Have you noticed how fulfilling it is when you're creative, when you actually put your hand to something and make something that was never there before, the wonderful fulfilment that comes in being creative? There's just nothing like it. So the seabed or the place where we create things is our imagination. There's nothing you see when you look around you that someone has built that first didn't start as a picture in the imagination. Think about that. Even the clothes you're wearing, probably you looked at them in a window and you looked and you thought oh man, I'd look alright in that. You went and tried it on; oh, that looks alright, I don't think I mind that. I think I'll have that. I notice Lyn's got a few things she's bought home from overseas [laughs] - and so have I. I looked in the window, thought that looks good, I like that. You begin to get a picture of yourself wearing it. Usually you try it on as well and you see the picture, then something begins to form and then before you know it there it is.
So imagination is the part of our life where creativity can work and it can either be creativity flowing out of partnership with God, where God gives ideas and dreams and visions and possibilities, or it can be a place where the devil floods our mind and keeps us limited and restricted. Now you think about the process of how God speaks to us. God is a spirit, so when God speaks to us He speaks spirit to spirit. His communications are from His spirit to your spirit. Now how do you actually get them then? Well they come up into your mind, into your imagination and what happens is - the most common way that people receive is they get a picture. A picture just comes up into the mind spontaneously and they see some kind of picture and that picture is something that God has shared with them that has possibilities if they will embrace it and give voice and do something about it. That's how God speaks. It come into our imagination.
How does the devil speak to you? Well the devil works from the other side. He works from the outside in, so he will put pictures into your mind. He will put pictures, feelings or sensations or words into your mind to try to capture your imagination, because whatever's got your imagination definitely has got a hold of you. The challenge we face is to be able to take dominion over our imagination and subdue thoughts which the devil brings and which are contrary to what God says, and to open our gate where revelation can flow and we can being to receive what God has for us. Every person is wired for this, so when you're daydreaming daydreaming can be harmless. Daydreaming can actually lead to immense bondage. Fantasies, well they can be harmless and be creative, but they can lead to immense bondage because the devil wants to capture the part of you which can create a different future.
You think about it. If someone says I've got a dream of being a doctor, well they've got a picture in their mind. In their imagination has come a picture which they've thought about and thought about and thought about. They've heard people say I've always dreamed of being this; I've always dreamed about being that, so they've had a dream. Where did they have it? It was the imagination and they saw themselves doing something in the future, and eventually as they applied themselves the dream imagination became the reality. If you have a think some of us have been around a while, the things we used to see in the movies as just imaginary, very many of them have become reality now. What you're seeing in movies and things now, many of those things will become a reality. Hollywood really should be a place where the creativity of God is expressed in a positive way, except something else has gone in there and polluted it and now it puts out images and imaginations which get into the hearts of people, defile relationships and defile lives and steal dreams.
So imaginations are really important, so number one, God has made us in His image with a creative ability; number two, creativity operates in two ways. Sexually, we can reproduce and create new life, and in the imagination we have got the capacity to come up with new ideas that have never been invented before. I'm sure that if enough pressure comes on the gas reserves and oil reserves, someone will come up with something that was never thought of before. They always do. God always - and it's funny, it seems to be released in the world in several places at once. Have you noticed that, many inventions of have been like that? Inventions, new things - how great, you're called to be an inventor of new things. Isn't that great? A person who's got possibilities. Jesus said you know if you've got faith all things are possible, so we're called to be possibility thinkers, dreamers about what could be; not just restricted by an overwhelming depression of what is. Rather we're called to carry dreams and visions and possibilities, and be men and women of faith. Isn't that good?