ENVISIONING GREAT THINGS

Your soul hosts your mind, emotion, imagination, reasoning and intellect. The warfare that attacks your mind operates within your soul, particularly your thought life and within your imagination.

Envisioning Great Things
With your spirit you connect to the unseen spirit world, with your body the natural world, and with your soul the magnificent world of imagination.
Can you see yourself with sword in hand winning the war against your mind? To succeed you will need to discover how God created you, a champion that is “fearfully and wonderfully made” (Psalm 139:14). God created you spirit, soul and body. Just like God, you are a triune being. With your spirit you connect to the unseen spirit world, with your body the natural world, and with your soul the magnificent world of imagination.
When you were born again your spirit became a “new creature in Christ Jesus.” Your body and soul, however, remained unchanged. They need some help. You understand that exercise and diet is good for your physical health but what about the health of your soul? The Apostle John said, “Beloved I pray above all things that you might prosper and be in health even as your soul prospers” (3 John 1:2). A person can be born again, physically fit, and yet suffer tremendous warfare within their mind. Throughout this material you will learn battle tactics that will help you overcome the warfare against your mind. Let’s start with the soul.
Your soul hosts your mind, emotion, imagination, reasoning and intellect. The warfare that attacks your mind operates within your soul, particularly your thought life and within your imagination. When God created you He gave you the ability to “see all things as possible” within your imagination. Satan understands how God created you and will use your imagination and ignorance of God’s Word against you. That’s why it is important to “Study to show thyself approved unto God a workman that needeth not to be ashamed rightly dividing the word of truth” (2 Timothy 2:15).
Imagination is your seeing gift from God. With it you can envision great things, dream great things and achieve great things. All outstanding achievement in life is birthed within someone’s imagination. Before you can benefit from positive imaginations, however, you need to win the war against vain imaginations. Vain imaginations are those corrupted negative images and possibilities that form within the spirit of your mind when you linger on negative thoughts.
Vain imaginations defeat many Christians and take them out of successful Christian living. Our imaginations, like military forts in the old American West, need to be fortified with Gospel truth. That’s why Paul taught believers to renew their minds with the Word of God. The devil is a strategist. He uses imaginations to gain access into your life to steal, kill and destroy. The Apostle Paul passed on a tremendous truth that you can use for victory. Throughout this essay we will use it as foundational truth to help you win every battle that attacks your mind.
“For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war after the flesh: For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strong holds; Casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ” (2 Corinthians 10:3-5).
From this verse you will learn how to overcome every vain imagination and every thought that tries to take you out of the generous life that Christ provides. One of humanity’s greatest struggles is the spiritual warfare in the mind caused by corrupted thoughts and imaginations.
WARFARE WITHIN
All men have eyes but few can really see. It’s amazing how much is written in the Bible about imagination. The realm of imagination is the realm of images. It is the place of seeing and visualizing. scri pture says, “Thou shall have no graven images (imaginations) before me” (Exodus 20:4). Our Lord never wanted His sons and daughters to worship him through graven images but with their heart and through their imaginations. With your imagination and only with your imagination can you image the greatness of God.
“So what is an imagination,” you ask? An imagination is a mental vista or picture seen within the spirit of your mind. It’s a picture of something created in the mind of man, or said another way, in the spirit of man’s mind. It is an image of something you see and suppose might happen. It is seeing yourself in a place you’re not. It is a real place called the spirit of your mind, the world of the unseen within.
The spirit of your mind has nothing to do with your born-again spirit. The spirit of your mind is within your soul or psuch man (pronounced psoo-khay, Greek for soul). An imagination forms a mental picture of things unseen or things only seen within. Something that exists only within the imagination is a virtual world that is not real until acted on.
Again, scri pture declares, “For though we walk in the flesh we do not war after the flesh” (2 Corinthians 10:3). The warfare theme is consistent throughout the Bible. All of us are in a spiritual war for dominion. Dominion in our lives, and yes dominion within our minds. As said before, when you were saved, your spirit man was born again. You became a “new creature” in Christ Jesus (2 Corinthians 5:17). Your mind, however, didn’t change. It was not born again and needs renewal. After salvation you still had, for example, carnal thinking, bad information and troubling life experiences and memories that affect your judgment. Even so God has given you mighty weapons to stop every damaging thought and corrupted imagination. With these weapons you have authority and power to cast down every imagination and “high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God” in your life. He has given you the ability to bring into captivity every vain thought and imagination every time they attack your mind. You can do it! Start today.
MEDITATION AND REFLECTION
With your spirit you connect to the unseen spirit world, with your body the natural world, and with your soul the magnificent world of imagination.
Your soul hosts your mind, emotion, imagination, reasoning and intellect. The warfare that attacks your mind operates within your soul, particularly your thought life and within your imagination.Vain imaginations are those corrupted negative images and possibilities that form within the spirit of your mind when you linger on negative thoughts.