Deep Spirituality, Part 6: Deep Vision

Prayer prepares my heart

This morning our prayer is going to be about overcoming negative thoughts. We will put them into three categories, the discouraging, the disillusioning, or the self-condemning (negative and destructive thoughts you are having about yourself).

The way we are going to overcome these thoughts is by developing a “Deep Vision,” which is a vision you will seek to place more deeply into your mind and heart than these negative thoughts.

Scripture sets my mind

We are confident that God is able to orchestrate everything to work toward something good and beautiful when we love Him and accept His invitation to live according to His plan.

Romans 8:28-29 Voice

The most important step in developing “Deep Vision” is to place our confidence in God. For instance, you are going to stop trusting your negative thoughts, and start believing Biblical thoughts like Romans 8:28-29.

When you think discouraging, disillusioning, or self-condemning thoughts, then you are going to have a couple of responses. The first response is, “This can’t be true, because God doesn’t want to punish me, he wants to do something good and beautiful for me.”

The second response is, “This terrible thing is happening to me, but it won’t last, because God is going to do something good and beautiful for me.”

Questions focus my reading

You are going to read II Corinthians by tackling 2-3 chapters a day. This is a book capable of teaching us how to think spiritually about both the good and bad that occur in our lives. The ultimate goal will be to learn how to have confidence in God regardless of which one is taking place on any given day.

• When I think my negative thoughts am I thinking most about me or God?
• What does God teach us about suffering?
• What does God teach us about the ability of our emotions to deceive us?
• What does God want most a relationship with us or performance from us?
• How important are spiritual friendships in helping us have positive spiritual thoughts?
• How does vision for your life, and a sense of purpose help us overcome the negative?
• What vision do you think God has for your life?
• How do the forces of darkness work to keep you from believing and living this vision?

Read, annotate, note

Every note we take will be with the goal of changing how we think. We are going to first make a list of 5 scriptures, and corresponding spiritual thoughts from II Corinthians, we can use to drive negative unspiritual thoughts from our mind.

Probe, examine, reflect

We need to reflect on all we are doing this week with an eye toward seeing and understanding God’s vision for our lives. What amazing thing does God want to do in your life, which negative unspiritual thinking is keeping you from pursuing?

Prayer, faith, power

Pray and ask God to remove your negative unspiritual thoughts, so you can discover his vision for your life. Focus in on II Corinthians 12, and ask God to help you see your weakness as strengths, and then open your mind to the possibilities of how God could use you regardless of your abilities.

Identify

Write down 5-10 strengths or gifts God has given you.

Share

Select 3-5 spiritual and objective people who believe in you to tell you how they think God wants to use you to change the world. Make sure they are giving you a spiritual role in the kingdom, as well as positive things to fill out your resume.

Decide

Decide to believe God and his word instead of your emotions, and passionately pursue the purpose for which he pursued you.

Act

Create a Bible study for friends on developing “Deep Vision” by banishing negative unspiritual thinking, and embracing positive spiritual thinking to discover God’s vision for your life. Make it your goal to help at least one person believe that God believes in them, and has an enormous vision for their lives.