Vision: Energize To Engage

Vision: Energize to Engage

Watch on YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XgekrcLmVuE

As promised, I’m going to share with you today, the fullness of the vision God laid on my heart at the beginning of the year. It started with the word, “change.” But later when the Lord laid on my heart the second word of the vision, which is to “engage.” It was then I realized I had a problem.

First, both begin with different letters, and you know how I like to keep these points with the same letter, or what I learned in English as an alliteration. But what would be the words.

But, before I get there, I had another problem; nothing connects the change we go through when we accept Jesus Christ as our Savior and Lord, which in religious circles is called “transformation,” and our need to engage our society, culture, and the world with the good news of Jesus Christ, which in religious circles is also known as evangelism/discipleship, which in our vision is called “engage.”

That is when the Lord opened to me a third word, a word that connects them both. In other words, what moves us from transformation to evangelism, or from change to engage, or you could say from the Great Commandment to the Great Commission. And the word He gave me was “energize.” Like what keeps the energizer bunny going.

And when this word came, not only was my second problem solved, that is what moves us from change to engage, but it also solved the first problem of making the first letter the same for each. So, “change” became “exchange.” Like the great exchange, which is at the heart of the whole transformation process, where we move from the kingdom of darkness, Satan, and this world – TO – the kingdom of light, the kingdom of God, and in the end, the kingdom of heaven.

And so, the three words of this vision, which will take us into 2025 is “Exchange - Energize - Engage”

In today’s message, and then in the messages that will come afterwards, that is, prior to Thanksgiving and Christmas, I would like to explore with you, how, through this great transformation, we can get and keep ourselves energized so we can truly engage with this world, that is, to become fully devoted disciples, followers, of Jesus Christ and share His good news with the world around us.

Now, between digital technology and its rising complexity, there’s more information and more requests coming our direction. And it’s faster and more relentlessly than ever before. Unlike computers, however, human beings aren’t meant to operate continuously, at high speeds, and for long periods of time.

The Lord Himself acknowledges this reality and what He has given to us to counter it.

“It is useless for you to work so hard from early morning until late at night, anxiously working for food to eat; for God gives rest to his loved ones.” (Psalm 127:2 NLT)

I’ve heard it this way, “If we’re burning the candle at both ends, then we’re not as bright as we think we are.”

What we need to understand is that we have been designed by God, but not with unlimited energy, but limited. And the reason is so that we regularly go to God and plug ourselves into Him, and get recharged, and that on a regular basis.

We are “designed.” We have been designed us as finite creatures fearfully and wonderfully made and formed by an infinite Creator. And what wisdom demands is that we recognize our limits and limitations, and at the same time that God is without limits and limitations.

Therefore God wants us to live balanced lives and not to be always working. So, instead of adding more to our plate, the Lord is more likely to take some things off so we can slow down.

I’ve heard it said like this, “If we don’t stop to smell the roses now, then God make us smell them later in the hospital.”

Like a pacemaker a doctor places inside of us to regulate our heart, we need the Lord to be our pacemaker. He’s the one who formed us and therefore He’s the one who knows what pace we should be living our lives at.

What caught my attention is when I recently read that the older we get, our limitations begin to cascade. What the writer said is that we have cascading limitations. Personally, that didn’t thrill me, and it is wrong. But there will be a time when this body dies, that is a reality, but until then I want to use all my capabilities to their fullest capacity, while I have them, to serve the Lord.

Now, the first thing I’d like to say to the age debate, is that we’re “Never Too Old.”