Soul Vision: Make Your Life CountSample

The three primary components of a Christian’s intentional life include:

• Our unifying passion—loving the person of God Himself
• Our unifying mission—promoting the program of God’s glory
• Our unifying vision—serving the plans for God’s international kingdom

As with your life’s passion and mission, there is a personal dimension to vision. Your personal vision in life helps you to be intentional. But too many believers start out the right way, with their personal vision focused on and contributing to God’s ultimate vision, and then get seduced when they experience success.

It happened to King Saul. Gifted and talented, Saul, who was a cut above the rest, the man chosen by God to rule His people, lost direction and destination in life. His spiritual passion became diffused. He lost his heart for God. His personal mission became confused; he became obsessed with killing David rather than with fulfilling the obligations of his monarchy. His personal vision was focused on extending his sovereignty into the unforeseen future. Eventually, he fell on his sword to take his own life.

We must resist such temptations and instead remain focused on God’s vision. The spiritual life process is basically a series of defaults and restarts, disorientation followed by reorientation, sin followed by repentance. The impossibility of a perfect focus should not discourage us, but prompt us to keep hitting the refresh button of our lives once in a while.

Living an intentional life doesn’t protect us from sin, but it does keep us from sleepwalking through life. It also keeps us from being seduced by a myriad of needs around us or feeling helpless since we can’t address them all. Read on tomorrow for a closer look at how your personal vision for life can be focused on specific needs that contribute to God’s vision for humanity.