Monday
Redemptive Love
Read Romans 6:11-22
This week we are going to be looking at redemptive dreams and how they keep us on the pathway that God has set before us. I realized that before we start this journey that we should look at what redemption and Gods redemptive love is. When the Bible says that “God is love”, it doesn’t mean that one of His attributes is love. It means that He is love. It means that love is the essence of His nature. Because of this, we need to understand everything about God and all that He does in the context of this love. Even His law and His wrath must be understood in the context of His love. Paul defines God’s wrath passively as a love that will not coerce, but allows us to go when we deliberately choose our own way. We must understand as well that the basis of our salvation is also found in God’s nature of love. Apart from this love there would be no gospel, no good news. Therefore, if we are going to understand and appreciate the good news of our salvation, we must be rooted and grounded in God’s love. Redemptive love purchased you. Do not focus on the noise of life, but focus on the heart of God. When trials come do not do as unbelieving Israel did, continually looking backward to the things of this world. He has saved you from Egypt, and promised you Canaan. You have been reserved, your place in eternity has been reserved, and yet He leaves you on this earth for the time being. Trust Him Who has never lied to you. God gives us dreams and visions and these dreams are what keep us on the right track. We have a dream and vision in our heart that is bigger than us, it is God size. Ignore the noise of life and focus – through prayer and reading of His Word – on the glory that is God. Live for Him, for you belong to Him. Let God be God.
Tuesday
Open Your Eyes To God’s Purpose
Read John 16:13-15
One of the most common ways for the Lord to speak, both in the Bible and today, is through dreams (when we are asleep) and visions (when we are awake). He may use dreams because when we are asleep our rational mind cannot interfere with our listening or seeing. Visions are more common for those who have already learned to listen and see what God is doing. Dreams and visions may be very matter-of-fact representations of reality, or highly symbolic metaphors.
Dreams and visions are given as redemptive revelations from God. God is in the redeeming business. If we don’t have a redemptive vision in our life we have nothing to keep us from selfishly doing our own thing and going our own way. We are redeemed to redeem. God created you to be a part of his creative dream and vision for the world that you live in. In that dreams and visions are a redemptive vision for you, your partner, children, your church family, your community, your world. Look at the life of Joseph; he thought the Dream he had was for him but after the testing of the Word in his life he realized it was a dream to redeem his family and the whole world. Our dream must be bigger than us or it is not a God dream. God is a God of redemptive visions.
Wednesday
God Sized Dreams
Read 1 Peter 1:18-20
We all have a dream and vision in our heart that is bigger than us, it is God sized. Before we can travel into the deep waters with any project, we have to dream big first. A dream that comes from God, a God dream is a dream that encourages us, inspires us, give us vision and drive. That is what dreams do. Dreams put you on the right path and prod you to keep going every step of the way. But in order to keep going, you first have to get going! Don't fall into the trap of just dreaming all the time---act on your dreams. Make them happen! Bring them to reality. Remember: Thought creates! Get this information, this knowledge, into your spirit and start thinking about how to take God's process and bring your vision to life. Process is the engine that launches your dreams into reality. Process puts wind to the sails of your visions and ideas. Once you start following through and acting on your dreams, people will be amazed. Time will prove to them that you're on the right track, that your dreams weren't all that crazy; they just required a big God to bring them to reality! What a testimony---you'll have. Don't get discouraged. Your dreams may not come to pass instantly, but as you work alongside God to bring your dreams to life, they will take off and soar. Never let go of your vision just because others can't see it. It is your vision. Live it!
Thursday
Dreaming Big Enough
Read Genesis 28:1-15; 50;20-21
Any dream God put in your heart will be much bigger than you. Most children start out with big dreams of being a major league baseball player or the first woman president of the United States. But people and circumstances whittle those dreams down to size. We reach adulthood, and we voluntarily trim our dreams to manageable proportions so we won't be disappointed.
That's the opposite of what we should do. We should set higher goals, not lower ones. God is the author of bigness, not smallness. We may not reach the highest dream, but we will go a lot farther by aiming high than aiming low. Test your dreams: "Is it too big for me to fulfill without God's help?" If you can do it without His help, you are not dreaming big enough. If it's much bigger than you, you are on the right track. The Bible promises that all things are possible with God. Is your dream impossible enough? Does it go beyond you enough to qualify for God's help? Your dream should be so big that it takes your breath away, makes you temporarily weak in the knees, and makes you cry out to God for help and guidance. Are you able to let this dream go, or does it keep bugging you? A God-given dream is a bothersome thing: it won't leave you alone! It keeps bobbing to the surface of your heart, clamoring for your mind's attention. If that's how your dream behaves, then it is probably from God. You also know it's a God-given dream if you are willing to devote every ounce of energy and every minute of your days to it. A dream inspires devotion like the devotion a parent has for a child: you would give your very life just to see it grow and find fulfillment. God wants us to fully fill the dreams he has for us
Friday
Made To Last
Read Matthew 25;40
Is God speaking to you in your dreams? One third of the Bible records dreams and visions, yet many do not believe that God still speaks to people this way. God has not stopped talking, and He is using dreams and visions to speak to everyone whom He is calling to Himself. God made human beings to last forever. Jesus came to seek and save that which was lost, to die for people. That's how we should spend our lives, too. If God Himself thought people were worth dying for, shouldn't we follow His example? In fact, the only way to minister to God is to minister to people, as He said, "When you've done it to the least of them, you've done it to Me" (see Matt. 25:40). Your dream must be built on human need. Will it help people? Improve lives? Alleviate human suffering? Does it fill a need nobody else is filling? If so, you can be sure that dream is from God. The secret to happiness in life is pouring into other people, giving without expecting anything in return. Your dream should bring glory to God. The most horrible thing in life is to realize you have wasted months, years or decades following the wrong dream. Life is too precious to fritter away by building on a crumbling foundation. Many people lose their lives, not by dying, but by squandering their time.
The Weekender
Identified Dreams
So, have you identified your dream. If fills all the criteria of a dream from God Himself. How do you bring that dream to fruition? It's not about brute force, mindless energy or human calculation. Here are some steps that I have noticed people take on the road to reaching their dreams:
1. Get alone with God. One reason people never discover their dream and purpose in life is that they never stop long enough to listen.
2. Look at your gifts and talents. Romans 12:6 states we each have gifts. God gave you the gifts you have; you didn't choose them. Fulfillment comes when you use those gifts for Him in service of your dream. Your gifts are the key to discovering God's will in your life.
3. Review your experience. We pay attention not only to our desires and talents, but also to our past history. This is a powerful thing. Romans 8:28 says, "... All things work together for good. ... "God uses all things.
4. Decide what's really important in life. Paul wrote, "All things are lawful for me, but not all things are helpful ..." (1 Cor. 10:23). Some things are not wrong, but they're just not necessary. They waste time. We might not have time to pursue every dream, so we must choose to spend time on what's important. Successful people learn to eliminate nonessentials.
5. Journal your dream. Once you are able to define your dream, write it down. Habakkuk 2:2 says, "Then the Lord answered me and said: 'Write the vision and make it plain on tablets, that he may run who reads it.'" If you want to move ahead in your dream, you must write it down--inscribe it indelibly.
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