Loving God. Loving our neighbor.

2020 VISION

How is your vision? As with so many things, it all depends upon what you mean, “What vision, physical or spiritual?” There are people who have physical eyes like a hawk, but are spiritually as blind as bats. And others are like the great Gospel songwriter, Fanny Crosby, who couldn’t see a thing with her physical eyes, but saw spiritual realities with great clarity.

There are many illustrations of this in scripture, one of them is in Luke 4:  v.16 And [Jesus] came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up. And as was his custom, he went to the synagogue on the Sabbath day, and he stood up to read. 17 And the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was given to him. He unrolled the scroll and found the place where it was written, 18 “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim liberty to the captives and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed, 19 to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.” 20 And he rolled up the scroll and gave it back to the attendant and sat down. And the eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on him. 21 And he began to say to them, “Today this Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.” 22 And all spoke well of him and marveled at the gracious words that were coming from his mouth. And they said, “Is not this Joseph’s son?” 28 When they heard these things, all in the synagogue were filled with wrath. 29 And they rose up and drove him out of the town and brought him to the brow of the hill on which their town was built, so that they could throw him down the cliff. 30 But passing through their midst, he went away.

Those people in Nazareth had physical but not spiritual “vision”. In Jesus Xp, they saw a “hometown boy” who had “gotten too big for His britches” and begun “to put on airs”. But they failed to see who He really was: Israel’s Messiah; God’s anointed; the incarnate Word.

Real wisdom and true blessing require Spiritual “vision”, the ability to see things as they really are, i.e., as God sees them, and to choose and act accordingly. 

For many people, 2019 was a very difficult year. Even the Queen of England said so in her annual address to the nation. None of us knows what 2020 will hold for our country, our church, or ourselves and our families. But there is Someone Who knows, and although He has not revealed it to us in detail, He has revealed something of His vision for us, and it can only help us to understand and grasp His “vision”, and to pursue and cooperate with it as much as we can—in 2020, and every year that He gives us.

CRPC will not be having services in our building on October 1st. The morning service should be available via livestream.