CONTENTS

Introduction

1. Your Vision Is Your Future

2. Charting Your Course

3. Where There Is No Vision, You Will Perish

4. Your Future Is In Your Heart

5. Begin To See The Milk And Honey

6. Visions Are The Language Of The Holy Spirit

7. Six Steps To Bringing Forth Your Vision

INTRODUCTION

This is the age of Holy Spirit visions and dreams. Peter prophesied it from the Book of Joel on the Day of Pentecost, and it is coming to pass.

Because of old knowledge or a lack of knowledge, many people in the Body of Christ are missing what the Holy Spirit wants to do in them. Paul said it is only by renewing our minds to the Word of God that we will have His perfect will.

For some time as a young pastor (I still am), I prayed for God to give me growth and fruit and results and all those good things. One day the Holy Spirit spoke to me and said, "God is not the one slowing those things down or holding them back from your life." I suppose I had known that already, but it really hit me that day.

From that point on, I began to study what I must do to bring the things forth that God desired for me, my family, and my ministry.

As we learn to flow with the Holy Spirit and bring forth what He has put in us, our lives become full of fruit for God's Kingdom. Since Jesus said all who do not bear fruit are cut off the vine and thrown into the fire, this should be important to all of us.

I believe the truths in this book will help you to experience the vision or dream the Holy Spirit has for you.

Casey Treat

Seattle, Washington

May 25, 1987

CHAPTER 1

YOUR VISION IS YOUR FUTURE

Truths come in seed form. In this first chapter, I want to discuss the fundamental principle on which God operates. If we as children of God could understand this principle clearly and learn to make it the basis of every one of our operations, all areas of our lives would be revolutionized: marriage and family, church work and ministry, finances and business.

That principle, the basis of all of God's work, is the Seed Principle. When God created the world, He said that everything has within itself the seed to recreate itself (Gen. 1:11), and that principle has continued to be the foundation of all living things since creation.

The seed principle governs every aspect of Christianity as well.

And he (Jesus) said, So is the kingdom of God, as if a man should cast seed into the ground;

And should sleep, and rise night and day, and the seed should spring and grow up, he knoweth not how.

For the earth bringeth forth fruit of herself; first the blade, then the ear, after that the full corn in the ear.

But when the fruit is brought forth, immediately he putteth in the sickle, because the harvest is come.

Mark 4:26-29

When I am asked to pray for someone's marriage to be successful, I have to reply, "I can pray, but that is not really going to make your marriage successful. You have to grow a successful marriage."

When I am asked to pray for someone's finances or for prosperity I have to reply, "I can pray for God's help in your life, but you have to grow into God's prosperity. Get-rich-quick schemes do not work in the Kingdom of God."

There is no such thing as overnight success in the Kingdom. Everything begins with a seed, and that seed has to grow.

The truths of God have to become part of our lives in the same way. None of His truths will become real or effective the first time they are heard. Also, simply because a revelation or truth is heard does not mean it has, or will, bring forth fruit in anyone's life. The truths of God come to us as seeds.

When we receive a seed of truth, if we begin to believe it ... to practice it ... to put it into action in our daily lives . . . then that seed begins to show a blade, an ear, and finally the full corn in the ear. Operating in God's truth is a growing or developmental process.

Sadly, many of us are deceived into thinking that because we know a spiritual truth in our minds, or because we can quote the Scriptures to prove that truth, or because we can explain it to someone else — that is all there is to it. We think we have that truth as part of our lives. Then we wonder why that truth of God is not working for us, not bringing forth fruit.

Many times in such instances, instead of examining ourselves for the problem, we will throw out the truth or blame the teacher, saying, "Well, that just does not work for me."

Many times, people have this kind of attitude about a teaching on a certain truth: "I already know that. I have already heard that. Oh, I can quote those Scriptures. I have been hearing them since I was knee high to a grasshopper."

Because they know it, they think they have all there is to that truth. The Kingdom of God is as a seed, however. It is possible to have the seed and not have the fruit from it. It is possible to have worked with the seed enough to see a leaf produced or even an ear of corn, but still not have the fruit develop. It is necessary to keep pushing, striving, believing, and seeking until the full corn in the ear develops.

For example, I have heard a lot of teaching on marriage, but my own marriage is not yet all that Wendy and I want it to be. So if someone said, "I am going to teach on marriage," I would not reply, "Oh, I already know all about that." (Some people who say they already know all about marriage are so far from God's will for their marriages that it is not even funny.)

Truth in the Kingdom of God always grows. There is always room for more spiritual growth.

In order to create good ground in which the truths of God can grow, Christians need to understand the true anatomy of mankind.

People Are Spiritual Beings

Genesis 1:26 says that God created man in His likeness and in His image. When God did that, He created us spiritual beings. He made "houses" — bodies - and put us in them, but we are not the houses. We are spiritual beings living in physical houses.

In the natural, we may live in houses or apartments made out of wood and glass and concrete, but we are not wood or glass or concrete. We live in that house, but we are not that house. Similarly, we live in bodies, but we are not those bodies. We are not flesh and blood and bone; we live in a "house" of flesh and blood and bone. We are spiritual beings created in the likeness and image of God.

Jesus said in John 4:24, God is a Spirit----If you and I are made in the likeness and image of God, what does that make us? Spirit beings!

How many people would get mad at someone else because of the color of their house? No one would say, "I cannot stand the Joneses because they live in a brown house. Who wants to live in a brown house?" Or, "I don't like the Smiths. Look at the color of their house! It is yellow and green."

No, most of us would not do that, because we know that a person's house is not the person. No matter what a house looks like on the outside, the person living inside can be beautiful.

It is just as spiritually ignorant for any man or woman to discriminate against and form opinions about another human being because of the color of the "house" that we call a body. There are brown houses and yellow houses and black houses and beige houses. Should we care what color the house is? No! We should care about the person who lives inside that house.

Now look at 1 Thessalonians 5. As a spirit being, you not only live in a body, but you have a soul (mind, emotions, and will).

And the very God of peace sanctify you wholly; and I pray God your whole spirit and soul and body be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.

1 Thessalonians 5:23

Wholly means all of you, every part of you, completely, totally. Humans are tri-part beings. We have three parts, like a tricycle has three wheels. We are spirits who have souls and live in bodies. The body is our house, and the spirit and soul is the person on the inside looking out through the windows (eyes) of the body. They are separate and different parts, but they work together as one.

Just as God is the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit — but He is One God. He works in complete unity. You cannot separate the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Jesus said, He that hath seen Me hath seen the Father (John 14:9). The three Persons of the Trinity are all One. If you have one of Them, you have Them all.

If a person's body is gone, the spirit and soul are gone as well. There comes a day for each person when his spirit and soul will leave the body. When a born again person dies, the physical body, the "house," will go into the grave, but the person — a spirit being with a soul (personality) — will rise to meet the Lord in Heaven.

All of us will die, unless Jesus returns first. Most of us, I believe, will die before He returns. There is a lot of work to be done, and Jesus is not going to return until that work is done. Most Christians have not made a commitment to help spread the Gospel throughout the world, and I believe that has slowed up the work of the Kingdom.

For we know that if our earthly house of this tabernacle were dissolved, we have a building of God, an house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.

For in this we groan, earnestly desiring to be clothed upon with our house which is from heaven:

Therefore we are always confident, knowing that, whilst we are at home in the body, we are absent from the Lord:

We are confident, I say, and willing rather to be absent from the body, and to be present with the Lord.

2 Corinthians 5:1,2,6,8

I am going to move out of my body some day to give the Lord time to remodel my house. My spirit and soul will separate from my body, and I will move out for a little while. God will remodel our earthly houses into glorified houses. When Jesus returns, our bodies will rise from the grave glorified to meet our spirits and souls in the air, and we will move back into our bodies.

Those Christians who are not dead when Jesus returns are in for the thrill of an eternity. Their bodies will be "remodeled" instantly, in the twinkling of an eye. They will move from physical, fleshly, earthly bodies into heavenly bodies, then rise up to meet the Lord in the air with all of the other saints.

If Christians could understand who they really are, they would begin to see how to control their lives, how to bring forth good fruit. Most Christians do not realize who they are and do not know how to live the very best lives that God has planned for them. Most of us live mediocre lives. We do not press on to receive all that God has planned for us, because we do not realize that He created us with spirits, souls, and bodies.

Outward Things Do Not Make Us Beautiful

In 1 Peter, the apostle is speaking specifically about women, but he reveals a spiritual truth that applies to both men and women.

Whose adorning let it not be that outward adorning of plaiting the hair, and of wearing of gold, or of putting on of apparel.

1 Peter 3:3

Some Christians have said, "Peter meant Christian women should not braid their hair or wear jewelry."

If that interpretation was true, Peter would be saying, "Do not plait the hair, do not wear gold, and do not put on apparel!"

To take parts of verses or chapters or books of the Bible out of context makes falsehoods out of truths. Many false doctrines are based on just such isolated phrases, out of context.

What Peter really was saying was: "Do not make outward things the only beauty in your lives. Do not try to make your life beautiful by the way you do your hair or through the jewelry or clothes that you wear."

But let it be the hidden man of the heart, in that which is not corruptible, even the ornament of a meek and quiet spirit, which is in the sight of God of great price.

1 Peter 3:4

True beauty is found in the hidden person of the heart, in a meek and quiet spirit. The hidden man of the heart, the spirit, is the real you. You are a spirit, created in God's likeness and in His image. God is a Spirit. You were created like Him; therefore, you are a spirit. Paul prayed, your whole spirit and soul and body be preserved blameless (1 Thess. 5:23). You are a spirit who works through a soul. The spirit is the hidden man of the heart. When you realize who you are and begin to control your soul and body, then you can be in control of your life. And when you control the vision of your heart, you control the future.

The Spirit And Soul Make Up The Heart

Some people believe that spirit and soul are the same thing. They believe the two words are used interchangeably, or as synonyms. But they are not. The Word of God makes it clear spirit and soul are two distinct things. Look at the Book of Hebrews:

For the word of God is quick (alive), and powerful, and sharper than any twoedged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.

Hebrews 4:12

The spirit and soul are of the heart, and if the thoughts and intents, or mind and will (which are soul functions) are of the heart, then the heart is made up of the spirit and soul. I am not going to take the space to expound on every word of that verse from the original Greek; however, the words translated spirit, soul, and heart are distinctly different in the Greek text and have different meanings. Pneuma, or "spirit," and psuche, or "soul," are never used interchangeably in the Bible.

And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.

Genesis 2:7

Notice that God formed man's body from the dust, out of the chemical components of the earth.

Scientists have found that our bodies are 98 percent water and the rest chemicals. God formed it out of the dust of the earth. But then He breathed His Spirit into man. The human race is made up of spirits breathed from God into bodies. When a spirit is born into a physical body, a living soul comes into being.

Without the spirit, the soul is nothing. It never develops and the body dies.

Without the body, the spirit cannot live on earth. A spirit without a body is like a person trying to live on the moon without a space suit. Human beings have to have oxygen, which is not available on the moon, in order to survive. Well, we have to have "earth suits" in order to live on earth. If the body is lost, the spirit and soul have to leave the earth.

Together, soul and spirit make up a human being, a spiritual person, who lives in a natural body. But it takes all three parts to function properly: spirit, soul, and body.

God created us to function with the spirit as owner, the soul as manager, and the body as the servant. If the owner and the manager or administrator are not in agreement, then the servant usually will do as it pleases.

Another analogy — for those familiar with computers — is that the body is the hardware, the circuits, the screen and the buttons to push. You have to have the electronic equipment, yes, but without the software, or the soul, and without electricity for power, or the spirit, the computer is useless. Someone gave me a computer, and it is sitting in my basement. There is no electricity going through it and no software in it, so it is useless at present. To become an "alive," or working machine, takes the computer, the software, and the electricity.

To be a working Christian takes spirit, soul, and body all working together. The problem with most Christians is that they do not even know they are spirits, and they do not know what their souls are, so how can their spirits, souls, and bodies work together?

That is why so many Christians' lives are chaotic. That is why marriages fail. That is why so many bodies are full of sickness and pain. People are out of synchronization. They do not have harmony between spirit, soul, and body, the way God created man and the way He intended. So there are all sorts of problems, even in the Church. People's heads hurt, their souls hurt, their spirits are dead, and they do not know what is happening.

Suppose a mechanic took a Mercedes Benz driver's manual and tried to fix a Volkswagen. He would make all the wrong adjustments, tighten bolts too much or too little, or set the points wrong. He would put in the wrong spark plugs, and even if they fit, there would be all kinds of difficulty because those plugs are not designed to work in that car.

People have all kinds of problems today and look to psychiatrists, humanistic teachers, and non-Christian counselors for information to fix their lives. Because of the wrong manuals being used, the problems cannot be fixed. Christians are confused because of not knowing they are spirits with souls who live in bodies and have been created in the image and likeness of God. The only thing many people know to do about life's problems is get drunk or take a pill and try to forget.

Christians, particularly, need to know that the fruit in their lives is the result of what is in the inward man.

As You Think In Your Heart, So Are You

The context in Proverbs 23:7 is of evil people and that the adage or truth is that God's people should not eat or drink with an evil person or desire the same things:

For as he thinketh in his heart, so is he ...

Look at the positive side, however. As I think in my heart, so I will be.

Paul said it this way in 2 Corinthians 4:16:

Though our outward man perish, yet the inward man is renewed day by day.

So the inward man — the spirit and soul, the real person living inside the body — is in control. As I think in my heart, so will I be. It is not the government that controls my life. It is not Big Brother who is in charge of me. It is not the cosmos nor the zodiac in charge. It is not our mothers or fathers or spouses.

Some people who come for marriage counseling think their problem is their wives or their husbands. They think changing husbands or wives would solve their problems. However, any person entering into a new marriage without making changes in the soul's "programs" is the same person who had problems in the old marriage. After the honeymoon period, the same old problems will rise to the surface in a new environment.

Outward changes will not help inward situations or problems.

Some people say, "These kids are driving me crazy When they grow up enough to take care of themselves, I sure will be happy."

Then the children grow from two-and three-to eight-and nine-and ten-year-olds, and the same parents say, "These kids are driving me crazy. I surely will be glad when they settle down. They are always going here and there," and so forth.

The children become 15-and 16-and 17-year-olds, and the parents are still not happy. "These kids are driving me crazy. I don't understand them. Kids are not like they were when I grew up. There is a generation gap. Kids today are all going down the tube. I will surely be glad when they get through this teenage stage."

Now the children are 22 and 25 and 30, and they move out of the state, and the parents say, "These kids drive me crazy. They don't care about me anymore. They never come and see me."

In reality, those parents' own hearts are driving them crazy: As you think in your heart, so are you. Jesus said the fruit of a tree shows whether the tree is good or bad.

Either make the tree good, and his fruit good; or else make the tree corrupt, and his fruit corrupt: for the tree is known by his fruit.

Matthew 12:33 This is an important truth that many Christians do not believe. We know Jesus said it —- but we do not accept it: The tree is known by its fruit. The tree is known by its fruit. The tree is known by its fruit.

When parents look at their children, they seldom see the fruit. They see the children as they want them to be or as they want to think they are.

Many mothers of children who get into trouble say, "He is really a good boy (or girl); he just hangs around with the wrong crowd."

Many people never admit that the fruit they see is natural because of the kind of tree they are. But the tree is known by its fruit.

People look at their businesses or careers and say, "I have had tough breaks. I have had bad deals. They have done me wrong. Why, I have much more potential and ability than anyone ever admits."

The truth is that if a person has not accomplished anything, it is because that person is a "do-nothing" tree. It is easy to blame the economy. It is easy to blame the company. It is easy to blame "them." "They" did it. But the tree is known by its fruit.

Why have so many people experienced divorce? Because they did not have a good marriage in them, or because they were trees that followed the wrong pattern of growth and brought forth bad fruit. In some situations, it does appear that certain people have gotten a raw deal, but just remember, they put themselves in line for that raw deal.

When Jesus addressed the Jewish leaders of His day in such strong and frank terms, He was talking about fruit.

O generation of vipers, how can ye, being evil, speak good things? for out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh.

Matthew 12:34 Some people like to avoid problems by saying, "I know what I said, but that is not what I meant." What they really ought to be saying is, "I said it out of the abundance of my heart, and I meant it at the time. But I know I should not have said it, and I want to change."

The tongue is hooked to the heart and what comes out of the mouth is what is in the spirit and soul. Out of the abundance of the heart, the tongue wags.

Look at Matthew 12:35. Jesus got even more specific.

A good man out of the good treasure of the heart bringeth forth good things: and an evil man out of the evil treasure bringeth forth evil things.

Where do good things come from? Jesus said they came from the heart. Where do evil things come from? Jesus said they came from the same place. We say evil things come from our spouses, from the government, from the environment, even from the devil: "Satan made me do it. That dirty devil!" But what did Jesus say? Good things come from good treasure in the heart, and bad things come from bad treasure in the heart.

We know that all good gifts come from God, but how does He get them to us? Through our hearts. First, we get born again, then we get filled with His Spirit, then we get His goodness in us to bring forth good things. Many Christians never bring forth good things, although they are born again and filled with the Spirit. Why? Because they allow their hearts to stay full of evil things, such as bitterness, unforgiveness, negative thinking and attitudes, doubts, fears, worries and anxieties, and unbelief.

Christians hear all kind of teaching in this country today and say, "I know those things. I know those Scriptures."

In most lives, however, those seeds of truth never develop the blade, the ear, and the full corn in the ear.

Many believe in prosperity but never prosper. Many believe in healing but never get healed. Many believe the Scriptures on marriage but never have the joyful marriages they would like.

Those who do not have prosperity in their hearts are not going to bring forth prosperity in their lives. If it is not in the heart, no matter what that person thinks or tries, prosperity or healing or any other good thing from God will not come to fruition.

Why do people stay poor all their lives? Because there is poverty in their hearts. They do not know anything else. They blame the ghettos, they blame the neighborhoods, they blame the city, they blame other races. But the problem is not any of those things. It is in the heart. Change the heart, and the fruit is changed.

To Change Circumstances, Change Your Heart

One of the glorious things about being a Christian is that we can change our hearts. If we do not like the fruit, we can change the tree. Most people are trying to change the fruit without changing the tree. The tree is known by its fruit, however, and if you do not like the fruit, then you have to change the tree. If you change the tree, the fruit will take care of itself.

As long as you ignore the beam in your own eye, however, and keep working to get the sliver out of everyone else's, you are going to do nothing but push people away.

Many people say, "I have to find another church. I want to go to a church where I can be free and happy."

That will not work. You may already have tried five churches. The church does not bring happiness. What makes the difference is what is in the heart. Knowing the heart can be changed to bring forth different fruit is an exciting thing. (This is not to say every church is right on, of course.)

The next years of your life can be different, but making them different will take a big change: It will take a new heart. Just because a person is tired of last year's conditions does not mean next year will be any different. Every poor person is tired of being poor. Every sick person is tired of being sick. Every depressed person is tired of being depressed. Being tired of poverty, sickness, or depression, however, does not mean things will change or that things will stay the same. They could get worse. The choice is up to each person: Only those who change their hearts will change the fruit in their lives.

CHAPTER 2

CHARTING YOUR COURSE

God has a plan, a desire, a perfect will for everyone's life, but it is not up to Him to decide whether we follow His plan. Who did Jesus say in Matthew 12:35 was in control of what is brought forth in a man's life? He said the good man brings forth something and the bad man brings forth something.

In the Christian world, we often become so heavenly minded that we are no earthly good. Many of us have spiritualized life to the point that we are waiting for God to do everything. There are those who actually teach that if a Christian tries to do anything in himself, it is wrong, it is evil, it is bad. They say, "Wait for God to do it."

In Matthew 12:35, however, notice that Jesus did not mention the Father. He said, "The man brings forth." The lazy man brings forth laziness; the inspired man brings forth inspiration; the depressed man brings forth depression; the motivated man produces motivation.

It is not up to God to decide what you do with your life. The Bible shows that God's perfect will for your life may not necessarily come to pass. You have .i part to play in the establishing of God's will. Was it God's perfect will for David to have an adulterous affair? Was it God's will for Saul to visit the Witch of Endor?

Jesus told the disciples to pray that God's will be done on earth as it is in Heaven. If His will was going to automatically be done, why would we have to pray? Romans 12:2 says that we must be transformed by the renewal of our minds before we can get to God's perfect will for us. If His perfect will for us is to happen automatically, why would He have told us to renew our minds?

Each Christian is responsible for establishing God's will in his life, and each Christian's vision controls how much of that plan will come to pass.

Robert Tilton, pastor and author from Dallas, Texas, has said, "You chart your course by the dream in your heart."

As a sailor or a pilot charts the course for his vessel, so you and I chart our course by the dream or the vision that is in our hearts.

Establishing God's Will In Your Life

Many religious teachers and I call them "religious" because they are not teaching the Bible but religious traditions — tell us to have no motivation. They teach that we should wail for God to do everything. They teach that if you have a dream for your life, a vision, it is fleshly and evil, and you have to die to that.

Recently, a new brother in our church who has been a minister for twelve years, said, "Casey, I wanted to jump up and down and do a somersault Sunday because you were teaching from Jesus' words instead of religious words."

He said, "You are teaching that 'Your Vision Is Your Future,' and in the ministry with which I was involved previously, the favorite message was called, 'Death of a Vision.' "

How many times have you have heard the kind of teaching that says you have to die, to put yourself down, to become nothing, that you are just a worm, a filthy rag, an old worthless nothing. If you have a dream or a desire, it is evil. That doctrine was sown in the Church by the devil, who knows that when a bunch of Christians begin believing they are nothing but worms, they will do very little to help the rest of the world.

The devil knows that when you kill a Christian's motivation, dream, and desire, he will just sit in the pew and stagnate.

Jesus said, "Your future is in your heart."

Your future is not in the stars — it is in your heart.

He said, "You have to bring forth good things."

How? By getting some good things in your heart. Or, He said, you will bring forth bad things. How? By putting bad things in your heart.

The thoughts, the beliefs, the attitudes that are learned from the time we are born fill our hearts and become the treasures from which we draw. Thoughts, beliefs, attitudes, concepts, or principles that we live by, the way we think, and the way we believe make up the treasure from which we bring forth our futures.

When circumstances or situations occur, we have to draw out of the treasures of our hearts to decide how to handle those situations. One person draws out strength and wisdom, and that person prospers. Another draws out fear — and fails. One person draws out hope and sees good things ahead. Another draws out discouragement and sees problems ahead.

What the heart is filled with is the treasure from which things in life are drawn forth. When good things are not being produced, the treasure must be changed. The treasure must be renewed. God's will must be established in that heart.

Let us use the example of investments. Anyone who goes to a bank or a stock broker and purchases stock wants to draw dividends, or wants a profit. That is why the stock was bought — not for fun, but to make money. So the investor watches that stock to see what kind of profit can be drawn from it. If it does not pay off, he trades it. He does not just keep looking at that dead, non-profitable stock and say, "I don't know why God is not blessing me." No, a wise investor will trade that stock and buy something that will show a profit.

The same thing is going on in our everyday lives. Our hearts are the "stocks and bonds" of our lives. They are our treasuries or bank vaults. If we draw from the treasury but are not bringing forth the things we want, then we have to make a change in the treasury. The sad thing is that most people just keep drawing forth the same old unsatisfactory, unproductive things that are not producing the kind of life and results they want. But they will not change. Instead, they make excuses:

"Must not be God's will. The Lord is teaching me. I am waiting on the Lord. My wife did it. My husband did it. I need to find a new church. That's the problem."

We find excuses for what we are bringing forth instead of changing what is in our hearts in order to change what is coming out.

Circumstances Do Not Control You

What comes out of us, or what we bring forth, controls the fruits, or the results, of our lives.

Circumstances are not controlling you. It is what is in you that is controlling you.

I am not trying to say that each person causes everything that happens to him, but each person does control how he handles what happens to him.

You control how you deal with life. You decide whether you will overcome or be defeated. You decide whether you will rise up and get stronger or fall down and get weaker. You decide whether you will learn and change and expand your vision, or whether you will get weak and small and give up.

You do not control all of the circumstances in your life, but you control how you will handle them and what you will do with them.

Two different drivers can be involved in the same accident. The driver of one car says, "Thank God, no one is hurt. Thank God, everything is okay. The car is no big deal. We can get the car fixed." The other driver cries, pulls out his hair, and just loses control. What makes the difference? One person draws out of himself faith, strength, and confidence. The other draws out fear, worry, and panic.

Two people get a notice from their employer on the same day: production is down, sales are down, they are laid off as of next Monday.

One of them says, "Glory to God, something better is coming my way. I know God has a better job for me. I know God has a better salary for me. I am going to end up with that job I have always been wanting. Thank you for letting me go. I am just glorifying the Lord for it."

The other person starts crying, "What am I going to do? I am going to lose my seniority. I am going to lose my pension. I wonder how much unemployment I can get?"

One person reaches into the treasure of the heart and brings forth joy, praise, and confidence that God is his Source. Another person brings forth fear, poverty, and unemployment.

Look at Matthew 15:10,11:

And he called the multitude, and said unto them, Hear, and understand:

Not that which goeth into the mouth defileth a man; but that which cometh out of the mouth, this defileth a man.

To defile means "to make unclean." Jesus said, "It is not what you eat that will defile you but what you speak. On the other hand, what you speak can bless you." The disciples could not figure out what Jesus meant. And they said, Declare unto us this parable (Matt. 15:15).

And Jesus said, Are ye also yet without understanding?

Do not ye yet understand, that whatsoever entereth in at the mouth goeth into the belly, and is cast out into the draught?

But those things which proceed out of the mouth come forth from the heart; and they defile the man.

Matthew 15:16-18

They defile or destroy, corrupt or bring evil to the man. What brings evil? The things that are in the heart. Not the job, not the government, not the devil, not the Lord, not the neighbors, not the relatives — but the heart.

For out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, blasphemies:

These are the things which defile a man: but to eat with unwashen hands defileth not a man.

Matthew 15:19,20

Remember that the soul is part of the heart, and the soul is where the mind is located. That is where you have thoughts. Out of the heart comes evil thoughts. The Jews of Jesus' day had gotten so focused on outward things that they did not even know what was going on inside. As long as their hands were washed ritually, they did not care about anything else.

But Jesus was saying, "Your heart is what makes the difference. God does not look on clean hands but a clean heart. That is what decides the fruit of your life."

Most of us who read about evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, and so forth say, "That does not refer to me. I am not like that."

Let us translate that into everyday terms, however. That verse can be rephrased like this:

"Out of the heart proceeds negative thoughts — thoughts of colds, viruses, unpaid bills, rebellious children, fears, and worries. Those are the thoughts from your heart that defile your life."

If murder and fornication and adultery come from the heart, then what we might term "lesser degrees of sin" come from the same place. If big things defile you a lot, then little things must defile us a little — that is, if we are going to consider degrees. The thoughts of the heart are what keep people barely making it, never getting ahead, never having the bills paid, not known if, what to do or where to get a better job. Those thoughts defile prosperity.

God is not keeping people from getting healed, nor is any other human being holding up their healings. Thoughts of sickness, of colds, of doubts about healing, of never being normal, of never really recovering — those thoughts defile the body and hinder healing.

What is in your heart controls what happens in your life. If a person's heart is full of thoughts and fears of sickness; if that person expects to have to use medicine and has it all ready, or the insurance all in order; if that person has planned and envisioned sickness in the future, then he will bring it forth. He might have to do some weird things to get the sickness, but he will get it!

People have come to me and said excitedly, "Brother Treat, I knew I was going to get it! I told you! I have cancer."

They do everything but praise God for it, because they had a vision for cancer.

Where does child abuse or wife abuse come from? "I don't know what happened. I just lost control." No, you did not lose control. You brought forth out of the heart anger, hostility, and abuse on your children or your wife. That is what was in you; that is what came out of you.

Thank God, we can renew our minds. We can build a new treasure in our hearts. We can start depositing love, prosperity, health, and other good things in our hearts, then start bringing them forth. Good things will be coming out of the good treasure of a good heart.

Building Your Treasure

From birth — actually from before birth while we are in our mothers' wombs — we begin building a treasure in our hearts, our spirits and souls. We begin building a treasure of good and a treasure of evil. We store up both. From the days of infancy, we continually add to that treasure. We add attitudes, we add beliefs, we add all the different things that make up our personalities, and that brings us to where we are as adults.

Who you were raised with, what you received from your mother and father, church and school, and neighborhood environment all went into your thoughts. That is the treasure which you are now, as an adult, bringing forth. Some of us put discipline in our hearts, and we bring forth a disciplined life. Some put a lack of discipline, laziness, sloppiness into their hearts, and that is what they are bringing forth today.

The way you can tell what kind of treasure you have built into your heart is to look at your body, look at your clothes, look at your house, look at your relationships, look at your children. Then you can see what kind of treasure has been in your heart up until now.

In most people, there are some good things and some bad. Praise God for the good things we have been able to bring forth, but there are also some things we do not necessarily like. That is the part that has to be changed, that is the part of the inner man that must be renewed. That is the part of the spirit and soul that has to be transformed to bring forth new things.

Now, you cannot wait for God to drop those changed attitudes on you from Heaven. And you on not say, "Lord, You change it. Lord, my kid's got bad attitudes. Change them."

The Lord will say, "You change your bad attitude, then bring forth a changed attitude for your children."

"Lord, my boss is not paying me enough. Give me more money."

The Lord says, "I do not have any money."

God does not have money. He does not need money. But you can pray, "God give me wisdom. Give me knowledge. Help me to get prosperity in my heart," and He will work in your heart and help you to change, to grow, to get rich on the inside. Then you can bring forth all the money you need.

Proverbs 22:6 says:

Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it.

You can read that verse like this, as well: "Train up a child in the way he should not go, and when he is old, he will not depart from it.

How many of you grew up saying, "I will never do what my mom and dad did," yet you catch yourself doing some of the same things. That is because what they did is what is in your heart. In spite of saying, "I will never do that," pretty soon you brought it forth.

Every day, we follow what we were brought up with. If you want to get anywhere in life, you have to change. If you want to do any more than you are doing right now, you have to change.

Some people say, "Casey, why are you never satisfied? Why are you always talking about change, about renewing your mind?"

I do that because God has so much more for us, and God said, "I would rather have you cold than lukewarm." Being satisfied with the status quo, or just maintaining what you have, is being lukewarm.

God said, "I want my people hot. I want them growing and moving. I want them striving for the best, pressing on."

Paul said, "One thing I do: forgetting what is behind, I am pressing on for those things which are before." (Phil. 3:13,14.)

That is what I plan to do this year: forget what is behind. The good things I did, the bad things I did, forget about it. I am pressing on to those things which are before.

Jesus said, "Don't say, 'In four months, I am going to start prospering.' Don't say, 'In four months, the harvest will be here.' Lift up your eyes and look. Right now, you can start prospering. Right now, you can start growing. Right now, you can make things better. Right now, there is a harvest to be reaped for the Kingdom of God. Lift up your eyes and look." (John 4:35.)

You make the vision, but then the vision makes you.

Make a good vision, a happy vision, a loving vision, a prosperous vision, and then that vision will come forth and make a good, happy, loving, prosperous life for you and for your family.

CHAPTER 3

WHERE THERE IS NO VISION,

YOU WILL PERISH

When you get a vision to prosper, God will bring you financial wisdom. Where there is no vision, you will perish. God will bring the discipline to follow the vision. God will bring you the ability to get that money and use it wisely to prosper spiritually, mentally, physically, and financially. If you get money by accident or by greed or by lust, it will destroy you. Without a vision, people perish.

Some time ago, someone was leaving my church and found a lottery ticket on the sidewalk. This person took the ticket home, looked in the newspaper, and found it was a winning number. It was a big winner, something like $1 million. This family was so excited, and they called up a couple of the elders and told them. One of the elders called me and said this family was going to give a large portion of the winnings to the church.

Without even thinking, right out of my spirit, I said, "You tell them we will not take a dollar of that lottery money."

The elder said, "But Pastor, they are going to give it to the church. That money will build our new building. That money will pay all our bills. That money will take care of all our needs. I'm telling you, it is going to be glorious."

However, I said, "You tell them we will not accept even $1 of their lottery money."

The next day, these people went down to the gambling commission and found that it was the right number — but the wrong ticket. The ticket was from the previous lottery and not worth a dime in this one. It cost this family $10 in phone calls and $15 in gas. Like every other lottery or gambling scheme, it cost people money and did not make them a dime.

Those people did not have a vision to prosper. They were waiting for money to fall on them out of luck, out of the foolishness of poor people around the state, out of the lust of gamblers. They wanted money from the foolishness of the world, not the faithfulness of Christian living.

I said, "If we had taken that money, it would have destroyed the church, just as it would have destroyed that family."

Proverbs tells us that money gotten quickly will destroy you. (Prov. 28:22.) Now that is an easy concept to talk about, but when it happens to you, could you live with it? My reaction came out of the treasure of my heart, not out of my earthly thinking. As you think in your heart, so you will be. (Prov. 23:7.)

I said, "Take that ticket and put it in the garbage before it destroys you."

What is in your spirit and your soul, your heart, controls what comes into your life. Most of the things you experience come out of your discipline and dedication and obedience and faith, or they came out of lack of discipline and dedication, disobedience, and unbelief. They came out of understanding, knowledge, and wisdom of the Word of God, or they came out of lack of understanding, lack of knowledge, and lack of wisdom. The things you experience come out of you, good or evil.

When you see the words good or evil, don't just think about adultery or murder, think of anything that is not God's best. Poverty, divorce, and depression do not just come on us. They come out of us.

Of course, Satan attacks the saints in attempts to bring poverty, depression, and divorce, but just because he attacks does not mean you have to accept what he brings. You do not have to surrender and bow down to Satan's attacks. You cannot always control the attack of the enemy or the circumstance that is around you, but you can control how you respond. You do control whether you win or lose, whether you will overcome or be defeated.

So the good man can bring forth good things; the evil man can bring forth evil things. It is up to you what you bring forth in your life. Sometimes people look at other people and say, "I wish I were as lucky as they are." But it is up to you what you bring forth in your life — not up to "luck" or circumstances. It is not up to God or the government or the people around you.

"Luck" is like something a man said to me once, "You know, it is amazing to me. The harder I work, the luckier I get!"

There is no such thing as someone who has an easy life. There may be those who have a little bit more opportunity because of being born into a wealthy family or a situation where an opportunity existed for greater wealth, but they still had to take that opportunity. They had to develop it and make it work for themselves.

The whole world is looking for something to fall on them. They want prosperity quickly and they want it to come easily. The few that get it easily many times are devoured and destroyed. They usually lose their marriages, lose their health, or lose their minds.

The exciting thing about being a Christian is that if you do not like what you have been bringing forth, you can change it. That is the good news.

Jesus came to poor folks and said, "You do not have to be poor anymore."

He came to sick folks and said, "You do not have to be sick anymore."

He came to depressed folks and said, "You do not have to be depressed anymore. I have something new for you. I have a message for you, and if you will get it down in your hearts, it will grow up and produce good fruit."

Jesus tried to get new seed into the hearts of the people to whom He preached. He said, "The Word of God is the seed."

The problem today is that three out of four Christians who receive the seed do not let it grow. In Mark, chapter 4, Jesus said that when seed is sown in some people, the devil snatches it before it can grow.

In other people, the seed will take root, spring up, and produce a little growth, but then people get excited and push too hard too quickly, and the seed is burned up as quickly as it started to grow.

Other people get the seed and use it and it begins to produce for them. Then they get mad or offended at the preacher or their neighbors or their relatives, or they get interested in other things and become caught up in the lust of the world, and the seed of the Word gets choked out and does not produce any fruit.

The fourth example Jesus gave, however, was the good ground. People with good ground receive the Word, it grows up in them, and they bring forth fruit, some thirtyfold, some sixtyfold, and some hundredfold.

I want you to notice where the fruit came from. The fruit came out of them. It did not come on them. It did not fall on them as rain out of the sky. It did not fall on them like apples out of a tree. It did not just drop on their heads as the apple did on the scientist Isaac Newton when he received a revelation of gravity. That is not the way the Kingdom of God works. Jesus said you receive the Word of God like a seed. It will get down in your heart, then grow up, and produce fruit. The fruit has to come out of you. The good man out of the good treasure of the heart brings forth good things.

Your Vision Is Your Goal

Your vision is your plan, your goal, your hope, your desire, your picture of the future. Your vision is what you see ahead, and that vision is controlling how the seed grows and what you bring forth in your life.

Look at Proverbs 29:18. Sometimes we forget this teaching is from the Bible and start thinking some man made it up or some church or denomination. But that verse says: Where there is no vision, the people perish. You might read it like this: "Where there is no revelation of God, the people perish." When people cannot see who they are or what God plans for them, when they cannot see the will of God for their lives, they perish. Why? Because the fruit has to come from you. God cannot make it fall on you.

Another possible translation of Proverbs 29:18 is, "Where there is no vision, people are confused." That is a good description of the Body of Christ today. They wander around with half of the Body trying to figure out what is wrong with the other half.

The Lord is like a parent. If parents could make every one of their children successful, they would do it. But it can't be done that way. All you can do is plant seeds in them and hope they go out and use it in the right way. If the Lord could make us prosper, or heal all of us without violating our free wills or hindering our spiritual growth, He would have done it a long time ago. But He has already done all that He can do to get us healed and prospered and saved. If the Lord could save everybody in the world, He would, but each person has to accept the seed from God and let it grow up and produce fruit. That is our part. He did His part at Calvary.

You must see or picture God's will for you. When you begin to see the blessing of God, you begin to picture in your mind how you are going to live with the blessing of God ruling in your life, then you will begin to bring it forth.

As I look ahead to the future, I see my wife, Wendy, and I happy for year after year of marriage. I do not see us getting old and fed up with each other. I see us getting happier and having more fun together. I see our relationship getting better and better and better.

I have a vision of myself as a loving husband, because sometimes I do not want to be a loving husband. Sometimes I want to be ornery. I want to be lazy, like throwing my socks on the floor and letting my wife pick them up. But I have to have a vision in my soul in order to prosper as a husband. I see myself as a kind husband. I see myself as a loving husband. I see myself as a generous husband. I see myself as a caring husband, not letting sharp words out of my mouth, not saying things that tear down my wife, but saying things that build her up.

I have to see myself helping my wife to be strong and blessed and happy. I have to see myself helping care for the children with a good attitude, whether it is changing smelly diapers or getting up in the middle of the night. I have to see myself being a kind person.

I even have a vision of our children coming into the world happy. We do not have babies that cry all night. We have children that come into the family happy and loving, right from day one. They feel good and enjoy life, and I see them coining into the world healthy and strong. I see them growing up to be positive, loving, and kind people. I see them wanting to be a blessing and not a curse, wanting to bring honor and not problems to our house. I can see it so clearly in my mind. I have such a picture of a happy family life.

You may say, "Oh, Brother Treat, you are on a fantasy trip. You are having a pipe dream."

Yes, it a dream — but it is a dream from God. Look at Acts 2:17: And it shall come to pass in the last days . . . . Are we in the last days? Sure we are. Verse 16 says, This is that.... We are in the last days, and it is coming to pass just the way Joel prophesied it.

And it shall come to pass in the last days, saith God, I will pour out of my Spirit upon all flesh: and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams.

Acts 2:17

This prophecy applies to every Christian, young or old, man or woman. You will have visions, you will have dreams. He is pouring out His Spirit upon all flesh. I can see my family the way God wants it to be, because I have His Spirit living in me. That dream has come into my mind, into my heart, and I am bringing forth good things out of the good dream in my heart.

I see our family prosperous. I do not see us living in the same place year after year just barely getting by. I do not see us struggling to keep our bills paid. I do not see us just hanging in there until we are 65 and hoping social security does not fail. Real social security is not in the government. It is in your heart when you know the Holy Spirit and the dream He has for you. I have a dream of "social security" in my heart. It is God's provision, God's prosperity, God's ability for me to get wealth.

As a young man, I began sowing treasure in Heaven, and for years, I have been storing up treasure in Heaven. When I was about 20 years old and on welfare, I began bringing tithes and offerings to the church out of my welfare check, laying up treasure in Heaven. It has been more than ten years, and I am still laying up treasure in Heaven and am going to keep on laying up treasure until I am 50 and 60 and 80 and 100 and 110.

God is going to make sure that all of my years are prosperous, because I have a full account in Heaven and I have a dream of His provision. I can see His abundant supply. I can see that He is bringing me the best all of the time. It is just normal for me to look at life that way now. It is no big deal anymore to believe for prosperity, because I see it so clearly. I have it so abundantly in my heart.

When prosperity comes, I just say, "Oh, yeah. Well, praise the Lord. This is normal."

For some of you, prosperity is still a big deal because you do not yet have it in your heart. When you have it in your heart, it is just normal. You just experience it. You expect it, receive it, and thank God for it, but it is just the way life is for you.

It is normal for most of you to drive a car to church. However, if you put your car on a boat and shipped it to the Philippines where the average person does not have a car, and said, "Here, I want you to have my car," do you know what that person would do? He would say, "Oh, Heaven has come down." He would be so thrilled, so shocked. If you were to take an average American house, ship it to the Philippine Islands and give it to one of the natives, he would be ecstatic. Why? Because an American car or house is way beyond the vision of most natives of the Philippines. They cannot see themselves ever having something like that.

What you consider normal, they cannot see for themselves, because they have lived under the bondage of dictatorship, poverty, and oppression for so many years. It is beyond their comprehension to ever dream of experiencing an American lifestyle. For you, however, an American car and house are normal, so you have them. Even through tough times, you are going to stay in a house and drive a car and not let yourself get below what you consider normal living for you.

If you raise the standard of what you consider "normal living," then you will never go below your vision. You will rise up to that level. If you raise the standard of what you expect to have, how you expect to live, what you see for yourself and what you see for your family, you will live at that level.

Many people need to raise their standard of expectation to living without having bills passed on from month to month. They could be totally free from debt month after month, but most of them expect to have some kind of debt throughout their lives. Most Christians expect to use credit cards and credit plans the rest of their lives. Every month, they pay as much as they can, but their debt is never paid off. There is always a mortgage payment or rent. Most people pay five years to drive a car only worth $15,000 and end up paying $25,000 for it. They expect to do that. They plan on that. It is their vision. It is what they see. It is what they picture in their minds, and they cannot picture anything else.

If they would change their visions and raise their dreams to be debt free every month, do you know what would happen? Pretty soon, they would begin to pay their debts every month. I know this is true because I have experienced it. I used to live just keeping the minimum bills paid. The statements would say, "If you want to pay off the balance ..." But I never used to even read the balance, just pay off the minimum.

When you buy a house, the first few years you might pay $200 to the bank and $3 on the house. Most people cannot see any other way, and if I say, "You do not have to have a 30-year mortgage and be in debt every month," they say, "Brother Treat, I can't see it."

They are right. They can't. But if they could begin to see it, their lives would change.

When you get a new vision, a new dream, a new picture of how you can live, you begin to see something better. When you begin to see yourself free from financial bondage, then you will begin to live that way.

Put Prosperity In Your Soul

Living in debt is normal for unsaved people in the United States of America who do not know any better, but Christians are not lost people and can know better. We know God gives us the power to get wealth, but Christians need to know that without a vision, they will stay poor. Third John 2 says:

Beloved, I wish (the original Greek is literally I pray) above all things that thou mayest prosper and be in health, even as thy soul prospereth.

You have to get prosperity in your soul before you get it in your bank account. What is your soul? It is your mind, your emotions, your will. You have to begin to see prosperity. You have to have a vision for it. You have to dream it. You have to picture it. You have to expect it. You have to have it in your soul before you ever bring it forth in your life.

The biggest problem with poor folks is not where they live, it is not cutbacks in government subsidies, it is their souls. They will never prosper and be in health until their souls prosper, but their souls will never prosper if they do not want to change.

Some religious people say, in condemnation, "Those preachers are always talking about visions and about dreams and about 'seeing it and believing it and receiving it' and all this."

Those people are the ones who keep the Body of Christ in bondage. They are the ones who keep the Church poor and ineffective, and keep us from reaching the world. They stop the Word of God in the world, because their vision is dead. Their vision is small, yet they have a vision for what they want. They have a vision to get their books out but not the Gospel. They have a vision to get their needs met but not the needs of the rest of the world. They have a vision to take care of themselves but nobody else.

You and I can read the Scriptures, however. We do not have to listen to "religious" teachers. Jesus made it so clear: A good man out of the good treasure of the heart bringeth forth good things (Matt. 12:35). You will prosper when your soul prospers. You will live in health when your soul lives in health. Doctors tell you the same thing, even from the natural standpoint. They tell you that if you have sickness in your mind, pretty soon it will manifest itself in your body. What may start out as hypochondria, or as a psychosomatic disorder, or even just as fear or anxiety will get into the body and become real pretty quickly.

What starts in your mind manifests in your life. I thank God that I have a healthy mind and healthy thoughts. I have healing coming out of my thinking all the time. Healing comes out of my soul. Healing is in my heart, and I prosper and live in health because my soul prospers. When you get the vision of healing in your heart, it will be manifested in your body; when you get the vision of prosperity in your heart, it will be manifested in your life.

If people say to me, "Brother Treat, I don't know why it isn't working," then I know they do not yet have "it" (the principle involved) in their hearts. When it is in your heart, you do not ask any more questions. You know you have it. This is true in every realm: financial prosperity, health, business, and family, as well as in the ministry.

CHAPTER 4

YOUR FUTURE IS IN YOUR HEART

In previous chapters, we have learned that our futures are not in the stars nor in palm reading nor in tea leaves or coffee grounds. Our futures are in our hearts. What happens in our hearts is going to determine how we live tomorrow and next week and next month and next year.

Recently, I saw a television program featuring a woman with a crystal ball and tarot cards. If a viewer called a phone number on the television screen, she would give that person a word about his future. That is evil. Not only is fortune telling evil, it does not work. What is going on in your heart is what is going to decide your future.

Jesus said, Either make the tree good, and his fruit good; or else make the tree corrupt, and his fruit corrupt: for the tree is known by his fruit (Matt. 12:33).

You can make the tree sick, and the fruit will be sick; or, you can make the tree healthy, and the fruit will be healthy. You can make the tree happy, and the fruit will be happy; or, you can make the tree depressed, and the fruit will be depressed. You can make the tree prosperous, and the fruit will be prosperous; or, you can make the tree poor, and the fruit will be poor. The tree is known by its fruit, and you can make the tree whatever you want it to be.

You decide how the tree will be, but after that has been decided, the tree will produce accordingly. Notice what Jesus said: Either make the tree good ... or else make the tree corrupt.

You decide what you are going to make of your life. You decide whether it is to be good or corrupt. It is not up to fate; it is not up to God; it is not up to the stars; it is not up to your parents or your wife; it is not up to your children. It is up to you to decide what kind of tree you are going to be.

If there is good in our lives, where did it come from? It came out of the treasure in our hearts. Of course, God is the Source of all good things. James 1:17 says that every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father, but it grows up in our hearts, and then comes out in our lives. Good does not fall on us like rain out of the sky.

Conversely, if there are bad things in our lives, where did they come from? It is sometimes tough to admit that bad things came forth from our hearts. We want to make excuses and give rationalizations. It is always easier to blame other people for things that are going wrong in our lives. But we must change inside if we want to change what is happening outside.

Divorce for Christians often results in one or both parties being very lonely because there are no close friends to meet and pray with regularly. There may not be family members to study the Word with regularly or to pray for one another. Many Christians do not have those relationships, because they have had loneliness and isolation and separation in their hearts.

Many people have resentment or bitterness in their hearts to some degree, and although those emotions may not be strong enough to control every thought every day, still those feelings are basically what is in their hearts. Therefore, many people do not develop close, friendly, intimate relationships.

If you want friends and relationships and strength from the Body of Christ, if you want to know people you can call at any hour of the day or night and say, "Come over and pray and lay hands on me or on my child who is sick or pray in the finances to pay these bills," then you have to have that kind of treasure in your heart. You have to have that kind of love and that kind of involvement and that kind of relationship in you before you can bring it forth.

People on unemployment who have no other financial income have not been able to give their children the kind of education they would like, have not been able to live in the environment they would like or give their wives and families the things they would like, have not been able to give to the church and missions and to the world as they would like. Those results in their lives are because they have not built God's blessings of prosperity into their hearts. The "have nots" are not the result of being laid off from a job, are not the fault of the political party that is in ascendency, and are not the result of circumstances. "Have nots" are the result of the treasure that is in those people who have not.

People who spend months on unemployment are in that circumstance because they have no employment in their hearts. They are unemployed on the inside, and the outside is simply the manifestation. When you begin to build that treasure of God's blessing and begin to get a vision for God's abundance, you will begin to bring forth the creativity, the jobs, the management, the ideas to produce the fruit of prosperity.

You need to begin to believe that God has a plan for your life, that God has good things for you. Believe that His plan for you includes prosperity and a home without a thirty-year mortgage, a plan that includes sending your children to the best schools. A man with treasure in his heart will produce good things even if you put him in the middle of Antarctica.

Most of you have heard of the great industrialist Dale Carnegie. He said, "You can take everything I own, take all of my businesses, take all of my money. And in a few years, I will have it all back and more, because you cannot take what is inside of me."

Dr. Paul Yonggi Cho of South Korea has said, "I can give up my church of half a million members, give up my staff, give up everything — the buildings and everything I have in South Korea — and go to any city in the world; and, within a few years, I will have the largest church that part of the world has ever experienced." You can take his church buildings and you can take his staff members and you can take his money, but you cannot take the vision that God has placed in his heart.

We often believe Bible truths but do not apply them to ourselves. You can change your circumstances, if you will change your vision, and you can change your vision if you will believe and see how the truth in this book can change your life. If you will begin to have a vision for a better job, you will bring forth the skills and the favor and the opportunities you need to have that better job. If you will begin to see yourself living debt free, not paying a mortgage every month, not having to borrow every time you need a car, not having to struggle financially, you will bring forth whatever is necessary to be financially prosperous.

You Make The Vision, Then The Vision Makes You

You decide what goes into your heart. You decide what you are going to believe, how you are going to think, how you are going to see life. You decide whether you are going to see opportunities or problems, unemployment or employment, poverty or prosperity, sickness or health. You make the vision — but then the vision makes you. What you take into your heart, what you believe and what you see begins to control how you live.

Some people have a negative heart about this country. They look at the United States' economy and see 10 percent unemployed. Ninety percent are working, but they cannot see that. All they see is the small percent not working. They see the few hundred people who were killed on the freeway, they do not see the millions that have been driving for thirtyfive years without a problem. They see AIDS and cancer and diabetes, and the more they see it, the more they talk about it. The more they talk about it, the more they bring it forth. They just keep producing more and more negative things, because that is all they see.

Christians can look out and see potential, see opportunities, see freedom to do whatever God wants us to do. We see hope. We can see God at work in our world. We can see the Holy Spirit saving, filling, healing, leading, guiding, and blessing; and, we can start I getting out of bed with joy, with strength and with faith. We can go out seeing all these good opportunities, and we can start bringing forth the wisdom to take those opportunities and the faith to go for the best instead of settling for second best. We can start bringing forth good things. Why? Because we made a good vision, and then a good vision started making us.

Look at Matthew 6:22,23:

The light of the body is the eye: if therefore thine eye be single, thy whole body shall be full of light.

But if thine eye be evil, thy whole body shall be full of darkness. If therefore the light that is in thee be darkness, how great is that darkness!

The light of the body is the eye. What the Lord is saying is that the way you view life decides whether you have a light, bright, illuminated life or a dark, depressed, blind life. He was not speaking in the natural sense, because your eye does not let light into your physical body. He was not speaking physically but spiritually. Your view, your vision, is the light of your life.

If your vision is negative, your whole body is full of darkness. In other words, your whole life is dark. If your vision is negative, your life is negative. If your vision is positive and you see good things, and you believe good things and have hope for good things, then your life is full of light — God's illuminating light, God's blessing light, God's prospering light, God's light of life.

Jesus makes it so clear in Matthew 6:22. The way you see life controls the way you live itjlalk to some parents, they will tell you about the "terrible twos" then the "terrible fours and fives" and the "terrible tens" and "terrible teens." To some parents, many days are hard.

I overheard a mother saying the other day, "I have had such a hard day with the kids!"

I do not think I have ever had a hard day with my son. I have had some days when I had to work at being a parent, and some days when he challenged my patience, and some days when I had to renew my mind as I was renewing his behind — but our relationship has always been good. It has always been fun. If I ever start feeling badly about having to look after him, I just remember what it was like being nine thousand miles away from him when I visited Africa.

My view of my son is positive. It is good. It is fun. It is exciting, so everything that I experience with him is that way. We do not get frustrated around our house and pull our hair out and take tranquilizers. The way you see life controls the way you experience it.

If you see Monday as "blue," then it is going to be blue. If you see your job as a drag, it is going to be a drag. If you see your spouse as a problem, your spouse is going to be a problem. If you see your children hard to handle, they are going to be hard to handle. Your eye is the light of your life. The way you see life will determine whether it is light and bright and fun or hard and miserable and depressing.

Make the tree good, or make the tree evil. You are in control of that. Get a good treasure and bring forth good things, or have an evil treasure and bring forth evil things. You are responsible for the treasure, the vision in your own heart.

Many of us were taught to wait for the Lord to pour out His blessing, to bring revival, or to bring His plan to pass. Some of us used to pray for revival. In Bible school, one of my favorite men — a teacher whom I loved dearly — used to teach about praying for revival.

He would say, "You are going to have to intercede and travail and suffer, and you are going to have to pray Heaven down."

This man was such a beautiful brother and very sincere — but sincerely wrong. I do not have to pray Heaven down. Heaven came down two thousand years ago. The Holy Spirit came to earth to live in the hearts of men and women two thousand years ago, and He has never left. I do not have to pray Heaven down.

I remember being in his class and saying, "Well, brother, if I have to pray and pray and pray for revival, when can I expect to receive an answer to my prayers?"

And he answered, "You'll never know. You'll never know."

Remember those songs we used to sing? "O, Lord, Send the Power Just Now" and "Revive Us Again." They were some of the most unscriptural, un-Biblical, un-Christian songs that the Church could ever sing, and we thought we were being so spiritual. Folks, we do not have to wait for the power to come down. We are not praying for "Showers of Blessings," for "mercy drops" or "honey buckets." Jesus said, He that believeth on me . . . out of his belly will flow rivers of living water (John 7:38). The living water is not coming down on us. It is coming out of us.

Although it is God Who does the work and God Who is the Source, and although it is God's life and power and healing that flows through people, it has been a waste of time since the Day of Pentecost to pray for God to come down, because He is down. It is a waste of time to pray for the Holy Spirit to fall on us, because He already has fallen in us. Now we are to bring Him forth. Out of our hearts, we bring forth love that saves the lost, faith that heals the sick, truth that sets men free.

What did Paul say to Timothy? You are a vessel, a vessel, a vessel. (2 Tim. 2:20,21.) I am a vessel of the Holy Spirit. I am like a Holy Spirit-water hose. Out of my innermost being comes rivers of living water. It might need some purifying as it comes out, but it is coming out. I am a vessel of honor. Paul told Timothy that he was to be a vessel of honor.

He did not say, "Timothy, pray for the power to fall on you or on others."

He said, "Bring it out of you. You are a vessel. You are the channel of God's healing and God's love."

Revival is not coming on us, folks. Revival is coming out of us. The northwestern United States is beginning to catch fire with the Spirit of God because believers are going all over the Northwest preaching on radio and television, teaching in homes, interceding in prayer closets, conducting services where folks are getting saved and baptized and refreshed in the Holy Spirit. Believers are bringing revival to the Northwest. It is coming out of us.

When believers begin to pray and gather together and study and work together, they will begin to bring forth a revival in the community. In all the housing areas, people will begin getting saved, getting healed, getting baptized with the Holy Spirit. Children who have been on cocaine and pot and alcohol will return to parents. Families will be restored. Husbands will return to wives, and wives to husbands. Everything good will start happening when believers start bringing forth good things in their homes.

If you do not get out there, revival will not come forth because it is in you. You are the vessel, the channel, it is in your belly. That is a vision. First it is a mental image, then it gets down into your spirit. As you grow in your relationship with the Lord, you draw out more and more of the vision of the Holy Spirit, the plan of the Holy Spirit, the wisdom of the Holy Spirit. When you begin to see His vision and begin to picture it in your mind, then you will start bringing it forth.

Procrastination Steals The Vision

The disciples were like so many of us, always putting things off. Jesus talked to them about procrastinating in John 4:35.

Say not ye, There are yet four months, and then cometh harvest? behold, I say unto you, Lift up your eyes, and look on the fields; for they are white already to harvest.

Many Christians are always saying, "Someday I will get healed. Someday I will serve the Lord. Someday I will start a home meeting. Someday I will get involved with the church. When I have the baby, then I will be able to do these things. After the kids grow up, then I will be able to do these things. After we get the bills paid, then I will start tithing. As soon as I get a better salary, then I will help the missionaries."

We tend to put off what could be done right now. However, when you get a vision of God's prosperity, God's healing, things begin to happen. When you have a picture of that company as you know God wants it to be, flourishing, prospering, growing, and spreading, then it will begin to manifest. When you see your efforts producing fruit, you can see God blessing your work. You can see your company, your job, your ministry expanding. When you begin to see your marriage happy and yourselves in harmony and unity, having fun together, then you will start bringing it forth.

As long as you say, "In four months, then cometh harvest," you will never have it. As long as you say, "Someday . . . after awhile . . . maybe when I get over there . . . maybe if I move to another city . . . maybe if I do something else, it will be better," you will never have it. Things will never work. You have to begin to see the vision, to put treasure in your heart. Then you will begin to bring it forth.

CHAPTER 5

BEGIN TO SEE THE MILK AND HONEY

When I use the word vision, I am talking about a desire, a dream, a goal, a purpose, a direction, a plan, a blueprint, a map, a destination. I am talking about \that motivating factor in your heart that pushes and drives you or limits you. Every person has a vision of life. Each person sees life as good or bad. They see abundance or lack. They see opportunity or problems. They see blessings or curses.

Every person, every man, every woman, has a vision for life. Those with a good vision are bringing forth good things. Those with a bad vision are experiencing bad things, but everyone has a vision. Some people's vision becomes so dark that they cannot stand it, and they end their lives.

Where there is no vision, people perish. We could say: Where there is a small vision, people live small lives. Where there is a poor vision, people are poor. Where there is a big vision, people live big. Where there is a prosperous vision, people prosper. Where there is no vision, people perish.

What is in your heart is controlling the way you experience things in your life. The good woman, out of the good treasure of her heart, brings forth peace and love and faith and prosperity into her family. The woman who has a bad treasure in her heart brings forth strife and fear and sickness and poverty.

The good man, out of the good treasure of his heart, out of that good vision, brings hope and faith and discipline into his children. He brings joy and peace into his home. He creates an atmosphere where God can work and where blessings can come forth and where prosperity can flow.

The poor man, out of a poor vision, or his poor treasure, or a poor view of life, brings fear into his home. He teaches his kids to be so worried they have to smoke pot at 15 to handle life, to be so nervous they have to drink beer to have a good time, to think negative so that they cannot see themselves getting ahead and therefore do not prosper. His children cannot see themselves winning in life. His wife is bitter and frustrated, and many times, divorce results — sometimes more than once.

Circumstances of life are merely manifestations of what is in our hearts.

It would be so much easier to blame God, to say, "The Lord did it," or to blame Satan and say, "The devil did it." We could just stay the way we are.

Wouldn't it be nice if I could just blame my wife or my congregation for my problems? "They gave me a heart attack, an ulcer, or headaches." I have heard pastors say their congregations drove their families apart, messed up their children, caused all kinds of problems in their marriages. The congregation would not give and would not work and would not pray and would not do this or that. But that is not true. Division in that pastor's heart drove him crazy. The bad treasure brought forth those problems.

Although I am a pastor, I cannot make excuses for my failures or my problems or my shortcomings. I have to be honest. If I am bringing forth evil, I am the only one who can stop it.

The sad thing is that as long as you are making excuses, nothing ever changes. As long as you blame your husband, your wife, the economy, the neighbors, your parents, or the President, you will never change. You will be bound in your failures and shortcomings and problems. As long as your problems are the fault of your husband or wife, you are stuck. As long as it is someone else's fault, you are stuck.

When you begin to believe the Bible, you will find out that you can change the treasure in your heart. If you do not like what you have been bringing forth, you can start bringing forth something new. If you do not like the way you have been living, you can start living a different way. You can change that vision, that treasure, that blueprint, that dream. You can change the destination for which you have been heading and bring forth a new, abundant, happy, full and prosperous life.

You decide what goes into your heart, and what you put in there decides how you are going to live. You make the vision, then the vision makes you! If you have a vision of yourself working nine hours a day until you are 62 or 65, punching the clock for a boss, collecting your hourly wage, hanging in there, just getting the bills paid, saving up enough to go spend on a vacation every year, then retiring, spending what you have, and dying — that vision will cause you to do just that.

I know people who had a vision of retiring and doing nothing. They were so excited about coming into those later years when they could retire and collect a pension or social security and do nothing. They were going to have such fun doing nothing. They were so looking forward to doing nothing. That was the treasure of their hearts. At 65, they retired and sat down to do nothing. Within a year, many of them died, because when you have a vision to do nothing, you perish. Where there is no vision, people perish.

Why not have a vision of getting ahead? You can have a vision of doing more than just barely getting by, but you have to run at the enemy as David did Goliath.

When he saw Goliath, David said, "I am going to take his head."

He ran toward the enemy, and although he only had a sling, he had a vision behind that sling. He whirled his weapon around his head and let that smooth stone sink right into Goliath's forehead — then he ran up to him and cut off his head. He had a vision to get a head. You may not appreciate puns, but this one might cause this fact of life to stick in your mind: A vision has to be implemented; to reach a goal, you must run toward it. Works without faith are carnal or fleshly, but conversely the Bible points out that faith, if it hath not works, is dead (James 2:17).

You have to run at poverty. You have to run at defeat. You have to run at the problems in order to be giant killers. You cannot sit around and make excuses. You can get a vision of having abundance and giving away half of your income and still living better than you ever dreamed on the other half. You can have a vision of four or five employees out there working all day to bring money into your business.

Why have a vision of just barely getting by? Why not have a vision to have more than enough? Why not get a vision of having enough to bless children who do not have parents, churches that do not have what they need, missionaries who go out into all the world and preach the Gospel. Why not have that kind of vision?

When Jesus talked about the eye being the light of the body (Matt. 6:22), He was not talking about your physical eye. He was talking about your point of view, the way you look at the world, the way you see life. How do you see things? How do you see the world around you? Do you see life full of opportunities, full and abundant, or full of lack and problems, difficulties and shortages?

Ten Saw Problems, Two Saw Blessings

Remember the twelve spies whom Moses sent into Israel? (Numbers 13, 14.) Ten of them saw problems, saw giants, saw walled cities, saw a vast land. They saw all the reasons why they could not enter into the Promised Land.

They said, "It will never work. There is no way. We cannot do it. We have already tried that, and it does not work, and besides, it is just too hard."

God said, "You are right. You can't have it. You will all die in the wilderness." And they died in the wilderness.

Two spies — Joshua and Caleb — had a different point of view. They said, "We are well able. Let us go right now and possess the land."

They had a different vision, a different dream, a different treasure in their hearts. When they saw the Promised Land, they said, "Let's go. Let's go. I have a vision to get ahead. I am going to take this land."

Those were the only two Israelites more than 20 years of age at the time of the spy incident who actually entered the Promised Land. Every other adult over 20 died in the wilderness, out of the will of God.

You may say, "Well, if it was God's will, it would have happened automatically."

Wrong. Wrong. You have not been reading your Bible. You have been listening to religion.

The Bible said, "God gave them the land of Canaan."

God said, "This is your land," but all of the adults who came out of Egypt and gained the promise of a land of their own died without possessing it because of their evil vision. They died without the Promised Land.

They said, "We were in our own sight as grasshoppers, and so we were in their sight."

Joshua and Caleb said, "We can do it. We will go. We will possess the land. We will take it. We are going to set up our new residence in this Promised Land."

After all those with the evil vision died, God said to Joshua and Caleb, "Okay. Go get it."

They crossed the river Jordan on dry ground, wiped out Jericho, wiped out Ai, and most of the inhabitants. Basically, they possessed the entire land, because that generation of Israelites had a different vision. They did not sit around talking about how the invasion would not work. They were not sitting around talking about not being able to find jobs. They were not talking about not being able to do it. They had a vision of victory and a vision of success.

They had a vision of God blessing them, and they possessed it. At 85, Caleb took the prettiest mountain in Israel and made it his home. He built his house, his castle, right up on top of Mount Hebron.

Caleb said, "I am as strong at 85 as I was at 45. There are some giants up there. I am going to kick them off that mountain and build a house there." Many people at 85 only have a vision of getting out of their chairs and making it to their dining tables or beds.

We have been so lacking in our vision, so small in our treasure. When a Christian starts to break out of the norm and prosper, we say, "Oh, there must be something wrong with him. He must be doing something illegal."

When a pastor begins to develop a church of more than fifty people, many neighboring pastors may get mad. A minister begins to prosper and drive a new car, and many in his congregation may say, "Mmmmmm," and begin to criticize.

A member of the congregation is blessed and prosperous and shows prosperity, and many of the rest of the people get jealous and envious and begin to whisper, "He must not be a good Christian."

Why don't we get our heads out of the ground and start seeing what God wants to do? We think we are so blessed when we put a piece of gold on our fingers or wrists — God builds streets out of gold! We think someone who gets a diamond ring is blessed — God puts diamonds in His foundations.

Our vision has been so low that we literally have had our heads in the gutter. Christians have had such small, inadequate, barely-get-by, and try-to-hang-in-there visions that the Church has stayed too poor to spread the Gospel.

It hurts me to see people who have heard the Word for months and years have the same bump-along attitude. It hurts me as a pastor to see people who have heard the Gospel, read the Bible, heard faith taught and the dreams and visions of the Holy Spirit explained for years, yet still cannot pay their bills. They are still punching the same old timeclock, still trying to get the same old car fixed again, and still jealous because someone else is prospering.

I say, "Lord, how can the people see what You want to do? How can I teach so they will get a revelation of how far you can take them? What can I do to help people get their heads above the elements of the world and begin to see your blessings? What can I do to help them stop dying in the wilderness and enter into the Promised Land?"

The Lord answers, "It is up to them to go get a new vision. The good man out of the good treasure of his heart brings forth good things, and the poor man out of the poor treasure keeps bringing forth more poverty."

I do believe, however, that Christians are getting a new vision. I believe we are coming out of the desert. I believe we are leaving the wilderness for the Promised Land.

Go In And Possess The Land

We are talking about your future, about whether it will be blessed or cursed. You have to begin to see what God wants to do. You have to begin to see the plan, the purpose, the will, the desire of God in your life. Those who saw that God wanted them to have the Promised Land went in and possessed it. They enjoyed the fruit, they enjoyed the milk and honey. Those who said, "We cannot" — did not. They died in the wilderness.

In Matthew 6, Jesus was saying, "The way you see life controls the way you experience it."

Now look at Proverbs 22:9: He that hath a bountiful eye shall be blessed ....

What is a bountiful eye? Does that mean a great big eye? Does that mean more than two eyes? A bountiful eye is one that sees bounty, an eye that sees abundance, an eye that sees more than enough.

What do you see? Do you see your husband bringing home a measly little check every week and barely making it? Do you see that little amount being paid you every hour? Are you looking to the company or the union or a new political party to solve your problems? What you see is what you get. I see opportunity. I see new jobs. I see new visions. I see new ways to prosper.

If the way I have been seeing things all these years has me just barely getting by, I would quit what I was doing. I would get away from the people I have been around. You become like those with whom you associate, so I would pick people to be around whom I wanted to be like. I would get an entirely new view, a new vision, and start bringing forth some new things.

Abraham had a vision. He saw God's blessings on his family. He was 75 years old when God said, "I am going to give you a child."

God said, "Look up at the stars and try to count them."

Abraham looked up and tried, then said, "No, Lord, I cannot count the stars."

God said, "That is how many children you are going to have."

Then God said to Abraham in the place that later became known as the Promised Land, "Look at the sand. As far as your eye can see, look at the earth and the sand, and count the grains."

Abraham said, "I cannot count the grains, Lord."

And God said, "That is how many children you are going to have."

Twenty-five years later, God gave Abraham his son Isaac. His name means laughter, because they thought it joyful as well funny that God would give a son to a 100-year-old man and a 90-year-old woman.

The son, of course, grew up and became a father, and his family grew, and later, the nation of Israel came forth. Out of Israel came Jesus, and out of Jesus came every Christian. Out of Jesus is coming people from every race and every nation who are born of the seed of Abraham. The vision of the stars and sand is still coming to pass today. Abraham had a vision, and his vision is still producing fruit today.

Then there was Jacob, Abraham's grandson. He was not doing so well financially. So he went to work to get a wife. He worked for his Uncle Laban for seven years to marry Rachel. Then on his wedding day, his uncle switched brides on him, and Jacob married Leah. So he had to work seven more years to get Rachel. At that point, he had worked 14 years, and all he had was two wives and several sons. He was poor. He had no land, no money, no herds. He could not even take care of his wives and sons without the help of his father-in-law. So he got a vision. Jacob developed a dream. (Gen. 30:29-43.)

He said, "I am going to build a herd of sheep and goats, and I am going to become the greatest herdsman in this area. I am going to become rich and return home to my own country. I am going to get away from Laban."

So he went to Laban and said, "Give me every spotted or speckled sheep or goat, and I will keep on working for you. That will be my pay."

And Laban said, "Hey, that is a great deal, because there is seldom a spotted or speckled sheep or goat born. They are usually all white."

He said, "Jacob, that is all you want for pay?"

"I will work for you full time," Jacob said, "Just give me every spotted or speckled animal." He had a vision.

Then Jacob took the bark off pieces of wood and left stripes and spots. He laid those pieces in the feeding troughs and water holes and around where the herds were. Every time those animals came to eat or drink, they saw those pieces of wood. I do not think it was the sheep seeing the wood that made the difference. But Jacob had a vision, and the Lord used those pieces of wood to remind him of his vision. Pretty soon, the herds started giving birth to spotted and speckled offspring. Within a short time, Jacob's herds were larger than Laban's.

Laban said, "What in the world happened here?"

Years later, one of Jacob's sons also had. a vision. Joseph, as a teenager, had literal dreams that his family served him. He saw himself as a leader, a great man, a tremendous influence in the world. His brothers hated him because of his dreams. They were jealous.

You need to remember the same thing happens today. When you start having visions and dreams, people get mad. People get upset with you because you are not going along with the status quo. Any time you break out of the norm, the "norms" are going to get mad.

Every time someone quits a job to go to work at a church, people around them say, "You are what? You are quitting to go work at a church? You are crazy!"

The "norms" get mad every time you start leaving the norm.

Joseph's brothers threw him in a dry well and later sold him to slave traders who took him to Egypt where he was put on the slave block. Purchased by a wealthy and politically influential man, he became a servant in Potiphar's house. Pretty soon, Joseph was placed in charge of the household, because God was with him and blessed and prospered everything to which he set his hands.

Then Potiphar's wife made advances to Joseph, and when he resisted, she caused him to be thrown in jail. Even in jail, however, God blessed and prospered Joseph. In a matter of days, he was in charge of the jail. He just sat back and decided what the menu would be that week and gave the keys to those who wanted to go here or there. He was taking care of the jail, and God blessed him wherever he went.

Some of you are complaining about your circumstances, but you see that God will bless you in the middle of the county jail, if you have a vision.

A few years later, he was taken out of jail and to the king, who had a problem that only Joseph could solve. Pharaoh made Joseph second in command in the entire nation, and Joseph led the entire nation through seven years of famine without lack or shortage. He led the entire nation to success in the face of poverty, and Joseph's family had to come from Canaan and ask for help.

When his brothers came to Egypt not knowing Joseph was alive, they bowed down to him just as his dream had foretold. The brother who had been sold as a slave was now ruler over those who sold him. Those with a vision prosper. Those without a vision perish. Joseph had a vision and a dream.

Which are you going to be? A ruler who rises up out of jail, who rises up out of poverty and above circumstances, or one who just bumbles along and waits for God to do something? It is not up to God, it is up to you.

CHAPTER 6

VISIONS ARE THE LANGUAGE

OF THE HOLY SPIRIT

The Holy Spirit gave a vision to the Apostle Paul of what he was to do. That vision became a part of Paul, and he said, "I am going to preach this Gospel. This one thing I do. Forgetting everything that is behind, I am pressing on." (Phil. 3:13,14)

At one time, the Jewish leaders from Jerusalem laid wait with forty men to kill him, but they could not touch him. Satan himself later sent a messenger to hinder him, but Paul could not be stopped. Idol worshippers grabbed Paul, stoned him and left him for dead, but he rose from the dead and came back a few days later preaching the same Gospel. You cannot kill a man with a vision. You cannot stop a man with a vision.

The Romans arrested Paul, put him in chains, sent him on a boat toward Rome, and the devil sent a storm to destroy the boat. But Paul floated onto an island and started a revival. Glory to God! The Lord turned to good what the devil had intended for evil.

Paul finally arrived in Rome, preached to the leaders and heads of state, and the Roman authorities set him up in his own house where he preached to people for years at government expense. The Book of Acts ends with Paul preaching the Gospel. He had a vision, and nothing could stop him.

Visions Bring Freedom From Bondage

A man named John Wycliffe had a vision. He was determined that the common people in England should have a Bible that they could read, and in 1382, he made the first English translation of the entire Bible. He wrote this translation out by hand. Printing had not yet been invented. Until then, the Bible had been in Latin, the language of the priests. Later, most of his Bibles and those translated by his followers, such men as John Huss and William Tyndale, were burned or otherwise destroyed. But almost two hundred and fifty years later, in 1611, Wycliffe's vision finally was fulfilled when King James I had the Bible translated and printed in English for anyone to read.

Martin Luther also had a vision. He did not want people locked up in religion and blind to the truth of the Word. In addition to challenging some of the traditions and error that had crept into the Roman Catholic Church, he had a dream of giving a Bible to every Christian. In 1522, he translated the Bible into the German language. The leaders of the church tried to arrest him and to kill him. They did everything possible to stop him, but his vision did not die.

Bibles began to be printed in the languages of the common people, who said, "This is not what the church has been saying."

And people reading the Bible have been affecting and bringing about change in the institutional church ever since.

John Calvin had a vision, and out of it came the Presbyterian Church.

John Wesley had a vision, and out of that vision came the Methodist Church.

Most of those men of the Reformation had their visions carried on by other people after they died. Some of the churches that grew out of their visions may have died, but the vision did not die. The vision still goes on. People all over the world are bringing forth the Word of God, still fulfilling the visions God gave those men.

Without a vision, you will perish; with a vision, you will prosper. The days of visions did not pass away with the Old Testament nor with the Reformation nor with the Great Awakening. People today have visions.

Dr. Paul Yonggi Cho has a vision of a million members in his church in South Korea. He is halfway to his vision now. He believes in that vision, and God will bring it forth.

You decide what you bring forth in your life. According to the dream in your heart, you will bring forth abundance or lack. You either have a vision that is motivating you to great things, or you have a vision that is limiting you.

In Psalm 78:41, the Bible says, Yea, they turned back and tempted God, and limited the Holy One of Israel.

That verse says the Israelites limited God. Do you have a vision that is motivating you to greater things or a vision that is limiting God in your life. If you see other people doing more than you, but you have excuses why you cannot do the same, and you look down at them and say, "There is something wrong with them" — your vision is limiting you.

People who say, "I could not get involved in your church; it is too big," have a vision that limits them. They have such a small vision that they cannot move on. They cannot go any farther than they are right now, because anything else is beyond their comprehension.

When we moved into our new large building, many people immediately stopped coming to church. They realized we were going to do what we said, and it was too much for them to accept. It was too big for them, because their vision was so small. Their vision was to barely get by, to talk about but never experience prosperity. When we began to experience it, they could not handle it.

What Kind of Vision Will You Have?

As long as you keep a vision that limits you, growth and expansion will make you nervous instead of being a challenge to change. But if you get a vision of God's blessing, a vision of God's abundance, a bountiful eye, a vision of no limits, you will be comfortable with growth. You will begin to grow spiritually and financially and start enjoying God's abundance in every area of life.

The world around you is not molding you; you are molding it. I know there are circumstances that affect our lives, good things and bad things. Accidents, diseases, problems we do not want or cause come against us. Yet we are in control of how we respond to those things. We decide how to deal with them. We decide whether we will overcome them, change them, use them for our benefit, or if we will let them become weights, burdens, or situations that destroy us.

Every problem can be a stepping stone to a victory or can be another burden that weighs you down. You decide which it will be. Your vision, your desire, your point of view, your outlook on life, your picture, your dream, the way you see your future is controlling the way your future is formed.

If you will believe that, if you will accept the truth that Jesus spoke, if you will come to the realization that you are in charge of your life, you can begin to develop a vision that is greater than the way your life has been up to now. You can begin to build a treasure that is bigger and richer and happier, that has more fun and more peace than you have had up to now.

If you do not believe that the vision in your heart controls your life, if you say, "There is nothing I can do about it" or "This is just the way I am" or "Life just happens to me," then your life will not change too much. If that is the way you believe, you are destined to struggle through life in a maintenance mode, which means just more of what you now have.

God has so much more for you. He has a plan, a dream, and a desire for you to go beyond what you have done so far, but you have to get hold of that dream in your own heart. You must have a good treasure from which to draw.

If somebody came to me and said, "Why should I have a vision? What is the difference? I am just believing the Word, believing the Lord, and doing fine. Why do I want a vision?"

The real question is not, "Should I have a vision?" You do have a vision. Everyone has a vision. The right question is, "What kind of vision do you have?" You do not have a choice as to whether you have a vision or not. You have a vision. If you did not, you would commit suicide, because where there is no vision, people die. People perish. The fact that you are alive means that you have some kind of vision. The question you should be asking is, "What kind of vision am I going to have."

Someone told me not long ago that when he was old enough to get a job, he did not know what he wanted to do, so he just got a job like his father had. He has been working at that for about ten years. He does not like what he is doing, he does not really want to do what he is doing, but because that is what his father did, he is now doing the same thing. He has never really thought about it.

That man is just maintaining the lifestyle in which he grew up. He never dreamed of going beyond the maintenance level. He never dreamed of prospering to the point where he would not have to work an eight-hour-a-day job. He never dreamed of being able to minister to people the way he had always wanted, to really help people and touch the lives of others, yet still have the finances he needed for his family.

His vision was so small that some of the things he really wanted to do were totally out of the picture. Since he had no vision of doing better, he never even tried to do those things which would improve his situation and allow him to help people.

Your vision is manifested in the way you are living right now. You have a vision to live in a small house or a big one, a vision to have children or to have no children, a vision to stay single or to marry or to be divorced.

People who get divorced always plan it. You might not be aware or conscious of the plan, but you do have a plan, or you would not be divorced. You do not get divorced by accident. You have a vision for that. It is a part of your thinking. It is your point of view. It is the way you look at things. If there was no divorce in your outlook, there would be no divorce in your life.

I pray that you will receive this teaching. I pray: "Holy Spirit, help each person who reads this truth to have a spirit of wisdom and revelation so that he or she may change or develop a vision that will improve the future."

It is not my intention to make anyone feel condemned or guilty about things that have gone wrong and say, "Oh, it was my fault. I am no good. I am so unworthy."

That is not what is important. You can change those things with a new vision, a new point of view. A new vision can overcome even the things that were out of your control and that came when you did not want them to come. You cannot control all circumstances. You might get laid off from a job, but you can decide through the vision in your heart to have a better job. You can overcome.

If you never get to the place where you believe what is in your heart, you will never change the things that come into your life. If you never realize that it is up to you, then you will never get out of your present circumstances. If you always blame the Lord or always blame the devil or always blame some other person, you will never change the vision in your heart.

Let me say it like this: The poor man brings forth poor things until he is tired of poverty. Then he gets a big, prosperous treasure and begins bringing forth some prosperity instead.

Get Involved With The Holy Spirit

Acts chapter 2 tells of Peter's sermon on the Day of Pentecost. He stood up in front of all of those thousands of people after the disciples had been baptized with the Holy Spirit and begun praying with new tongues. Peter said, And it shall come to pass in the last days, saith God, I will pour out of my Spirit upon all flesh. When did the last days start? Right then, when he prophesied it, the last days started.

Peter said:

But this is that which was spoken by the prophet Joel;

And it shall come to pass in the last days, saith God, I will pour out of my Spirit upon all flesh: and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams.

Acts 2:16,17

The Holy Spirit will give you prophecy, He will give you dreams and visions. It does not matter whether you are a man or a woman, the Holy Spirit wants to give you prophecies, visions, and dreams, but you have to be involved with Him to get them. You have to be praying and seeking. You have to be hungry. They that hunger and thirst will be filled. They that seek will find. They that knock will have the door opened. If you pray and seek the Holy Spirit, a vision will begin to rise up in your heart.

I found I was supposed to be a pastor through seeking the Holy Spirit daily, not through some supernatural happening or through some voice out of heaven. As I prayed, the Holy Spirit's dream began to rise up in my heart. I began to see that I was to be a pastor, and I began to see a church that was fired up, a church that was growing, a church that was powerful, a church that was wild. I began to see a church that was not religious. I began to see a church that could help the Body of Christ around the world through teaching people to renew their minds.

Now we get more than a hundred invitations a year for me to speak somewhere around the world. If I accepted every invitation, I would be gone twice a week. I would be on the road so much, I would not have time to be a pastor. I do not even like to travel, but it all came because of the vision to help people learn how to change and how to renew their minds.

What is important to me personally is right here in Seattle — pastoring, daily teaching, ministering on television, weekly feeding of the flock. This is all because of a vision, all because of a dream in my heart, which is going to keep right on growing and expanding. As long as we stay involved with the Holy Spirit, He will give us the vision.

Visions are the language of the Holy Spirit. Businessmen, get involved with the Holy Spirit. He will show you how your business should grow. He will show you how to get those salesmen. He will show you how to get those managers, those contracts, those bids.

Do not talk about all of your problems and all your debts and all your miseries. Let the Holy Spirit begin to bring a vision and a dream into your heart.

CHAPTER 7

SIX STEPS TO BRINGING

FORTH YOUR VISION

I want to give you six simple points that will help you develop, change, or bring forth a vision in your life. Write these down in the front of your Bible or in a notebook, put them on your mirror, stick them on your dashboard, keep them close to you so that you can use them. These points have become so integrated into my Christian life that building a vision of ministry and of family life is just a part of me. If you will take these points and put them into practice, they will become something you live each day and will begin to produce fruit.

Number One:

Find the Holy Spirit's Will and Desire for You

In developing or changing your vision, the first thing is to pray regularly for the revelation of the Holy Spirit's will and desire for you.

Peter's sermon on the Day of Pentecost (Acts chapter 2) not only informed the people of his day but all those since who have received Christ that the "last days" had begun and that the Holy Spirit had come and was here for all who would receive Him. Sons and daughters, men and women, old and young, every person born again in the new race of Abraham could receive prophecy, visions, and dreams.

If you ask for the Holy Spirit to work in you, if you open yourself up to Him, if you will get involved with Him, He will give visions and dreams to you. Pray regularly, daily, even two or three or four times a day, to understand the Holy Spirit's will and desire for you.

You may wonder why, if the Spirit is being poured out upon all flesh, everyone is not receiving Him. Why are there people v/ho have never been born again? Why are there Christians who have never been baptized with the Holy Spirit? Why are there Christians who never pray in other tongues when, since the day Peter preached, God has been pouring out His Spirit upon all flesh?

Those who have not received have not been seeking. They have not been willing to receive, or they have been ignorant of the fact that they could receive. If they knew about the Holy Spirit, and if they were willing to receive Him, they could have entirely new lives.

When you begin to seek the Holy Spirit's plan, His desire, His prophecy, His visions and dreams for your life, you will begin to see what He wants for you. As you pray regularly, His plan will become clear and begin to be formed in you. Then it will be crystallized and revealed in your heart, and you will begin to see with your mind what He has in store for you.

As a young Christian, I prayed every day in the Spirit, and I prayed every day with my understanding. That is what Paul says in 1 Corinthians 14. My wife, Wendy, and I would go to Bible School and meet in the prayer room together. We prayed each morning in the Spirit and with the understanding.

Wherefore let him that speaketh in an unknown tongue pray that he may interpret.

For if I pray in an unknown tongue, my spirit prayeth, but my understanding is unfruitful.

What is it then? I will pray with the spirit, and I will pray with the understanding also: I will sing with the spirit, and I will sing with the understanding also.

1 Corinthians 14:13-15

In my third year of school, I began to say, "I am going to become a pastor."

Up until then, I had just said, "I am going to help people. I am going to minister to people. I am going to give to people."

I did not know exactly how I was going to do that or what I was going to do, but the more I prayed and the more time I spent with the Holy Spirit, the clearer His vision for me became. In the fourth year of Bible school, it became clear that God wanted me to start a church. That vision became clear to me. I just knew it.

I began handing out flyers advertising the church before we even rented a building, because I saw the vision that the Spirit of God had for me.

As you pray regularly, His vision for you will become clear. Then you have to make a decision to obey. The decision to go for the vision is a part of the communication with the Holy Spirit. Once the vision is clear, GO. Some of you have been praying over the last months and years, and the Holy Spirit has been putting a desire in your heart.

Some of you have become aware that the Lord wants you to start a business, to stop punching the clock for other people and start punching the clock for you and Him. Perhaps that desire is getting clearer and clearer. Pretty soon you will know what that business should be and where it should be. Then you can go out into the world and start running toward that vision. You can start bringing about the manifestation.

Christians who do not know what they should be doing have not spent the necessary time with the Holy Spirit seeking His will and desire for them. If you have not found a direction or a plan from God, it is not because it is not there, it is because you have not asked or sought or knocked. Pray regularly, and the Holy Spirit will make His dream real in your heart.

You can do that for a family as well as a ministry or a career. You husbands and wives who want children, begin seeking the Holy Spirit. He will let you know when to have children, He will let you know how to prepare, He will show you how to raise happy, healthy, and prosperous kids. Children can be a tremendous joy when parents have a Godly vision in their heart, or children can be a tremendous hassle if parents are not spiritually prepared.

Number Two:

Meditate Daily on God's Word and Will for You

Faith comes by hearing and hearing and hearing and hearing and hearing . . . and hearing again. Meditate daily.

Sometimes, people say, "I don't believe in that meditation stuff."

Actually, you are meditating all the time. Everyone meditates. The real question is, "What do you meditate on?" It is impossible not to meditate. Meditate means "to think about, to ponder, to imagine, to run something over and over in your mind, to chew on a thought like a cow chews its cud." That is meditating, so you are meditating all the time. Some of you meditate about breakfast while you sit in a Sunday morning church service, or you meditate about lunch. You meditate about your work and all kinds of things ra*s °r than what the preacher is talking about.

Sometimes you can meditate so hard that you lose track of your surroundings. I have been preaching and said, "All of you that are sleeping, say Amen," and some people will say, "Amen." Their minds were somewhere else during the sermon, but they heard "Say amen," so they said it. Have you ever been driving somewhere and suddenly realized you were there? You may say, "How did I get here?" or "Gee, that was a fast trip!" Your mind was concentrating so heavily on something, and you were so absorbed that you did not even know you were driving your car. You were on "automatic pilot."

So the question is not whether you will meditate or not. The question is: on what will you meditate? If you will meditate daily on God's Word and on His will for you, you will be developing your vision for God's best. You will be building, expanding, enlarging your vision to bring forth God's best for your life.

Look at the first Psalm, which is such a familiar passage to most Christians that they no longer consider what it really says.

Blessed is the man (or the woman) that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor standeth in the way of sinners, nor sitteth in the seat of the scornful.

But his delight is in the law (the Word) of the Lord; and in his law doth he meditate day and night.

Psalm 1:1,2

When do you meditate? Only Sundays and Wednesdays? Fifteen minutes in the morning? What does the verse say? Day and night. That means all the time, because if it is not day, it is night, and if it is not night, it is day. Meditate on the Word day and night.

Of course, your mind is going to be on other things during the day, but the principle is to keep God's Word at the forefront. If you do that, you can see from God's Word what will happen.

And he shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water, that bringeth forth his fruit in his season; his leaf also shall not wither; and whatsoever he doeth shall prosper.

Psalm 1:3

The Word does not say, "he might be," or "he could be," but he shall be like a tree planted by rivers of water. Then what does the Word say that man does? He bringeth forth his fruit in his season. He brings forth. The good man out of the good treasure brings forth good things. The man that meditates in the Word day and night is like a tree that brings forth fruit. He does not bring forth problems. He does not bring forth accidents. He does not bring forth dilemmas. He does not bring forth bills and poverty and struggles. He brings forth fruit.

And his leaf will not wither. He does not wrinkle and dry up. He stays strong. He stays healthy. He lives a long life. His leaf will not wither. Oh, I like the last phrase! Whatsoever he doeth shall prosper. Do you believe the Bible? Did God lie in Psalm 1:3? NO. Then, if we meditate in the Word day and night, we will be like a tree, we will bring forth fruit, and whatsoever we do shall prosper. All we have to do is —- do it.

We have time to meditate on television, but we do not have time to meditate on the Word of God. Americans are watching eight hours of television each day, fifty-six hours a week on the average. But they do not have time to meditate on the Word of God.

As a man thinketh, so is he. If you fill your mind with television, all you are going to get is a mediocre, negative life. Meditate on the Word of God, and whatever you do will prosper. I dare say that if every parent who is having problems in the home would meditate on what the Word says about being a parent and having children, they would know what to do. But most of them do not meditate the Word. They watch police shows or the evening news to see who is bombing whom or who has been shot that day.

If you meditate on the bad, you will keep producing more and more bad. It is like a pregnant woman who is a Christian but does not meditate on the Word. Instead, she meditates on what the doctor tells her could go wrong. She becomes afraid and then goes and talks to other mothers.

She might say, "I kind of felt this way. Did you?"

And the other lady says, "Yeah, I felt like that. It was right before this or that."

Those mothers keep meditating on the problems and get to the hospital and start having problems, and the doctors come in and say, "Yes, I knew it was going to happen."

The woman is saying, in essence, "The thing that I feared is coming on me. I am going to have to go through this."

Then Christians tend to say, "Lord, why did you let this happen?"

The reason something bad or hurtful happened was lack of meditating on the Word. Instead, the person meditated on the evil. Problems and difficulties do not have to bring forth more difficulties. They can be used to bring forth joy, happiness, peace, and fun times, but you have to decide on what to meditate.

What are you going to meditate on?

Number Three:

Find A Role Model

To begin to build a new vision and see a new future, you need an example, or what is called a "role model." Jesus in Matthew 4:19 told the disciples Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men. How were the disciples to become fishers of men? By watching Jesus, by following Jesus, so they could become like Him — fishers of men.

Paul said to follow him as he followed Christ. (2 Tim. 2:1,2.)

He knew that Christians need an example, someone to look to as a role model, before they can learn how to become happy Christians. He told Timothy to be an example to the believers. (1 Tim. 4:12.) When the believers watched Timothy live his life, then they would know how to live their lives. In whatever area you are developing a vision, you need an example or a role model.

If you are a young mother, find a righteous older woman who has had children or who is in the process of raising a family, and learn from her. That is why Titus said to let the older women teach the younger.

Titus 2:3-5.). He did not say "old," he said "older." A 25-year-old woman is older than a 21-year-old.

In whatever area you develop a vision, find an example. Businessmen, find someone in your field of business, and make him your example. Learn from him, watch him, pattern yourself after him. How does he walk? How does he talk? How does he negotiate? How does he make decisions? If he is prosperous, and you do what he does, you will prosper. I am not talking about copying or emulating. I am talking about having an example or a role model. You have to keep your own personality and your own specifics as the Holy Spirit leads, but you can learn from someone else's example.

Whatever I want to do, I find someone who is doing good, and I follow that person. When I was 23 or 24 and first wanted to start a church, I went to another city for a meeting because I heard that Fred Price would be there. I did not know him, and of course, he did not know me. I was at the meeting every night, and he was too busy for me to even say hello to him. However, I was praying! I had a vision to meet him.

The very last night of the meeting, the pastor of the church where the meetings were being held came up to me and said, "Would you come and sit on the platform?"

I said, "I don't want to look at the speaker's back all night."

The pastor said, "Yes, but we are out of room. If you come up here and sit, we can give someone else your seat. You are going to be a minister, so you could sit up here with the ministers, and a visitor could have your chair."

So I said, "Okay," trying to be a nice guy.

When Fred Price came onto the platform, he stood right next to me. All of a sudden, I thought, "Here is my chance."

The service was going on, the congregation was singing, but I leaned over to him and said, "Fred, my name is Casey Treat, and I am just starting in the ministry. I began a church a little while ago, and I need to know how to be a pastor — and I want to find out from you."

Fred turned back to me and said, "You should come down to Los Angeles and see my church, and I will talk with you and show you about pastoring."

The service was going on, and we were up there talking! My vision was coming to pass right on the platform.

A few weeks later, we visited Fred Price's church, Crenshaw Christian Center in Los Angeles. A couple of months later, I was ordained there. Since then, we have been back to visit Fred's church a number of times, and he has visited my church in Seattle. We have become friends. He has been an example and an inspiration to me.

Then I thought, "There is more. I know there is more that we can be doing in ministry. I know our church can grow more," so I began to look for another example.

1 said, "If you arc going to have a growing church, you might as well go to the top," so who has the largest church in the world? Dr. Paul Yonggi Cho of South Korea.

No one in my area had developed a relationship with Dr. Cho. No one had ever brought him here to minister in the northwestern United States. But I had a vision. I began to see him as an example and a role model, and that created a relationship. Now, he has been here twice to minister.

A funny thing is that many pastors in this area who say they want their churches to grow were too busy to meet the pastor of the largest church in the world! Did they really have a vision? No, I believe they just had vain words. Those with a vision find an example, a role model, and they learn.

When I am around Dr. Cho, I listen and watch and learn. When I am in Korea, I watch and learn. What do you do when there are hundreds of thousands of people to teach and minister? I watched Dr. Cho to find out.

Mothers, fathers, businessmen, salesmen, saleswomen, ministers, teachers — find an example.

Jesus made the disciples fishers of men. A prosperous man can show you how to prosper. A good father can show you how to be a good father. A good businessman can show you how to be a good businessman. Get yourself a picture, an example, a role model.

Number Four:

Discuss Your Vision With Faith People

Do not talk to unbelievers about your vision. They will just tell you that it will not work. Discuss your vision with faith people — people who know the Word of God, who live the Word of God, and who are changing according to the Word of God. Discuss your vision until it is clear in your mind. Talking with people is like focusing the lens on a camera. The more you talk about the things you like to do, the clearer your vision will become.

As you talk and share and discuss, you are focusing the lens. What starts out as foggy or vague, something you are not too sure about, pretty soon becomes an outline. Then you can get a good grasp on it, and soon the picture comes in sharp and clear. You can see exactly what the vision is, but if you never discuss it, never share, never communicate or get involved with people about your vision, it will always be foggy or hazy. That is why fellowship is so important.

If you take a picture of something out of focus, you do not get good results. Many of you have launched out to do something that was your vision, but you had not talked about it until it was clear. You took a picture out of focus, and you were not too pleased with the results. Talk about your vision. Discuss it. What does Proverbs 18:21 say? Death and life are in the power of the tongue. As you talk and discuss, you clarify and put life into that vision until you can see it clearly.

Whenever something is wrong, I start talking. When things are not working out right, I start talking. I begin to discuss and to share with others, and as I talk, I can see where I am missing it. I see where I have been unclear. I see where I have gone wrong. I see where I have made a mistake. As I share and discuss and see the problems, the situation is clarified. I get the answer and can go get the vision straightened out.

Number Five:

Confess Ownership Of The Vision

Confessing ownership is different than talking about your vision. Confessing it means it is now yours. It is no longer, "I am thinking about starting a business." Now, it is "I am starting a business. I am a business owner. I am doing this." Now you own the vision. Now you have to do something or keep quiet.

A lot of us never get to the place where we own the vision, and that is because we do not want to have to do it. That is the difference between fantasy and vision. A fantasy is something you always would like to do, but you will never own. A vision is something you would always like to do, then you go do it, and you own it.

A lot of people talk about the Lord. They say, "The good Lord," "the Man upstairs," but they never own Him as Lord and Savior. So they are not really born again, are they? He is never really theirs, and they are not His.

They may say, "I grew up in church. I know all about the Lord."

You ask, "Is Jesus your Lord?" They may answer, "Well, yes, sure."

But if you ask them to confess it, they will say, "Well, I just don't believe it that way."

"But the Bible says, 'Confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord, and you will be saved.' "

"Well, you don't have to do that."

What are they saying? They will not admit that He is Lord. They will not possess the leadership of Christ, so they are not really Christians.

If you will not say, "I am a minister," you have no vision to be one. You may have a fantasy, but you do not have the vision yet.

If you will not say, "I am a teacher. I teach the Word" even before you actually begin to do it, then you will never own it. The seed will never produce fruit. It will never come to pass. You have to confess ownership.

After I saw that the vision of the Holy Spirit for me was to be a pastor, I began to say, "I am a pastor," before I ever had a church.

Some people would look at me skeptically and say, "Whatever you say."

As I confessed it, I began to own the vision, and it came to pass. We said, "We have our own church building," a long time before we ever had it. We said, "We have a church. We are building a church building."

People would ask, "Got any money," and we would have to say, "No."

"Got any land?"

"No."

"Know what you are going to build?" "No."

What were we saying? We were speaking out our vision: We have a church building; we are building it in Jesus' name.

We said that about a television ministry. We said that about a Christian school. We are starting a Christian school. Did we have any teachers? No. Did we have a principal? Not yet.

"What do you mean you are starting a Christian school?"

"I am."

Now we have more than four hundred kids in our school every day. If you do not confess, or own up to your vision, you will never bring it forth. Why? Because you will not commit yourself. Once you say, "It is mine," you are committed. Once you are committed, you will see some action. Things will begin to happen.

As long as you are fantasizing, it will never come to pass: "I have a dream. Someday, I really want to give to the church; some day, I am going to really help people; some day, I am going to really get faithful in the youth ministry; I am going to start my own business some day and stop punching this old time clock." It will never come to pass. It sounds so spiritual, but you are simply waltzing around on a fantasy trip, never owning the vision; therefore, never bringing it forth.

Number Six:

Write It Down Simply And Concisely

Simply and concisely. Concise means "to the point, extracting all superfluous data, getting down to the nitty gritty." I love that word, concise.

Habakkuk was a minor prophet in the Old Testament, but he had the right idea.

. . . Write the vision, and make it plain upon tables, that he may run that readeth it.

Habakkuk 2:2

If you never write down your vision, it is like never confessing it. You do not own it. A lot of people say,

"Now, Brother Treat, I know what my vision is. I don't have to write it down."

Why would you be afraid to write it down?

"Well, I mean, it is just useless. You do not have to do that."

If you do not write it down, you are not committed to it. It is like telling your wife you will take out the garbage while she is gone somewhere. When she comes back, she says, "You did not take out the garbage."

You say, "Huh? Well I did not say when. I'll get to it."

When you write it down, you are stuck with what you wrote. Most of us do not write down our goals or our visions, because we want to change them along the way just in case we are not really producing it. If it is not written down, we can always change it so that by the end of the year, we can say, "I accomplished my goals."

What were your goals?

"This and that."

There is really no way of checking from where you started because you did not write it down. I believe that the more often your write your vision, the quicker you will bring it to pass. I write mine down regularly. I write it over and over. Every time I write it down again, a new idea comes, a new point of view, a new thought, a new plan, an expanded version. The more you write it, the quicker you will bring it to pass.

I want you to picture this: in the body of each person is a human spirit. If you are born again, your spirit is one with the Holy Spirit. As you confess your vision, as you write your vision, as you meditate and see your vision, you are releasing your spirit by the power of the Holy Spirit to bring that vision forth.

Or picture it like this: Your mind is like the computer that controls the broadcasting of your abilities, or controls the sending out of spiritual radar. As you meditate on the vision, confess it, and see it, you send out spiritual power. Your faith goes out. Hope goes out. Confidence goes out. Creativity goes out. Then you begin to create or attract everything you need to bring that vision to pass. Spiritual power goes out of you.

If you are meditating on evil, do you know what comes out of you? Evil forces — doubt, unbelief, faith for the negative (fear) — that create problems.

People who grew up in a home of alcoholism said, "I will never be like my dad."

But they got a vision in their subconscious minds about alcoholism, and they sent out power that caused their reaction to circumstances to turn them to alcohol or drugs. They have turned out just like their programmed vision.

People who grew up being abused said, "I would never do that to my kids."

But they got a vision, and that vision goes out and creates problems. They end up being just what their vision is. Make sure that you are meditating, confessing, seeing, and writing your vision, the thing that you want. That is what your spirit is going to go to work on to bring to pass. Write down or see or meditate on the thing you do not want, and your spirit will work just as hard to bring that to pass.

The world tries to explain that phenomenon psychologically or psychiatrically. They call it psycho-cybernetics or ESP. They call it mind over matter. They call it all kinds of things. But they are trying to explain with a natural man's brain what God explained in the Bible. You cannot explain it truthfully in any way but God's way.

God's Spirit went out and brooded on the face of the deep and created a beautiful world. Your spirit is going out to create whatever world you are meditating on, a depressed world or a happy world, a poor world or a rich world. Of course, I do not mean a literal world like this one that God created. I mean your own world, your own sphere of influence.

So write it down, and the more you write it down, the more you are going to bring it to pass.

Table of Contents

CHAPTER 1

CHAPTER 2

CHAPTER 3

CHAPTER 4

CHAPTER 5

CHAPTER 6

CHAPTER 7