O Vision, O Will (An Exhortation)

Where there is no vision, men perish.
Where there is vision, there is life.

Be thou my vision, o King of my heart.

And so you are… not just a vision of words and images, not just one of feelings and emotions, but You ARE my vision, in that You give me life, and as You give me life, You give me sight – for the truth of the entire matter unto eternity, is simply that You do not just GIVE me vision… it is as it is sung! Jesus, You ARE my Vision, and I couldn’t have it any other way.

You are my complete and whole vision, allowing me to rejoice always, to pray without ceasing, and to give thanks in all things. Do I accomplish this on my own? No, even if it does sound like things I ought to be doing, these were all established and continue to be established by my mere existence, simply because of the Truth of You and Your finished work…

…For in Your death, You tore me down. I was born a sinner, literally fused with entropy and death… but in Your death, I died with you, every aspect of my old rendered lifeless, and more than that, totally obliterated. Gone. Disintegrated. I was so infused with sin and death that I was a living, breathing sin. But You became sin. You died. so I died. Whitewashed tomb, torn down.

…In Your life, You (1) confirmed the absolute death you received, and, more importantly (2) You built me up. You told Nicodemus to be born again, and this is what it was. You were raised to life, and in the process, so were we – born again, not reanimated as zombies, not the same as before, but as new creations! You became sin, so that in living again, we would become Your righteousness. Temple of the Holy Spirit, built to last, within the confines of time and space, unto forever.

Once, we were tombs – beautiful as we can be outside, but dead inside. By Christ and His finished work, we are now temples! By Christ, we are temples, overflowing with beautiful life, no matter what we see, or how we look outside.

As the Good Shepherd, Christ left the 99 sheep in order to find the one lost lamb. And when He found us, with much joy He raised us up on His shoulders when we found us, celebrating us.

Sweating blood in Gethsemane, Christ agonized in preparation for what would be the greatest display of the greatest love of all, praying for us to receive the glory God shared with Him.

The crucified, humiliated Christ, finally finding a place to rest His head, said ‘it is finished’, and breathed His last. In so doing, the veil in the Holy of Holies in the temple of Jerusalem tore from top to bottom.. and I certainly love to play with the idea that before we even thought of crossing the veil, God RUSHED in, as the father RAN towards his prodigal son in the distance, fully thankful that Christ guaranteed our reconciliation!

Once, temple sacrifices rose to the throne of God. By Christ’s one and only sacrifice, we see that God celebrates us, Christ prayed, and prays for us, and the Holy Spirit, in gratefulness, pursues us!

We bring rejoicing, we bring prayer, and we bring gratitude with us! This is how close we are to Christ, and this is how Christ is close to us, that His actions are ours, and our actions are never done separate from Him!

This means so much to me personally, and it truly is my prayer that we would all receive this vision, this living, loving Word who has done so much for us!