Tuesday, November 23, 2010

Imaginations and Hope

I heard a story about a woman whose vision was so bad that she wore glasses as thick as the bottoms of coke bottles. She had been prayed for so many times, that when yet another evangelist was coming to her church, she did all she could to avoid him. But, he finally cornered her and wanted to pray the prayer of faith so her eyes would be healed. After he laid hands on her and prayed, he asked her, "can you see?" She started to open her eyes and he stopped her. "No! Don't open your eyes. Can you see?" He asked her, "Can you see yourself seeing in your imagination?" She spent some time developing that image in her mind and when she could finally see herself seeing, she opened her eyes and her vision was normal.

We must see ourselves healed before it can manifest. What we can believe and see (on the inside), we can achieve. The Word tells us that "Though we walk in the flesh, we do not war according to the flesh, for the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty before God for the pulling down of strongholds, casting down imaginations, and every high thing that is exalted against the knowledge of God, and bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ." (2 Corinthians 10:3-5)
If you do a study on the word "imagination(s)" in the Bible, you'll find that most of the references are negative. God is telling us about the evil, negative imaginations of man. That's where most peoples' imaginations tend to go; to the bad stuff. That is why the God tells us to keep the Word in front of our eyes,  and in our mouths, and in our hearts "night and day" (Joshua 1:8, Romans 12:2). We are bombarded with negative stuff 24/7 and we tend to dwell on it instead of meditating on God's will for us.

In working with sick people, I often tell them, "Please DON'T go to the internet and start looking up all your symptoms and diagnoses. You don't want those images in your mind. You want a positive, healed image in your mind to work toward."

Building your faith for something starts by finding out God's will for you in that situation, then building up your hope - real, Bible hope - positive image. Hebrews 11:1 tells us that faith is the substance of that hope. It is a real thing! It is as real as any other physical substance; the amplified calls in the "title deed".

Athletes who rehearse their performance or routine in their mind get almost as much benefit as physically rehearsing it. The mind is that powerful! It takes time to develop. But, once you have it on the inside of you, it's unstoppable!

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