A tool of destiny – I want to suggest that our imagination is one of the ways that we discover our Kingdom purpose (aka the will of God). Here’s how it works: imagination or meditation is our journey through the desires of our heart to find the desires on God’s heart. When we touch a dream that ignites our passion, we can also get a sense of how it ignites the Father’s heart. The most exciting thing about being a King is seeing the wind of God’s spirit in the sails of our life direction. When that authority and confidence is in us, we can navigate the storms and warfare that go with doing something significant in the Kingdom. It’s always been God’s intent that we graduate from being obedient servants, faithfully trying to keep all the religious rules, to being peculiar people who fellowship with Him in love and are motivated out of the desires of our own heart. Our imagination is big, but not nearly as big as our God. Surrendering our imagination to God has this simple implication – it has to be big to match what’s in His heart.
Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us… Eph 3:20 NIV
Trusting your imagination – We’ve all had dreams fail, hearts wounded, and expectations broken. Most of us have to deal with heart boundaries and vows never to dream again. We wonder how God could fail us or how we must have failed to hear Him correctly. Setbacks are part of everyone’s story. Every dream goes through some death of the vision. Success always requires multiple resurrections to see the desires of our hearts manifested on earth as they are in heaven. It’s not easy, but it’s very possible. Managing how we imagine the path of our future defines the level of hope and optimism we carry through life.
Can you trust your heart? – Most believers have little confidence in the imaginations of their heart. There are some good theological reasons we’ve been taught that fuel our suspicions. The essence of New Age deception is worshipping the desires or imaginations of your own heart apart from God… exactly what Lucifer did. It can lead to all kinds of bondage and delusion.
Neither shall they walk any more after the imagination of their evil heart. Jer 3:17 KJV
But they did not listen or pay attention; instead, they followed the stubborn inclinations of their evil hearts. They went backward and not forward. Jer 7:24 NIV
“Because your heart is lifted up And you have said, ‘I am a god, I sit in the seat of gods In the heart of the seas’; Yet you are a man and not God, Although you make your heart like the heart of God Ezek 28:2 NASU
For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false testimony, slander. 20 These are what make a man ‘unclean’; but eating with unwashed hands does not make him ‘unclean.’” Matt 15:19-20 NIV
The essence of becoming a King and fellowshipping with the King of Kings (Jesus) is sharing and pursuing the desires of your heart, knowing that He put them there and that those desires also resonate in His heart. I’m convinced Biblically that God imprints His own desires in our hearts from birth, and that salvation further releases us as a unique individual created in His own image. Sure, we have to discern those desires and imaginations (manage them), but it’s not that hard to do. We are well able.
The larger truth is that God grants the desires of the righteous. That’s how He’s building the Kingdom right now. He’s working through people who love what they do and are walking out a dream that began in the imagination of their heart. They gave themselves permission to look into the desires of their heart and what did they find!!! – the will of God, the Father’s heart, a Father who loves to grant the requests of His sons and daughters. The scriptural evidence that Jesus wants to bless you and work through you is overwhelming.
He said to me, “You are my Son; today I have become your Father. 8 Ask of me, and I will make the nations your inheritance, the ends of the earth your possession. Ps 2:7-8 NIV
May he give you the desire of your heart and make all your plans succeed. 5 We will shout for joy when you are victorious and will lift up our banners in the name of our God. May the Lord grant all your requests. Ps 20:4-5 NIV
You have granted him the desire of his heart and have not withheld the request of his lips. Selah 3 You welcomed him with rich blessings and placed a crown of pure gold on his head. Ps 21:2-3 NIV
You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies. You anoint my head with oil; my cup overflows. Ps 23:5 NIV
Delight yourself in the Lord and he will give you the desires of your heart. Ps 37:4 NIV
And I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Son may bring glory to the Father. 14 You may ask me for anything in my name, and I will do it. John 14:13-14 NIV
If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be given you. 8 This is to my Father’s glory, that you bear much fruit, showing yourselves to be my disciples. John 15:7-8 NIV
I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master’s business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you. 16 You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you to go and bear fruit — fruit that will last. Then the Father will give you whatever you ask in my name. John 15:15-17 NIV
I tell you the truth, my Father will give you whatever you ask in my name. 24 Until now you have not asked for anything in my name. Ask and you will receive, and your joy will be complete. John 16:23-24 NIV
The most important question the Father is asking Kings is, “What would you like to do?” We all need to answer that question even though there is a counterfeit… the devil asked Jesus the same question. My point is that you can give the right answer, too.
Managing Imagination – there is a phenomenon or spirit in the land that inspires fear and vain or self-centered imaginations. You can catch the “sky is falling” disease very easily from the news or cynical friends. There is even a false prophetic anointing that passes off the devil’s plan as though it’s God’s judgment. Even though bad things happen, we have to set our hearts on the good things God is doing to build the Kingdom. Yes, it’s easy to see what the enemy is doing, too – the wheat and the tares are growing together. But, if we want to achieve our Kingdom destiny and make a difference in this world, we have to keep our eye on the ball… what God is doing. Either focus of our imagination, good or bad, fear or faith, yields fruit. The things that we fear are prone to happen; so also the things we have imagined that resonate with the heart of God produce a faith that causes God things to manifest – your choice.
For the thing which I greatly feared is come upon me, and that which I was afraid of is come unto me. Job 3:25 KJV
The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds. 5 We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ. 6 And we will be ready to punish every act of disobedience, once your obedience is complete. 2 Cor 10:4-6 NIV
Faith is the substance of things we’ve hoped for in the desires we dreamed of and imagined in our hearts. It simply means we’ve felt that dream resonate in the Father’s heart and we see that He wants it, too. Somehow we “know” it will manifest even before it does. Give yourself permission to dream, find a desire that causes your heart to leap, and see if your Father is excited about it, too. It’s a fun process.
“Your imagination is like soil. Soil doesn’t care what kind of seed you plant in it; the moment it’s planted, the soil starts producing. It’s the same thing with your heart and your imagination. Your imagination will conceive something and automatically start making it come to pass, whether it’s positive or negative. It’s like your spiritual womb.” The Power of Hope by Andrew Womack
