Vision!

VISION!

"Where there is no vision, the people perish:" Pr 29:18

NO VISION MEANS DEATH! ~ NO JOY MEANS VOID!

"... the joy of the LORD is your strength." Neh 8:10

Your Salvation is the Fruit of God's Joy - not His Death! Death bears no fruit! It's no wonder an empty, Life-less, blind & Fruit-less world sees only death at the Cross!

"Vision" (Spiritual, that is) comes from "Life", and "Life" from JOY! It should be as True for us as for our Lord, don't you think? He 12:2 "Looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith; who ==> for the JOY that was set before him <== endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God."

This "Joy" is the "Zeal" of the Lord! If "Love" is God's "Blood", surely "Joy" is His "Pulse", or "Throb"! It is the thrill of the sap as it flows to the fruit, that enraptures the branch with its Purposeful Vision!

Here is God's Plan, His Intent, His Motive Realized!; and we see His Love for us LIVE! This Life-of-Christ "Quickens", and Breathes New-Life in us! Here is "Look & Live!". Now we know, "Joy to the world, the Lord Is Come!". [here is Scriptures ONLY "rapture"]

But this "Vision" is "Faith"! 1Pt 1:8 "Whom having not seen, ye love; in whom, though now ye see him not, yet believing, ye rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory:" Is Peter exagerating here? How many Christians have you ever known who had what you'd describe as "Joy unspeakable"?

How about you? Do you have such a Joy? Or do you think it's just for others? Is it possible you have this Joy, but have simply never had the opportunity to realize or manifest it? I mean, is it just something reserved for Martyrs, and to be experienced only as "extreme unction", in time of great peril?

Come to think of it, Jesus said "Abide" in Him (and we believe He mean always). Was this too merely a "figure of speech"; just another "parable"?; or worse, an exaggeration?

Uh-oh!; it's one thing to dismiss something Peter or Paul or James or John might have said as distortion, but summary surmise of the Words of God's Living WORD is tantamount to blaspheme!

But don't we do this continuously? Don't we down-grade Jesus's Words and routinely relegate them to little more than good advice? I mean, when Jesus says, "take no thought", or "let not your heart be troubled", or "be ye Perfect, even as your Heavenly Father is Perfect" (etc), do we take Him seriously?

Do we really believe Jesus is even capable of distortion, perversion, exaggeration, embellishment, confused vision, or out-right deceit? [does our attitude ACCUSE Him of such?]

After all, if Jesus Christ is not God's Perfect Reflection (as His Son!), then He's the greatest charlatan, and most evil character ever perpetrated upon the human race! He's a Lie and a Liar if He's not God's very Expression of Good Will toward man - in-the-flesh!

And - if-He's-Real - don't you think we ought to take what He Says as Real, True, Reliable, Dependable, Provable? And don't you think we could ask Him, point-blank, and expect Him to find a Way of answering us? I mean, didn't He command us to do just that by saying, "Ask, Seek, Knock"?

One thing's sure: No Joy - No Fruit! If Joy is our "strength" (Love is our Life), then all other Fruit of the Spirit must spring from that flow of Life God calls "Joy"!

Gal 5:22,23 "But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, Meekness, temperance: against such there is no law."

So where's all the Joy, anyway? I guess we could say that without the Joy of the Spirit, we see how the world "pulls the flesh over our eyes"! Remember, God said, "Be Fruitful"! Jesus said if we would "abide" (remain) in Him we would be Fruitful!

He told us to "follow" Him, and He was Fruitful FOR Joy! So, ... "seeing" IS "believing"! And believing Jesus Christ bears Fruit - of the Spirit! ["Count it ALL Joy!"]