"Seizing Our Best Days"
Our Vision
God is at work reconciling the world to Himself. Because He loves us, He wants us to join Him in what He is doing. He begins by pursuing a love relationship with us. He then invites us to become involved with Him in His work. As He relates to us, He reveals Himself, His purposes, and His ways. If we want to experience God’s mighty power at work in and through us, we must walk by faith, make major adjustments in our lives, and obey whatever God tells us to do.
Our Vision Explained
God Is Always At Work Around Us
God didn’t create the world and then abandon it to exist on its own. He has been actively involved in human affairs throughout history. In fact, He is actually orchestrating history. Because of sin, humanity has been separated from a close relationship with God. God is working in this world to redeem those who are separated from Him, facing imminent judgment and destruction. God is working through Jesus to reconcile the world to Himself. In God’s sovereignty, He has chosen to accomplish His work through those who are His followers. As He carries out His mission, He seeks to move people into the middle of what He is doing.
God Pursues A Continuing Love Relationship With Us That Is Real And Personal
God created us for a love relationship with Him. More than anything else, God wants us to love Him with our total being. He is the One who pursues the relationship with us. We don’t naturally seek God on our own initiative. Everything we experience from God comes in response to His invitation. In fact, He reached out to us in a dramatic way by sending His Son, Jesus. God clearly demonstrated how valuable the love relationship is to Him when He allowed Jesus to die an agonizing death on a cross so that a relationship with us is possible.
This intimate relationship with God is both very personal and practical. This is the most important factor in knowing and doing the will of God. If our love relationship with God isn’t as it should be, nothing else will be in order.
God Invites Us To Become Involved With Him In His Work
God is the sovereign ruler of the universe. He has been working throughout history to accomplish His purposes. He doesn’t ask us to dream our own dreams for Him. He doesn’t invite us to set magnificent goals and then pray that He will help us achieve them. He already has His own agenda when he comes us to join H im. His desire is to get us from where we are to where He is working. He leads us from being self-centered to being God-centered. When God reveals to us where He is working, that becomes His invitation to join Him in what He is doing. When God reveals His work to us, that is the time for us to respond to Him.
God Speaks By The Holy Spirit through the Bible, Prayer, Circumstances, And Other Believers To Reveal Himself, His Purposes, And His Ways.
The evidence of the Bible from Genesis to Revelation is that God speaks to His people. In our day, God communicates to us through the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit will use the Bible, prayer, circumstances, and other believers to guide us. When we hear God speak to us through a verse of Scripture, it’s always best to verify what we heard through prayer, other believers, and our circumstances. If we hear God say the same thing through these sources, we can go on in confidence.
God will draw us into a deeper and closer walk with Him so we can trust Him and have faith in Him. He will reveal His purposes to us we can become involved in His work rather than merely pursuing our own goals and dreams. He reveals His ways so we can accomplish His purposes in a way that glorifies Him. God’s ways are not our ways. We cannot discover these truths about God on our own. God’s truths must be revealed.
God’s Invitation For Us To Work With Him Always Leads Us To A Crisis Of Belief That Requires Faith And Action.
God wants our world to come to know who He truly is. He doesn’t want us to get involved in what He is doing just so other people can see what we can do. He will call us to an assignment that we cannot accomplish apart from His divine involvement. God’s assignments are God-sized. This doesn’t mean that God won’t give us seemingly ordinary assignments. But when God is involved in something, there are always eternal, God-sized, implications, and possibilities.
When God asks us to do something we cannot do, we will face a crisis of belief. We’ll have to decide what we really believe about God. Can He and will He do what He has said He wants to do through us? Can God do what seems to be impossible through our ordinary life? How we respond to His invitation reveals what we truly believe about God, regardless of what we say.
We Must Make Major Adjustments In Our Life To Join God In What He Is Doing.
To get from where we are to where God is requires significant adjustments in our life. These adjustments may relate to our thinking, circumstances, relationships, commitments, actions, and beliefs. To move from our way of thinking and acting to God’s way of thinking or acting will require essential adjustments. We can’t stay where we are and go with God at the same time.
We Come To Know God By Experience As We Obey Him And As He Accomplishes His Work Through Us.
Once we have determined to follow God by faith and we have made the adjustments He requires, we must obey Him. When we do what He tells us, no matter how impossible or incomprehensible it may seem, God carries out what He purposed through us. Not only do we experience God’s power and presence, but so do those who watch our life.
