How many people found there were some things - don't put your hand up - but you thought during the week as I've given you some homework to do of praying and fasting, you began to be aware I've got some things I'm a bit hooked into here. Okay, well we need to get unhooked. We've got to make a decision that I'm not going to let the imaginations hold my life and shape my life. Listen, you get into some of these TV programs like you know, Desperate Housewives, you'll get so immersed in those lives you'll take on the identities, the values, the whole thing. It'll shape how you view life, and then when you hear things about divorce and affairs your conscience won't be stirred too much. It'll be dull because your mind has embraced something that is anti-God, that's actually an anti-Christ, anti-anointing spirit. It came out of someone else's dream and imagination, and when you lock in on that and begin to feed off it - not everyone does, but many do.
When they get in and lock in and feed on it they can't do without that fix, that program. They've got to quickly get back and see that program. I used to be like that with science fiction. Man, I used to get to see that program - I got to watch! I got to watch! I got to watch! No, you don't have to watch at all. It's just someone else's dream and you've been caught in it. And so we realise then we need to deal with it, so I want to just look about some areas now. I want to look first of all at the sources of imagination, then I want to look briefly at two aspects of our battle. One of them we'll deal with today. I want to show you how you actually fight the imaginations. You've actually got to do something, but it helps if you understand where they come from first of all so I want to just look first of all at the sources of some of these imaginations, pictures you've got in your mind. We've all got them and we've got three possible sources: one of them is the Holy Spirit. That's the one that God wants us to have. The Holy Spirit is also the source of dreams and imaginations.
In Acts 2:17, in the last days I'll pour My Spirit on all flesh. Your sons and daughters shall prophesy, your young men shall see visions, your old shall dream dreams. Now God wants to drop into your mind and imagination pictures and possibilities that He has dreamed up for you. See, He wants you to operate prophetically. That means that you are open to inspiration and Holy Ghost-inspired ideas. How is it that you move in the gifts of the Spirit? One of the ways you move in the gifts of the spirit is you open your heart in faith towards the Lord; He drops a picture into your mind. Notice He gives a picture, a picture of something and as you begin to act on that scene and begin to give voice to it, then miracles take place. Lives get changed, prophetic utterances take place, so moving in the spirit you've got to engage your imagination. Your mind and imagination has to be engaged and open to the Holy Spirit for input.
But the Bible's very clear that in the last days the Holy Spirit will be poured out on all flesh, and the result of that is prophetic. You begin to see possibilities. You see things that God drops into your heart, divinely inspired dreams. Jeremiah 29:11 He says I know the thoughts I think of you, thoughts of peace and not evil, to give you a hope or something you look forward to. So in heaven before you were assigned into the earth, God wrote out and wrote a plan of the things that He designed you to accomplish. The only way that you can receive those is if you open yourself to prophetic flows from heaven to come into your life. We need to hear the voice of God, so our imagination is the area the Spirit of God drops things into. He drops them into our spirit; they rise up and you see them. An idea comes and as you begin to mull over that idea and agree with God's thoughts, then you position yourself for change to take place. So our walking in the spirit is about listening and being prompted by the Holy Spirit, and allowing the word of God to begin to shape the way we think and view life and view our future.