I definitely need to preface the presentation of the following list with the understanding that I’m not saying that these traits are ungodly or undesirable; but as the church in America has in many instances veered dangerously close to becoming a cult of personality, I think it is important to understand that these characteristics are only worthwhile to the degree that they are brought into submission to Christ Jesus, and the power of His Holy Spirit.
- Knowledgeable: Though warnings about the danger of being led astray by our emotions seem to be more prevalent in the church today, the scripture puts a far greater emphasis on how our thoughts and ideas can pull us off track. The Bible cautions us that knowledge can puff a man up, warns us not to lean on our own understanding and reminds us that even in the best case scenario our perspective will only be a partial piece of a much bigger picture. In Jesus’ time, the Pharisees were the most knowledgeable authorities on matters of scripture and yet they were unable to discern the very One those scriptures pointed to, even as He stood before them. Though I’m not an advocate of empty-headed theology, we cannot put our hope in what we know and/or understand. In fact, Jesus said that anyone who will not receive His kingdom like a little child will not enter it.
- Practical: While I tend to be a fan of what most people refer to as “common sense”, my enthusiasm is tempered by the understanding that God’s ways are much higher than ours and thus what He wants may not always make sense to me. The Bible goes so far as to say that there is a way which naturally seems right to a man, but that it will ultimately lead to death. In the well known Bible story of Mary and Martha, we see Martha take the more practical approach with her guest, only to have Jesus tell her that Mary had made the wiser choice. We too can fall into that same trap, as we endeavor to serve God when we really need to be cultivating our relationship with Him.
- Confident: Undoubtedly God wants us to be confident about some things, but I’ve noticed that those things are always centered on Him. He wants us to know that we can come “boldly” before His throne of grace; that He will never leave us, nor forsake us; and that He works all things to the good of those who love Him and are called to His purposes. The problem with confidence is when it drifts from who He is and what’s He’s accomplished for us to who we think we are and what we want to accomplish. While God has indeed given us good gifts, our confidence cannot be in the quality of those gifts, but in His willingness to work through them. A common term for misplaced confidence is pride, which inevitably invites God’s resistance.
- Charismatic: One of the most misleading images in all of Christendom is the representation of Satan as a little horned creature with a pitchfork. The Bible says that our enemy comes disguised as an angel of light; that false prophets, performing signs & wonders, will deceive many; and that when the Anti-Christ comes, he will initially be perceived as a man of peace. The idea that evil will present itself in a way that is repugnant to us is foolishness and yet there seems to be an increasing willingness in our culture to place our confidence in those whose appearance is attractive and whose words seem compelling. Recent history is littered with examples of persona and personality eclipsing issues of character; but character is at the heart of God’s plan for us. The Bible says that it is the destiny of every Believer to be transformed into the image of Christ and that the fruit of God’s Spirit dwelling within us is Christ’s character being revealed through us. For a follower of Jesus Christ, an attractive appearance, an engaging personality and a persuasive argument, are hardly qualifications for leadership; ultimately it is the character of Christ that is the essential trait.
- Goal Oriented: As with all of the other traits on this list, setting goals certainly has its place within our lives; but the danger in becoming “goal oriented” is that our goals can take on an unhealthy prominence within our priority system. Goal oriented people often seem willing to sacrifice people and relationships for the sake of attaining their desired outcomes; and their focus on goals often seems to impair their ability to maintain a healthy perspective in other areas. The Bible tells us that we need to fix our eyes on Jesus, who is the Author and Finisher of our faith. It also says that the fulfillment of God’s law is found in loving Him and loving other people. Goals that are unrelated to these priorities threaten to be little more than distractions.
- Empowered: To be sure, it is God’s intent to grant His children access to the power of heaven, which He accomplishes through the in-dwelling of His Holy Spirit, but I believe that it is important to realize that there is nothing virtuous about the pursuit of power. The world loves power, Satan loves power, our flesh craves and responds to power. While we may rationalize that the pursuit of Gods power is somehow different, I would submit that isn’t necessarily true. The Bible warns that the heart can be deceptive and I believe that it is essential that we continually check our motivation. While we serve a God of power and while His power is inherent in the gifts that He’s given us, I don’t believe it was ever meant to be the object of our pursuit. Our pursuit needs to be after the person of Jesus Christ and of a loving, meaningful, personal relationship with Him. The fact that this power comes infused within His very being indicates that it was never His intent for us to implement that power apart from Him. Those who attempt to apply spiritual authority (i.e. power) in areas or ways that God has not ordained are at risk of unwittingly deriving their empowerment from “other” spiritual sources.
- Visionary: In our culture, the word “vision” can mean many things; it can mean how well we see (i.e. our visual acuity); or it can refer to a dreamlike state, where images permeate our conscious mind; or it can refer to our long term goals and the strategies for achieving them. Just as the term vision has multiple contexts, so has the term “visionary”. Whereas there was once a very spiritual connotation to the term, it now seems that anyone who has an active imagination or the ability to “visualize” their ideas can be viewed as a “visionary”. The problem with such visionaries is that they can tap into any number of sources for their vision. Visions that are not birthed from the Spirit of God, but are instead derived from observations, imaginations, aspirations… would probably be more accurately called wishes, dreams or fantasies. Proverbs 28 (NIV) addresses the idea of fantasies when it says, “one who chases fantasies will have his fill of poverty”. In view of this scripture, it would seem vital that we discern the origin of a “vision” before we choose to embrace it. I believe that apart from divine inspiration, a “visionary” will inevitably just build a monument to themselves
- Proactive: It is commonly held that God helps those who help themselves, but that’s not something that God chose to say about Himself (in scripture). In fact, the Bible says that they that wait on the Lord are the one’s who renew their strength and rise up as on the wings of eagles. It could be argued that the Israelites were being proactive when their attack on the Philistines caused them to lose the Ark of the Covenant; just as it could be said of Peter’s efforts to protect Jesus from the Temple Guard in the Garden of Gethsemane. While being proactive is generally viewed as an essential element of what we consider to be good leadership, for a “follower” of Christ, responsiveness (i.e. to God’s direction) is the greater virtue.
- Experienced: It has been said that with age comes wisdom and hopefully if we endeavor to learn along the way, this should be true. As I’ve gotten older, I’ve noticed certain patterns in life, which makes it easier to anticipate what might be around the next bend. But the walk of faith differs from our natural journey in that God isn’t necessarily bound to work in the same way twice. Throughout the Old Testament we see Him orchestrate victory for His people through many different means. In one case He brings Joshua victory through Moses upheld arms; in another the walls of Jericho fall to the shouts of His wandering tribes (Joshua 6); in yet another case the angel of death wipes out 185,000 enemy soldiers in their sleep because of Hezekiah’s prayer (2 Kings 18 & 19); while in still another instance their enemies turn on each other as Jehoshaphat leads the people onto the battlefield while praising the Lord (2 Chronicles 20). The danger for those who have experienced victory in their faith journey is that they might come to presume that they have found the formula for success with God. Today’s Christian Bookstores are filled with books (& other media) that have been built on the premise that, My Experience + God Moved = This is How to have Success with God. Since faith is an essential element for God’s pleasure, it seems unlikely that He would honor any sort of rote approach. Experience in our walk with God is only valuable to the extent that it convinces us that He is our only source, our only hope and our only goal.
- Open Minded: Jesus said that we must love God with all of our heart, soul & mind (Mat. 22:37); and that He wasn’t willing to do anything that He didn’t see the Father do first (John 5:19). This is not a picture of a mind that is open (i.e. receptive) to just anything, but of one that is reserved for a single purpose. The scripture also says that we must test everything by the Spirit (1 John 4:1); taking every thought captive, making it obedient to Christ; and demolishing every argument & pretense that exalts itself against the knowledge of God (2 Cor. 10:5). This is not a picture of an open door, but of a guarded gate. The open mind looks for “new truth”, while the Christ-centered mind seeks a greater revelation of the truth that has always been.
Bjcorbin's Blog 
Blurred Vision
Posted in Commentaries, tagged church growth, corporate, dream, goal oriented, goals, strategies, vision, visionary on February 13, 2025| Leave a Comment »
(Written many years ago)
One of the most effective tools of our enemy is the subtle redefinition of terms, especially those with biblical significance. Within this pattern we see a word from scripture infused into our cultural vernacular, where it can take on all sorts of new connotations (i.e. it is secularized). As such a term gains new relevance, there is often a renewed emphasis on its use within the church; but many times the word is not restored to its original context. An example of such a term is, “vision”.
Like many words, “vision” can have different meanings based upon its context. It can simply mean how well we see (i.e. our visual acuity); or it can refer to a dreamlike state where images permeate our conscious mind; or it can refer to our long term goals and the strategies we have for achieving them. I believe that this final context is the most popular, and that its attractiveness can largely be traced to the business world.
It is our human tendency to make successful people and/or entities into icons; and increasingly entrepreneurs have reached celebrity status within our society. They are often hailed as visionaries based solely on their perceived success, and often in spite of their character. These czars of popular culture rarely resist the urge to share their “vision” and often find a crowd willing to fall in line behind them.
Unfortunately the church is amongst the leaders in this trend; as church growth experts study the successes of corporate entities in hopes of replicating their success within the church. Though on a purely practical level this would seem to be a reasonable strategy, spiritually it is fraught with pitfalls.
While many might rationalize that there is nothing wrong with the church employing successful methodologies from the world; such a belief ignores that at the foundation of every methodology is a philosophy or ideology; and that embracing the method in the natural generally equates to embracing the corresponding philosophy in the spiritual (i.e. in essence we put our faith in it).
The other problem is the aim of these strategies. Corporate entities in the world are looking to attract consumers, to grow their businesses and to appeal to the masses. Churches who’ve successfully deployed such methods have often achieved those same ends; producing consumers instead of disciples.
In the corporate world, the leaders (or visionaries) come together and cast the vision for the organization. This is the exercise of visualizing where they want to go, what they want to achieve and then developing a strategy for getting there. Once again this seems to be a very sensible approach for any corporate entity, including the church; but it ignores many principles of scripture.
God clearly states that our ways are not His ways; that the wisdom of men is foolishness to Him and He warns us not to be taken captive through “hollow and deceptive philosophy, which depends on human tradition and the basic principles of this world rather than on Christ”. He tells us not to be focused on what is seen (i.e. in the natural), but to be focused on what is unseen (i.e. the spiritual). He tells us that not only is our struggle in the spiritual realm, but also that our tools, weapons and authority are in that sphere as well. Sadly, when the church chooses to study and deploy worldly strategies to gain influence in the natural realm, we unwittingly lay down our weapons and forfeit our authority in the spiritual realm.
The scripture I’ve most often heard quoted in regard to the word “vision” is from Proverbs 29 (KJV), where it says, “Where there is no vision, the people perish”. I’ve heard many leaders use this scripture in the context of talking about long term goals and strategies, but that doesn’t seem to be an appropriate application. The Hebrew word translated as “vision” in the King James actually speaks of a revelation from God; and other translations actually use the word “revelation”.
If our long term goals and strategies were established through revelation from God, it could be argued that these meanings are synonymous; but in terms of teaching the scripture, there is a large difference between the idea that people perish because they don’t have long term goals and strategies, and that people perish because they don’t get revelation from God. The Lord has not entrusted the leadership and guidance of His children to anyone apart from Himself and thus the vision for our lives and His church must come directly from Him.
Just as the term vision has taken on a new context, so has the term “visionary”; whereas there was once a very spiritual connotation to the term, it now seems that anyone who has an active imagination or the ability to “visualize” their ideas can be viewed as a “visionary”. The problem with such visionaries is that they can tap into any number of sources for their vision.
Visions that are not birthed from the Spirit of God, but are instead derived from our minds, emotions, observations, experiences, imaginations… could more accurately be called goals, plans, wishes, dreams or fantasies. Surprisingly, Proverbs 28 (NIV) addresses the idea of fantasies when it says, “one who chases fantasies will have his fill of poverty”. In light of these two scriptures (i.e. Prov. 28 & 29), it would seem vital that we discern the origin of our “vision”; because apart from divine inspiration, a visionary will inevitably build a monument to themselves.
It is very much within our nature to want detailed information about the future; as such detailed plans for the future can seem very appealing. But God’s interest in developing our faith makes such detail counterproductive. He told Abraham to leave his home, but He did not tell him where he was going; He gave Joseph a dream of the future, but no road map or time table for getting there; When Paul had the desire to go preach in Asia, the Spirit would not let him, instead he was given a dream of a man in Macedonia and nothing more… over and over we see God give His servants a vision and then expect them to rely on Him to guide them to that vision. Even Jesus said that He didn’t do anything that He didn’t see the Father do first.
While God can and does give us a vision for the future, we must understand that our view of it is partial at best (i.e. we know in part, we prophesy in part, we see as through a glass dimly). While the world casts a vision and then stays focused on it, we as children of God must remain focused on Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith. If we become too locked into our vision, we can easily become task driven instead of driven by the Holy Spirit; goal oriented instead of people oriented and so focused on our long term goals that we miss what God is doing today.
If we find ourselves stepping over, around, or through, people to bring about our vision, I’d suggest that we’ve lost our eternal perspective. I do believe the Lord has a vision for our lives and His church, but that the biggest obstacle to His plan is our plan. Without His guidance, the best we can achieve is a bigger and busier church. Yet with His guidance, we can change the world. Unless the house is built using the Lords plan, we labor in vain.
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