Renewal of the Mind (4 of 4) Mike Connell 31.08.2008 am
Okay, let's open your Bible at 2 Corinthians 10. I was just praying, God, you've got to [unclear 00.00.06]. I've got to finish this one today. I don't want to not finish it and I got really - funny thing when you're preparing messages, often I get touched very deeply myself. I want to just share this with you. It's going to help you. We've been sharing on the imagination. How many people's imagination has been stirred over the last few weeks? How many people have found you've got a lot of stuff going on there that shouldn't be going on there? [Laughs] How many have found that as you start to dream and think you go places and sometimes you think how do I get out of here? I need to come back, come back - and with daydreams and all kinds of things that go on or thoughts that go on. And so we talked about the imagination and how God has given you an imagination to be a creative faculty in your mind for the Spirit.
So imagination's a wonderful ability God has given to picture something that hasn't yet been, and then to be able to work towards bringing it about. So your imagination is very linked to your capacity to have vision for your life, and we saw also the imagination can be defiled. The imagination can end up where we're living out in fantasy world, a world of unreality where what's in our mind and what we're imagining is absolutely not true. It's not connected to the reality we're living in at all and if you get too far out there they lock you up. But it's the imagination gone out of control, and we do have times when imaginations go out of control and you've got to guard that. So we then looked at the area last week, we were looking at the whole area of our warfare, how to deal with the imagination, cleanse the imagination. A key verse was 2 Corinthians 10:3-5; for though we walk in the flesh we do not war according to the flesh, for the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty in God for pulling down strongholds, casting down imaginations - you have to tear them down - every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ.
So we saw then that there's warfare goes on for you mind. Whatever controls your mind has got control of your life. If fear controls your mind then your life is governed by fear and not by faith. If vain imaginations govern your mind they will lead you to places you shouldn't go, and so vain imaginations is a picture, an image or some kind of thought process in our mind which is devoid of truth. It's just not true. It feels like it when you're thinking about it, seems like it when you're thinking about it, but it actually is not true and it can lead you to all kinds of places. It can lead you into fear. The moment a doctor says something about your condition, immediately you know, you can imagine yourself at your own graveside. Suddenly you're there, and fear grips your soul and this can have a huge impact on your life just at that point a doctor made some assessment of you. Imaginations lead to confusion. We lead all kinds of thoughts all over the place and we get confused about what's the right thing to do about the path we should take.
Vain imaginations make you self-conscious; what are people thinking of me? They're all looking at me. They're thinking about, they're talking about me. You start to think that way too long, you're very self-conscious and inward looking at yourself. The other think that vain imaginations can do is they can cause us to project out self-importance. We think we're very, very important and we project out we're very important. You can usually tell if someone's projecting out vain imaginations because there's a fruit shows in their life, so if someone's projecting out self-importance when you're with them you don't feel built up. You feel put down, even if not much is said because you feel the content of what's emanating out of their life. Sometimes and a real danger and a danger for us as Bay City, a real danger is where because we have certain knowledge or experiences in God, that we begin to perceive that we are somehow better than other people, other Christians, other churches. It's always a danger.