Your Faith Requires Imagination - Daily Hope with Rick Warren - April 27, 2024
Living by faith requires the use of imagination to envision things that cannot be seen, as emphasized in 2 Corinthians 4:18. By cultivating this mental focus on eternal realities, individuals can tap into God's gift of imagination and live a life of hope and assurance, as exemplified by the heroes of faith in Hebrews 11.
“We fix our gaze on things that cannot be seen. For the things we see now will soon be gone, but the things we cannot see will last forever.”2 Corinthians 4:18 (NLT)
When you can’t see something physically, you have to imagine it in your mind. That’s why imagination is essential to living by faith.
Hebrews 11:1 says, “Faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see” (NIV).
Faith is when we hope for something, and we know it’s going to happen. In order to hope for something, you have to picture it in your mind. To put your faith in something, you have to be able to picture it.
Hebrews 11 is called God’s Hall of Fame. When you read through the names, you realize that every one of them became heroes of faith because they used their imagination.
For instance, God said to Abraham, “You’re 90 years old, and you have no kids. But I’m going to change your name from Abram to Abraham, which means ‘father of a great nation.’”
He told Abraham to go outside at night and count the stars: That’s how many grandchildren and great-grandchildren Abraham would have in his family tree—the nation of Israel! What was God doing when he told Abraham to go count stars? He was activating his imagination. It’s like he was saying, “I want you to visualize what I’m going to do in your life.”
The Bible says in 2 Corinthians 4:18, “We fix our gaze on things that cannot be seen. For the things we see now will soon be gone, but the things we cannot see will last forever” (NLT).
You can’t see the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, but they’re going to last for eternity. You can’t see your own soul, but it’s going to last for eternity.
The Bible says you need to focus on the things that will last—the things you can’t actually see with your eyes. So, how do you focus on things you can’t see? You use your imagination.
Imagination is more than just creativity and fun. It is God’s gift to you, because he knows you will need it to be able to live by faith.
For more Daily Hope with Rick Warren, please visit pastorrick.com!
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