Acts 2:17- "In the last days, God says, I will pour out my Spirit on all people. Your sons and daughters will prophesy, your young men will see visions, your old men will dream dreams."
I. "WHEN THE LORD RESTORED . . . IT WAS LIKE A DREAM"
A. Your dream: God's best for your life
1. A dream is a picture in your mind of God's best for your life. The Holy Spirit gives you dreams and visions.
2. You will never see God's dream clearly in your mind until your heart is healed and restored. The psalmist made a connection between the two things: "When the Lord restored his exiles to Jerusalem, it was like a dream!"
3. In your finances, family, health, and ministry, God wants to give you His dream. He wants to make what you see in your spirit to come true. The biggest obstacle, however, to seeing your dream fulfilled is rejection.
B. Differences between Dreams and Visions
1. You can have good or bad dreams regarding your life. Faith will help youo to "paint the picture of your life". Ungodly dreams cannot be endorsed or fulfilled by a Holy God.
2. A vision is a form of a dream but different in a few ways. The main difference between a dream and a vision is a dream is of a world that does not exist and may seem fanciful and may or may not be possible to manifest for one reason or another. a vision is totally possible and all that stands in the way is the desire to create it. A vision acts as a guiding light in one's life.
3. Another way a vision is different from a dream is because a vision does not have the same kind of passion behind it as a dream. A vision is not personal.
4. God wants to give us both Visions and dreams. They are sometimes so close that we have a hard time to distiguish them but we might say that dreams are more personnal and visions are rather for the bennefit of others and not ourselves.
5. A Vision is Future Focused – One way we turn our dreams into visions is to focus on what we want, instead of what we do not want. Usually a vision includes a Game Plan- Whether I am the only person involved in the change, or thousands are impacted and therefor have influence on how things go, one way to distinguish dreams from visions is that visions include a road map for how the new future will be brought into being.
C. Dreams are a metaphor for your system of thoughts
1. The dreams you see while asleep at night are a metaphor for the kind of thinking that happens when you fantasize while awake. We often call this "day dreaming" or creative imagination.
2. The vision you see when you are awake and looking at reality with your eyes is a metaphor for the kind of thinking that happens when you look to your future with your mind's eye.
3. The inner world (past, present and future) you see is built from your own assumptions or metaphorical constructs. With this kind of vision, you can "look" down different paths, and "see" what would happen.
II. YOU CAN DREAM AGAIN!
These are some personal things that God want's to restore in our life through dreams.
A. The dream of being free (Acts 12:9)
1. God wants to restore your dream of being free from all bondages and captivity. Addictions to habits, fears, drugs, wrong relationships, and guilt were all carried by Christ on the cross.
2. You must begin to see yourself as healed of all rejection and delivered from all bondage. Like a prisoner dreams of the day he will be free, you have to dream of being free of the bondage of the enemy.
3. Peter was imprisoned, but the Lord escorted him out! It was like a dream, but the dream was real. Christ had no one to rescue Him from the cross, but Peter received a supernatural deliverance.
B. The dream of being abundant (Gen. 31:9–13)
1. Jacob left home with only a staff in his hand. He had a dream at Bethel and promised God that he would tithe if God would provide food and clothing for him.
2. His second dream occurred one night when God showed him the streaked, speckled, and spotted sheep (v. 10). He peeled rods and set them before the sheep and they then produced these types of sheep. God can give you one idea that will reverse your fortunes.
3. God wants to give you a dream of abundance. Jacob's dream produced so many sheep that he became wealthy. You must begin to let the Lord dream through you of a day when your financial situation has turned around and you are experiencing the blessing of God in your life.
C. The dream of being healed (Mark 5:28)
1. Sickness and disease steal your dream. You focus on "why" instead of on Christ's atoning death on the cross for your healing. The woman with the issue of blood said, "If I can just touch His garment, I will be healed."
2. Keep doing what the doctors are telling you to do, but tell yourself every day, "This is not the dream." God has a time when your dream will come to pass, so never let that dream of being healed leave your mind.
D. The dream of being fruitful (Gen. 41:52)
1. Joseph had dreamed of his father, mother, and brothers bowing down to him. When he ended up in prison in Egypt, the dream seemed gone. However, God delivered him and placed him at the right hand of Pharaoh for the entire world to bow before.
2. God has a ministry, a position of authority and responsibility, for you. Joseph named his second son Ephraim because as he said, "God has made me fruitful in the land of my suffering."
3. You must allow God to heal your heart from the rejection of others so that you can become doubly fruitful. God has a dream for you!
Conclusion
Organization have usually a vision or a mission statement. As individuals we can develop also a vision for our lives by transforming our dreams into vision. Why is it important that an organization develops vision and mission statements? First of all, because these statements can help that organization focus on what is really important. We also need to develop statements for our life.
1. I am free!
2. I have abundance in every area of my life!
3. I am healed both phisicaly and mentaly!
4. I am fruitfull!
These are some personal vision statements that God want's to develop in our lives. Godly dreams will always lead us to Godly Visions
Developing effective vision and believing in our dreams are two of the most important things you will ever do, because almost everything else you do will be affected by these faith statements. Fail to proclaim our dreams will cause us to miss the best that God has for us.
