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Imagination: God's Gift to Us

by Ray Cleghorn
10/03/2023 / Christian Apologetics

That deep desire to do or be a certain thing that lingers inside of you was most likely placed there by God. He placed it there for you to pursue. The map for pursuing it begins with our imagining ourselves doing that very thing. Our imagination is a gate we can enter that discloses the road toward our desired future, maybe even our destiny.

Have you ever thought much about your imagination? All too often, we have thought of it as just a form of mental entertainment that has no real value except to pass the time away during an idle period.

Folks who use their imagination are often labeled daydreamers or people who are detached from reality. In fact, the reality is that it is a very important part of our God-given makeup. It’s a window that reveals a pathway that, if followed, can lead to future successful endeavors. As strange as that might sound to you now, you very well may find that your imagination can be a pathway to your destiny.

Your Imagination is The Door to Your Future

When you stop to think about it, you realize that almost everything you do and every action you take, you see yourself doing it before you do it. Only automatic responses and reflex actions are exempt. Every action is quickly acted out in your mind’s eye for your approval or disapproval as a next step in your journey on earth. The devil likes to take advantage of this to entice you onto the wrong path by showing you something wrong disguised as something right that looks appealing to your flesh, your ego, etc.

When you consider it, for every sin you ever committed, you saw yourself doing it before you did it. Every good thing also passed through that TV screen in your mind and your imagination. These animated, short scenes generally pass through our minds very quickly with little time to ponder, but the choice you made when you gave it a thumbs up or thumbs down always led you into a future activity of some sort. Sometimes it takes you into the immediate future, sometimes the distant future, but it takes you to someplace in time that’s laid out like a road before you. The road you choose to travel at this point in time leads you to the place where that action will take place. It doesn’t matter if it’s good or bad. It will happen in some form.

Have you ever had a random thought of how nice it would be to have an apple or an ice cream cone? As soon as you did, where did a nice, juicy red apple or frosty ice cream cone appear? In your mind’s eye, your imagination, and if you approved the idea, it shortly came to pass because you began to believe you could have it. Then you decided you would have it and began to prepare to acquire it in the here and now. You visualized it first, then walked into the future and brought it into reality in the present.

This is a simplified version of how most everything evolves in our lives, both physical and spiritual. The only difference is that some things, like an ice cream cone, are well within our power to obtain, but things in the spiritual realm or objects beyond our power to obtain require prayer, petition, and faith in God to bring them to fruition. But it all begins in the same place, in that special God-given place within you, your imagination. When you step forward in faith and make mental and physical preparations for it to become a reality, angels are released to help bring it about in the natural plane.

Unfortunately, this is also true with negative, self-abasing imagination as well. Evil forces will take notice and accept it as their assignment. It is still true that we have what we say so, say what God says about you and let your imagination work with it for a positive conclusion.

It is also advisable to thank God for it before it manifests in this realm. If you are believing for a healing, see yourself healed and well in your mind’s eye. Speak into the atmosphere that you are healed or that you have what you asked for. Declare it to be so even before there is solid evidence that it is so. Contend for it. Call it forth in faith, see it (imagine it) as done, and thank God for doing it.

God has given us, His children, this powerful tool to help us guide our lives' paths and obtain what we need and desire. When we recognize that and use it as He intended, we win more often, and the devil loses more often.

So, don’t dismiss your imagination as trivial entertainment or amusing daydreams, but realize it is a God-given tool to help direct our paths. That’s why Paul said in Philippians 4:8 that we should think on these things, good things, and meditate on the Word. Because they lead us into a future that God has ordained for us. When we do as Paul said and meditate about things and use our imagination, it allows us to see what incentives He has placed before us, and then we begin to see ourselves walking down the path He laid out for us.

You will see yourself walking down that road and doing the good deeds you desire to do, instead of stumbling around in uncertain terrain or taking Satan’s false, deceptive route through a dense, dark forest of deceptions. This is true of any goal we desire to reach, whether it’s a spiritual goal or a practical matter.

Asking, Believing, Imagining, and Pursuing

Jesus said in Matthew 7:7, “Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you.” (NKJV)

Jesus gave us power and authority to operate in and affect things in the spiritual realm as well as in the natural physical realm. Our imagination plays an important part in our interactions with the spirit realm. We first visualize in our minds (imagination) the thing we are believing in, as if it were here now. Romans 4:17 (B) “and calls those things which do not exist as though they did.”

If it is in alignment with God, it is now factual in your future but hasn’t yet shown up in your present. If you can get it from your imagination to your spirit, by believing in faith, it will soon manifest into the present in the physical realm. When it becomes reality in your spirit, and you can feel it and see it clearly in your spirit, in the same place as imagination, but with a firmness or fullness that wasn’t there before, it will soon become reality in the natural physical realm.

Are all of Our Imaginations Good?

Is everything we see in our imagination something we should accept and pursue? No, certainly not, because the devil can and will drop deceptive, harmful images into our imagination to try to lead us into a destructive or injurious activity. That’s why Jesus said in the Lord’s Prayer, “Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one.” (Matthew 6:13) In other words, lead us away from, and don’t let us fall for or follow, the temptations the devil inserts into our minds. Don’t let us believe they are the right directions. Don’t let us be misguided and follow his leadership instead of the Lords.

Then there are those thoughts that originate from our soul: prejudices, fleshly desires, etc. Often, our desire for revenge against someone will lead us into temptation by showing us taking some physical action, such as hitting them or harming them or their property in some way. These improper imaginations have to be, as Paul said, “cast down” so that we don’t entertain them and fall into Satan’s trap, which always leads to damage, destruction, and harm.

Dreams

Dreams are displayed in our imaginations during sleep. Often, God will place something good in our dreams so that we can picture it in our minds as a goal or desire to work toward. A good example is Jacob’s dream about striped, spotted, and speckled sheep. When he imagined it to be so, believed it to be true, and pursued it in the natural, he became a very wealthy man. It pays to pay attention to the things God reveals in dreams and allows us to imagine them until we pursue their fulfillment. The enemy will also try to use our dream time to place non-productive, frightening, or generally bad dreams to try to pull us off track and onto the wrong path to a bad end. We only need to learn the difference, ignore the devil's insertions, and allow God to work out a good outcome for us.

If you have seen a goal and want to pursue it, it’s a good idea to write down your plan so that you can then imagine yourself doing the different steps and options of that plan so that you get a feel for what’s right and what’s not. Then you have a good guide to start with to enter the process of stepping into the future and bringing that plan into the present.

We are not talking here about fantasizing. I’m talking about believing. There is a big difference between believing and fantasizing. Believing is trusting in God and his provision. Fantasizing is the devil's poor substitute for believing. Both focus on the impossible or improbable, but believing God brings the impossible or improbable into reality for a good purpose in your life.

Fantasy is always nonproductive in that it is just like the carrot before the donkey. It is striving and searching for something that the enemy only uses to entice you in the wrong direction. If anything ever does develop from fantasy, it is going to be a nonproductive thing that will likely do much more harm than good.

The enemy warps the imagination and uses it to replace access to the future with a different entryway, a different portal, substituting the right door with a wrong door so that you follow the downhill path of the broad road that Jesus spoke of. It works the opposite of a godly image in our minds that leads to a positive thing added to our lives.

Believing is walking toward your goal and seeing yourself accomplishing that goal (in your imagination) until it becomes a reality. Abraham believed God, so God assigned it to him as righteousness (right standing) and allowed him to walk into his future, his destiny of becoming the father of many nations, believing and knowing it to be true; thus, it became and is still true today.

Almost everything in the spiritual realm begins as a wispy, unclear, or even foggy notion until we begin to see it as a possibility, then as a reality. It most often begins in our minds eye, our imagination, and becomes a reality as we believe God as Abraham did and do the things that we can in the natural realm until it manifests in the physical in our lives. It brings about things much better than ice cream cones and more important than daydreams.

Your sanctified imagination is indeed a doorway to accomplishing your God-given goals, even your destiny, when seen, believed, and acted upon with faith and focused action. Allow God to use your imagination, this incredible ability he gave you, to become all you are destined to be and to do all you are supposed to do during your journey on this earth.

Ray Cleghorn is a retired pastor with several books listed on Amazon.com and elsewhere. His books and articles topics range from theological and eschatological to contemporary issues facing Christians today.

Article Source: http://www.faithwriters.com-CHRISTIAN WRITERS

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