CHRIST'S FIGHTING INSTRUMENTS

Christ gave you powerful fighting instruments—His Word. Use His sword today and win every battle.

MEDITATE ON THE WORD
When you form, in the spirit of your mind, a picture or an image of something that might happen and act on that image you give life to it.
One of your greatest fighting instruments is the capacity to judge all thoughts and imaginations by the written Word of God. Unbelievers don’t have this ability because their carnal minds are hostile toward God (Romans 8:7). Using the written law of God as your guide for truth is the first sign of spiritual maturity. As you learn to judge all your thoughts you will discover that fear, insecurity and confusion will leave your life.
Some have more problems with debased thoughts and imaginations than others, but there is victory for everyone. You just have to learn how to bind them up. One thing that helps everyone is to stop taking imaginations as fact. Imaginations are only imaginations. They dwell in the unseen spirit of your mind. Thoughts too are only thoughts. Neither has power unless you give life to them by dwelling on them and speaking them.
Judging every thought and imagination will help you immediately. All your thoughts and imaginations should lead you closer to God and life in the Spirit. If they don’t they are vain and corrupted. To embrace them would only hinder your walk with Christ.
Vain imaginations never lead you closer to God but away from Him. They are exalted valleys. Many live, not according to the Word of God or the ways of God, but according to blemished imagery within their imagination. The imagination is the area where the devil works the most in the life of a believer. Just remember “the weapons of your warfare are not carnal but mighty through God to the pulling down of strongholds.” Strongholds are those destructive imaginations created by dwelling on corrupted thoughts.
Imaginations will talk to you. They have a voice and are not afraid to mentor you. Vain imaginations can, and will, laud themselves against the knowledge of God in your life. They have an anti-Christ voice and will challenge Christ’ truth for your life. An imagination, for example, may speak to you saying, “You’re going to die,” when Christ’ Word clearly declares, “With long life will I satisfy you and show you my salvation” (Psalm 91:16). That is how imaginations glorify themselves against the knowledge of God.
Have you ever felt defeated in the midst of victory? An imagination may also attack the Word of God in your life by saying, “You’re going to be a defeated person all your life.” When the Word of God says, “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ” (Ephesians 1:3). When the Word of God declares, “My God shall supply all of your need according to His riches in glory by Christ Jesus” (Philippians 4:19), an imagination may attack to undermine God’s plan and purpose in your life. God may speak to you saying, “I’ve called you for such a time as this” (Ester 4:14), but an imagination may challenge, “Yeah, but nobody loves you, nobody cares about you, and nobody will listen to you.” All of these are simple examples of the lying voice of vain thoughts that attack the mind. You must learn how to get control over your thoughts and imaginations, and you can!
IMAGINARY CONVERSATIONS
Within your imagination you can create supposed conversations with others. Sometimes people allow imaginary verbal exchanges to take them into error. Some start foreseeing in their mind’s eye, for illustration, a presumed dialogue they’ll have with someone. They may think of someone they’re going to meet at work and begin to think about a talk that has not yet taken place. Their mind begins to drift into the realm of imagination and they think about what they are going to say. They even visualize the person’s response. As they continue to think about the scene a voice of fear may be released into their imagination producing insecurity, alarm, rejection, unbelief or anger. Because imaginations produce emotion they then find themselves envisaging things that haven’t even happened. This is the poisoned fruit of corrupted thoughts and imaginations. This is why we must take every vagabond imagination captive. This realm can rob abundant life from you. Vain imaginations are “high things that exalt themselves against the knowledge of God” and attack your mind.
Have you drifted past coral reefs into the dark blue depths of a vain imagination today? You may have started thinking what your spouse might say, what your employer might say, or how your children might act. Suddenly your mind is consumed with unseen images that affect you in a negative way. When you dwell on corrupted thoughts you’re walking, not after the Spirit, but after the flesh that was introduced by the vain imagination. This is another example of how some live because they harvest imaginations and lose the victory of the knowledge of Christ in their lives.
Imaginations speak a foreign language and exalt themselves against the truth of God in your life. It is the voice of an imagination, for example, that says, “You can’t make it. Why don’t you just give up and quit?” When you hear unfamiliar sounds turn away and incline your ear towards heaven that declares, “I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me” (Philippians 4:13). Christ gave you powerful fighting instruments—His Word. Use His sword today and win every battle.
MEDITATION AND REFLECTION
Imagination produces emotion.
Imaginations are pictures within your mind of thoughts, events or conversations that are only in the unseen world within you.
When you form, in the spirit of your mind, a picture or an image of something that might happen and act on that image you give life to it.

by Jonas Clark