The Power Of Imagination 1 | Pastor John Greiner

This message explores the biblical concept of Power of Imagination, teaching that believers must renew their minds and align their thinking with God’s Word in order to experience His plans for their lives. Drawing from passages such as Epistle to the Romans, Epistle to the Philippians, and Book of Joshua, the message explains how meditation on Scripture produces faith-filled imagination that helps believers see God’s promises before they manifest. Listeners are encouraged to discipline their thought life, reject negative and self-defeating imaginations, and continually meditate on God’s Word so their minds, words, and actions align with His purpose—leading to spiritual growth, victory, and a life in harmony with God’s plan.

Transcript

Setting The Spiritual Frame

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Pick up our Bibles, please. Lift them up, wave them around, make Jesus glad and the devil mad. Let's say this together. Say, Heavenly Father, I'm glad to be in the house with people of light precious faith. I'm in the right place at the right time with the right folks. There's a miracle atmosphere. I'm going to tap into it. I'm never going to be the same. God is doing new things in my life. In Jesus' name. Amen. Praise God. You can be seated. Let's look in our Bibles today in the book of Romans, chapter 12 and chapter 8. We're going to read out of both of those, 12 first. Romans 12. And I'll start with verse 1. Paul writing to believers says, I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service. Another version adds, it's your spiritual worship. And, verse 2, be not conformed to this world, but be you transformed by the renewing of your mind that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God. And then over in chapter 8, verse 5, Paul writes, And for they that are after the flesh do mind the things of the flesh, but they that are after the spirit the things of the spirit. For to be carnally minded is death, but to be spiritually minded is life and peace. But I wanted to read those two verses out of the Passion translation. Those who are motivated by the flesh only pursue what benefits themselves, but those who live by the impulses of the Holy Spirit are motivated to pursue spiritual realities. For the sense and reason of the flesh is death. But the mindset controlled by the Spirit finds life and peace. Isn't that good? And so today I wanted to share a message. We're going to go through a series of messages on this subject. The power of imagination. The power of imagination. I wanted to add these teachings here in the next three weeks to your arsenal because we're all in the discovery mode of the new things. Revelation 21, 5, behold, I make all, you know, I'm do new things. I make all things new. And we've been discovering that the last number of weeks. And really the power of imagination, you know, the Bible teaches us, you know, that when we're saved, we're born again. See, we're three-part beings. You know, when I realized that, when I got taught that early on, thank God I went to a good, great Bible-believing, word of faith church called Lakewood Church. John Osteen was my spiritual father, my pastor. And to discover that we're three-part beings. The nuns told me that I was a soul and a spirit. See, I'm I'm Catholic background. Went to Catholic school for eight years, eighth grade. I was president of the knights of the altar. I mean, I'm, you know, Catholic. But see, they didn't teach me properly. They taught me what they knew, which was wrong. No, we're not just soul and spirit. We're body, soul, and spirit. Really, we're we're spirit beings. When you're born again, your spirit is the part of you that's that's saved. Your spirit is born again. Born from above. Jesus said you had to be born from above to see the kingdom, much less enter into it. He's the one that said it. And so you're born again. Your spirit is made brand new, you become a new creature, but let guess what? Your body's the same body, and your mind is the same mind. So you're a spirit being, you live in a body, and you have a soul, which is your mind, your will, your intellect. And so here in Romans, where you know, the apostle Paul tells them that they've got to do something about their body. They've got to do what? They've got to present it. In other words, they've got to rule it. Who's the you? The spirit. You need to be spirit, your spirit needs to dominate your flesh. Your flesh is always wanna do what it's always done. And so being a disciple of Christ is all about getting your flesh under control where you make it do the things that please God. That's what you call presenting your body. And then you've got to do something else. You've got to do something with your mind. Why? Well, because if you don't do anything with your mind, then what's going to happen is your body is going to influence your mind, and your spirit is going to be drowned out, and so the three parts of your being are going to vote, and your flesh and your mind are going to vote against your spirit. You see, your spirit always wants to do good. Your spirit wants to please God. Your spirit wants to do everything that Jesus is Lord over. But if you don't renew your mind, you know, he said here in verse 2 of chapter 12, he said, be not conformed to this world. It really means don't be conformed to this way, way world's way of thinking. The world has a way of thinking. You have a way of thinking until you change that way of thinking. You, being your spirit, has to change your mind and renew it to God's truth. See, I'm talking about the power of imagination. Our minds, our souls have a whole lot to do with our victory. They're going to have a whole lot to do with whether you receive the new things God has earmarked for you. Because you've got to be able to see those things. Are you with me now? So uh so we vote with our mind whether we're gonna go spiritual with something or whether we're gonna go carnal. What does carnal mean, body rule? You see, your body has a voice, it's called emotion. And over 40 years of ministering to people, I mean, I've discovered that most people in church make their decisions on an emotional basis. You know, when they're up, they're up, when they're down, they're down, you know, and when they get happy, they're happy, when they're sad, they're sad. They make all kinds of decisions based on their emotions. Well, that's not the way that Christians are supposed to live. And then another voice that has place in your in your being is the voice of your soul or your mind, which is reason. You know, you can reason it out. Men are, you know, men, you know, in my in my experience, you know, women are wired with intuition. Women make decisions. I mean, you know, if you ask a woman, how'd you make that decision, she'll tell you this trail of things that you wonder how in the world, you know, women are men are from Mars, women are from Venus. I mean, you know, they're just you go, well, how did you make that decision like that? But men are just like one, two, three, real rigid and and mathematical and and reasoned. See, look, you can't make a decision with your brain because God is wiser and smarter than you are. You've got to get lined up with his thinking, you've got to get his perspective. Perspective, power, and promise. We've been talking about that. When you get God's perspective, God's power is able to be released. Why? Because you have faith. Once you know the will of God, you've got faith for that will. See, God's word is his will. So you've got to get God's perspective. Everybody say God's perspective or God's thinking on it. So uh we have to, we we cannot conform to this natural, but be transformed. That word transform there in chapter chapter 12, verse 2 is an interesting Greek word. It means it's the word where we get metamorphosis from. Metamorpho is the Greek, and it means to be transformed. It means like the caterpillar into a butterfly, like the tadpole into a frog. I mean, you actually just change completely. Yes, you were changed by the new birth, but if you'll start to reprogram your thinking and line it up with God's word, then you will be transformed yet again so that you can prove what is the good, acceptable, perfect will of God. You don't ever have to wonder what God wants you to do or what new thing that God has for you. If you start renewing your mind to God's word and start meditating in the word of God, then you are gonna know what the new things are that you need to believe for. Let's look at Philippians chapter 4, talking about the power of imagination. Some people think, oh, that's psychological. Well, I'm not really, it's not psychological, it's spiritual. We have a spiritual mind. The mind of Christ. We ought to have the mind of Christ, see. What I'm talking about is spiritual. It's not just psychobabble. Uh Philippians chapter 4, verse 8. Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report, and if there be any virtue, if there be any praise, think on these things. And those things which you have both learned and received and heard and seen in me, do, and the God of peace shall be with you. But now, you know, I want to read that one again out of the message. It's so powerful. I think it'll help you. Philippians chapter 4, verse 8. In the message. Summing it all up, friends. I'd say you'd do best by filling your minds and meditating, everybody shout meditating, meditating on things true, noble, reputable, authentic, compelling, gracious, the best, not the worst, the beautiful, not the ugly, things to praise, not things to curse. Put into practice what you've learned from me, what you heard and saw and realized. Do that, and God, who makes everything work together, will work into you, he will work you into his most excellent harmonies. Isn't that awesome? You become a harmonious song with God Himself. I mean, your life just is humming along in perfect harmony with God's plan. Oh man, come on, lift your hand right now. Praise God. See, so we've got to, we've got to manage our thought life. And so the product of meditation is imagination. I'm gonna say it again. The product of meditation is imagination. A few years ago, I went to Galveston to pray. I might have been 2017, 8, I don't remember what year. I get, you know, I could go back and find it, but God always shows me things. A lot of times he shows me things for the first time, and I was pulled up on East Beach overlooking the Galveston ship channel, and uh it was really windy that day. It was a January day, or maybe late December, and the wind was blowing real strong out of the southeast, right before northern. Norther was coming in. And so I was just watching the pelicans, and they were feeding. It was feeding time, and they were, you know, one of them was fighting the wind, you know. He's got to flap his wings a little bit because the wind's blowing so he'd be going backwards. So he he's he's kind of just doing his wings like that, and he's looking down, and boy, all of a sudden he just folds those wings and dives, and boom, he comes up with a mullet and throws it back, you know, and swallows it, you know, and stays there for 10 seconds. And then, man, he takes up, takes off, and flies down a little further and dives again. I saw him dive five times before he disappeared into the gulf, you know. And I got to thinking, you know, God was showing me about how he had implanted in that pelican's little pea brain an image of his food. He knows what is good for him to eat. He's got an image of a mullet. What if he had, you know, what if he didn't have that image? Well, he wouldn't know what to feed on. I mean, if he dove down in there and got a hold of a barracuda, he'd be in trouble. Or if he dove down there and got a hold of a stingray, he'd be in mortality. I mean, you know, he'd he'd be in trouble. I mean, you know, he'd so no, he knows what his food looks like because God implanted it in him in his little pea brain. He's got an image. Everybody say, an image. He's got an image of what his what his prey is. Are y'all getting this now? I'm talking about, I'm talking about the power of imagination. I mean, when you begin to see what God has for you, the vision of faith. You begin to see it. And so wrong thoughts will produce wrong words and it'll produce wrong results. You know, Jesus said, as a man thinketh in his heart, so is he. So we've got to really manage our thought life. We've got we've been told what to think about. We're not supposed to think like the world thinks. And I mean, if you fill your mind with everything the world has to offer, you're never gonna have the right thoughts that are gonna bring you to the victory that God has for you. Let's look at Genesis 11. I wanted you to see this, it's so powerful. And uh and Genesis 11 is about uh the world after the flood. After Noah and the flood, and you know, God wiped out humanity, started over with Noah, righteous Noah, because the earl, or before that, the earth had been filled with violence, murder, and and you know, the the Hebrew word for for violence is Hamas. And the Hamas is really not Hebrew, it's it's Arabic, but still those words line up. It's just really amazing. And uh, and so uh in Genesis 11, uh verse 1, the whole earth was of one language. My margin says one lip. Everybody spoke the same words. And it came to pass as they journeyed from the east that they found a plain in the land of Shiner, and they dwelt there, which is present-day Iraq, Babylon, and rock. And they said one to another, They said, say, a man said to his neighbor in my margin, Come, let us make brick and burn them thoroughly. And they had brick for stone, and they had slime or tar for mortar, and they said, Come, let us build a city and a tower whose top may reach unto heaven, and let us make us a name, lest we be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth. So they're all saying the same thing, they're doing the same thing. They start building this city with a tower that's gonna reach to heaven. And the Lord came down to see the city in the tower which the children of men builded, and the Lord said, Behold, the people is one, and they have all one language, and this they begin to do, and now nothing will be restrained from them which they have imagined to do. God said that. God said they are not gonna be restrained. You see, your imagination, your words, we're in the God class of being, whether we're lined up with God or not. We can be lost as a goose, and there are certain successes that can be had in this earth. What does it profit a man if he gained the whole world, lose his own soul? They were gonna be successful doing this. What did God have to do? He had to he had to confuse their language and scatter them, he had to separate them. I mean, we know we used to be one nation under God. Now we've got about, I don't know what percentage, but a good percentage of people are just nuts. And they worship the gods of other nations or any or no God. We gotta, we need a boy, we need we we need revival, don't we? Well, revival's, revival's coming. So, uh we're what I want you to see, we're in the God class of being. We're not God, but we're like God in that we can have what we say. And we can imagine, God imagined. He imagined light when it was dark. Are y'all with me now? So, you know, when you go through your Bible, you see, like Moses, Moses received the pattern of the tabernacle. You know, after they crossed the Red Sea, you know, Moses stretched out his rod. They they crossed on dry ground, and then the Pharaoh and his army tried to do it, and they drowned there in there. And he gets over across there, and in Exodus 25, uh, God said, Okay, I want you to take an offering for me. I want gold, silver, blue, purple, scarlet, badger skins, fine linen. Where in the world would where in the world did did did Israel get all that kind of stuff? They got it from Egypt. They spoiled the Egyptians when they left town. They took, they took all their good stuff. And they had the material, the raw material. He said, I want to, I want you to build me a house. I want you to build me a tabernacle in the wilderness so I can shekinah, that my glory can be contained. You see, God was with them in a pillar of fire by night and a cloud by day, and it wasn't good for them to be around that because they, you know, they weren't, they weren't uh really doing the things they needed to do to be in that presence, and it can kill you. The glory can kill you. And so he wanted to, he wanted to live with them, but he couldn't live with them the way he had been, so he said, give me, make me a tabernacle in the wilderness. So so Moses did that. He received the offering, they had plenty of it, and he had all the raw material, and God gave him the plans, he gave him the the exactly how to build this mobile tabernacle that they could put up on their shoulders and move from place to place. They had all the curtains, they had all they had the Ark of the Covenant with this golden chest, you know, and inside it was Aaron's rod that had budded, and you know, almond blossoms on this on this rod, and they had some of the manna in there, and that's God's Shekinah presence would be in that box. God lived in a box in the Holy of Holies behind all this protection where only person could go in there was the high priest once a year and not without blood. He had to have the blood to go in there. Are y'all with me now? But Moses received all of that from God and he imagined it. He saw it, he saw the whole plan. See, that's what God wants to do with us. David wanted to build a house for the Lord. He had that, he had the ark all right. All those years later, the ark was there, and he brought it, you know, out of the Philistines and brought it back to the city of David. And it and it grieved him. He said, God, I want to build you a house. He said, Well, it's good that you want to build me one, but you've shed too much blood in my sight. You're a man of blood. I I can't allow you to build my house, but your son is your son will do it. Solomon, your son will do it. And so Solomon, after David died, David prepared now. He he he he had all of his wealth. He had his gold and his silver and his brass. He he assembled a bunch of the raw materials for the temple. Now the temple's gonna be a permanent building. It's gonna go from being mobile to being permanent. And so, you know, the temple of Solomon, I mean, he what did he receive the whole plan. He received the entire plan. I mean, every room, he had the Holy of Holies, the outer court, the inner court, every door, every, every, every laver. I mean, he had that big old huge uh uh thing where they washed. And it was sitting on twelve braass bulls that were facing north, south, east, and west. Three, three each. And uh the the weight of the of the big of the big temple uh pillars outside, two huge brass pillars. There was so much brass it was without weight, they couldn't even measure how much it was how much it was. And he had Hiram go and and get all the wood and cut it down in Lebanon and ship it by sea uh for for all the construction. It was an amazing, amazing. And all of it came from imagination. Are y'all with me now? He imagined it, but it was lined up with what God's plan was. So God has a plan. He has a blueprint. He has a map to bring you from where you are to where he wants you. And see, this means something to me because I was a home builder for 25 years. And I never built a house without a plan. I look back on some of my early houses that I built when I first got into business way back in the 70s. In fact, 1970 was my first houses that I built, the first five houses that I built. They were very simple plans, maybe three or four or five pages. Real simple. But they had all the information on there that you needed. But what was one of the amazing things was looking at the plans and looking at the at the finished product. There's nothing quite like it. You know, you can see a piece of paper, and all of a sudden here's a three-dimensional thing that you cause to get constructed based on what? This plan. See, you've got to have the plan, don't you? If you've got somebody else's plan, if you've got a plan for something else, it's not going to work. God's got a plan for each of you, and He's got a plan for us corporately. Are you all with me now? I mean, you let's just suppose you want to go to Galveston, you want to go to Guido's, and you want some lump crab meat. See, I'm really hungry for some lump crab. Glad it says I preach about food all the time, and she's right. But I love lump crab, blue crab, lump crab. I like the crab, lumps of crab, it's about the size of my thumb. There's only a few of those in one crab. I mean, the rest of the meat is just slivers, you know, it kind of disappeared. But you get a piece of crab meat like that now, that's you can you can actually chew it and taste it, and it's wonderful. Especially if it's got asiago cream sauce on it. And guide's has got the best. I haven't found any place else that's got better. So I mean, I type guidos into my GPS. And it's going to give me a turn by turn. You can leave the subdivision, go down to Cutting Road, and go to Cutting to 1960, and go 1960 to 249, 249 to Beltway. Beltway, you know, just it'll turn by turn. I mean, you've got you've got all these waypoints, you've got all these places, you've got all these interchanges, you've got all these spaghetti bowls, but finally you're going to turn into the parking lot and walk in there to your crab meat. Your destiny. Oh, I tell you, God's got something better than crab meat for you. He's got something great. He's got something powerful. I mean, just can you can you just sense it? I mean, this whole thing this weekend is just unfolding, this massive change in the Middle East that president after president, leader after leader passed, kicked the can down the road and didn't do a good job. And I'll tell you exactly why Trump has succeeded, it's because he loves Israel and he loves the church. He's been the best friend Israel has ever had, and he's been the best friend that the church has ever had. And God is blessing us because we bless Israel. It's so simple. And what does he do with the others? He curses those who curse them. It doesn't mean he cursed, it's just that it's laying there for them. It's been spoken, it's gonna come to pass. It's not that God sits in heaven and says, I curse. No, it's there, it's automatic. It's a it's a it's a spiritual law like gravity. You can't escape it. And this country uh for for most of why it's in trouble is because we've had leader after leader that only gave uh half-hearted support, in some cases, no support. With Obama, he was horrible. The worst president we've ever had. Worse than Biden, if you ask me. Oh, Pastor, you're getting Yeah, I am. I do it all the time. I don't care. Thank God for President Trump. See, we we are on the cusp of just great revival. I mean, there's this opportunity, there's gonna be a mighty harvest in the Middle East. It's gonna take money to reach those people. We've got to have people go preach the gospel to them while the preaching is good. They're disillusioned in Allah. They figured out Allah is not all he's cooked up to be. And so it's time for us to get in there. Don't do what we did Japan. Japan was the same way after World War II, and we didn't seize the moment with Japan. We didn't get in there and have have our preachers and and and General Douglas MacArthur beg the church, please send the preachers to Japan. They are ripe and ready. They have been, their emperor, Hirohito, has been exposed as a fraud. Get him in, get them in here, get the gospel. And well, we just didn't do it. They never did have a move of God. No, I tell you, we're gonna do it this time. But I say the power of imagination. You know, Brother Hagin gives a testimony, Kenneth E. Hagin, and uh he went to heaven in 2003, but I still watch him on Facebook reels and stuff. I'll get little snippets of his preaching. And uh between Brother Osteen and Brother Hagin, those are the two major influences in my ministry and life. But he tells the testimony uh of a uh Pentecostal evangelist, a woman. People that don't like women preachers, it's too late. There's plenty of women preachers, and they're just as call as men are. But this lady had established all, I don't know how many churches. She was a really an apostle, is what she was. But she was about 80 years old and was diagnosed with cancer, and she was bedridden. The doctors gave her just weeks to live. She had this big tumor in her stomach, laid in bed. Brother, they asked Brother Hagin to go by there and pray for her, and he went by to visit her. And uh she said, Oh, Brother Hagin, just leave me alone now. Don't don't be praying for my healing. I'm ready to beat Jesus. I'm just ready to go home. Don't don't bother with me. He said, I can't do it. He said, Don't, don't let the devil steal your testimony and go out sick. Get healed first, and then if you want to go to be with the Lord, then you then go. But don't don't go like this. You don't hear it, you just don't hear it anymore. Nobody talks like that anymore. But it's the truth.

unknown 28:54

Amen.

Maps, Waypoints, And Destiny

Nations, Israel, And Spiritual Law

Testimony: Seeing Healing First

Three Practices For Your Thought Life

SPEAKER_00 28:56

And he said, Look, I I'm not gonna pray for you, but what I am, I'm gonna give you what I have. I have Proverbs chapter 4, verses 20 to 22. My son, my daughter, attend to my words, incline thine ear unto my sayings. Let them not depart from thine eyes, but keep them in the midst of thine heart. For my words are life unto those that find them, and health are medicine to all their flesh. He said, Sister, he said, you just take the word of God and just you just see yourself well, see yourself preaching, see yourself, you know, getting back on the road, keeping a schedule. And uh and he didn't even lay hands on her, he didn't even pray for her. And so three or four months later, they he was at a church holding meetings, and this woman showed up, came in the lobby while he was at his book table, and she just came up to him and threw her arms around him, and of course he, you know, Ouretha's at home, and this woman, you know, hugging him like that, and he kind of pushed her away. She said, Well, you don't recognize me, do you? I said, Well, no, no. Well, I'm the one, and it's oh yeah, sister. Oh, and then they started dancing and jumping around, you know, just praising God in the lobby. He said, I'm so glad you wouldn't let me die. I'm glad you gave me the word. He said, After you left, I got to thinking about it and I started seeing my stomach flat. I just look at that stomach, you're flat in Jesus' name. And I began, I got out my notes and I started looking at my calendar and I started making plans. Where am I gonna go first? Where what am I gonna preach? And she said, in three months' time, I was back on the road preaching. Come on, lift your hand right now. Glory to God. She saw herself well. You can see yourself well, you can see yourself prosperous, you can see yourself victorious, you can see yourself with the answer. Glory to God. So, three things right here, and we're gonna uh give you these. First of all, harness your thought life. Harness it. See, we just read it there in the the, and I'll read it again in the in the the passion. Uh harness your thought life. Or in the message, I should say. Said uh fill your mind, meditating on things that are what, true, noble. See, something might be true, but it might not be noble. Something might be true, but it not might not be compelling or gracious. It might be a negative truth. Don't don't be thinking about the bad stuff. See, things that are that are true, noble, reputable, authentic, compelling, gracious. The best. Think on the best, not the worst. Think on the beautiful, not the ugly. Think about things to praise, not things to curse. And then he goes on and says, just start putting into practice the things that you've heard me and seen the things that I've demonstrated. I mean, he he was there, you know, as their apostle, and he was an example to them. That's one of the things that that that uh God has made me as an example, and so I'm I'm I'm I'm diligent as best I can to live my life in front of you the way that it ought to be lived, with a good report. Are you with me now? So harness your thought life. That's number one, it's one of the hardest things, and and then at the same time, number two, cast down negative and self-defeating imaginations and memories. 2 Corinthians chapter 10. Let's look at this one. Because we all have those. No one's exempt. Why? Because the devil will throw thoughts at your mind. And don't own a thought that comes from the devil. No, you know, 2 Corinthians chapter 10, verse 4. We have verse 3. For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war after the flesh. For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal or body ruled or of the body or of the natural, but they are mighty through God. To the pulling down of strongholds, casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ. See, if a thought is not noble, if it's not gracious, if it's not true, if it's not praiseworthy, you cast it down. Thoughts can, if they're undealt with, can become imaginations. They can come from a picture. You can have an image or a picture like the pelican. He's just got a picture of his mullet. It starts with an image, but then it doesn't stop with an image. If you're meditating on the word, God will give you an image, but then many times it'll turn into an imagination. It'll turn into a video. Well, it can happen on the negative side. You can start to have imaginations that are just all constructed from the enemy. And then if you don't do anything about it, what happens? It becomes what? A stronghold. Now the devil has a little demon, a little hairy demon, this big little purple, yellow, green demon sitting on your shoulder, and he's got himself attached to that stronghold in your brain. It's going to take a little bit more to get rid of it now. Because you didn't deal with it in the thought stage. I call them negative internal dialogues. You know, things that we've had in our minds forever. Like you're not good enough, you're not pretty enough, you're not handsome enough, you're not educated enough, you're not this enough, you're not that enough, woulda, coulda, shoulda. Rear-view mirror, wish I hadn't done that. No. No, I mean, you got to break all that off. Look at Peter. I mean, he denied Jesus three times. Jesus turned right around and forgave him. Called him. Peter, lovest thou me? Feed my lambs. Peter, lovest thou me? Tend the sheep. Peter, lovest thou me? Lord, don't you know I don't, I don't. He got kind of aggravated, you know. Answering the question. God made him confess his love for the three times he denied him. I mean, God didn't fire him, God, God empowered him to feed and tend and the sheep. So what of our, what are our what what kind of weapons have we got? Well, we've got the name of Jesus. We've got the blood of Jesus. We've got the Holy Ghost. We've got the word of God. These are supernatural weapons that are, the devil is no match. Natural thinking, natural thinking. See, we're never going to get what God has for us in the natural. We've got to get it in the supernatural. So harness your thought life, cast down negative and self-defeating imaginations and memories, and finally, number three, meditate on the word. Now, what does it mean to meditate? See, I see these, I say I saw a mattress uh commercial the other day. It's just sprinkled in there nowadays now. They've they've got Eastern religion all in our uh commercial television. And so they're sitting on this bed with this guy sitting on the bed, you know, like this, with his, you know, transcendental meditation and his his uh mantra. See, we don't have a mantra. We're meditating on the word. See, they they hijacked what the what what Bible characters did. I mean, this is what Abraham did, this is what Moses did, this is what Joshua did. They meditated on God's word. They didn't, they weren't saved, they didn't have a spirit that was alive to God, but their mind, God could deal with their mind when they thought about his word and they could get his plan. Are y'all with me now? So he told Joshua there. Let's look at Joshua chapter 1. We've been talking a lot about him lately. Because he led the children of Israel across that, across the Jordan at flood stage. He did what Moses couldn't do. He accomplished what Moses couldn't accomplish. And God told him in verse 8, Joshua, this book of the law shall not depart out of thy mouth, but thou shalt meditate therein day and night, that you may observe to do according to all that is written therein. For then you shall make your way prosperous. And then you shall have good success. Isn't that amazing? Or in my margin, then you shall do wisely. He didn't say I'll make you successful. He didn't say I'll. He said you will. See, we're in the God class of being. We have more to do with our success really than God does. God's already provided the success. He's already provided the plan. All we gotta do is find it. All we've got to do is find the plan and meditate on it. See, meditate on the word. What does it mean to meditate? It means to talk about it, turn it about. You know, years ago, uh after, right before 9-11, I think the month before, on I think it was uh July, we were in the Seventh-day Adventist church. That wasn't a comfortable place to be, really. You know, we had we had some land, but we weren't able to build on it yet. We're just trying to prepare to get out of sharing a church with the Seventh-day Adventist people. They're there on Saturday, we're there on Sunday. And uh and and God had given me a word for that year in 2001. He gave me a word. This is a year of a premier year, it's a year of firsts. And uh, you know, and I and I, in that, in that when he spoke to me, it's a premier year, I saw uh the Hollywood lights, the spotlights, like they do out in old Hollywood, and the limos would roll up and the stars of the pro of the movies that were premiering would arrive and they would go through the paparazzi and go in the front door of the theater, you know, big hoopla. I saw that in a vision. And then after that, I saw 2001, comma, 2002, comma, dot, dot, dot. So I knew it was a first and a series of years. I didn't realize back then what he was showing me was a countdown to the rapture. See, we're on a countdown. That was 2001. And what year is it now? 2026. We're 25 years down the road, closer to the coming of the Lord. Every year is pivotal. Every year is we're getting closer and closer. If you have an hourglass and you're the sand is coming through the hourglass, the closer it gets to the neck, the faster it drops until it goes. I mean, it's coming. Jesus is coming. And what we do, we it it you know, each year gets a little bit more you know, strategic, and I won't say critical, but it is critical. So anyway, I I had that and I was thinking good things. See, this is pre-9-11. There's pre-9-11 thinking and post-9-11 thinking. 9-11 changed all our thinking. I'm gonna tell you something. What happened this weekend in Iran has changed all the thinking. It's even really it's more monumental.

unknown 41:04

Amen.

Casting Down Imaginations

Meditate Like Joshua

SPEAKER_00 41:06

Ooh, man. Come on, lift your hand right now. Glory to God. Hallelujah. So, anyway, I uh it's July, and I'd had the tsunami dream in June. And uh we talk about the tsunami dream. I'm on the beach and I see the tsunami, and it in the dream it looked like I was gonna die. It came and broke over me. And the next instant in the dream, I thought I was gonna die, and now I'm on top of the wave, and it's thrusting me forward. And I just have this power and exhilaration of being thrust with this big, huge wave under my feet. I went from one second I thought I was dead to the next second I'm being thrust forward in a major way. I wake up and I'm just, I don't know, I'm so discombobulated, I don't know why I'm out of breath, I'm sweating, I'm, you know, I didn't even know what to think, and then I immediately I heard I heard uh what uh Dr. John G. Lake said about the glory. He said the neck, the the wave of glory, uh the wave that brings the glory brings destruction. In other words, the wave of glory brings judgment, it separates the chaff from the wheat, it separates the good from the evil. It's what's necessary to have a harvest. And God began to teach me about that, and I didn't really know what to think of it at that time, back in 2001. So the next month I came across uh Isaiah 54, talking about the power of imagination now. And Isaiah 54 it says uh uh enlarge the place of your tent. Let them stretch forth the curtains of thine habitation. Spare not, lengthen your cords, strengthen your stakes, for you shall break forth on the right hand and on the left. Glory to God. And from that I got three words advancement, promotion, and enlargement. You see, a tent, in order to get bigger, you've got to have a bigger center pole. If you just make the tent bigger and you don't make it higher, then it's gonna catch water and it's gonna fall down when it rains. So you've got to have a bigger center pole or the the supports have to go up. See, that speaks of promotion, see? Advancement, see, get bigger, advancement, promotion, and enlargement. So I had those words, and when 9-11 hit, I'd had that dream about the tsunami, then I'd had that revelation and meditating on Isaiah 54, and then when the when when 9 11 hit, at first I thought I was disappointed in myself. I thought, Lord, I should have known this was coming. Why did I not know? This is judgment. This is that America needs to not, you know, America went the wrong direction. America started trying to say, well, we're gonna build bigger. We're gonna build a bigger and they built that. One World Trade Center is the name of it. One World. I mean, it's almost like the Antichrist built it. A monument to stupidity. A monument to what happens to people who don't honor Israel. I mean, we didn't honor Israel. We demanded Israel to sit down with our enemies, and we shot holes in our covering. And those planes came in there. I mean, God didn't send them, the devil sent them. But he couldn't prevent them. Why? Because we as a nation, we have a covenant with God as a nation, and we weren't doing our job as a nation. We were not being a good friend to Israel. Look back what George W. Bush did in Bush 41. Both of them were terrible with Israel. They acted like they weren't, but they were behind the scenes. Condoleezza Rice, oh, horrible. I don't want to hear her. I don't want to see her. Oh, she's a Christian. I don't know whether she is or not. She doesn't love Israel. I know that. I remember what she said. When all the people were leaving Gaza, they were forced by the IDF to leave Gaza so that they could give Gaza to the Palestinians, quote unquote. And what did the Palestinians do with it? Well, they built tunnels, they built rockets, they did everything they could to kill Jews. And it wasn't enough for Condoleez. He said, Well, it can't just be Gaza. They need to give more. Why would they need to give more? They've got that much land. Well, it it you know what you're saying is ridiculous. Do you ever look at a map, woman? No, they don't need to give anything. They don't need to give any land for peace. That's that's God's land. God's jealous over and zealous over. See, that's why we've gone through, so that's why I'm so happy about what's going on right now. I see God moving back. So I went back to the Lord and I said, Lord, I just I don't feel like I I heard from you. And then He began to put all the pieces together. And I began to see, see, I had I had some of the images, but I didn't have them stitched together. I'm saying these things because I I want to encourage you. You might just get an image or two, and you might have a difficulty trying to stitch everything together into a cohesive plan. But if you'll stick with it right now, now is the time to do it. Don't quit. Don't give up. Get before God and do your praying, do your meditating, and God is going to roll out his plan for you. Are you with me now? The power of imagination. I want us to tap into that power, and I want each of us to possess what God has for us this year. Come on, lift your hand and receive. Glory to God. Hallelujah.