How do we have desires for more visions and dreams in our lives?
Acts 2:17 NKJV
'And it shall come to pass in the last days, says God, That I will pour out of My Spirit on all flesh; Your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, Your young men shall see visions, Your old men shall dream dreams.
I just love this because God has already put visions and dreams inside us. A part of Spirit filled living, is having visions for our lives and dreams of how we want to live this life. So for myself that makes me believe that our imagination is all about having visions and dreams – we dream for things we want in our lives, then we have visions of how we want these dreams to occur. Now this might start to get slightly confusing to some, but as we look closer we see how this all fits and comes together. When we have dreams of our accomplishments or desires, these are things we cannot physically see, yet we still have dreams about them. Then these dreams turn into visions for our lives, that then gives us a hope in this world. Now let's take it a step further – our imagination gives us hope, our imagination gives us visions and dreams of things we desire. This is just another way of saying that we need to have an imagination, we desire to have an imagination. We simply can't survive without having a positive imagination. So let's just recap all of these phrases that have been said once again. We all have visions of where we want to go – We all dream of things we want to have – we all have desires for things we hope to have.
We have the control of how big we wish for our visions and dreams to become. So why do we let negative thoughts patterns control us, instead of us controlling these thoughts? Why do we become slaves to all these negative emotions? We stop our visions and dreams, when we let our emotions take control of us. We simply become a bag of emotions, as I like to say. One day we are fine, thinking positively about our visions, then the next day we are at war with ourselves over negativity. This process keeps happening over and over again, it is like we are an endless circle, one minute fine, then in distress. That word negativity started to really annoy me, as I was stuck in this violet circle of emotions. No matter what I tried to do, negativity just followed every situation. Negative thoughts of myself, of my past which just led to my emotions enslaving me.
The word emotion also means – a strong feeling deriving from one's circumstances or moods.
Another meaning for word emotion is – instinctive or intuitive as distinguishing from reasoning or knowledge.
The first definition of the word emotion, is all about feelings – feelings of how we allow negative circumstances to control us from achieving what we wish to do. Or how we can let positive feelings control us, but at the end of the circle negativity awaits. All I was doing was creating strongholds in my life, by letting these types of emotions control my outlook of life. Now if we act on the second meaning of the word emotion, of being instinctive or intuitive as distinguishing from reasoning or knowledge. This is where we move away from feelings and allow wisdom and knowledge to control our actions. That wisdom or reasoning or knowledge will always come from God.
God’s words will always bring positivity through reasoning and knowledge, as where the devil tricks us with feelings of emotional moods of negativity. Once again this is how the enemy tries to keep us in sin. I know I used that phrase a number of times now – it is so true though and so important to understand this. If we turn our backs for just a second, the enemy is just waiting to jump on it. Another way of saying this is, as soon as we let our guard down, the enemy will strike. This is where we enter a world of creating strongholds. When I created strongholds in my life, it always started with a thought. This thought then begins to change into an emotion. I saw myself defeated, as I felt like I was second best. This then changes again, as I made that thought a high thing in my life, impossible to overcome, then over time that thought became a stronger emotion, slowly becoming my stronghold in life. Then finally I exalted that problem (emotion) over my life. Now I always saw myself defeated before I even tried to accomplish anything. This is the circle of positivity and negativity – starts off good but then negative thoughts follow to destroy our thinking and way of living.
Strongholds in our lives are the places where the devil tries to hide from God. For example; My emotions got the better of me because I allowed my anger to control
my outlook on life for a long time, which nearly destroyed my marriage along with other strongholds I had created around my life. All of these situations started with a thought, which just led myself to wanting to give up in the end. My vision in life, sad to say this was defeat, as I had no desire to do anything or to be anyone. Strongholds like these make us feel like we aren't as important as other individuals within our lives, that is also another way of how we allow manipulating people in our lives. All of these strongholds slowly came down one by one, as I came back to God, allowing Him to speak positivity into my heart. We are not normal or unimportant, we are children of God, which makes us important and somebody in this world. So does God give us visions to follow in our journey of life on this earth? The answer is always going to be yes – we have to learn how to allow God to help us, by changing the way of how we see ourselves, as we break strongholds of defeat off our circumstances.
II Corinthians 10:4-6 NKJV
For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal but mighty in God for pulling down strongholds, casting down arguments and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ,
and being ready to punish all disobedience when your obedience is fulfilled.
We can cast thoughts down, by not letting them control us, as we all know that a thought is just an emotion. Our emotions are just a by-product of our thoughts. So as we cast negative thoughts down coming in line with the Holy Spirit and the word of God, we begin to control our emotional outcome. Once I visualized my situation that way, everything changed because I began to control all the outcome of my feelings, my emotions within Jesus Christ. I learnt to take the focus off myself, isn't that what an emotion is, making it all about ourselves and our wrong doings. To put all my focus on what God has in store for my life was far more exciting, it was a risk taken with positive outcomes. Our Imagination can either be a curse in this lifetime, as it had been for many years within mine, or it could be a blessing for ourselves. Once again we are brought straight back to making a choice. I had the choice to make, was I going to speak death and defeat over myself or life. Are we going to speak life over ourselves, over our situations and circumstances? God always makes the answers very easy for us to understand, some problems are more severe than others, yes, I do believe God still provides the answers in time. Are we willing to learn, then listen and then act on what God has provided. I had brought my negative emotions towards life into captivity with the knowledge and power of God. I truly felt like I had been set free, like a massive heavy chain had been removed off my body as it hit the floor. My visions became alive again, as I now saw myself accomplishing the impossible all over again. I was in control of my thoughts only because I was allowing God to be in control of my heart.
My thoughts no longer controlled me, because my heart was full with the love of God. In my mind I was like a man on a mission. “This is my mission if I choose to accept it!” Great movie quote by the way. Every time I felt a negative thought tried to enter my thought pattern, as it always will do no matter what we are doing. I was casting those down in the name of Jesus Christ. In my head I was shouting at the negativity, shouting at the devil as I proclaimed that he has no control over me.
I was exalting Jesus Christ over every negative thought, over every negative situation, over every negative individual around me – anything negative that tried to control my life, I was proclaiming the name of Jesus Christ over it. What God was showing me was that I needed to protect myself over all that comes against me. I was learning to armor myself with the word of God. We all need to learn to wear the armor of God.
Ephesians 6:10-17 NKJV
Finally, my brethren, be strong in the Lord and in the power of His might. Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places. Therefore take up the whole armor of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand. Stand therefore, having girded your waist with truth, having put on the breastplate of righteousness, and having shod your feet with the preparation of the gospel of peace; above all, taking the shield of faith with which you will be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked one. And take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God; We need to understand that we don't just face physical battles in this world, we face spiritual wars as well. When I read this Scripture so many thoughts and visions ran through my mind, of how we are in a spiritual war with God's words as our armor, and His weapons in this war to protect us. God tells us that when we put on the armor of God, the enemy cannot defeat us. God also tells us to keep this armor on, never doubting its strength during this battle. This is why it was so important for myself to learn to renew my mind to the ways of God – to the incredible and powerful word of God. The more I was renewing my mind to the ways of God, the more it helped myself to keep the armor of God on, learning not to take it off with doubt. Mind renewal is a big step we need to take in my journey with Christ.