Imagination A Gift From God

Chapter2; A Faith-Filled Imagination

Matthew 9:20-22 NKJV
And suddenly, a woman who had a flow of blood for twelve years came from behind and touched the hem of His garment. For she said to herself, "If only I may touch His garment, I shall be made well." But Jesus turned around, and when He saw her He said, "Be of good cheer, daughter; your faith has made you well." And the woman was made well from that hour.

This woman believed that if she could just touch Jesus, even just the hem of His garment she would be able to be healed from her condition. I could have only imagined the amount of pain and discomfort that this woman must have been feeling – having a flow of blood for twelve years must have been awful to say the least. How she coped only no-one knows. Looking at this Scripture made me visualize how this woman had such a desire to be healed from her pain, she was willing to do anything to receive that healing. I believe that this is why Jesus had said to her – be of good cheer daughter, your faith has made you well. For Jesus to say to her be of good cheer, gave me the impression that this woman was in a considerable amount of discomfort. This was how I began to see that faith is more than just a word, faith is an action that is seen by God as I stated before. When we start acting on this powerful word Faith, we start believing that amazing things will begin to happen, like what we have read so far in just these two Scriptures. Now the third Scripture was yet another story I read about faith, which just confirmed all of my other questions; how faith is so much more than just a word or phrase, it is a complete action that we do without thinking.

Matthew 8:5-10, 13 NLT
When Jesus returned to Capernaum, a Roman officer came and pleaded with him, "Lord, my young servant lies in bed, paralyzed and in terrible pain." Jesus said, "I will come and heal him." But the officer said, "Lord, I am not worthy to have you come into my home. Just say the word from where you are, and my servant will be healed. I know this because I am under the authority of my superior officers, and I have authority over my soldiers. I only need to say, 'Go,' and they go, or 'Come,' and they come. And if I say to my slaves, 'Do this,' they do it." When Jesus heard this, he was amazed. Turning to those who were following him, he said, "I tell you the truth, I haven't seen faith like this in all Israel! Then Jesus said to the Roman officer, "Go back home. Because you believed, it has happened." And the young servant was healed that same hour.

Jesus was amazed at the officer, because he believed if Jesus just spoke the word from where he was standing, he knew his servant would be healed. The Roman Officer knew what it meant to have authority, he believed in the authority of Jesus Christ to heal his servant. Hearing this amazed Jesus and He even said that He hadn't seen faith like that in all of Israel. It made me think even deeper about how I was living by faith. Do we know how we should live by faith?
It makes us think about how much we believe in God to do amazing things in my life, and do we stand up and speak out authority over ourselves. Was my faith like the Roman Officers, believing that if Jesus just says the words his servant will be healed? Are we believing that by the name of Jesus Christ we are healed over our circumstances? Once again, I would think back about my childhood and how I had such a crazy and wild imagination.
How I would believe that I was a superhero again, that I was unstoppable, conquering the heights of the tree. Even when I fell out of the tree, hurting myself in the process. I didn't act on fear, I was acting on what I thought I could do and how I believed in that. Faith is a powerful action we need to see first. This action enables us to do amazing things within the Lord. When we act in faith and just simply believe, nothing more than that, we begin to receive the promises of God.

Ephesians 2:8 NKJV
For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God,

When we have faith in something, we end up accomplishing the impossible, this is how I choose to believe. We overcome so many obstacles that are in our way that just might be the reason why we hear the words, just believe in yourself and you can do it.
If the world says things to that extent, how much more will these things happen when we have faith in Jesus Christ. We receive His grace, which I believe blesses us in all the things that we do, because it is God given. Then all the obstacles that we place in our way, slowly begin to fade away into the unknown. So why do we let the world distort our choices and then change our thoughts? Is it because we just feel that in reality some things just aren't possible to do or have? An even better statement that some individuals might use and that I have personally heard being said, is in the real world, things like that just don't really happen. I have a better statement, God says all things are possible through Him. As a child I believed in the impossible, so why not believe in the impossible as an adult, what is stopping us? It was only when I allowed sin to enter my life as an adult, that was when I stopped believing in the impossible and gave up on my dreams and ambitions. I began looking at the world, which made me settle for second best.

When I found Jesus Christ in my life, I began to believe all over again – believing within the impossible over all my circumstances. When we believe in something that we cannot see, this starts a process of us learning to walk in faith, that the impossible will happen. So I needed to learn to walk in faith, that in faith God will do the impossible and can do the impossible in my life. It was all down to me, was I going to believe what Scripture says, or stay in unbelief while allowing the world to keep distorting my image of God. I had already been down that path of sin remember, which distorted the image of myself, which in return led me nowhere in life.

We all encourage our children, that they are good at anything they put their minds to. That’s what I remember being told as a child, and is how I like to encourage my children. Nothing is impossible until we make it impossible. We are the ones who set the limit of how far we are willing to go. Hearing that really encouraged myself to go and do the things I wanted to achieve in life. It was always the disappointing part that I was never any good at dealing with and accepting. Failing at something I really wanted was too hard for myself to accept – this was in many areas of my life as I really hated rejection. I believe that this is when we start to feel and think that we will never achieve anything, so we start settling for second best, especially when we begin to use words like, I'm no good at anything – I always lose – I always get it wrong.

When my children say that now, especially James one of my three sons, I always try challenge them (challenge him) by saying, “Who said that you're no good?” I always seem to get the same answer every time.

“No one.”

It's always ourselves that think we are not good at achieving anything. Once again that's just the devil trying to put deceitful lies into our thoughts. God our father in heaven says we are not failures – we are more than that, we are world overcomers in Jesus Christ. We can overcome any obstacle in Jesus Christ. We will overcome all things in our lives, when we remain faithful to God first. Then we begin to see and believe that there is no name higher than the name of Jesus Christ. We will always face obstacles in our lives, some worse than others and it can be hard at times to see a way through it. It always will be there in the way, this is why Christ gives us a way to oversee the obstacles that we face. Walking by faith is hard for all of us to do, because it's always the right way to do things. The devil tries to stop us doing this – he will discourage us in every step we take with Christ.
Maybe that’s why we put impossible obstacles in our way, when we start by using wrong statements.

I can't do it like they do it!

I never get it right anyway, so why should I bother!

Why even try, it always ends up a mess in the end!

Isn’t it strange how all these statements pretty much sound all the same. It's just us complaining in different ways and using different words, but the obstacles are the same. These were some but a few ways of how we use words to create obstacles, that we put in our way of our accomplishments . The definition of the word obstacle means – A thing that blocks one's way or prevents or hinders progress. Another way that these certain obstacles hit us is by those discouraging words said to us by others when that happens, we always struggle to see a way through. We are already discouraged by how we think, now for others to add more discouragement stops us in our tracks completely. Satan is the father of lies, he will discourage us anyway he can, but Jesus said in John Chapter sixteen – When we face hard times be of good cheer and persevere in them, because Jesus has overcome the world. Be of GOOD CHEER, it's so simple yet we struggle to do it. That was when I noticed that, as I tried harder to hold on and control the situation, the worse the situation would get for myself. I had to learn to let go to understand that I was not in control but that God is in control of my life.
I just needed to let go of the reins as some would say, to allow God to do His work through my situations. By doing this, I believe we learn what it means to stay faithful to God, which is pleasing to Him, in return we begin to overcome our challenges in this life. So in those three Scriptures mentioned before, what stands out the most about faith was that, all I could see was individuals facing different obstacles, some really challenging circumstances, yet they still walked in faith to achieve their goal.