servants of Hamachiach? (I am out of my mind to talk like this.) I am more. I have worked much harder, been in prison more frequently, been flogged more severely, and been exposed to death again and again. Five times I received from the Jews the forty lashes minus one. Three times I was beaten with rods, once I was stoned, three times I was shipwrecked, I
spent a night and a day in the open sea, I have been constantly on the move. I have been in danger from rivers, in danger from bandits, in danger from my own
countrymen, in danger from Gentiles; in danger in the city, in danger in the country, in danger at sea; and in danger from false brothers. I have labored and
toiled and have often gone without sleep; I have known hunger and thirst and have often gone without food; I have been cold and naked. Besides everything else, I face daily the pressure of my concern for all the communities.(2 Corinthians 11:22–28)
Why did Paul give a list of problems and tribulations as part of the proof that he was a genuine apostle? He was saying, in effect,“If the vision and assignment I received wasn’t real, do you think I’d go through all those hardships?”
Paul paid a price for the vision, but his passion enabled him to do it. You are passionate and you are real if you stay steady under pressure. You know your vision is from Yah when you are still at it once the storm clears. It’s easy to get excited about a vision, but it’s harder to be faithful to it. Faithfulness to vision is one of the marks of its legitimacy.
Paul had amazing academic credentials. He was envied by the best. This gifted young man had great power in the religious community and could have been a prominent Pharisee. He also could have had an easy life. His father was a merchant and a Roman citizen, and Paul was born with that citizenship. He was so set up to be successful that he could have made it in any category or profession. He really could have been a first-class success story. However, Paul said, “I’m going to jail, I’m going to be whipped, I’m going to go through a myriad of problems because the vision Yah showed me is more important than anything else in my life.”
If someone who had the respect of everyone in the community and could have had any job he wanted was willing to go through all that, he had to have vision. Can you put that list of tribulations after your name and say you have gone through what Paul went through for the sake of your vision? Paul was driven and determined to serve Yahusha Hamachiach. He had previously sought to persecute the church, but now he was willing to go through persecution himself for the sake of Yahusha. Why? He was clear about his vision.
In Acts 26, Paul was on trial before King Agrippa. As he told the king about the purpose that Yahusha Hamachiach had given him on the road to Damascus, he made a statement that is very important concerning people with vision:
Then I asked,‘Who are you, Lord?’ ‘I am Yahusha, whom you are persecuting,’ at the Lord replied.‘Now get up and stand on your feet. I have appeared to you to appoint you as a servant and as a witness of what you have seen of me and what I will show you. I will rescue you from your own people and from the Gentiles. I am sending you to them to open their eyes and turn them from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan to Yah, so that they may receive forgiveness of sins and a place among those who are sanctified by faith in me.’(Acts 26:15–18)
Paul summed up his account by saying,“So then, King Agrippa, I was not disobedient to the vision from heaven” (v. 19). He said that Yah had given him a clear guiding vision, which was to preach the Gospel to the Gentiles, and that he was not disobedient to it. He reiterated this vision to Timothy: “For this purpose I was appointed a herald and an apostle—I am telling the truth, I am not lying—and a teacher of the true faith to the Gentiles” (1 Timothy 2:7).
Paul knew what his purpose in life was, and that is what kept him going through all his struggles. When your vision is from Yah, nothing can stop you. It doesn’t matter if people talk about you. You can even be shipwrecked, beaten, and starved if you are bent on accomplishing your vision. Why did Paul keep getting up every time they stoned him? He knew he had to go to the Gentiles in
obedience to the vision and command he had received from Yah. Vision is the source of passion.
Passion for Vision Overcomes Resistance
If you’re going to be what you see in your mind, if you’re going to go after what’s in your heart, believe me, there will be resistance. The only way to overcome that resistance is to have passion for your vision. When you are truly passionate about your dream, you can stand strong when trouble comes. Persistence will keep you moving forward, yet you need passion to feed your
persistence.
Passion is a desire that is stronger than death. You can’t sleep, eat, or stop until you satisfy it. If you can stop what you’re doing and still be happy, then you’re not passionate about it. If you can be discouraged by someone telling you no or the bank refusing you money, then you don’t have passion. Passion meets every problem. It says things such as these: “You may say ‘no,’ but I know it really means ‘wait.’” “Even though you haven’t come around to my idea now, you will later.” “Even though you stop me now, I’m eventually going to jump this wall.” “If you kill me, I’ll rise and do it again.”
A passionate person gets up in the morning and says,
“Good morning, Lord! Here I am! Thank you for another day that will take me one step closer to where I want to go.” Passion means that, no matter how tough things are, what I believe is bigger than what I see. It is an urge that is deeper than any resistance it might encounter. It is a goal to win that is bigger than the desire to quit.
People stop too soon. They don’t win because they give up when they fall down the first time. Do you stop at the least resistance? Remember, passion says,“You might as well give up, because I’m not going to quit. If you knock me down, I’m going to get up. If you knock me down again, I’m going to get up again. I’m going to keep getting up until you get tired of knocking me down.” Get up and get on with it! There is no life without passion. In Romans 1:14, Paul said,“‘I am obligated’ to do the work Yah told me to do.” He just had to do it. It was Yah’s will for his life, and he was “eager to preach the gospel” (v. 15). He
couldn’t wait to do it. A person of passion is always eager to fulfill his vision.
Passion Is Willing to Pay the Price
Sometimes, others will come and be a part of what you’re doing and then say “This vision isn’t real” because they don’t know what the vision is costing you. Do you remember John Mark, the young man who joined Paul and Barnabas on a missionary journey? John Mark was a very excited and zealous young man. He worked with Paul and Barnabas until a certain point when he decided to leave them and return to Jerusalem. Later, when John Mark wanted to accompany them on another journey, Paul said no because he felt John Mark had deserted
them and the work. He was saying, in effect,“John Mark, you’re telling us you are with us in this vision, yet you can’t handle the pressure, the tough times, the rigors of the work. I want people who will come with me through the fire and say, ‘We did it together.’” (See Acts 12:25–13:13; 15:36–40.)
Barnabas ended up going with John Mark on a separate journey, and Paul asked Silas to join him. In Philippi, Paul and Silas were beaten and imprisoned when some men incited a mob against them. Silas could have told the
magistrates that he didn’t know Paul. Perhaps he could have escaped association as Peter did when he said about Yahusha, “I don’t know the man!” (Matthew 26:72,
74). Yet Silas was committed to the vision. If Paul went to jail, he would go to jail, too. I want you to know that the prison they were thrown into wasn’t an ordinary lockup. Matthew Henry described this “inner cell” (Acts 16:24) as a “dungeon, into which none were usually put but condemned malefactors, dark at noon-day, damp and cold, dirty, it is likely, and every way offensive.”* Yet this
was the place where Paul and Silas sang hymns! (See Acts 16:16–25.) Passion is willing to pay the price.
Passion Keeps You Focused
One other crucial aspect of passion is that it helps you to stay focused on your vision. You can see this principle at work in communities. Wherever there is no vision, there is often fighting, gossiping, murmuring, backbiting, and
complaining. When communities are full of complaints, that is evidence that the vision has left them. Vision preoccupies people to the point that they have no time to gossip or get angry at the teacher or complain about his teachings. The same phenomenon can be seen in marriages. One of the reasons why there are so many problems in marriages today is that couples have lost their joint vision. We must rediscover the passion of working together for a common purpose and vision.
Defy the Odds
If you become passionate about your vision, you can defy the odds and persevere to the fulfillment of your goals. Whenever you are tempted to quit too soon or to stay down when life knocks you over, remember the examples of Nehemiah and Paul. Capture your vision and stay with it, and you will be rewarded with seeing that vision become a reality, no matter what might try to come against it.
1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8.
Action Steps to Fulfilling Vision
Ask yourself, “How hungry am I for my vision? How badly do I want what I’m going after?”
What evidence of a passion for vision do you see in your life?
Do you generally give up the first time you fall down? In what ways might you have become complacent about your vision? What will you do to regain your passion for your dreams?
Chapter Principles
1 You cannot be successful without passion.
2 Passionate people have discovered something more important than life itself.
3 Vision is the precedent for passion.
4 A vision will always be tested by tribulation.
5 Faithfulness to vision is one of the marks of its legitimacy.
6 Passion means that no matter how tough things are, what you believe is bigger than what you see.
7 A person of passion is always eager to fulfill his vision.
8 Passion keeps you focused on your vision
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