Do you struggle to receive God’s best for your life? Has the Lord called you to do something big, but you just can’t see it for yourself?
If you have trouble believing what God says about you, it’s a problem in your imagination. One of the major things that changed my life was that I began to change what I saw in my heart—my imagination.
Ephesians 1:16 making mention of you in my prayers: 17 that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give to you the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Him, 18 the eyes of your understanding (the Greek word is dianoia and means imagination, mind, understanding) being enlightened; that you may know what is the hope of His calling, what are the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints, 19 and what is the exceeding greatness of His power toward us who believe,
When it talks about the heart in the bible it is talking about our inner man, either our spirit or soul according to the context, but mainly our soul. Our soul consists of our will, our choice, mind, emotions, reason, conscience, and our imagination.
Psalm 78: 41 Yes again and again they tested God and limited the holy One of Israel.
The passion translation says- 41 Again and again they limited God, preventing him from blessing them.
We limit God by our small thinking, our vision is not big enough. There are things in our soul that block the will of God from coming to pass in our lives.
I knew God’s will for my life, but that wasn’t enough. I had to also see myself accomplish it, and act accordingly. Now it is coming to pass.
Some people may think imagination is limited to fantasy, like imagining a talking animal. They think it’s something children use during their play time and that adults, especially Christians, need to be more practical.
Some Christians may think using the imagination is just positive thinking or fantasy. Imagination is the ability to form a picture in your mind of something that you have not seen or experienced yet in the natural realm. I’m talking about using your imagination to picture God’s will for your life coming to pass.
We use our imagination constantly. It’s impossible not to imagine. You just must deliberately choose to imagine the right things instead of the wrong things.
YOUR IMAGINATION SEES
Where there is no vision, the people perish: but he that keepeth the law, happy is he. Proverbs 29:18
The word vision means “a mental image produced by the imagination”. So, you could say, “Where there is no imagination, the people perish.” People are perishing for the lack of a positive imagination of what the Lord has in store for them.
The Amplified Bible says, “Where there is no vision…the people are unrestrained.” Both the Darby Bible and English Standard Version say, “the people cast off restraint.” That’s because when people don’t have any direction for their lives, they don’t have any restraint.
If you don’t know where you are going, any road will get you there. But when you have a certain destination in mind, it limits which roads you can take. Whether you realize it or not, you use your imagination every single day.
For example, if you go to a store and park your car, you use your imagination to help you remember where the car is. When you are ready to leave the store, you will have a picture of that parking spot on the inside of you.
It’s not something you see with your physical eyes, but you can see internally where you parked. You remember if you have to go to the right or to the left. You remember how far away it is. You can picture these things. That’s your imagination.
So, imagination is the ability to see with your mind what you cannot see with your physical eyes. It helps you see what can’t be seen (2 Cor. 4:18). It creates pictures in your mind that help you remember, read, and plan.
But imagination can only work with the information you give it—good or bad, right, or wrong (Luke 6:45).
If you fill your imagination with the things of the world from movies, television programs, popular songs, and the internet, that’s what it will produce. “Garbage in, garbage out,” as the saying goes.
But if you renew your mind to the truth of the Word, your imagination will help you receive from God (Rom. 12:2).
Most Christians don’t have a clear vision for their lives. They cannot see God’s will. But instead of seeking the Lord and engaging their imaginations, they let the circumstances of life drive them around.
Most Christians are driven by the “almighty dollar” just like unbelievers. They’ll sometimes leave a good church and the support system of friends and family to move across the country just for a hundred-dollar raise. They spend thousands of dollars on medicines that help them cope with sickness and disease. They mortgage their future to buy boats and other things they won’t use.
They settle for less than God’s best because they are only looking at things with their physical eyes. Vision—or the pictures of things produced in your imagination—gives you hope for the future. Without it, you’ll never fulfill God’s plan for your life. Circumstances will divert you, hardships will steal from you, and you’ll quit.
Once we take the limits off God and really start to see the things He has planned for our life, that’s when it will really take off.
Where Are Your Thoughts leading you? Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on thee: because he trusteth in thee. Isaiah 26:3
The word that was translated “mind” in this verse, is the Hebrew word yester, it means imagination.
This scripture clearly links our peace to keeping our minds stayed on and trusting in God. This reveals that our emotions follow our thoughts. This is a major point that psychologists miss. They say emotions are a result of circumstances. If that were so, then everyone who has experienced the same negative circumstances would have the same negative emotions. But that’s not true.
This exact same Hebrew word is translated imagination five different times in the king James.
Genesis 6:5: And God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.
The truth is your life is going in the direction of your dominant thoughts. You can’t really go anywhere in your physical body that you haven’t already been in your mind. When you go on a trip you need a map.
You can create a self-fulfilling prophecy with your imagination. You might start to feel symptoms of sickness and then think about every worse-case scenario possible. It could even get to the point where you start mentally planning your funeral based on a ache of pain, all because you let your imagination run wild— and your emotions follow! We can use the power of imagination in a negative way.
HOW TO CONCEIVE A MIRACLE
The definition for yester in the Hebrew is imagination. It is also “a form; figuratively it means conception, purpose.” I believe that your imagination is where you conceive things. And just as a woman must conceive a child in her physical body, you must conceive your miracle in your imagination.
A stork doesn’t deliver babies, and you don’t just go to the hospital and receive a baby. You have to conceive a baby and then give birth.
Even though the Lord revealed to Abraham and Sarah that they would have a son (Gen. 18:9–14), God’s will didn’t automatically come to pass. There had to be a corresponding action to produce a child. [Abraham] staggered not at the promise of God through unbelief; but was strong in faith, giving glory to God; And being fully persuaded that, what he had promised, he was able also to perform- Romans 4:20–21.
Through faith also Sara herself received strength to conceive seed, and was delivered of a child when she was past age, because she judged him faithful who had promised- Hebrews 11:11
In a similar way, you conceive in your imagination what God wants you to do. Your imagination has miraculous power to conceive things. It is your spiritual womb.
When we are born from above the word of God is conceived in our spirit. But our spirit and soul must come into union in order to produce fruit or give birth to the manifestation in the natural realm.
Being born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the word of God, which liveth and abideth forever. 1 Peter 1:23
The Greek word for seed in the verse above is spora, which is derived from the Greek word sperma. It’s saying that the Word of God is like a seed—a sperm—and it must be planted in your heart to conceive, it must be planted in your imagination.
So again, for you to conceive a miracle, you have to use your imagination. If it’s foolish for a woman to just pray for a child but never have a physical relationship with a man, it is just as foolish for you to pray for healing but never see (imagine) yourself healed.
SEE WITH YOUR INNER EYES
Years ago, I heard a story about a pastor’s wife who had such poor eyesight she was legally blind. She had to wear very thick glasses to be able to see anything. Though she believed her husband’s preaching about healing, she just wasn’t able to experience it in her own life. No matter how many people prayed for her, she never saw the results she desired. The woman began to despair of never being able to see without her glasses. A healing evangelist was coming to their church, and she knew he would want to pray for her; but she had been disappointed so many times that she didn’t want to go through that again. So, she avoided him until the very last night of the meeting. He finally cornered her and asked if he could pray for her. He had her take off her glasses and then prayed a simple prayer of faith for her healing. After prayer he said, “Now, can you see?” She started to open her eyes, but he said, “Don’t open your eyes.” She was confused. How could she tell if she could see if she didn’t open her eyes? Then he asked her the second time if she could see. As she started to open her eyes, he told her again to keep her eyes shut. She obeyed but wondered what he was doing. She had to open her eyes before she could see. Then the third time he asked this woman if she could see. As she started to open her eyes, he told her, “I’m not asking if you can see with your physical eyes. You must see yourself seeing with your heart before you will be able to see with your physical eyes.”
Finally understanding what the man was trying to tell her, the minister’s wife kept her eyes closed and prayed in the Spirit. After a few minutes, she said, “I can see it. “I can see myself seeing!” “Open your eyes,” he said. The minister’s wife slowly opened her eyes. Her vision was restored, and she could see!
If more of us understood this concept, we would get different results when we prayed. Instead, after we pray, we immediately open our eyes, check our wallets, and feel our bodies to see if something has happened. But miracles don’t come from the outside; they come from the inside.
You cannot pray for healing while also planning your funeral. You have to use your imagination to see the Word at work in your life. Don’t wait for a physical manifestation to verify that God’s promises are true. Instead, see yourself walking in health, without pain or sickness.
In my situation, when the Lord showed me that I was limiting Him by my small thinking, I was not letting myself dream and think big. Now, I knew what God’s will was, and I knew He had called me to have a worldwide ministry. But I wouldn’t let myself see it. I had to change the way I saw myself and begin to see how God saw me—imagining a worldwide ministry. Otherwise, it will not come to pass.
You must be convinced that you are who God says you are in His Word. When you know that what God says about you is true, then you can see yourself qualified to do what God has called you to do and see your dreams come to pass!
HOW GOD SEES YOU
Judges 6:11 And there came an angel of the Lord, and sat under an oak which was in Ophrah, that pertained unto Joash the Abi-ezrite: and his son Gideon threshed wheat by the winepress, to hide it from the Midianites. And the angel of the Lord appeared unto him, and said unto him, The Lord is with thee, thou mighty man of valor.
Gideon was a lot like many Christians; he didn’t feel like he was qualified for what God called him to do. He was hiding from the Midianites when an angel of the Lord appeared and told him he was a “mighty man of valor.” He couldn’t believe it at first and had to have the Lord confirm it to him three times (Judg. 6:17, 36–37, 39).
“Mighty man of valour”—that’s an odd way to refer to a man who was hiding from the Midianites. But the Lord doesn’t see things the way we see. God looks on the inside, while people look on the outside (1 Sam 16:7).
Gideon was a mighty man of valor in his heart. He just didn’t know it yet. Notice the angel said, “The Lord is with thee.”
The Lord had chosen Gideon to deliver the Israelites from the hands of the Midianites. The angel told Gideon that the Lord was with him, but Gideon couldn’t see that in his circumstances.
Judges 6:13 And Gideon said unto him, Oh my Lord, if the Lord be with us, why then is all this befallen us? and where be all his miracles which our fathers told us of, saying, Did not the Lord bring us up from Egypt? but now the Lord hath forsaken us, and delivered us into the hands of the Midianites.
We can’t evaluate God’s presence and personal blessing on us by just looking at our circumstances. We have to see with our hearts before we can see God’s will come to pass with our physical eyes.
The deliverance of the Israelites from the Midianites was beyond human ability. Gideon was expressing that he couldn’t do it by himself. That’s good! Every godly leader needs to recognize that only God’s power can accomplish His supernatural results.
We have to come to the end of ourselves before we reach the beginning of God. It’s a long story, but the Spirit of God came upon Gideon, and 32,000 men from the tribes of Israel gathered with him to fight the Midianites and Amalekites. Already vastly outnumbered, God eventually winnowed his force down to 300 men.
But these 300 men were seers, an Old Testament word for prophetic. They lapped the water with their hand because they were watchmen. This is an Old Testament type of seeing with our heart.
Judges 7:5 And the Lord said to Gideon, “Everyone who laps from the water with his tongue, as a dog laps, you shall set apart by himself; likewise everyone who gets down on his knees to drink.” 6 And the number of those who lapped, putting their hand to their mouth, was three hundred men; but all the rest of the people got down on their knees to drink water.
The rest of the people (9,700) had their eyes on the water (circumstances).
God called Jerubbaal (man of shame) Gideon (warrior)(Judges 7:5). We have to see ourselves the way God sees us, (According to what is written in his word) and we do this with the eyes of our heart (the eyes of our imagination).
When Gideon sneaked into the enemy’s camp and overheard two men speaking of a dream that prophesied Israel’s victory (Judg. 7:13–15), all his doubts about what the angel of the Lord had said to him were removed. He acted in faith on what God had said and saw the victory with his spiritual eyes despite overwhelming odds in the physical realm.
Gideon and his army really didn’t have to do much after that. They didn’t kill the Midianites because the Midianites killed themselves. All Gideon and his men really did was blow trumpets, break pitchers, and shout.
Gideon achieved one of the greatest military victories of all time with the remaining 300 men, yet he started out with no confidence. God saw Gideon as a mighty man of valor, a warrior, but that’s not how Gideon saw himself at the beginning. It took time and supernatural experiences for Gideon to change the image on the inside.
Likewise, God knows who you are and what your capabilities are because He created you. Will you see yourself the way He does?
See Yourself Prosperous
Now unto him that is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that worketh in us. Ephesians 3:20
Until we see with the eyes of our heart, It is like there is a dam in the spiritual realm that is blocking the supernatural flow of God; and when we began to change the image on the inside of us, all those restrictions we have placed on our success are removed. The power for prosperity begins working on the inside of us, and then we will see a supernatural breakthrough in our ministry.
But if we get lifted up in pride and start self-promoting, that will actually block the flow of God’s power.
When God’s favor is upon us, and we pray in tongues and abide in the Spirit it flows into our imagination what we need to see.
Someone who develops photos has to have the knack to see a picture correctly just by looking at a negative. They learn to adjust the settings for the right exposure and colors, and it’s very subjective. From there, they select the best image and begin the process of putting it on paper for the rest of the world to see. That’s what we do with God’s vision for our lives.
At first, God only sees His plans for us. Then, as we use our imagination, we begin to see His plans and callings for ourselves. As we draw out of our spirit revelation flows into our imagination and we can see the vision and then fulfill those callings upon our life.
God puts the vision on the inside of us. We are seeing what no one else could with our imagination, we are was conceiving it. And it is developing!
Before their fall, Adam and Eve communicated with God through their spirits. When Genesis 3:7 says that their eyes were opened, it isn’t talking about the eyes of their heart. It’s talking about their physical eyesight. They had been walking by faith (2 Cor. 5:7). When they sinned, their spiritual eyes closed, and their physical sight began to dominate them. They were created with a sense of faith. But once they fell, their spiritual eyes closed, and their physical eyes opened up to the existence that most of us live in now. We’re carnal, and we just go by what we see. But God made man to be able to perceive things in the spirit realm. In 2 Kings 6, there’s an instance where Elisha was surrounded by the Syrian host. His servant exclaimed, “Alas, my master! how shall we do?” (2 Kgs. 6:15). Elisha prayed and said, “Lord, I pray thee, open [the young man’s] eyes, that he may see.” (v. 17). He wasn’t talking about his physical eyes. His physical eyes were looking at all the enemy troops surrounding them. Elisha was praying that his servant’s spiritual eyes would be opened. All of a sudden, this young man saw with his heart and perceived all the defending angels.
This was the opposite of what happened with Adam and Eve. Their spiritual eyes dimmed, and they started being dominated by their physical sight. But Elisha’s servant had his physical sight give way to being able to see with his heart. This is what needs to happen to us so that our imagination can function properly.
When you’re born again, you receive a calling from God that is beyond human ability. Most people say they are trying to find out what God wants them to do, but they are usually looking for something that they can do on their own. They pray, “God, you just point me in a direction, and I’ll take it from there!” That is just a wrong attitude. If you are doing something that you can accomplish by yourself, then I believe you haven’t truly found God’s will for your life. God has a plan for you that is bigger than anything you can do on your own. It’s going to take His supernatural ability working through you to do it.
We do something that was impossible for us to do on my own because we start to see things differently with our spiritual eyes.
God is a supernatural God, and most of us are shooting way below His perfect will for our lives. We’re aiming at nothing and hitting it every time. You need to see things differently. You need to have your eyes opened and your understanding enlightened so you can see the hope of His calling (Eph. 1:18).
Uncover God’s Wisdom
That the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give unto you the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of him: the eyes of your understanding being enlightened; that ye may know what is the hope of his calling, and what the riches of the glory of his inheritance in the saints. Ephesians 1:17–18
Once you see it in your, you would have had to backslide from God for it not to come to pass. See, you cannot get a revelation of something that doesn’t already exist. The Greek word apokalupsis, translated “revelation” in Ephesians 1:17, means “disclosure.” It is derived from the Greek word that means “to uncover.” Paul wasn’t praying for the Lord to give us anything new. He was praying for us to receive a revelation of what is already ours. We just need to draw out the resources that are already available.
The vision is already in our born-again spirit, and through praying in the Spirit, we are able to draw it out.
When you pray in tongues, it’s your spirit praying. Your spirit has been born again, has the mind of Christ (1 Cor. 2:16), and knows exactly what to do. It has an unction (anointing) from God so that you know all things (1 John 2:20), and there is no limitation in your spirit. If you could walk in the power and revelation of your spirit, it would transform your physical life.
Take the Gospel Farther and Deeper Once
As we grow in His Word, God will show us more things. And we will begin to engage them in our imagination,
You can’t just microwave your miracles. There has to be evidence of growth before you reap your harvest. Jesus taught that “the earth” (likewise, your heart) brings forth “fruit of herself.” But first comes “the blade, then the ear, after that the full corn in the ear” (Mark 4:28). Farmers can see their harvest in their imaginations, otherwise they’d never plant. But they also have to see that incremental growth in the physical realm before it’s time to reap. Maybe God has revealed the calling for your life, and you want to jump into it right away. You have to see the steps God wants you to go take to get where He wants you to be. And if you are faithful and don’t quit, you’ll fulfill the calling God has for you (Gal. 6:9)! Just Start Doing But God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise; and God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty; and base things of the world, and things which are despised, hath God chosen, yea, and things which are not, to bring to nought things that are. 1 Corinthians 1:27–28
When God’s called you to do something, you’ve got to get started even if everything isn’t perfect. No one has ever been qualified to work for God, and you aren’t going to be the first one. If you wait until everything in your life is totally perfect, you’ll never do anything. If you feel foolish or weak, then you are just the person God is looking for. But you can’t stay that way. You have to start seeing yourself the way God sees you! See Yourself Blessed.
We have to start seeing things with our spiritual eyes. We have got to start fulfilling the plans God has for the body of Christ. I’ll tell you; the Lord wants you to share in the visions He has for you more than you want to see them. He has given you an imagination to conceive those dreams and visions. And if you allow yourself to see them and remove all limits, nothing will be impossible with God!