When God gives us a vision, it's our prerogative to accept or reject it. If we receive it, it can change our lives. He is the ultimate Change Agent, bringing new life to old, inspiring us to reach out to Him in praise, obedience and service. His changes for us are realized as our priorities yield to His priorities and our lives are re-ordered to fit His desires, directives and commands.

Jesus said it well in Matthew 6:33: "But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness" (NKJV). Seeking God's kingdom, seeking His will, and actually seeking Him, means setting our priorities around God's ideals. It demands our first and single-hearted commitment. This is not easy for most of us because we live in a relativistic, post-modern society that assumes no absolutes, moral or otherwise.

Jeremiah tells us how we can connect with God. "And you will seek me and find Me, when you search for Me with all your heart" (Jer. 29:13, NKJV).

God calls for whole-hearted devotion. Nothing else and nothing less will do. It is the only way we can have access to God.

I used to think that seeking God first was something I could do. I now realize it is God who leads us to seek Him. He initiates and completes his work within us. He begins our salvation and He brings us into a deep level of purpose, for his pleasure. "For it is God who works in you both to will and to do for His good pleasure" (Philippians 2:13).

I don't believe that we decide of ourselves to seek God. We respond to God seeking us. This response often results in a revival—a re-awakening and renewal of our religious fervor. It causes us to return to our "first love" for God.

I recently re-read this statement: "A revival of true godliness among us is the greatest and most urgent of all our needs. To seek this should be our first work" (Ellen White, Selected Messages, Vol. 1, p. 16).

"The greatest and most urgent of all our needs." Something worth pondering, isn't it? I don't believe I have ever heard those word used in any other context. Our greatest need is always a revival of true godliness.

But to be truly like God is beyond my reach. So how do we do this work, a work of seeking a revival, of becoming godly or like God?

It's a work that is obviously extremely important to us. It seems to me that the process of exercising my will, choosing God over self is the most important step. Deciding daily to live for God, allowing the Holy Spirit to direct our activities, following His lead and submitting to Him are crucial for our salvation and to completing of the task he has given us. I have found that I must repeatedly seek the Lord throughout my day. Not because He moves from me, but because I move from Him. I pray repeatedly, not because He doesn't hear me the first time, but because I often don't hear Him the first time.

When I was in elementary school I often had class assignments to complete at home. We called it homework. Is there a Biblical and spiritual counterpart? I think so. I must spend time with God privately on a daily basis. My spiritual assignment is to "be still" in God's presence, acknowledging that He indeed is God. "Be still, and know that I am God; I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth" (Psalm 46:10).

I must allow Him to confront and change my thoughts, words and actions. To actually reshape me so that I can accept His will and ways for what they are: godliness. God will bring us into alignment with Him so that His agenda and ours become the same.

As this happens in our churches, our vision priorities will actually be His. Our churches will continually glorify God in all that we do—reaching, teaching, sharing and lifting up Jesus so others can know what we know about God—right here in the Pacific Union.