Mike Bickle emphasizes the significance of engaging with Jesus concerning our past, present, and future to cultivate hope and grace in our lives. He explains that our understanding of past experiences shapes our present, while our beliefs about the future influence our current actions and heart posture. Bickle encourages believers to develop a clear vision for their spiritual growth and future commitments, asserting that hope is essential for a purposeful life. He warns against living aimlessly without a defined direction, urging the congregation to seek intimacy with God and clarity about their future in order to live fully alive. Ultimately, he calls for a commitment to spiritual development that transcends mere ministry impact, focusing instead on the condition of the heart.

The Holy Spirit to stir our minds, stir our hearts. In the name of Jesus, we pray. Amen. We're talking about finding grace by engaging with Jesus related to our future. Basically, it's the subject of hope is what it's really talking about. Introduction. My premise of this message this evening is that the issues that determine who we are and the issues that determine how we live are found in how we relate to Jesus in the past, how we relate to Jesus in the present, and how we relate to Jesus in the future. All three dimensions of our life are affected. I mean, our heart in the present tense is affected by all three of these different dimensions. All three provide keys that shape us. All three of them provide keys that unlock our heart. Paragraph B. Jesus desires to unlock our heart that we might be fully alive. We encounter him in issues related to our past as we understand past disappointments as well as we understand past blessings in the light of God's revelation, and we can encounter Jesus in what happened yesterday in these ways. We encounter him in the present, obviously, through active intimacy with the Lord. But we encounter him in the future. This is a very important subject, and it's one that I want to focus my attention on tonight. As we believe right things about our future, we encounter the Lord as we believe right things about our future, and as we make godly commitments to our future, it affects the way we live right now. Roman numeral two. We're just going to look at just for a moment on the past and a little bit on the present, and then we're going to spend most of our time on how we engage with Jesus related to our future. Paragraph A. This is pretty common and well known, but I just think it's just take a minute to mention it. Our past can affect us negatively. It is often emphasized in the counseling ministries today that we are today, what we are today, is the result of how we've been conditioned in our past. That's a very common theme, particularly in secular counseling. Many focus on how our past experiences mold us to be who we are today. Some people conclude, some even top authorities in the secular arena, that we are completely trapped and locked in by what happened to us in the past. Paragraph B. I think it's, I mean, it's clear from the Bible that we partially are the product of what's happened to us. We are, in part, today, we are partially related. We are a product of what took place yesterday negatively and positively in our yesteryears, but this idea taken to an extreme, which some groups do, relieves us of the responsibility of our negative responses. Some people are so into the fact that it was so bad what they did to me yesterday that I'm just surely, I'm purely a victim of it, and what happens in a negative sense is they don't take responsibility for their ungodly and wrong responses in the past as well, and they continue in negative responses when they think of the negative things that happened to them in the past, and that keeps them ensnared and entrapped in those negative experiences. The Bible makes it clear that we're both victims, we have been mistreated, but we're also agents. We're part of our own problem. We contribute to our present tense bondage. It's not just that what people did to us, it's our contribution and our responses to what people did to us. Paragraph C. We encounter Jesus in issues in our past when we discern bitterness and we discern wrong paradigms. The wrong paradigms that we concluded in the days gone by, and the bitter responses traps us, and the Lord wants to free us by changing our views and by being set free, by blessing and forgiving, and our hearts in the present tense get set free from those negative experiences, and nobody can do that for you, and everybody knows this truth. But many people are today trapped into negative things of yesterday because of their wrong mindsets and because of the wrong responses of bitterness related to it. Roman numeral three. It's obvious that we need to encounter Jesus also in the present, not just engage with him related to what happened in our past, we need to engage with Jesus related to the present tense. Paragraph A. The Lord has invited us to enjoy active intimacy. He wants us to feel what's on his heart. He wants us to understand his heart and actually feel the things that are on his heart towards us. We all know that. That's a real common concept in the IHOP family, and it's kind of a difficult situation because we're so familiar with the language of it. We're so familiar with the concepts that we can imagine that we're engaging with the Lord's heart on Sunday and Monday and Tuesday because we can communicate it, or because we understand it, or we read the book on it, or we wrote the book on it, whatever. Or we did the seminar, or the conference, and what the Lord wants us to know is that engaging with him in the present tense it's not just a luxury that kind of makes our life a little bit better. It does make our life a little bit better. It really does quite a bit better, but it's more than that. If we're not actively engaged with the Lord, I'm talking about in the last 36 hours. In the next 36 hours, the spiritual forces of dullness and defilement will continue to take ground in our heart. Defilement and dullness is like weeds in a garden. They are ever growing every day. Defilement and spiritual dullness is wanting to crowd the life out in our heart. And our intimacy with the Lord is not just a thing that makes us feel good, although it does sometimes. Sometimes our intimacy with the Lord's invasive and it makes us feel worse actually. But sometimes we think of intimacy with God with wow. But intimacy with God is more than a wow, though there's a wow dimension to it. It is an issue of life and death. Death to the ever encroaching power of darkness wanting to defile and to darken our hearts in any given 24-hour time frame. I mean it is a constant war. My point is this. Our commitment and our desire to have intimacy with the Lord in the present tense is a real issue of life and death. It really, really is in our spiritual lives. We're going to move on now to the real focus of what I want to look at tonight. Roman numeral four, top of page two if you have the notes. If you don't have the notes you can always get them on the in the in the entrance coming in there. They have them available. I want to talk about encountering the Lord related to our future. Paragraph A. We encounter Jesus related to our future as we believe right things about our future. It is important that we believe right things about our future and that we make godly commitments to the things that we believe about our future. Again this is the subject of hope. Hope is really future grace. It's experiencing the grace of God and it's encountering Jesus as we're as we're thinking of the will of God in our life in the future under his leadership. What we believe about our future dynamically affects the way we carry our heart in the present. I will say that again. What we believe about our future dynamically affects the way we carry our heart in the present tense. What we believe about where we're going, what we believe about where we're going forms our heart today. It's not just that when we get there we can say hey we knew we were going to be there. It actually releases influences positive and negative ones that form the way we carry our heart right now. In Lamentations the prophet Jeremiah who wrote the book of Lamentations he said this that Israel she did not consider her destiny therefore her collapse was awesome or you could put the word terrifying. It's a very important principle here that if she would have considered her destiny it would have changed her responses in the present tense and the changed responses would have resulted in an entirely different outcome in Israel's history. If she would have changed the way she lived in the present tense by viewing her destiny it would have as she would have been spared of judgment and difficulty. Now there's going to be difficulty in our life and pressures no matter what but beloved we can reduce we can minimize some of the difficulty we have by considering where we're going considering our destiny. I don't just mean the just the the sense we're going to end up in heaven one day although that's a powerful thing to consider that's not a small thing that's a powerful reality but when we consider our destiny we change the way we carry our heart on Monday afternoon at two o'clock we we think and feel different in in the on on Saturday morning and Saturday night we think and feel differently in light of clearly considering and weighing and being committed to a clear destiny. Paragraph B, our vision for the future must include what we will be in our hearts as well as what we will do in our function and the impact that we make meaning some folks when you talk about the future they think about mostly what they're going to do in the future their ministries their impact you talk to them and say hey what is your vision most people will only comment on what when you ask them what their vision is is what they will be doing with their hands and with their ministry in 10 or 20 years and that's important to have a vision for that that's important to have a picture in our mind about what we believe God wants us to do in 10 or 20 years I think that's important but that's not by any means conclusive or comprehensive in terms of our vision for our future my vision for the future involves far more than what I will do with my hands or in my ministry in the next 10 or 20 years my vision for the future must include what I want to be in my heart what do I want to happen in my inner man not just what's going to happen in my outer man in 10 or 20 years our commitment to the future is related to what we're going to be and do in this age but it also is related to what we're going to be and do in the age to come so there's several different dimensions you can just look at that uh more carefully at a later time and think about it some of this paragraph here when I ask someone what's your vision for the future again mostly they think of what they're going to do in 10 years in this age in the next 10 years and the answer needs to include what they're going to be and do in this age and be and do in the age to come that is getting a hold of our future with a clear vision I want to expand the the boundaries of what we think about when we think about the word hope what we think about vision for our life because what you think about those four areas where you're going to be and do in this age in the age to come when you what you think about it forms the way you carry your heart right now it really does impact the way you carry your heart and there's a uh the average response is people don't really think much about it not that much about it a little bit and their hearts feel aimless in the present tense and an aimlessness creates boredom and boredom creates a vulnerability to satan comes in and many believers are bored and aimless because they don't have a clear picture in their mind as to where they want their heart to be in 10 years and in 500 years and they don't have a clear picture in their heart uh in their mind as to what they want to be doing with their hands within their ministries in 10 years let alone 500 years from now in both dimensions the now and the age to come in both arenas the inner man and the outer man need to be considered when we think about our life vision the end of paragraph b i have the sentence our spiritual development includes experiencing grace in our heart i'm going to give you four different ways and you can add a fifth and a sixth one but these are four ways that i think about my heart and my vision in this age and in the age to come but particularly i think of where my heart's going to be in this age but i like to think about where my heart's going to be 500 years from now not just not just 10 and 20 years from now number one very simple but very important to have a clear picture i want to walk out loving god with all my heart i want to i want to have a vision to have an anointing to have the grace of god to be a wholehearted lover when i think about my life vision i think more of what's going to happen in my heart than what it's going to happen in my ministry in terms of getting the clear picture in my mind of my life vision number two to walk in meekness i want the grace of god to walk in meekness that's an important part i don't mean just so that life is a little nicer and i'm nicer to people and they think you know hey you know that's kind of neat that he's walking i want to walk in meekness it's the only possible way to align up with god's kingdom of god's will for my life i'm actually pretty pragmatic about it pretty practical about it meaning i it is noble and it is good and i think about that sometimes on by virtue of the fact that's noble is good but i think about it in a much more practical way there is no way i can do the will of god if i do not grow in this grace in my life i can't be who god's called me to be number three i want to have authority in prayer i want to whisper prayers and move angels and demons when i whisper prayers when i have an authority in prayer do you have a vision to have authority in prayer number four i want to have deep understanding of god and deep understanding of his word i want to know him i want to know his word i don't want to just have a a large ministry or a ministry of impact i actually want to know him on the inside of my being i want to know his in this age and as well as the age to come paragraph c in my early years with the lord i read many biographies of people who walk closely with the lord i was a biography fanatic and i encourage uh people to read biographies because i was inspired by people's walk with the lord and people's experiences in in god and i was 17 18 and 19 years old i was always reading a biography because i the bible was so boring but i love god and i wanted to get kind of involved and stirred up and so i found that biographies was the most natural thing to do and i recommend reading biographies but i remember the day when i determined i said to the lord i because i used to tell all the stories about people and i as i would read them in these biographies i would tell their stories and uh my favorite in in my when i was age 17 and 18 i read three different biographies on j hudson taylor see a medical doctor from england who went to china and the lord used him in such a powerful way and i love the way the lord used j hudson taylor but what equally impacted me but was the way he walked with god according to his biographers truly amazing this man lived in an abandonment to god that was second to none that i'd ever read and i would have bible studies instead of teaching the bible i would tell j hudson taylor stories i'd get a bunch of young people like i was 17 they'd be 14 junior high kids i'd tell them about j hudson taylor they go wow i got a whole bunch of kids that wanted to go to china and be doctors and die as missionaries none of them did it but at least there for a while we were a bunch of us were going to do it i read a number of others as well and i remember the day when i slammed my hand down on the table and i said lord why not me why can't i walk with you like j hudson taylor and a host of other different uh uh biographical uh uh i mean people's biographies i said why can't this why not me why not now why just some guy in a a long time ago paragraph d the same thing happened as the years uh went by i began to meet more uh people who walked with the lord people that i knew who had a dynamic relationship with the lord their their devotion their commitment their obedience was amazing i i can remember i would uh again uh i would talk a lot about them to my friends i go oh this guy uh he would do this and do that and and i met this guy this prayer warrior you know i remember the time i got to meet leonard ravenhill and i got to spend a little bit of time with him and i talked about leonard ravenhill and and uh different ones that really touched my heart when i 18 19 21 22 23 24 and i would tell stories of men and women that i actually knew and then again i cried out to the lord i said lord why not me i had a determination that was born in my heart and this really made a shift in my in my spiritual life when i determined that it was not enough to tell the stories about people who were devoted to god from biographies or even to tell the stories about people i knew when i determined i was going to know god like this it changed the way i lived in the present tense it changed the way i spent time it changed the way i spent money when i personalized it it went from a story that was inspiring to a personal life vision i was going to live this way at the heart level i determined it was it was no longer good enough to know people who knew god i wanted to know god and there's many in the body of christ they're content to know someone who knows god they're content to be around a company of people who know god beloved that's not good enough you need to know god god wants you to know him and i want to stress that when i made that decision something dynamic happened inside of my mind is that when i shifted from being inspired by people to to a clear vision i mean it was real to me and what i mean by vision i'm talking about a goal in my heart i said i am going to live this way at the heart level i myself i am going to love god with all of my heart i am going to know the word not just know people who know the word i am going to know the word i am going to have authority in prayer not just read about people that had authority in prayer i'm going to walk in meekness i'm going to walk because walking in meekness is the way to be great in god i said i want to be great in god and if i got to put up with meekness i'm going to give a shot at it i don't like meekness but i want to be great in god so if i have to swallow this bitter pill called meekness i'll do it like i said i was very pragmatic about it very practical about it i wasn't very noble about it it was the only way to be great in god in god's sight because god declares about a number in the bible that were great in his sight and it doesn't mean that god was impressed with them but he saw the responses of their heart were great and he declared it as great as what it's talking about to be great in god means god esteems the responses of the heart as great in terms of his economy and the and the responses that he calls great are meekness that's what he calls great and so i said i'm going to do this and i shifted over i determined this is where i was going to go and i began to to think soberly about developing a heart like this and it's not just that i want to develop a ministry i i had a vision for my ministry as well but i had a bigger vision for where my heart would be more than i where my ministry would be i had more energy and more clarity about where i wanted my heart in 10 or 20 years than i went where i wanted how big the crowd was that i was going to be ministering to and a lot of folks again when i talked to them i asked them about their vision i find that most people and i don't do to be mean but i i know it's mostly kind of disrupting i i've done this for many years as a pastor i would meet with a young person i would ask them what is your vision and almost more times than not it would be a flustering question but what do you mean what's my vision what's your vision for the future well and it would almost always go to romance finance and impact well i want to be married i says i figured that's not exactly what i meant but i i appreciate that i i assume that okay i want to be in love okay good you got any other vision yeah yeah i want money to go good okay good i figured that too but i was that's not exactly what i was asking you and i don't actually say that oh i know i want a real big ministry i want to change the world okay is that the end of is that your vision yeah i guess and almost never did i meet anybody who had a vision for the development of their heart in 10 or 20 years almost all of them their vision was for romance finance or impact and at the end of the day that didn't overly change the way they spent time that monday afternoon or the way they spent money because they because the way they spent time and money didn't really connect to that part of their vision and so i begin to i i had a passion about this and i still do getting people to get a vision for where their heart could be and and it's and in this age but also getting a vision as to where we might be even in the age to come related to our choices in this age and as much as people buy into that i tell you it radically impacts the way they spend time and money and it impacts the way they talk it changes the way that they carry their heart before the lord because if we talk uh in with a lot of darkness if we talk with compromise in our lips we grieve the spirit and we grieve the spirit we're not going to get into the place in our vision that we're wanting to go now i remember as a as a young man i determined on 18 19 years old something like that i was going to know the word of god i said i'm going to know god and i'm going to know his word i'm going to know his word as deeply as i can know his word and this vision really got a hold of me but here's the important thing that i need to say because you might think well if i was going to be a teacher in the bible i mean i a teacher in the body of christ i think it's important that you do know your the bible if you know that's going to be your your craft teaching it you ought to know it but when i had a vision to know the word i'm not trying to be a hot shot here by making myself uh uh the example of this because uh certainly when i look back over it i wish i would have done many things better and and sustained a greater focus and and many things i'm not uh claiming how successful i've been on it i'm just saying that back then i determined i mean i had a fierce determination to be a man who knew god by knowing his word who knew the word and therefore knew god and at that point in time i was on my way to med school i'd been i got accepted to med school and i had no thought of being a preacher i had no thought i my idea was to be a medical missionary i was going to go doctor people you know during the day and then when i was giving him a shot or whatever i would witness to him i only had a vision of one-on-one witnessing in a medical context in a third world nation i never dreamed of being a preacher that never crossed my mind when i was 18 years old i remember when it first connected with me that i was going to actually be a preacher a teacher of the bible in a public way that was it i said no way that was a strange thought to me my point is this my passion to know the bible was not related to having a public ministry to teach it my passion was to know the bible because i wanted to stand before god in eternity as a man who knew god and who knew his word because i knew i would stand before him one day and my point of that is this don't don't throw away the bible because you don't have a public preaching ministry determine you're gonna your heart's gonna grow in you're gonna be a man or woman that has the anointing to walk in wholehearted love you're gonna be a man or woman that knows that that knows god's heart and you know the word as an indian itself regardless whether it ever contributes to your public impact it is a sufficient good thing in and of itself unrelated to using it on a stage i find that over the years of ministry that something that i i it's it's very normal but it's it's not it's not that great is that many people with uh teaching ministries they read the bible to flying sermons because they got a sunday morning meeting coming up in a couple days and beloved let me tell you i've done that in my day so i'm not uh uh pretending like uh uh i haven't uh done that myself but i want to say this that i've i've just i determined years ago though i though i haven't always walked it out but i wanted to know the bible as an indian itself i wanted to know bible because i wanted to know god's heart not because i wanted to come up with the material for sunday morning and so i determined that i was going to study every book of the bible in at least a an overview way i was 18 19 years old i determined it i said it would take me five or 10 years to do it i don't know and i did it chapter by chapter and i don't mean thoroughly study it i outlined each chapter of the bible genesis to revelation i got different books and commentaries and little you know unger's bible handbook and haley's bible handbook and and i devised a way to outline every single chapter in the entire bible not so that i could preach it because i wanted to know god before i left this life and stood before him i felt i figured that was a a great thing to do my point isn't how noble that is my point i'm trying to make is i had a vision to know the word i had a vision and it changed the way i spent my hours the idea of just taking a couple hours and just wasting them it bothered me because i was so far behind on my life vision on growing in love growing in meekness growing in revelation of the word and have the anointing of prayer i thought i had so far to go i didn't want to take days and weeks and months at a time and just blow them just kind of chit-chatting through life kind of b-bopping along i think you can fill in the gaps i get asked often by friends that are known for years you know ihop's it's got established and it's growing and i have people say with a big smile and hey this must really be exciting your dream it's coming true i don't normally even answer them it back i but every now and then i get in a in a in a certain mood to where i decide to answer them and what i tell them is that i go and it surprises them i get asked this regularly oh it is exciting it's your dream it's finally coming true because we had a big sign you know 20 of our prayer on the wall we had it for 16 years a sign on the wall and so people everyone saw it and so finally it's happening your dream i go ihop is not my dream i like ihop i appreciate ihop ihop's hard but i like it if i had to do it over again i would do it over again i'm committed to doing this till the day i meet the lord but ihop is not my dream my dream is to have a heart anointed in love to love god with all of my heart that's my dream my dream is to walk in enough meekness to where i'm great in god's sight when i stand before him on the judgment seat my dream is to whisper prayers in the privacy of my home and angels and devils can move in corporate or in private ways whether it's whether it's a demon leaving a person or a demon leaving a city my dream is to know god and to understand his word that's my dream not ihop and i'm determined that i'm not going to let ihop get in the way of my true dream of my heart now sometimes i get in a mood and i tell them this and my friends go gee where's a little intense i was just being nice my goodness you know give me the tour and let's get on with this thing you know but more times than not i smile and i don't answer it yes my dream has come true i just say i like ihop and then we just leave it there beloved i would encourage you not to let your place of your assignment your impact be your main dream you know many people their main dream is their ministry impact in this life that is a disaster if that's your main dream you are destined for heartache disappointment and perpetual frustration i'm gonna say that again if your main dream about the future is the size of your ministry and its power you are going to be a very disillusioned a person with all kinds of frustrations and and heartaches your dream can't be mostly about your impact and i believe in having a a vision for impact but if that's the biggest point of what you think about on your future you're going to walk in perpetual discouragement i challenge you to shift over and to get a dream mostly in a vision mostly about where your heart's going to be in 10 years where your heart's going to be in 20 years and where your heart will be in 500 years and to begin to invest in a future that you're committed to in the spirit your spiritual future and yes it's good to have romance finance and impact but don't make it the number one dream of your heart make it your heart uh going somewhere in god and those other things will have a whole different dynamic a much more positive dynamic in the actual experience of them i know many people with big ministries i know a number of them don't like the ministry now they labored their whole life to get a big ministry it's big and now they don't like it because the ministry in itself is not good enough there's something bigger than we were created for love we were created for god we are created for him and we all know that and we sing those songs and i love to i love it when the chorus is uh sing those when you hear those songs over and over paragraph g top of page three without without a clear picture of what we want to be and without a clear picture of what we want to do and i believe in we need a picture for both a clear picture what do you want to be the in your inner man what do you want to do in your outer man what do you want to be at the heart level what do you want to do at the impact level we need to have a vision for both of them i'm not putting down the impact i'm just saying you don't want it only to be the uh the issue of impact you want your your vision for impact to be secondary you want it there but you want it to be secondary and you don't want your vision for impact to be only your impact in this age you want to have an assignment in the age to come related to your heart responses in this age again i'm not trying to be a hot shot i'm just i'm trying to speak from my heart i think i think often often not a little bit i think a lot about my assignment in the age to come related on what i'm doing i can endure all kinds of things when i'm locked in to the fact that what i'm doing now is dynamically related to my assignment in the glory of god in the age to come it really changes the way i view things when i'm tired and stressed out it keeps my heart steady and it's biblical and it's necessary but as a uh being in ministry in 30 years most people that i've talked to don't even have a vision for the future they don't even think about the future much i don't even mean just the ministry impact they don't think about the future much they spend most of their time trying to solve the people and the circumstances that are resisting them in the most people spend their most of their life energy uh figuring out how to get rid of the resistance of the people in their present tense that are blocking their goals they don't think about the future and beloved what i want i'm here to say is if we're not anchored to the future are we are aimless in the present tense and there's more to life than figuring out how to get the obstacles out of our pathway the people that are blocking our goals there's more to life than consuming our heart with that subject now we got to put a little bit of time on that for sure but not the kind of time that is sapping all of our life energies and all of our life juices paragraph g without a clear picture of what we want to be without a clear picture of what we want to do again that's inner man and outer man we live carelessly in the present tense we carry our heart very differently without a clear picture so i want to ask you and i don't obviously want you to answer but do you have a clear i mean a crystal clear picture in your mind as to where you want your heart in 10 and 20 years do you ever think about it do you have a picture of where you want your ministry to be in 10 or 20 years and that's good to have it obviously you'll never get it exactly right but it's important to have a picture do you have a picture of where you want to be in 500 years at the heart level and at the ministry level it says in proverbs 28 here at the powerpoint where there is no vision the people cast off restraint now that's a famous uh psalm that most of us know and then in the king james it says where there is no vision instead of the word revelation it says where there is no vision the people perish and i and and i i like that terminology but uh the other translations instead of the word vision they put where there is no revelation and it means a life vision where there is no picture in your mind as to where you're going you will perish you will live unrestrained you will live without discipline you get a young person the way to discipline a young person a 20 year old is to lock their mind into a picture of where they're going to be 10 or 20 years from now in their outer man and their inner man when they can lock into where they're going to be on the inside and where they're going to be on the outside you don't need near as many rules in the present tense to keep them steady you try to keep them steady without a clear picture of where they're going it's going to be like herding cats i mean it's going to be impossible to make this thing happen you can picture it it's vivid it's clear and it's accurate it's like what on i can't make them do it you can't govern people who don't have a vision as to where they're going paragraph h the lack of commitment to the future because of a lack of clarity therefore a lack of commitment i'll say it that way a lack of clarity and therefore a lack of commitment to the future brings an identity crisis in our present tense there i know more 50 year old guys that are still aimless in the present tense they don't know what they want to do in the next 20 years honestly at the inside well i'm got my business and i'm on retiring 10 years it looks like maybe even shorter well what do you want to do i don't know hang out i guess golf play help with the church a little bit i don't know and they live aimless and they live lonely and aimless because they have no clarity about where they want to be on the inside in 20 years this isn't just for 20 year olds this is for 50 year olds as well and all the other ages more uh older and younger than that paragraph h the lack of commitment to the future brings an identity crisis our commitments define who we are not entirely not entirely but our commitments define who we are in part they really do the fact that you're committed to you're serving people and your time in prayer you got fasting days and you're you're committed in your sacred trust to be before god and you're you're putting the word in you that those very commitments not even the activities and the activities help you but i'm talking about something different the very commitment defines who you are in your soul in part it shapes you the commitment itself does not even just the benefit of doing it the actual decision making the clarity in your soul that's locked in forms you in the present tense paragraph i we are concerned not only with where we've been the past a lot of counseling ministries focus all their energy on where we've been fixing people's bad responses to the past and i appreciate i appreciate looking at the past i appreciate like i said the first couple of minutes encountering jesus related to the past in a positive and in a negative sense beloved we're not only concerned with where we've been we must be concerned with where we believe we're going where we're committed to be going to have hope is to have the assurance or the confidence about our future it says here in romans 15 paul talked and prayed that hope would abound in them and for hope to abound means the word hope means a future certainty that's what hope means is a future certainty for hope to abound means to have a confidence and a clarity about your future and paul knew that when hope abounds in people they live different when i have a confidence and a clarity about my future where my inner man is going to be and when i have a confidence and clarity about where my outer man is going to be and again i don't have you don't have perfect clarity on those things but i have a direction if i have the right general direction when hope abounds i have confidence about the future again a hope is a future certainty when i have confidence about it i spend time and money and i speak differently in the present tense it changes the way i carry my heart today says in in first john the verse below there that hope purifies us hope is a purifying agent having clarity about our future purifies us in the present tense i i'm sad i'm saddened by so many believers even that don't that they don't have a clear picture in their mind about their future they're not they don't know where they're going they well i love god i mean i love him and i'm you know well what else is in your future well i want to get married yeah i know i want to have plenty of money i know romance finance got those two down assume that i don't really say that but want to have a big ministry or some people say i want to have a little ministry okay that's good anything else nope want to go to heaven when i die anything else related to the vision of your life uh-uh just kind of trust god and see what happens when i get there that is a guaranteed way to live aimless in the present tense and the vast majority of the believers i know that's how they live whether they're 20 70 or 80 years old i mean it doesn't really matter what age if they live that way they live aimless in the present tense paul prayed that we'd abound in hope paul prayed that would be purified by hope paragraph j victor frankel a famous psychologist he rejected uh sigmund freud's over emphasis freud had this this uh over emphasis i agree with uh frankl that the past is the primary force that forms us in the present tense freud was so big on whatever happened to you when you were potty trained you're stuck you're trapped i mean they did it wrong things to you and you're locked into negative responses from now on from now on and frankl uh he didn't like that he didn't believe in that and then he went through world war uh two and he went to the nazi concentration camps he went to a couple of them as as a prisoner but he was a psychologist after the war that was his profession and he one of his uh things that he was committed to doing was was uh uh working with uh patients that were uh holocaust survivors victims and survivors and he and he worked with many of them and he categorized the holocaust survivors in two different broad categories the people that were emotionally stable and the people that were unmotionally stable there you have it this real simple categories the stable ones the unstable ones and his findings are profound he said that the thing that the stable ones had in common was not the degree of the severity of what happened to them when they were children before the camps or not even the severity of what happened to them in the camps the thing that made them stable was not a lesser or or greater degree of trouble or lack of trouble what made them stable is what they believed about their future now that they're out of the camps he said the ones that had a vision to go somewhere and to make an impact with their life had significant emotional stability very different than the ones that had no vision they were aimless if they had the same severe treatment that was what he found to be the most distinguishing factor between the stable ones and the unstable ones was those that had a commitment to the future and that commitment to the future would have been a very a very uh shallow and narrow one it would have been mostly about their impact you know i'm sure many times it had nothing to do with the kingdom of god or their heart growing or eternity just they wanted to start a business and have a happy family and even that kind of commitment created a stability in them and he found that to be the common distinguishing factor of his patients and clients from the from the holocaust days paragraph k i'm just going to say what i've already said people with a vision to grow spiritually use their time different the lack of vision is detrimental to be ambivalent about this to be ambivalent about our future has negative effects on our on the way we carry our heart it makes us passive and lethargic and aimless today beloved get a clear vision what do you want to be in your heart what do you want to be in terms of your your mandate i mean i'm big on that as well too what do you want to do with your life in terms of impacting others but don't limit it to just your inner man and outer man of this age what do you want to do in your inner man and outer man in the age to come as well when hope abounds in your heart when you have clarity and confidence about these things you will be a different person on the inside i just cannot uh emphasize enough i meant have you turned the page go to paragraph l i can't emphasize enough what happened in my young heart when i determined and i hit that i just remember i said why not me why why should i just read books about people who know god why can't i know god and why should i just know a few people and tell their stories why can't i be one of them i don't want to just know a person who knows god i want to be one who knows god i don't want to be known as a man who knows god i actually want to know god there's a difference i'm not interested in creating the reputation i'm actually interested in it being real real when no one's looking beloved when that touches you it's powerful it moves you it makes sacrifice it makes steadiness a much easier thing to do you can't be steady without a clear picture of where you're going paragraph l what are your future goals for your spiritual development most don't have any concrete ones and after that my next question would be what's your action plan now that you have a goal i want to be i want to love god with all my heart okay good that's a good goal i want to operate in the anointing of prayer i want to i mean i want to pray i don't care public private i want to move angels and demons good i want to know the word good i want to grow in meekness and be great in god's eye good okay that's your goals great what's your action plan i don't know just hope that it happens beloved we need to have a concrete action plan what are you going to do about those goals and i love to again i don't want to be mean about it but i love to ask young people that i love to be nice about it but i like to look at right there i go what what are you going to do tomorrow related to those goals that we've just developed for you that you didn't have a minute ago their eyes get big and go i don't know what i'm going to do i go no without an action plan i tell you without a vision any road will get you there i mean you got to have a plan you got to have a vision you just can't just kind of be meandering around life many people can't form a clear picture in their mind of what they want to be spiritually they can't picture it i i encourage you to put energy to put some effort on picturing this thing what are you determined to be in god in this age in the age to come what do you desire what do you believe you can be in god in your inner man what do you believe you can be in god in your outer man what do you really believe about these things don't ask somebody to answer them for you you have to wrestle through like the caterpillar in the cocoon you got to wrestle through and get your own answers on these things and it's the very struggle that makes the butter the caterpillar become the uh the butterfly paragraph n paul uh prayed that the saints would be filled with the knowledge of god for their life that's we know that prayer do you know that praying for the knowledge of god for your life is not just praying for god the knowledge of god's will in terms of your outer man your function we pray for the knowledge of god's will what does he want me to be on the inside my inner man that prayer is as valid for your inner man as it is your outer man and that prayer actually is related to this age as well as the age to come don't limit it to a ministry endeavor in this age you know people pull out colossians 1 9 lord give me wisdom of your will and they're mostly thinking should we do the outreach next month or not and they limit it to that you want to know the knowledge of god's will for your outer man and your inner man and you want to know the knowledge of god's will even in a broad stroke way in the most general sense in this age in the age to come you want to be anchored to the idea that you're going to be ruling and reigning in a real way because you're in the age to come because of your meekness in this age you want to really lock into that that is god's will for your life paul the apostle used the phrase the will of god he said this is the will of god your sanctification in other words to be pure on the inside beloved i'll tell you what the knowledge of god's will for you is is for you to have a bright inner man for your inner man to be bright in righteousness i don't mean that that's just a requirement he has for you that is a that is a dear and an affectionate plan that god has planned for your life it's dear to him he thinks of you with with a fondness and he thinks of your inner man being bright do you think of your inner man being bright well no i'm just going to just be spiritually bored and stuck and in bondage from now to the end and hope for the best at the resurrection no no the will of god that you'd be filled with it the will of god is that you would have a bright vibrant spirit in this age that's god's will pray god show me the knowledge of you i would fill me with the knowledge of your will let this thing become like an anchor in my heart let it take root inside of me paragraph oh we'll end with this i have the worship team come up i say this so many times but i i say this till the my last day on the earth i hope our specific action plan to attain these goals includes time of the word and prayer and fasting that has to be a part it has to be the matthew chapter six lifestyle has to be part of our action plan it's not our whole action plan i recommend people i don't get that many converts but i do get some converts i recommend people until you get a clear bible study plan for your own life i mean an aggressive one that takes you somewhere in god i encourage you to read 10 chapters of the new testament a day you do that six days a week you'll read the whole new testament once a month i remember when they told me this when i was about 20 years old some guy came through town and said that i went huh okay so i got the whole youth group we're a bunch of young adults we're 1892 we're all going to read 10 chapters a day there actually there was a a whole 100 or more a bunch of us i don't know how many a whole bunch of us and we decided we're going to read 10 chapters a day and then we found out some guy read 20 chapters a day oh man i had enough spiritual pride wasn't very spiritual but it definitely was pride and i said uh had enough spiritual pride i said if they can i can and this guy he did it for like a year he said hey he read 20 chapters a day and i determined i was going to do that three four of us and we did it for nearly a year didn't quite make it a year but nearly 20 chapters a day it really tore into my time but i tell you it jolted my inner man in a way that was remarkable it changed me not just gave me knowledge of the word of god it changed the way i thought it changed the way i daydreamed it changed the way i processed anxiety it this kind of impact will invade the atmosphere of your soul i encourage everybody to fast two days a week i really recommend it i encourage everybody to pray in the spirit an hour a day i mean to actually make that a goal pray in the spirit an hour a day those simple things you do that for about 10 years these these uh these simple things 10 years you will be such a different human being in 10 years and i've been around long enough to know that most people i know i want to end on a negative note but i think i am most people i know 10 years later are hardly different at all spiritually than they were 10 years ago i've been in ministry over 30 years most people that i know i'm talking about the high percentage are no different in their spiritual vitality or depth 10 years later than they were i mean today than they were 10 years ago don't think that 10 years are just going to go go on forever they will be gone in a moment i want to promise you in a moment 10 years will be gone you lock into this you just get into the marathon pace you get into just the rigors of this and say i have a clear vision of where i'm going in god in my inner man i've got a vision on my outer man i don't have all the details exactly what i'm going to do but i know i'm going to impact people in a certain way maybe not a large number i don't know the number i'm going to impact but i know the quality of the impact i want i want to change people for god at the heart level you don't have to know the size of your impact but you can have a vision for the quality of it i want to i want to bring people into the knowledge of god that's what i want to bring them into i tell you the lord will be pleased the lord will honor you in this the lord will meet you in this amen let's stand we're talking about getting a heart vision we're talking about get a vision for the future it's not enough to just experience jesus in the past and the present we got to be anchored in the future i want to invite those uh to come forward