5 keys to re-focus your vision for this year

Posted on by Ken Newton

Whether you’re raring to go at the start of this New Year, wrestling with difficult issues, or both, now is a good time to sharpen your vision.

Vision Pay Binoculars
For a clearer vision, turn to God
Image © istockphoto.com

Over the past five years, along with many highpoints, I’ve experienced several setbacks. I’ve taken hits with family health, with finances and in business. Some dreams were put on hold, but I’m seeing the turnarounds.

What motivates me is the certain knowledge that God will sustain me in all circumstances and, with my co-operation, enable what he has placed and will place on my heart.

How do you and I rekindle the fire of past visions or ignite new ones? ‘Having sorrow’ in his heart and feeling distant from God as he faces one of his hardest trials, King David pleads for revelation:

Consider and hear me, O Lord my God;
Enlighten my eyes.

Knowing well the solution to his plight, he goes on:

But I have trusted in Your mercy;
My heart shall rejoice in Your salvation.
I will sing to the Lord,
Because He has dealt bountifully with me.¹

Here are five keys, unpacked from these lines and my own experience, for overcoming trials and re-vitalising the vision:

1.  Revelation – look upwards

I am clear about my God-given vision, and am sure that he will supply me with everything I need to see it happen. I also know that he will meet my every need today – not just the big picture stuff.

In asking ‘enlighten my eyes,’ I don’t believe David was looking for more head knowledge, but for his eyes to be opened supernaturally by revelation directly from the Holy Spirit.

For a clearer vision, turn to God – in business, in ministry, in family life, community or finances. He will reveal it to you in ways you don’t always expect.

2.  Remembrance – look back in gratitude

Whether you aim to reach a particular goal or overcome an obstacle this year, recall with gratitude the times when God brought you through a major impasse or favoured you. When he ‘dealt bountifully with you.’

I recall having a hunch after a lean spell in business several years ago to call a former local authority client I hadn’t spoken to for a year or so. As she took my call she was astonished: “That’s really weird! I was just about to phone you today.” That call led to a major contract that would then be replicated by three other Scottish local authorities. I thank God for my hunch – and the four contracts. If he did it before, he’ll do it again.

3.  Reliance – look to and trust God

There’s a strand of popular culture which encourages people to be wholly self-reliant and proclaims the mantra: ‘I can have it all.’ That’s fine for a time, when the job’s going well, you’re in rude health and the new car is in the driveway. But where do you turn when the wheels come off through reduced income, redundancy, workplace pressures, conflicts or illness? Christian culture encourages God-reliance and declares truths such as: ‘We are more than a conquerors though him who loved us’² and ‘I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.’³ Not literally anything, but those things he intends for us personally and equips us for.

4.  Rejoicing – look forward in expectation

Just because your dream has perhaps been deferred, don’t defer the hope that will help you to see it realised. Thank God in advance for the breakthroughs that you want to see in your life, your business, your ministry, your family and community; praise him now for the coming fulfilment of the vision he has ‘enlightened your eyes’ with.

5. Reconnection – look to the Life within you

At the heart of new covenant faith is living life in connection with the living God – within us. The apostle Paul describes this ‘once hidden mystery’ as:

Christ in you, the hope of glory† (emphasis mine)

The secret of Christian living is the glorious life and hope of Jesus himself within you. That truth in itself – the Truth himself – keeps my flame burning. May your flame burn brightly in the year ahead too.

Question: what has been put on hold in your life that you feel can now be re-activated and what’s your next step?

¹ Psalm 13:3,4-6 NKJV    ² Romans 8:37 NIV

³ Philippians 4:13 NKJV   † Colossians 1:27 NIV

First posted in January 2013

Fruitful 2015 – 4: 4 Rs of speaking out fruitfully

Posted on by Ken Newton

There is positive power in speaking out in agreement with God’s will in order to see our plans and purposes fulfilled. With the right motives in our hearts, this will have a strong influence on our fruitfulness in the year ahead and beyond.

Speaking out fruitfully © shutterstock.com | Syda Productions
Speaking out fruitfully
© shutterstock.com | Syda Productions

Please don’t think I’m plugging prosperity gospel here, or ‘name-it-and-claim-it’ philosophy, where the motive has all too often been about what ‘I’ can get.

Spoken blessing transforms lives

Four years ago I was greatly impacted by the proverb¹: “By the blessing of the upright the city is exalted, but by the mouth of the wicked the city is destroyed.’” It struck me that, as well as blessing people (the ‘city’) by our actions and resources, but we can also bless them ‘by the mouth’, speaking life over communities and individuals.

When the heart motive behind our plans, goals and declarations involves ‘the city being exalted’ – other people’s lives being enriched and enhanced – then that is something that I believe God will bless.

Here are four ways in which we can speak out fruitfulness by faith – all of course from our connection with God:

1 Radiant word

I’d describe as a radiant word scripture that’s highlighted to you by the Holy Spirit for guidance, encouragement or breakthrough in a particular area or situation (the above proverb is a personal example). God will give us these words as we partner with him on our planning and goal-setting. And they can form the basis of declarations.

Several years ago my family gathered together to pray with me during a financial pinch point in my business. During the prayer time, my then teenage daughter ‘saw’ in her mind’s eye ‘DEUTERONOMY 28:8’. It’s a scripture about the promise of provision – one which she did not know from memory and would not have known how to spell!

That same day, unbeknown to her, I had picked up a small piece of paper from my bedroom floor. On it was that very same scripture, which I’d noted down months previously. It must have fallen out of a book. Around that time, a family friend had also just contacted my wife with the same scripture, saying she felt it was for us from God!

Since then, as well as thanking God for that threefold encouragement, I have also sometimes personalised this word by declaring: “The Lord is sending a blessing on my barns and everything I put my hand to.” And He has – which in turn has allowed me to bless others financially in the process.

2 Reply

“A man makes plans in his heart, but the reply of the tongue comes from the Lord.”² In part 2, I mentioned how, while we make plans in our heart, God gives the ‘answer of the tongue’ (Proverbs 16:1). As well as ‘radiating’ particular words of scripture for us, God communicates in other ways.

These ‘answers of the tongue’ can take the form of helping us formulate and articulate our plans, finding the right words to say as we share or implement them, as well as declaring the plan out loud as an affirmation.

If, say, one of your plans is to write a book or start a group, a declaration might be: “I will write my first book/start a connection group this year, which will lead people to a deeper relationship with Christ, help set them free from the past, and discover and live out their God-given purposes.”

3 Release

In  New Testament accounts of healings and other miracles, Jesus and others in each case released God’s will for the people affected, very often by speaking out. Peter said to a crippled beggar, “Silver or gold I do not have, but what I do have I give you: in the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, rise up and walk.”³

As believers, we carry that same potential to speak out transformation in the name of Jesus today. Jesus once spoke to a crippled woman who was bent double, saying, “Woman, you are loosed from your infirmity.”⁴

That wasn’t just for the Holy Land 2000 years ago, or maybe, at stretch, in the front line of an African mission. An elderly woman with the very same condition had her back straightened a few weeks ago in Glasgow Central Station when a young leader at my home church released healing to her in Jesus’ name! The main point here is that the power comes from Jesus, not us, and we can release it by faith.

4 Removal

Another weapon in our spoken armoury taught by Jesus is to command the removal of obstacles or problems. He tells us, “Whoever says to the mountain (i.e. problem) ‘be removed and be cast into the sea,’ and…believes he will have those things he says will be done, he will have whatever he says.”⁵

I have seen this exercise of divine authority work in all kinds of situations ranging from the removal of severe infirmity and pain to the lifting of unhelpful blockages to progress in practical areas.

As we prepare for 2015, time spent not only writing down our goals and plans but also speaking them out as declarations, will influence the fruit that we bear in the times ahead. And, as Christ’s ambassadors, we can speak life throughout the year into people and places, expecting kingdom transformation and a shift of climate in our communities.

¹ Proverbs 11:11

² Proverbs 16:11

³ Acts 3:1-16

⁴ Luke 13:12

⁵ Mark 11:23

 

 

12 days towards a fruitful 2015 – 1

Posted on by Ken Newton

With advent now underway, and as we approach the traditional 12 days of Christmas,  I’m beginning today a 12-day mini-series of reflections to help you and me prepare for a fruitful 2015.

Let there be fruit in your 2015!
Let there be fruit in your 2015! Copyright shutterstock.com | Choat Photographer

It’s healthy to explore, and to want to see fulfilled, the desires of our hearts. Early December is a good time to start the process of reflecting on next year’s possibilities.

With this in  mind, I’m writing five posts spread over the first 12 days of December, each covering a different aspect of year-ahead visioning. This will be a real-time preparation for 2015 for me personally, and I invite you to join in the journey.

We painstakingly plan our festive fare – let’s prepare our year

Most of us are already looking ahead to Christmas. It’s a time of preparation for that season, not least spiritually as we reflect on the Good News of great joy.

The question occurred to me as I began to write this post: what if we could devote at least the same time and effort in preparing ourselves for the year ahead as we do in painstakingly planning our Christmas celebrations?

In our household, I customarily morph into head chef to create the Christmas dinner. Every year, ‘Ken’s cunning plan’ swings into action. That’s the grid I fill out with all the steps involved in making the festive repast. From coring parsnips and crossing the bottoms of sprouts to the timing and temperatures for slotting the main roast and various trimmings into top or bottom ovens.

All this means envisioning beforehand what you want to serve up for dinner, purchasing all the ingredients, crackers and any missing cookware, and resisting the impulse buy of the discounted red-nosed jumper. Hopefully avoiding, too, the unscheduled trip to the supermarket 5 minutes before Christmas eve closing time for that overlooked but pivotal sauce ingredient.

How would it be if you and I could apply that same enthusiasm to planning ahead for 2015 and helping make this next year among our most fruitful yet?

My own vision for this series is partly summed up in this blog’s subtitle: Live and lead with presence, passion and purpose. I want to help you and me discover and live out passionately our God-given destinies in increasingly closer connection with Him.

In my next post, I’ll look at why planning involves engaging our hearts as well as our heads. And, crucially, why the best laid plans engage God.

I’d love to hear how any of the posts in this series impact you, and any tips or testimonies on how your approach to planning has made a difference.