February 11, 2018
Visions
Tribe Recap of February 11, 2018 | I Sam 3 | Acts 10 | I Cor 2 | Acts 2
“Now the boy Samuel was ministering to the Lord before Eli. And word from the Lord was rare in those days, visions were infrequent,” I Samuel 3:1.
Do you feel like word from the Lord is rare? Do you believe God wants to talk to you through visions? Do believe that God has poured out His Spirit on all mankind and that visions and dreams from God are the result (Acts 2)?
Perhaps when it comes to visions you feel they are beyond your experience or even desire to experience – that visions are just something charismatics mention as part of a quirky tradition to be weird Christians.
My question to you is this: In God’s eyes are visions normal? What exactly is normal to God? What is normal in the Kingdom of Heaven? When is the last time you read the book of Revelation and felt normal? The book of Revelation itself is a vision that John experienced for the sake of our benefit...so God could talk to us.
And this is the reason we have visions, so God can give us a message, so God can interact with us. God wants to give us his perspective. Visions are completely normal to the Lord, like when Jesus ‘saw’ Nathanael under a fig tree. What was he seeing with?
I Samuel 3 describes ‘visions’ as ‘mental sight’. They were infrequent in the days of Samuel because not everyone who believed in God was filled with the Holy Spirit, but we do not live in those days. We live in the days where God has poured out his Holy Spirit on all mankind (Acts 2). That’s you. God speaks through visions. Visions are for today. Visions are for God’s people so that we can talk directly to God.
Visions from God change your perspective.
A vision changed Peter’s perspective – what was unholy God had made holy (Acts 10). Time to change your perspective Peter. John’s perspective was changed by Revelation – what seemed hopeless and dark (persecution by the Romans) was part of an apocalyptic story of God crushing the devil and reigning forever with his saints in absolute glory and victory - the present pain will give way to life and triumph. The end of the story was revealed. Time to change your perspective John and the early Church!
A friend of mine had a vision during an extremely stressful time in his life. The Lord brought him to a courthouse in heaven and said, “I find no fault in you.” This vision changed his perspective. The fear and stress gave way to peace in knowing how God saw the situation.
I had a vision of another friend of mine. I saw him in heaven standing in front of a son he lost as a child in a tragic accident. The Lord told me in the vision: “I hold his childhood in my hand. When Dave gets to heaven, he will show him (his son) how to be a man.” Hours later, I found myself unexpectedly in a meeting with my friend Dave so I could give him this exact message. Instantly our perspectives changed form loss to hope, from doubt to knowing God cared, saw the situation, and in his massive loving power could redeem any situation.
God has said many things to me in visions. Each time my perspective changed. Usually the change involved my hopelessness changing to exhilaration in finding that not only was God good beyond my imagination, but that he looked at me with an unwavering affection. So often, we need his perspective. We need to look at ourselves the way he does.
Through visions we see God’s hope, redemption, joy, and triumph for every single person who has fallen at the feet of Jesus and laid their life down at the foot of the wonderful cross. Our death, pain, disappointment, suffering, sickness, hopelessness, and anguish were killed by the blood of Jesus! And now, it is a son or daughter of God who stands in their place justified with a spectacular future ahead.
Are visions infrequent? Is a mental sight from God rare? It doesn’t have to be. Ask the Lord to speak to you through visions. And you will see from his perspective, that there is always reason to rest in the great hope that the King of Glory loves you, sees you, and is alive, active, and present in the midst of the difficulties of life.