Step One to Getting Your Vision Back By Rick Warren
“He paid for you with the precious lifeblood of Christ . . . Because of this, your trust can be in God who raised Christ from the dead and gave him great glory. Now your faith and hope can rest in him alone.”1 Peter 1:19, 21 (TLB)
Your vision—how you see the world, how you see God, and how you see yourself—determines your stress level, your success, your stability, and your spiritual strength. It’s all about vision.
The Bible tells the story of how Jesus healed a blind man named Bartimaeus, restoring his vision. From that story, we can learn the process by which God can transform your life and give you your vision back.
The first step to getting your vision back and living a transformed life is to believe that Jesus can change your situation.
You need hope in order to change. Hope means believing that Jesus can do what you can’t do on your own—and what no one else can do for you. It’s trusting that what feels impossible isn’t too big for God.
Luke 18:35-38 says, “As Jesus approached Jericho, a blind beggar was sitting beside the road. When he heard the noise of a crowd going past, he asked what was happening. They told him that Jesus the Nazarene was going by. So he began shouting, ‘Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!’” (NLT).
You wouldn’t stand up in a huge crowd of people and start yelling—drawing attention to yourself—unless you believed it was the only way to get what you needed.
Bartimaeus’ cry wasn’t a cry of desperation. It was a cry of hope. Bartimaeus’ answer was just a few feet away, and he wasn’t going to miss it. He moved because he had hope.
The reason why so many people have lost hope today is because they’re looking for it in all the wrong places. Some people choose to put their hope in the government, until it lets them down. Others put their hope in their job, until they lose it. Some put their hope in other people, and they will inevitably be disappointed because no one is perfect—including you and me.
There is only one source of hope that won’t disappoint you or let you down. There is only one hope that you cannot lose. That hope is in God.
“He paid for you with the precious lifeblood of Christ . . . Because of this, your trust can be in God who raised Christ from the dead and gave him great glory. Now your faith and hope can rest in him alone” (1 Peter 1:19-21 TLB).
There are lots of ways to lose your spiritual vision. But the key to getting it back is to believe that Jesus Christ can change your situation and bring about transformation. It doesn’t have to stay this way!
For more Daily Hope with Rick Warren, please visit pastorrick.com!
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