The Power of a Vision

By Mike Newberry

Power can be either constructive or destructive. Many have habits, lifestyles, and toxic relationships that have and do prove themselves destructive. People also have many habits, lifestyles, and healthy relationships that have and do prove themselves constructive. Ideally, what we want is to remove all the destructive powers in our lives and incorporate the constructive powers. The Power of a Vision is about a necessary constructive power that we all need. 2 Peter 1:9, referring to people who are not doing the hard work it takes to grow in the Lord, says this creates a sight problem. But the sight problem is specific; it's not a problem with seeing things that are before you, but it says that these people are "blind and cannot see far off." We'll have much to say about this passage in 2 Peter 1 within these pages, but for now, consider the specific sight issue created. Furthermore, consider the problems this sight issue will create. We serve a god of revelation. God desires to remove the veil and reveal. If something is hidden, its existence can be questioned; but if it's revealed, one cannot deny its existence. What a constructive power to see what God has planned, to be fully persuaded by what you see. What you see influences your daily decisions. What you see influences the directions your lives go. It is the nature of any journey that if you travel the right direction, with enough miles, you will arrive at your desired destination. How many are miles and miles away from God's perfect plan, all because they have no vision? Hellen Keller, when asked about her blindness, said, "Worse than not having sight is to have sight but no vision."

• Language: English
• Publisher: Christian Faith Publishing, Inc.
• Release date: Mar 1, 2019
• ISBN: 9781644586549

Book preview

cover.jpg

The Power of a Vision

Mike E. Newberry

Copyright © 2019 by Michael E. Newberry

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods without the prior written permission of the publisher. For permission requests, solicit the publisher via the address below.

Christian Faith Publishing, Inc.

832 Park Avenue

Meadville, PA 16335

www.christianfaithpublishing.com

Printed in the United States of America

Table of Contents

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

1

What Is a Vision?

Have you ever had someone say something to you, and the only reason they said it was to challenge you to do something? How many things have been done, foolish or not, only to keep from being called a chicken? How many things have been done in hopes of gaining the fulfillment of a promise made? Sometimes people do things because they’ve been told the consequences of not doing it. In the Apostle Peter’s writing we find this reason. But he that lacketh these things is blind, and cannot see a far off, and hath forgotten that he was purged from his old sins (2 Peter 1:9, KJV). Peter is referring to the challenge in verse 5 of adding seven values to one’s faith—virtue, knowledge, temperance, patience, godliness, brotherly kindness, and charity.

Built into someone’s DNA code from birth is the exact height they will grow to in life. Eventually, we all grow to full stature, barring all diseases or accidents preventing it. Many of us have marks on a wall or a doorway measuring our growth from childhood. The aforementioned seven values are the equivalent of that. Each value represents a state of growth in us as sons and daughters of God.

We start with faith in Jesus Christ. No other foundation can be laid! Without faith in Christ, we have nothing we can build on. Remember what happened to the foolish man’s house built on the sand? Great was its fall! But once we are saved, we must begin the process of growing, of maturing. As we mature, we will pass through all seven of these values on our way to full stature. Notice Peter says again, in verse 5, that to pull this off will require us giving all diligence. A study of the word diligence shows us that it means with eagerness, earnestness, and carefulness one plants their foot to a certain course of action. And in this case, that course of action is growing to full stature in Christ.

A close look at the list of values would reveal to us that Peter is talking about something that is not an overnight process. To grow as a Christian, to develop as a believer, takes a lifelong commitment. To see this through will take someone giving great care and attention daily. Day by day becomes week by week, and that becomes month by month until that becomes year by year. Let’s all be honest—we’d all have much more impressive lives if we had found the energy to devote the kind of time and attention to detail required to develop, as we should have, as Christians. What’s the problem?

I believe we would have to admit we would be in better places right now if we would have started something way back then and kept at it until now. But too often, we find it hard to keep up the energy level in pursuing something that is long-term.

What are some achievements that required long-term attention? An education would be one. Those people today with advanced degrees are where they are in life because they kept at it day after day. They devoted the needed time and energy until the day came that they walked across a stage and received their diplomas. Career advancement would be another achievement. Someone started working somewhere and their position in the company was low-level. But attention to and commitment to the job eventually led to promotion and pay raises. Today finds them sitting on easy street.

Don’t we all hope that our years following retirement will be filled with adventure? We see people today literally living their golden years, and those days are filled with traveling, playing golf, and living life to the fullest. We all know that didn’t just happen! We know that it took careful planning and careful attention paid to retirement accounts.

Why do a lot of people not have a good education? They work at less than ideal jobs, and many have no financial nest eggs to live on in their later years. It would be safe to say it’s the same reason why many people haven’t developed as Christians. They’ve become stalled in the process. Many Christians have become stalled in the process of being molded into the image of Jesus Christ. What is that reason? Back to verse 9 in Peter’s second epistle, first chapter. They can’t see far off. They don’t expend the necessary energy because they can’t see beyond the end of their nose.

Show me somebody who can see what is possible in the long run if they keep at it, and I’ll show you somebody that, with eagerness, has planted their foot on the path marked with growth and quality and maturity. With each passing day, the end is that much more visible, and they’re building momentum and speed each day for the task. Every day brings that much more eagerness and diligence because they realize that the present day is bringing them that much more nearer the goal.

Peter uses a vision, something you can only see, not for now, but later. Peter uses a vision, something that is not right in front of you, but pushed further away as a tool for motivation. I wear glasses because I’m severely nearsighted. Those that join me in this sight category know how important a good set of spectacles is. Take my glasses off and I can’t see two feet in front of me.

I was in the eighth grade in high school when I got my glasses originally, and the optometrist measured my sight to be 20/200. For those not schooled in optometry, that means you can’t see very good. The optometrist wanted to know if I was driving, and when I said yes, he commented that he would be staying off the road.

I remember one time while playing high school basketball that my glasses broke during the game and I played without them. I got a pass and I shot the ball from the corner, and only when the crowd cheered and my teammates congratulated me did I know that it went in.

Think how detrimental it would be spiritually to live without a vision, to not be able to see far off. I will deal more with exactly how detrimental later in the book, but for right now as you’re thinking how this applies and why this explains the problem so many have, you can see how Peter thought this to be motivation enough to prompt us to add to our faith, no matter how hard that it may be to do.

Motivation is that one needed ingredient. Everything can be reduced to it. All that is done is done because we were motivated, and all that was not done wasn’t because of the absence of motivation. Everything in life has a beginning, a middle, and an end. We know that we have to endure the beginning and the middle in order to get to the end. All kinds of mishaps and the unexpected happen during the beginning and the middle, but we push through that because we’re motivated. The sad truth is, way too often, people give up during the beginning and middle stages. People settle for where they are and can’t believe they can do anything that even hints of greatness.

This introduces us to a problem many have—our misunderstanding of what greatness is. A part of finding your vision is having a clear understanding of who you are. Keep reading, I’ll say more about this later. Too many see greatness as grandiose, visible, and noticeable by all accomplishments. They perceive the impossibility of such things. Then they slip into less than their potential mold. If Satan had his way, we would all get caught up in the day-to-day monotony and not realize that hours are becoming days, days are becoming weeks, and weeks are becoming months, and months are becoming years, and years are becoming our lifetime.

Haven’t we all had that wakeup call, standing at our mirrors, and realize just how fast time is rushing by? Remember standing at the mirror thinking about the good old days? And upon coming back to our senses, we realized that we are not kids anymore? In fact, we have kids. Furthermore, they aren’t kids anymore either. Many who are reading can say, Our kids who aren’t kids anymore have kids who aren’t kids anymore!

Peter is talking about our lives in this passage and the development into who and what we are supposed to be for the honor of Jesus Christ. I can’t think of anything more important. One day, I saw what we are talking about while reading Psalm 139:16. Thine eyes did see my substance, yet being imperfect; and in thy book all my members were written, which in continuance were fashioned, when as yet there was none of them. The psalmist teaches us in the Psalm that God was involved from conception. In verse 16, he says that God, even then in the womb, wrote our lives story at a time that cells were still coming together and multiplying, progressing from an embryo to a fetus. Even then, our omniscient creator saw our lifetime. What that said to me is that at conception, the first moments of existence, God had a vision of me. I’ve often prayed, asking God, Am I getting close? Am I in the ball park? That version of me you saw—am I close?

There is a version of Mike Newberry God saw. He is a man of good works, he is a man of faith, and he is a man of power. I plead that soon, that version of me will see the light of day!

Folks, we’re talking about our lives! We’re talking about the reason we were created. The reason we breathe in and out all day long. The reason we exist. God has a plan and purpose for us and we need to get around to it, because if we stay caught up in the monotony, we will soon use up all our time. At death or at the last trumpet, we may not be done, but we will be through.

Peter writing under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit tells us that a vision is that motivation, something we can only see far off. But because I can see it, I am motivated each day to do what I must to keep moving toward it. What I see far off looks so good, I forget what’s behind and I press toward it. What I see far off looks so good, I don’t look behind me, regretting what was or angry over what was. No! My eyes are ever looking down the road seeing what faith shows me is possible.

We Need to Have a Vision! But What Is It Exactly?

Proverbs 29:18. Where there is no vision, the people perish. This is pretty serious stuff. If I’m going to perish if I don’t have a vision, then I want one. I’ve had cause to talk to a lot of people who were in the present moment having difficulty. I told them that they needed to believe that things would not always be as they were. I told them they needed to believe that things could and would get better. We have an enemy who wants to steal, kill, and destroy. How does he do it? One way is that he wants to lock us into a single moment in time and convince us that it will always be this way. He wants people to believe that when they awaken tomorrow, their despair will still be there—their mistakes, their misfortune will still be staring them in the face. When I encounter such people, I tell them of the necessity to be able to pick themselves up out of the moment and see a moment later on when things have changed for the better. Why, you might ask? Day after day of darkness and despair eventually does irreparable damage to one’s spirit.

Do you have a vision? Can you see down the road? Can you see far off? I’ve studied the word vision here in Proverbs. I’ve found it has several meanings, including a dream or a revelation. I want to emphasize the word revelation over the word dream. The reason being because of what we think of when we think of dreams.

People think of dreams as being mystical, fuzzy, unclear images with hidden meanings. Maybe you know somebody who dreams vivid dreams. Have you ever scratched your head, wondering what it all means when they tell you of their dreams? I’m not one who dreams as far as I know. All I know is that a little while after going to bed, I become unconscious and know nothing until the morning. My wife, on the other hand, is one of those people who dreams in full color. I mean, she has had some doozies! I’ve told her often that Freud would have had a time trying to interpret some of the stuff that goes on in her head during her hours of slumber.

Not only that, but people have a negative viewpoint of somebody who is known as a dreamer. When they think of a dreamer, they think of somebody who is unstable. Somebody that can’t stick to something but is constantly shooting off in some new direction. They think of a dreamer as a balloon that’s been blown up and then let go and it goes flying off in all directions, only to land not too far from where it was at in the beginning.

How many people right now are connected to someone who is just like what we’ve been describing? You wish they would stop their dreaming and join the real world. For whatever reason, your wagon is hitched to theirs, either by marriage or family, and that wagon has suffered and you along with it. You know all too well how sound the advice is of a song sung by Kenny Rogers and Kim Carnes, Don’t Fall in Love with a Dreamer.

This concept of dreaming is not what we’re talking about! Please don’t confuse this concept with what the Bible talks about when it talks about having a vision. People can dream vivid dreams but still perish because they don’t have a vision. I want you to connect the idea of a revelation with having a vision. As we all know, the word revelation is built on the word reveal. As long as something is concealed, you can question its existence, but once it is revealed, you can no longer deny it. God wants to paint inside us what he has planned. God wants to impregnate our souls with a vision. And then that vision will motivate us day after day.

God says in Hebrews 11:1 that he wants to give us the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. I’ve often heard said that people can live so long without food or water, but we cannot live without hope. How many people are right now slowly dying every day? Dying because they feel trapped in a life of same old, same old every day?

God is always leading us through change. Life is full of transition periods where we have to adjust to change. There’s an adjustment from single life to married life, then just about the time you’re getting adjusted to sharing your lives with your spouse, here come some children and even more adjustments. Then you blink, and the kids are grown and on their own; you have an empty nest, and you guessed it—more adjustment.

Growing in Christ means change. At each new level of spiritual maturity, there is a new assignment, more responsibility. What happens if I don’t want to move on and up in Christ? Listen to Peter’s words again in 2 Peter 1:8, 9. For if these things be in you, and abound, they make you that ye shall neither be barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. But he that lacketh these things is blind, and cannot see far off, and hath forgotten that he was purged from his old sins.

What kind of person is Peter describing? I can’t see, and I struggle with doubts about my salvation. Verse 8 puts it in the positive, but if we think about somebody who doesn’t want to do the hard work it takes to add these things to our faith (remember he’s referring to the seven values we add to faith as we grow in the Lord from verses 5–7), then Peter is saying that we are barren and we are unfruitful. Peter is describing someone who is drying and dying inside. Their life is in a rut. The person who said that a rut is a grave with both ends knocked out was not too far from correct.

Have you ever read your Bible, taking note of the people who dared to believe that things could be different and decided to act on that belief? The one I think of is blind Bartimaeus. His story is in Mark 10:46–52. How many days did he wake up and surrender to the fact that he would live that day as a blind beggar? How many days did he surrender to the belief that he would live that day on the meager fare he would receive from people as they passed by? But then came the day that he heard that Jesus was passing by.

Obviously, he had heard of the miracles Jesus had performed. In that moment, he decided to abandon his insecurities, to silence the voices that spoke within keeping him down and defeated, to squash the powers and principalities of darkness that told him he would never amount to anything and he could not mount up with wings and fly. Why? Because he was a blind beggar. But that day, he decided, I will not die a beggar! The Bible says that the people tried to silence him, but he would not be deterred; he had an appointment with Jesus and he received his miracle. Blind Bartimaus lived the rest of his days being productive, beneficial, and a blessing to his family and others.

Friends, you have an appointment with Jesus. What will be the agenda in this meeting? Jesus wants to remove the scales from your eyes and show you what you, a child of his, can and will do for him. If you receive from Jesus that revelation, you will live out the rest of your days pursuing it and never again settling for anything less.

I’m not scolding routines. A lot of people feel a sense of security because of their predictable routines. What I’m talking about are those people who get up, go to work, come home, eat some dinner, watch some television, go to bed, and wake up the next day to do it all over again. The whole time, they feel nothing. They feel nothing because they feel their life is just them spinning their wheels. There is a lot of motion. There is a lot of activity. But we’re going nowhere!

Have you ever read the book of Ecclesiastes in the Bible? The man who wrote it was King Solomon. He is exactly what I’m talking about. In that book, Solomon basically says about everything, been there and done that. Solomon says in Ecclesiastes 1:10, Is there anything whereof it may be said, ‘See this is new?’ Now if you’re like me, you’re saying right now that there are a lot of things I want to do and places I want to go before old age and death. Ecclesiastes is a book that God put into his Bible to counteract this idea that this world and this life can satisfy a person’s heart. Take it from Solomon, the heart is too big. Even those people right now are questioning what I’m saying. You flip through a magazine and see some exotic island and say to yourself, If only I had the money to go there. You flip through some catalog and see some new gadget and say that you’ll be so happy if only you could purchase it.

God put Ecclesiastes in the Bible because it was written by a monarch who literally had free-reign to do anything, to experiment with everything, hoping in it to find that one ingredient that could satisfy. Listen to Ecclesiastes 2:1 and 10. I said in mine heart, ‘Go to now, I will prove thee with mirth, therefore enjoy pleasure: and, behold, this is also vanity. And whatsoever mine eyes desired I kept not from them, I withheld not my heart from any joy.’ Folks, do you hear what Solomon is saying? Nobody questioned the king. Whatever he wanted, whenever he wanted it.

Ecclesiastes talks about Solomon experimenting with many different kinds of things, attempting to create a spark. Social experiments, scholastic experiments, civic-oriented experiments, and yes, sexual ones too. Solomon had one thousand women available to him. If the Bible told us everything, we would hear some stories that would curl the hairs in our nostrils. Let’s accept it—some things, if we tried it, we would either be arrested or shot.

Ecclesiastes is Solomon’s journal. Will we accept what’s told us from a man who literally tried it all and said about it all that it was vanity of vanities; or will we continue in our own futile search?

I’ve often heard that we shouldn’t let history repeat itself. I really believe that is the reason God has put certain stories and truths into his Bible—to show us the error of others’ ways and the consequences those errors brought.

It would be a lot easier if the right way was well-marked. While traveling, I depend on the signs so to find the right highways. I love it when I find the sign well in advance. Many times, I see the exit I’m supposed to take as I’m passing by it. It would be much easier if the right way in life could be found with no trouble or confusion. But what I’ve found is that the right way has a small sign. If I’m not paying close attention, I’ll not see it, which results in me traveling many miles on the wrong roads. And there are many wrong roads, aren’t there? Furthermore, all these wrong roads are well advertised with huge, glowing, flashing signs pointing them out.

Listen to what the Bible tells us about the many stories in the Bible and what they can do for us. Paul wrote in Romans 15:4, For whatsoever things were written aforetime were written for our learning, that we through patience and comfort of the scriptures might have hope. In other words, our reading of the Bible is supposed to show us through the experiences of the Bible characters where our roads will take us. As we travel day by day through life, and we encounter one of those well-lit fluorescent flashing signs making grand promises of what we’ll find if we’ll turn onto that road, we won’t be deceived; because we’ve read the story of books like Ecclesiastes. We know because Solomon told us that life under the sun is a frustrating futile search that will only end in disappointment. It’s disappointing, because it’s not just vanity, which means empty; but it’s vanity of vanities, it’s emptied emptiness! Under the sun is a phrase you find throughout the book of Ecclesiastes, and I think it describes the perspective of Solomon’s search. The same perspective is that of many in the world who are using it in their own search for lasting satisfaction. Again, let me remind you—it’s a futile search.

Let me encourage you right now to catapult yourself above the sun where God lives. Through a relationship with him through his Son, Jesus Christ, find the living water and the bread of life and experience how Christ can meet all your heart’s needs and never hunger or thirst again.

In my preaching ministry, if I feel I am communicating, there are things I like to say. If you agree with what I’m telling you, give me an, amen. Raise your hand if you’re satisfied with Jesus. I can envision many men and women who are reading this, their names are in the Lamb’s Book of Life, their hands are raised and they are crying out a hearty amen.

But if you choose to continue your futile search for satisfaction in life "under