Part 3A: “Use Your God-Given Imagination to Quicken Dead Things to Life.”
As Christians (spiritual kings and priests unto God) one of the most powerful, and yet rarely utilized, gifts we have from God, is “Godly-imagination.” Knowing how to, and using, your Godly imagination is essential to ruling your world. Within your inner-man (heart) God has placed a brand new world for you to behold and take possession of it. (II Cor. 5:17) And, it is high time for you to live life from the inside out.
Many scriptures tell us about the power of the imagination of the heart. For example, Proverbs 23:7 says, “as a man thinks in his heart, so is he…” Jesus Christ also said that it is “out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks.” (Matt.12:34-35) With words spoken from the heart, people either bring forth good things, or evil things, into this world. Thus, we can say that imagination is the language of the heart.
Also, recall the time after the flood of Noah, when the people of the earth were gathered in one place (Babylonia). The people all spoke one language and were of one mind to build, in their own wisdom and might, a city and tower called the Tower of Babel to reach unto heaven.
In the hearts of the people, the Tower of Babel would serve as a great human achievement, a wonder of the world—a monument to themselves rather than to God. To beat on their chests and say how great they all were. It was God, Himself, who testified that nothing can be constrained from man to accomplish anything that they have “imagined to do.” (Gen.11:1-6)
To gain greater concept of the inner-workings of our hearts to produce Godly imaginations, in Part 3A, it is necessary that we focus extensively on understanding the three-parts of a human being, and God’s regeneration of the heart of believers in Jesus Christ.
God created mankind with a spirit, soul, and physical body. (Gen. 2:7) God’s plan for the three-parts of every person who would believe on Jesus Christ, is that they would be sanctified wholly—that is. they would be preserved whole and blameless (spirit, soul, and body) until the return of Jesus Christ to rapture the Church. (I Thess. 5:23)
The diagram below illustrates the interrelatedness of the three-parts of man. It shows the physical body as our outer and visible part, the soul as our inward part; and our spirit as our innermost hidden part.
God desires that the whole of man—spirit, soul, and body worship Him in spirit and in truth. (John 4:23-24 & Rom.12:1) Because God is a Spirit, His focus is on the heart of man—not the human organ in the physical body that pumps blood throughout the body—but the eternal and essential part of man consisting of the spirit and soul. (I Sam. 16:7) It is vital that we understand that the heart of man consist of the spirit and soul.
As I indicated, the human spirit is the deepest and most vital part of a person. Our spirits are our very life force and eternal existence. For all those who hear the preaching of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, repent of their sins, receive Jesus Christ as Lord, and receive water baptism—their spirits have been regenerated, born-again by God. Within their spirits, God now abides in His holy habitation.
Moreover, the Holy Ghost faithfully witnesses to us that the Triune God—God the Father, the Son Jesus Christ, and the Holy Ghost, as well as the kingdom of God, and all of the eternal promises of God reside within the born-again spirit. (I John 4:15, 5:7, Luke 17:20-22, Eph. 1:3, and II Pet. 1:3-4)
Thus, the born-again spirit of a man is full and complete with the God-head. (Col. 2:9-10) By our expressed faith in the blood of Jesus Christ, we have covenant assurance of unlimited access and fellowship (partnership) with God in the spirit realm. (Heb.10:19-20)
God has created no other creature with this third and most unique part—called the spirit—the very breath and life of God. Moreover, our born-again spirits are under the complete control of the Holy Ghost, “The Comforter,” who communicates with the soul, leads and guides us into all truth, and reveals unto the soul all of the things that God has given to Jesus Christ, and in turn given to us. (John 16:13-15) Glory be to God!
The soul is the medium between the spirit and body. The soul possesses the mind, will, and emotions. Our soul can be thought of as our personality, inner characteristics, or who we are. The soul determines how we think, express feelings, and behave. With the soul we also reason, consider, remember, and wonder. Through the soul we experience emotions like happiness, love, sorrow, anger, relief, and compassion.
Additionally, through the soul we are able to resolve, choose, and make decisions. It is within the soul where imagination is formed and nurtured. In sum, the soul is called in the Greek—the original language of the New Testament—our “psyche,” which is also the root word of psychology.
The mind (member of the soul) in the Greek translation is the word “dianoia,” given to mean the disposition or state of the mind, deep thought, or the exercise of imagination. The word heart is “kardia,”which describes the thoughts or feelings of the mind. You can see that the words, “mind” and “heart” are very closely related.
Remember at John 14:1-3, Jesus Christ said to His disciples, “let not your heart be troubled.” Jesus was not speaking of the spirit part of us, rather the soul—the feeling and emotional part of the mind of the soul, which can be frightened by thoughts of the fear of death. Such thoughts from the enemy, the devil, meditated upon will produce tormenting pictures of our demise.
So Jesus went on to say, if you believe in God, believe also in me. In other words, the disciples were to let their hearts—inner thoughts of the mind of the soul, be consumed with believing in God and Jesus Christ—that in God’s house there are many mansions, where a place was being prepared by Jesus for them in heaven. This would create thoughts and images within the souls of the disciples of life after death and living with Jesus in mansions on high full of the glory of God. This news would also result in their hearts’ being made glad, rather than sad!
So, let’s understand that with the “mind” of the soul we think, reason, remember and make decisions, and with the “heart” we express our emotions, feelings, have compassion about that which we think about.
Next, our souls have direct contact with our physical bodies. The body is the external part of our being, and possesses world-consciousness, so that we can contact the material world. Our physical bodies exist within, and contact, the tangible things of the material world through our five senses. Our brains (a complex organ that controls thought, memory, and regulates many vital processes within the body) transmit information from our five senses to our souls—the mind—for internal thought, reasoning, and decision making.
Therefore, we can think of the soul as the middle man between the spirit and physical body parts of man. The soul is the medium between spiritual things and natural things. The soul, therefore, is capable of thinking thoughts and producing images that are from the spiritual realm, as well as the natural realm. Without the soul, there could never be a connection between spirit and the body—between God and the things of God, and your physical body and the world we live in.
When God created mankind, He made us as free moral agents. Indeed, we are not robots. Through the “will” of the soul, we have the ability to freely think, reason, and choose for ourselves; whether to obey or disobey God. Adam had a choice to make whether to adhere to God’s commandment concerning the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, or to disobey and eat of the fruit of the tree. (Gen. 2:15-17) As such, we pick and choose what we will believe, say, and do in life.
However, God our father knows what is best for us, and desires that we and our generations to come live the abundant life—called “Zoe”—the God kind of life. Zoe is a life of peace; in which we experience wholeness in our spiritual, moral, and material world. God has even set before us life and death, blessing and cursing. (Deut. 30:15-20)
Loving God and obeying His commandments is the way to enjoy the God-kind of life as promised unto Abraham and his seed. On the other hand, disobedience leads to gross failure and ultimately death. We get to choose, but Father God urges us to choose life.
Jesus Christ was sent by God to give to us abundant life. (John 10:10) Any person who freely and willfully turns their lives over to Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior receives the gift of eternal life, along with all of the promises contained in the New Covenant witnessed to by the Holy Ghost.
Now, it is vitally important for Christians to understand that when we were born-again by God, our entire inner-beings experienced, what is called, the “circumcision of the heart.” All of the heart (spirit, soul, and mind) underwent the operation of God. (Romans 2:29 & Col. 2:11-15)
God gave you an entirely and all-together “new heart.” He took away your stony heart, which was filled with sin, its nature, the entire body/work of sin and corruption, and in its place gave to you a heart of flesh. (Ezek. 36:26) God made your spirit perfect and identical to the spirit of Jesus Christ, (John 1:13, Rom. 8:9, II Cor. 5:17, & Heb.10:14) and, put His laws in your heart and wrote them on your mind. Wow, praise be unto God!
Many Christians have received extensive teaching about the born-again process as it relates to the regeneration of the spirit part of us. But most Christians have not been taught that their complete hearts (spirit, soul, and mind) have been regenerated, saved and made perfect by God!
In fact, such teaching is radical. In most Christian circles, the people of God are taught that the mind of the soul is un-renewed. But this is grossly incorrect! Many times when we read New Testament scriptures, we assume that when reference is made to the “heart,” that it is talking about the spirit, but it really is talking about the “soul and mind.”
Christians must come into the full knowledge that the entire “heart” has been made new and perfect by God—spirit, soul, and mind. King David asked God to create in him a “clean heart and renew a right spirit” within him, so he could worship God in integrity. (Ps. 51:10) When we received Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord, God did just that—He gave to us a clean heart (soul and mind), and a right spirit. So we can worship God forever in truth!
I reiterate, the heart and soul of every born-again Christian is saved just as the born-again spirit is saved! The heart and soul of every born again Christian has been made perfect by God! Our New Covenant with God assures us of such. Hebrews 10:16-17 reads as follows,
This is the covenant that I will make with them after
those days saith the Lord. I will put my laws into
their hearts and in their minds will I write them:
and, their sins and iniquities will I remember no
more.
I want you to also see the Amplified Version of Hebrews 10:16-17. It reads as follows,
This is the agreement (testament, covenant) that I
will set up and conclude with them after those days
says the Lord: I will imprint My laws upon their
hearts, and I will inscribe them on their minds
(on their innermost thoughts and understanding)
He then goes on to say, And their sins and their
lawbreaking I will remember no more.
In the verse above, the Greek translation of the word “heart” is (kardia) and “mind” is (dianoia). Our everlasting and New Covenant with God assures every Christian that God has placed His laws in our hearts and written them on our minds—in the inner most or deepest thoughts of the mind.
Four Laws of God in the New Testament deposited into the hearts and minds of Christians are: The Law of Love, Law of Faith, Law of the Spirit of Life in Christ Jesus, and the Perfect Law of Liberty. Each one of these laws directly relates to the finished works of Christ, in placing us in Him, so that we can live victoriously in this world, free from the bondage of sin and condemnation.
Tell me something. Are not your inner-most and deepest thoughts of greatest importance to you, and define who you really are? Wouldn’t you really prefer spending more time meditating on your inner-most and deepest thoughts, rather than your more superficial thoughts, which are produced by the human brain exposed to and gleaned from this external world?
God planted His laws in our hearts and wrote them on our minds, so we—just like Him—would never again remember our sins, transgressions, and iniquities. In the deepest part of the born-again Christians’ heart and soul there is no memory of their sins and iniquities. In the deepest parts of our hearts and minds we know and understand that God sees us as having never sinned before!
Moreover, in the deepest parts of our hearts and minds, are imaginations that reveal the knowledge of God concerning us—in that we are holy, and never have sinned in the sight of God! This is why when you look in your heart you only see yourself as pure and holy before God—guiltless, faultless, and shameless in His sight! In other words, God’s circumcision of your heart has removed the remembrance of all sin from your heart and mind of the soul! Glory to be to God—the surgery was successful!
The body of Christ largely has misunderstood the Apostle Paul’s writing at Romans 12:1-2, where Paul admonishes, that we are to “present our bodies as a living sacrifice unto God holy and acceptable unto Him…” And, not to be conformed to this world but “to be transformed by the “renewing of our minds.” Many Christians, have taken this to mean that our minds (mind of the soul) are not yet saved. That there is self-work needed to be done by the Christian to make the mind of the soul holy, and like unto, our born-again spirit part.
The word renewing here in the Greek translation is “ananeonontas,” which conveys the meaning to “restore to freshness” or “renovate.” To restore means to bring a thing back to its original state of freshness. Thus, the thing being restored must have existed before in a perfect state. Our minds, like our spirits, were transformed 2000 years ago as a part of the finished works of Jesus Christ on cross. (Heb.10:12-14)
As a result, everyone who believes on Jesus Christ and receives Him as Lord and Savior, by God’s great grace and mercy receives the “circumcision of the heart”—the regeneration of the spirit, and planting of God’s Laws in the deepest parts of their hearts and minds just as our New Covenant promises.
If we carefully read the entire verse of Romans12:2, we can clearly see that renewing our minds (with the Word of God) is so we can “prove (test) what is that good, acceptable, and perfect will of God.” God’s good, acceptable, and perfect will for every person is for them to enter into this everlasting New Covenant with Him through Jesus Christ. One of the benefits of the New Covenant is having God’s Laws planted into the hearts and minds of believers.
I want to use the following scriptures as further evidence that God has completely given you a new heart (soul and mind):
--Romans 5:5 says, the Holy Ghost has shed the love of God abroad in our “hearts.” It’s not just your born-again spirit that has been flooded with the love of God, but also your soul and mind! You are now able to love God with all of your spirit, soul, and might, as God has commanded!
Even today, many churches teach that it is impossible for us to love God with the whole of you—that is simply not true. Before the finished works of Jesus Christ on the cross we could not, but after we received the operation of the circumcision of the heart by God, all people who are in Jesus Christ can give to God whole-person love, unconditionally and without ceasing.
--II Timothy 1:7 says…God has given to us power, love and a “sound mind”—a mind of discipline and self-control to obey God and carryout His will.
--I Corinthians 2:16 says, we have the “mind of Christ” (intellect, understanding, feelings, and will of Jesus Christ).
--Philippians 2:5-8 instructs us to let our “minds” be as Jesus Christ’s mind, to know and understand that we have been made equal with God, to humble ourselves, take on the form of a servant, and become obedient to God even unto death.
--I Peter 2:25, says Jesus Christ is the “bishop” (superintendent or overseer) of our “souls.” Therefore, the soul, including mind, will and emotions of the born-again Christian must be saved!
Not only has the heart of every born-again Christian undergone the operation of circumcision by God, but afterwards the Holy Ghost sealed the “heart” (spirit, soul, and mind) until the day of redemption! II Corinthians 1:22 reads,
And who has also put his seal on us and given us
His Spirit in our hearts as a guarantee.
As a first installment to assure every born-again Christian that our full inheritance as the children of God will be delivered, God gave to us the Holy Ghost. Through the gift of the Holy Ghost, God renews and sanctifies us.
The Holy Ghost is the Person of God that produces in your “heart” the knowing and genuine feelings that you are accepted by God, that you are a child of God, and that your redemption and salvation are sure—in the same way that a seal guarantees a will or an agreement is authentic and in force. In other words, the Holy Ghost is our pledge from God that we are forever His and we shall be saved at the last day!
Moreover, the proof that the Holy Ghost continually operates within your heart (mind and soul) is: He produces repentance when you do wrong, manifests the fruit of the Spirit and gifts of the Spirit through you, brings you into conformity with God’s commands and will, infuses you with a passion for prayer, giving of tithes and offerings, speaking in other tongues, praise and thanksgiving, and love for all people, including your enemies.
These things are all evidences that the Holy Ghost has renewed the hearts of all born again Christians. Yes, the heart, which is also sealed by the Holy Ghost until the day of redemption. Add these scriptures to your faith. (II Cor. 5:5, Eph. 1:13-14 & 4:30)
So it is through the Holy Ghost and His teaching and guiding power that we are sealed and confirmed until the day of redemption, completely free from the corruption of sin, death, hell, and the grave. Because we have the seal of the Spirit in our “hearts,” we can live joyfully, confident of our sure place in a future that holds glories not yet revealed to us.
Given the evidence provided, I submit to you that renewing the mind with the Word of God, is not an exercise to refresh and restore the mind of the soul. Rather, renewing the mind is a two- step process that every Christian must undertake involving the human brain. First, using the Word of God, Christians must discover and learn who they really are in Jesus Christ, in that their hearts, souls, and minds have been regenerated by God—to think God-thoughts, express the compassions of Christ, and to see and do the eternal things of God.
Second, Christians must continually wash and scrub clean the “human brain” with the Word of God, to remove the residue of memories of carnal thoughts (old sinful, lustful, worldly ways of thinking that are contrary to God and His Word).
If we do not take action to wash the brain with the Word of God, worldly thoughts and imaginations will dominate our thinking, and will cause us to be lead about by the flesh, which profits nothing. (Rom 8:5-8 & John 6:63) In doing so, we would take all of our cues for living from the thoughts of the brain—never listening to, and even ignoring the voice of the Holy Ghost and the Word of God transmitting wisdom from the heart to us.
The heart of the born-again Christian always desires to do the Will of God, and by the leading of the Holy Ghost, will war against fleshly and worldly thinking and imaginations from thoughts in the brain.
By contrast, when we continually wash our brains with the Word of God, the brain will come into agreement with knowledge of God planted in our hearts and souls. When the human brain lines up with all parts of the heart (spirit, soul, and mind) then the physical body and the apparatus of the mouth will follow.
The more you wash your brain with the Word of God, the easier and clearer you are able to see Godly Imaginations and hear the Holy Ghost leading and guiding you into all truth. You will be a son of God that is led by the Spirit of God—seeing and bringing Godly imaginations into the natural realm; thereby ruling your world.
In closing, we understand now that all three-parts of our being belong to God. The fullness of God dwells in our spirits, and our hearts and minds have been renovated to contain His laws. Oh, what hidden treasures lie within the inner-most and deepest thoughts of the hearts and minds of born-again believers. With diligent meditation on the Word of God, Godly imaginations are waiting to emerge, which cause pictures to be produced from the soul, that when spoken in faith bring forth supernatural manifestations of good things known only before in the spirit realm.
The treasure of the heart must be closely guarded for from it are produced the forces of life. (Prov. 4:23) Next week, in Part 3B, we will learn how to guard Godly imaginations of the heart and quicken dead things to life.
Should Jesus Christ tarry, see you next week!