IMAGINATION

Tribe Recap of January 28, 2018 | Luke 10 | Gen 6 | Matt 5 | Luke 6

Luke 10:27 asks us to “Love your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind; and your neighbor as yourself.”  Often when Scripture mentions heart and mind together, the imagination is inferred.  Genesis 6:5 and Chronicles 28:9 are examples of that.  Second Corinthians 10:5 talks about ‘casting down imaginations’ that get lifted up against the knowledge of God.

Matthew 5:28 is a scary verse that says if you lust after a woman you have committed adultery with her in your heart.  I John 3:15 says that if you hate your brother you are a murderer.  These scriptures are pointing to this: God takes what happens in your heart and imagination very seriously; he thinks of it as a reality you are creating.

For this reason we are to love God with all our imagination – with the thoughts of our heart (Gen 6:5) and what it sees.  What we project in our imagination creates intentions and realities that are being brought into being.

For example, God put Tribe Church in my imagination, in the thoughts of my heart. Those became intentions that I acted on.  Now, some time later, Tribe Church exists.  What has God placed in your heart?  Are you acting on the dreams God gave you? Are you taking seriously the life-giving dreams that live in your imagination?  Do you give your imagination liberty to dream with God?  This is what it means to love God with your imagination.

We must keep our imagination clean; we must take good care of it. What ‘channels’ are we watching on the TV screens of our hearts?  God considers the programming there very real.  Matthew 5 mentioned lust, but there are other ‘channels’ of the heart we should not be watching. What about the ‘fear’ channel?  Do you let your imagination show you all that can go wrong, all you can lose, all your failure, all your inability?  Do not watch this channel because it leads to hopelessness and despair – very REAL things.

It’s ironic that the imagination is what we need to ‘picture’ what is most true – that God can be trusted to fill any situation with hope.  Do you use your imagination to picture who God is and who he has said you are?  You are a son or daughter of the Living God.

Romans 8:9 says that “creation waits eagerly for the revealing of the sons of God.”  In other words, all creation waits on the edge of its chair for us to figure out who we are in Christ Jesus. 

It’s that moment when Clark Kent goes to work in his suit and awkwardly lurks around at the Daily Planet, but you know soon, he is going to be needed, run to a phone booth, and fly out as Superman – his true identity. Our bodies might be from earth, but our life and soul was breathed into us from God in heaven.

As it turns out we are not from here.  And when we were born again, it was finished – we became sons and daughters of God with his seed (I John 3:9) in us.  We have God’s DNA and we are from a supernatural place.  We have been shuffling around as Clark Kent when really we are Superman.  Sound too fantastic to believe?  It is not.  You will live out of who you imagine you are (Proverbs 23:7).

So imagine the TRUTH! Turn your imagination on to the God-sized dreams he has put inside of you to do (Eph 2:10) – picture them, ponder them, imagine your Father in heaven is so excited for you to figure it out.  This is the TRUTH.

The imagination is a life-giving part of your heart.  From your heart comes the treasure of YOU (Luke 6:45).  Your imagination is a vital component of making the ‘inventory’ of your heart and soul.

A short time from now, you will not need your imagination to see truth, because the glory of God will be all around you.  You will see what you have been all along with your eyes – a son or daughter of the Living God.  Give your imagination to God, and he will set you free, show you who you are, and set you on the path of your destiny.