The Power of Imagination

Lst Thursday, God was showing me a new truth... You can't want what you can't see... and that applies both positively and negatively...

What we see is related to the things that we desire, even the things that we lust and covet after.. ever heard of induced hunger.. i know ho it feels like not to be hungry initially and den suddenly changing my mind cos someone is eating in front of me.. or even how my tummy would growl when i would watch cooking shows.. and there's a spiritual truth to that..

It's also reflected in the marketing principle "out of sight, out of mind" that's why marketeers would put important items that they want you to buy at the entrance of the supermarket cos when you pass it, you forget about it... there's something about the things we see, even what we see in our imaginations.. that's why lust is out there lurking behind many commercial advertisements.. just take a trip down orchard road and behold the posters... and that's how satan rides the wave of consumerism to bombard this generation with images of lust to destroy us...

God gave us an imagination that has latent power and it's up to us how we use it.. cos He's also a God with imagination.. He knew what He wanted the earth to look like before He made it.. and He spoke it forth and it was so... He's a creative God and we His children created in His image have a little bit of that creative nature in each one of us... and it stirs in our imagination, it brews there, incubates and matures there...

But Satan doesn't want God to have monopoly over our creative ability.. so we have a western education set up based solely on reasoning and logic... and many churched adapt this system, resulting in a dead, godless system without the fresh creative touch of God.. even in the singapore education system, people are taught how and what to think, people are thought to think in a linear manner... why? "cos we dun have the luxury of time and resources to think and imagine things.. to dream..." so satan wants to infiltrate the education and church system and kill imagination cos of its limitless creative potential, even in birthing forth the creative strategies of God in every area of life...

The imagination that satan cannot kill, he uses for his advantage.. he keeps occupied, trapped and in bondage to ungodly sinful thought patterns.. he bombards our senses so that we imagine creative ways of doing evil and of sinning.. Rom 1 talks about ppl who constantly invent new ways of sinning.. the book of romans also tells us not to think of how to gratify the desires of our sinful nature... cos just thinking about it is so dangerous cos that's how you might actually just do it... think of it this way: every sin that you have comitted has been imagined by you already before you have comitted them.. some for a longer time than others, but all have spent their time in your imagination nonetheless.. why? cos satan plants a seed in your heart (Matthew 13)while it is unguarded so that as you nurture it, it will bear fruit unto death (James 1)... when you imagine it, you'll end up wanting it... and you'll want it so badly enough that you're willing to do anything to make it happen! That's how powerful imagination is...

Why is it that many times, the world is more dilligent at imagining evil than the church is at imagining good?!!! Why is it that satan and his church on earth are so bent on trying to set up his evil kingdom while the true Church of God is more obsessed with parties and arguing about the colour of the carpet during a worship service than seeking to advance the Kingdom of God on earth. We are in a spiritual war. And some Christians are just as dilligent as the world in imagining evil. And apathy and passivity are just as horrible and fruitless... Remember the Virginia Tech incident? Someone had to imagine that first before it happened. What if we were just as dilligent in seeking Him for His life and strategies to reveal Him more and more to the world? If we only pursued God-things with a godly, sanctified imagination half as dilligently as the world did with evil, what would come of it??

But let's talk about the good it can do... how many times have we actually imagined positive things with our imagination.. like pondering in our hearts what our destiny might look like? like pondering in our hearts how the church might look like when everybody really loved one-another... like pondering in our hearts who we should bless next, who we can show God to next.. like pondering in our hearts creative ways to reach out to both believers and non-Christians alike.. like pondering in our hearts where we want to go and how revivla might look like with the Holy Spirit moving in fire, power and majesty.. how much time do we give picturing in our minds what we want to see in church in revival and what it takes to get there... now take the best things we've ever imagined and God's gonna give you something increasingly and abundatly beyond that (Ephesians 3)... but the seed that God plants in our hearts, will we dream of it? will we seek Him for its maturity? will we empower it, nurture it, water it and incubate it in our imagination and allow faith to arise to see the impossible be manifested?

Think of it this way... Alexander Grahambell had to imagine the telephone first before it came to be.. and God took what he has imagined and multiplied it so that now it's a modern wireless technological innovation with more than one function. that's increasingly beyond what Alexander Grahambell thought of.. but God used Him to bring the technology out and multiplied it so that now we have many technological innovations springing out in the area of telecommunications.. now pause, look around you. look at all the modern things you have, even this computer by which you are viewing this. at one point in time, something like this was impossible.. but it has entered into the heart of some willing person and God multiplied it to be what it is now..

Are you willing to be His vessel to bring blessing to the world? We are at the edge of another creative revolution, another renaissance where the people of God, by revelation, would release new things into the world... no eye has seen, no ear has heard but are you willing for the Spirit to plant it in your heart and trust Him to bring it to pass and to fruitfulness? Is your heart good soil? Are you willing to allow Him to stir your gift of imagination for His purposes? again you'll see something.. maybe it's a spark of inspiration, a little hope, a little impression... but as you think about it, incubate it and see it in your imagination, you'll desire more to see it birthed into reality.. then you'll want it badly enough to give yourself over to that dream so that its no longer just you carrying that dream but the dream possesses you, it comsumes you.. and you allow it to cos it's part of who God is... and you'll want that dream fulfilled badly enough that you're willing to apply yourself to it, whatever it takes, whatever the cost.. until such a time that you see it come to pass and you see God's hand in the process and at the end when he multiplies it.. so that eventually, it becomes far better than what you have originally imagined... it only takes a spark...

Dare to dream! ;)