The greatest danger for most of us is not that our aim is too high and we miss it, but that it is too low and we reach it. ~ Michelangelo
And he said, the things which are impossible with men are possible with God. – Luke 18: 27
After he had imprisoned, tortured, and killed many Christians, his passionate zeal to rid the world of these so called followers of the Messiah would be dramatically interrupted. Stephen, a faithful Christian man, had preached a fiery rebuke to the nation of Israel for rejecting the promised Messiah and ended up being stoned to death for being an idolater and a blasphemer according to Old Testament Law. That was the moment that the Spirit of God began to convict this Pharisee. That was the moment that his extreme measures would begin to be questioned by his God given conscience. That was the moment that the greatest Christian teacher, pastor, and missionary was conceived… The Apostle Paul would soon be born.
Looking back in time we see why God chose Paul to be the great Christian man that we know him as today. We understand that his zeal to please God, loyalty to keep Israel pure, and reckless abandonment to protect the truth were the qualities that would make him the great Apostle to the Gentiles. But would we have seen it then?
We often miss the bigger picture, but God never does.
Our God sees things that we cannot naturally see. Our God sees with the perfect eyes of omniscience. He sees with the ability to remove fear. He sees with the ability to overcome failure. He sees with the ability to transform limitations. He has vision.
What do you see? Not only for your life, your family, or your personal ministry…what do you see for your world? We should have vision to reach not only our communities, states, and nations, but our generation throughout the world. As Christians we know the scriptures that talk of God’s ability to overcome all odds and yet that same heart and mind never drive us to see those convictions transform into reality.
We need vision. We need to have a strategy to accomplish vision. Then we need the courage to place our faith in God and begin moving forward towards His great vision. That not only includes winning the lost world to Christ, but also imparting to those disciples the vision and burden to do the same. Evangelism is just the beginning.
Our lives will only see accomplished those things that we intend to do. If we know that God “is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think” and we rest content in the realm of the possible, we are in danger. We must envision what others fail to see and tenaciously follow it through to completion. We must believe He can do it, set goals beyond our abilities, put ourselves and those around us into action, and expect that our God can do it.
You see, God wants Colombia to be reached, but He also wants Colombia to reach the world. God can send Colombian people to China and Africa as ambassadors of the Gospel just as simply as He is sending all of us.
