Empowered For The Vision by Apostle Johnson Suleman: MP3 Download & Sermon Notes

Not Your Agenda — His Agenda

You are not entitled to divine backing when it's about your own agenda. When it's about God's agenda, you get God's backing. God is only committed to what He has commanded.

No matter the depth of revelation released, no matter the abundance of teaching that comes — if you are not doing what you are sent to do, revelation is a waste.

God said go to one location, but challenges are saying go to another. Until you return to where you are sent, in God's script you have not yet started.

Challenges in a location should not remove you — they should rebuild you. Don't be removed when you are meant to be rebuilt.

If you are getting it wrong, it means you are not properly built. The purpose of a conference like this is that you be rebuilt — so that you go back and take charge, not to be removed.

God Does Nothing Twice

God created the world once. When the whole earth was wiped away, He did not create man again — He used Noah. Jesus walked on water — because before that, God had already parted the sea. So when Jesus saw the sea, God said: don't part it, walk on it. Because what I do, I do once.

When they were hungry, He brought down manna. When they needed to feed 5,000, He said: I need bread to multiply. I will not bring manna again.

When Peter was arrested, they knew he would go like James went if nothing was done — and prayers were made. God responded. But He did not repeat what He did before. Everything God does is once.

Vision Must Be Empowered

For every vision — no matter how clearly it has been shown to you — it needs empowerment. Living life to chance makes you a victim of it.

Motive is what separates vision from ambition. When you hear a minister say: I am tired of this place because I can't pay my children's fees — that is ambition. That is a concerned man in a survival contest, not a called man.

A called man is not looking at his pocket when things are going wrong around him. When things happen, his question is not about his financial condition — it is about his assignment.

That you are behind a pulpit does not make you a called man. There are many with a collar but no calling — caller without calling — driven by ambition. Those are the ones that will charge you to pray for you.

Vision vs. Ambition

Vision is when, even when things are going well financially, there is still a yearning in your spirit. There is still a vacuum in your heart. You still feel you are not doing enough.

What powers vision is burden. Burden. You hear a man pray 10 hours, 12 hours, 15 hours — it is burden that is driving him.

Ambition is triggered by comparison — I can't change car, I can't pay my children's fees. Vision is triggered by assignment — how can I be here and these things are happening? He is not looking at his pocket. He is looking at his purpose.

The Divine Agenda — Rachel and Joseph

Rachel was crying when her sister Leah had the firstborn. She was not aware that it was God's divine agenda. That generation, all the firstborns were cursed. God did not want her to have a cursed firstborn. God pushed Leah forward so that when Rachel came with her child, her child would not carry the curse of the firstborn.

Check all the children from first to fourth — curses. But when it came to Joseph, the firstborn of Rachel: a fruitful bough. Romans 8:28 — all things work together for good to them that love God and are the called according to His purpose.

Evil is evil. There is no good part of wrong. But God's sovereignty turns even what was meant to destroy into the vehicle of His plan.

The Fundamentals of Empowered Vision

Empowered vision runs on fundamentals. You can have a vision but without understanding the empowerment and the rudiments of its operation, you will have a vision that is counterproductive — not that God did not give it, but you lack the fundamentals to run with it.

• Return to your sent location — challenges should rebuild, not remove
• Examine your motive — is this vision or ambition?
• Pray until burden possesses you — burden is the fuel of true vision
• Trust that God is always doing something new — He does not repeat
• Accept that what looks like pain in the process is God's sovereign hand

In the name of Jesus — may you walk in God's divine plan. May you walk in God's ordained vision for your life. May you go back to where you are sent and take charge. May the challenges not remove you but rebuild you, in the name of Jesus.