The Power Of Imagination | Pastor Dwain Wolfe

Potter, We thank you for your word today, thank you

for the power of your word to transform us, and

we welcome you moving in upon and our hearts and

in this atmosphere right now in Jesus name. And everybody said, Amen,

isn't that so much better? I get so excited. What

happens is the volume calms me down. If I can

tell I'm killing you with volume, then call me. Colds

me right down. I want to talk to you a

little bit this morning about a redeemed imagination. You know,

when we think about your soul, your soul is Your

soul is mind, will, emotions, imagination, and reasoning, and your

soul is the unredeemed part of you. Essentially, it's what

gives you personality. It is a spiritual element. But when

we're born of the spirit, our soul is not sanctified

or redeemed. Our soul has to be redeemed. It has

to be sanctified by the washing of the water of

the word. And so the word, the Word, by way

of conviction and by way of promise, is washing out

of us. And we're responding. And this is the calling.

The calling that we have is to pay attention to

the logos, the written word. Pay attention to the spirit,

the rama, the spoken word in our own hearts. Pay

attention to the prophetic word, which is the ram Us

spoken through others over us and to us. So this

is all us us positioning and placing our soul before

the Lord in humility, so that the Holy Spirit dwelling

on the inside, who is the manifestation of Jesus, and

the Spirit of truth, testifying of truth, leading us into truth,

so that he will wash our soul so that our

entire personality is presented before the Lord and becomes useful.

I don't want just the testimony of Holy Spirit within me,

convicting me or leading me, and me not responding, arguing,

not cooperating, not partnering with I want the Holy Spirit

in me, finding partnership in my soul so that with mind, will, emotion, imagination,

and reasoning that what he wants to do is fully

fully accentualized, fully brought to the forefront, fully manifested, fully experienced.

And the imagination has a huge part of that. Fact

is your imagination is so critical, it's so key because

it's even what you it's how you posture your will,

like my will, which is like the backbone of my soul,

my will. I can posture my will to think on

or meditate on something, and through imagination I can begin

to see things that aren't seen. This is a God

quality that you have. You have a God quality about

you to be able to do this with your imagination.

This is this is like no other animal or specie. This,

this is what separates you apart from the rest of

created order or nature. Is that this ability to see

and this ability to function with imagination, It's an amazing thing.

So what I want you to see is that you

got this from You got this from your father, you

got this from God, and that this is how God

operates concerning you as well, that that God actually is

a God of imagination. Now we might say that imagination

is essentially seeing things before they exist, and this is

how God brings things into order. God brings things into creativity.

This is how God expresses then faith, and we might

we have to understand that even though we are compelled

to be people of faith, and even though we are

challenged to be people of faith, and even though we

are constrained to be people of faith, and we talk

about faith all the time in church, this is actually

God's realm, That faith is God's realm. That you know,

God doesn't say you walk by faith, and I don't right,

that faith is actually his realm, that he actually walks

by faith, and that he's showing us how faith works,

even you know, through scripture and throughout the Bible, and

he's showing us how it partners with imagination. So, for instance,

in Genesis one one through three, it says that he

created the earth, and it says that darkness was there

and that he was brooding. So the earth was formless

and empty, darkness was over the sea surface of the deep,

and the spirit of God was hovering over the waters.

So hovering is one translation. Another is brooding, Another is fluttering.

There's probably four different words there. In the Hebrew imagination stage.

This is like incubation. He's actually before he speaks, he's seeing. Now.

I don't know if you've thought of God in that light,

but but God actually is seeing things before he speaks them.

In other words, he's thinking about them, he's meditating on them,

and he's imagining them before he declares they are. So

let's let's uh, let's look at a couple of verses

factors on this, Uh, just real quick that kind of

speak to some of this. One that I love is

Isaiah fifty five eight through nine. For my thoughts are

not your thoughts, nor are my ways your ways, says

the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth,

so are my ways higher than your ways, and my

thoughts than your thought, higher than your thoughts. So think

about that for a minute. So his thoughts are like

super high. And we know the Lord, the Father, and

the Son are one. So when I say God, I

just want you to see the Father and the Son

are one. But these are like these heavenward thoughts, right,

And these are even the thoughts that he has over us.

So he's got these super high, crazy thoughts that are high,

and he's always calling us up to his thoughts. And

his thoughts are bigger than holiness. His thoughts include an

encompass holiness. But again, most of the time we're so

trained in church to think about sin that we miss

what God's really up to. We're so trained to think

about the Ten commandments and whether we measure up to

them or not, that we are we're always approaching God

out of legalism, and if he's this, you know, cosmic

kill joy up in the sky looking the club us.

If we don't meet the ten commandments, so then we're

missing that. No, these thoughts, they actually pertain to everything.

Like he has promises. Two Peter Chapter one, verses one

and two says that he has promises over your life.

They are precious and magnificent promises, which is interesting because

it's a parallel to something else we're going to read

in a minute. He has precious and magnificent promises over

your life, and it says so that you will have

everything you need for life and godliness. So he's got

promises over food, he's got promises over cars, he's got

promises over babies, he's got promises over stuff. He's got

promises over right over everything and godliness in church. We

just keep thinking that it's all about godliness. He says

these promises. Second Peter, too, we aren't going to go there.

Second Peter one, I'm sure. One and two. He says

that these promises are critical for us to escape corruption

and become partakers of the divine nature. So he's got

these promises. I want to just throw another thing out

of that shoe. Because we always think in terms of

the logos. We're always thinking terms of the logos, which

is the written word. But in Ephesian chapter five, where

he says he washes this with the water of his word,

you have to realize that he can't do complete washing

if the water of the Word that he washes with

is just the logos. Is that going to sound like heresy?

Sounds like heresy, doesn't it. You think about it when

even when Paul wrote that word, they didn't even have

the logos. When Paul wrote that, it wasn't even scripture,

they didn't have the New Testament. But you you have

been told to limit your entire spiritual experience to the logos,

to the written word. But you can't get your mind

renewed with the logos alone. The Holy Spirit. Why would

you put the Holy Spirit, who is the us of

a person of whom you've been created in the likeness

of Why would you put him in a box and

say that he can't talk. Why would you say he

can't speak to your heart? Are you going to tell

your wife she can't speak to your heart? So the

washing of the water of the Word, this is the

Holy Spirit. Is he's calling you. He's got so many

Oh my word, he's got so many crazy things that

he wants to say over you, to make imprint on

your imagination, to bring you into a realm of hope.

But if you limit what he can say to the logos,

to what's written, then you've limited his ability to brood

over you. He was brooding over the earth, he brooded

over Abraham, he brooded over Joseph. If he brooded over

this one, that one the other one to bring forth

the royal calling and the royal significance that he had

over them. But if you limit him to the logos,

then you will not allow him to bring you into

the fullness of what he has for you. Now, let's

look at this. This is this is I'm trying to

connect you to the fountainhead of hope. God's imagination is

known as hope. We're infused with hope, we're born again

with the spirit of hope. But we can have darkness

in our soul that's resisting that hope, blocking the hope.

We can have darkness in our soul. We can have distrust,

we can have bitterness, we can have jealousies, we can

have carnality that's blocking the hope. But God is the

supreme see of hope, and that hope is really just

the use of his imagination. It's what he sees over tomorrow.

And it's only hope because God can't see with darkness.

There is no darkness in him, so when he imagines,

he can only imagine that which is good. So that's

why whatever flows out of God brings hope, because there's

no darkness in him. You can use your imagination. You

know how to use it really good with fear. You're

a professional with worry. You're skilled with anxiety. You know

what to do with dread, you know exactly how to

milk that one. But that's not hope because you're using

your imagination and it's connected to something dark and so

all it brings is depression or sorrow. But you're using

your imagination and you can frame it really well and

you can see how it's going to unfold, and you

can have every single detail put together with that thing.

That means you're skillful with your imagination, but you're not

grabbing that tool with your will and aligning it with

God's word over your life. And God has a word

of your life. God has a God has a bigger

word of your life than the logos. Sounds like harrisy,

but I'm going to prove it to you. Listen to

some one thirty nine. If for if two Peter Chapter

one wasn't enough for you, write that down to look

at it, read it, study it, but listen to some

one thirty nine. How about the one you have memorized?

You have one memorized. Everybody in this building's got Jeremiah

twenty one eleven memorized. I know the plans that I

have for you, Plans to give you a hope and

a future, plans to prosper you. One translation I hated

it says plans for welfare. There's no welfare plans for

many cheligd Okay. We know the translators didn't. They weren't

connected to the United States welfare system, so they weren't. Okay,

But we know Jeremiah twenty nine to eleven. So God says,

I know the plans I have for you. God is

imagining something over you now. He said that over Israel

when they were messed up, they were super messed up.

They were all they were in sin. Jeremiah was giving

them a good what forward. They were the good swift

kick and a rebuke. But in the middle of that,

his grace was so sufficient, was so amazing. He said,

even though you have problems, and you've been a problem,

even though I still have plans for you, I'm still

calling you into the royalty. I'm still calling you up

out of degradation. I'm still calling you up out of

that negativity. I'm still calling you up out of that bitterness.

I'm calling you out of that unforgiveness. I'm calling you

up out of that anxiety. I have plans for you,

says the Lord. Well, those plans weren't in the logos.

He was telling them to draw near, and he actually

says in Jeremiah thirty three to three, just a couple

chapters later, he says, call to me, and I will

answer you and show you great and mighty things that

you do not know. How many have you had that

memorised Jeremiah thirty three to three. Okay, some of you

know that scripture. If you know that scripture, call to me,

and I will answer you and show you great many

things that you do not know. You know what that means.

It's not all in the logos, it's not all in

the Bible. Well, then how am I gonna get it all?

You better do what we talked about today. You better

draw near to God, and he will draw near to you.

He says, draw near to me, and I will draw

near to you. Wow. I mean this is this is

like a major One of the major reasons why I

seek the Lord every day and I get on my

face and I turned to him and I draw near

to him is because I know what I don't know,

and I know I don't know a lot, and I

know he knows, and some I one thirty nine, your

eyes saw my unformed body. All the days ordained for

me were written in your book before one of them

came to be. Huh did you hear that? How precious

to me are your thoughts? Oh? Oh, these aren't negative thoughts.

These are precious thoughts. Did you know that God saw

you in Christ before you came into being. God saw

you in Christ. He didn't see you in Satan. He

saw you in Christ. The Bible says fall wrote to

the Cristons. He said God was in Christ, redeeming the

entire world to himself. God saw you in Christ. That's

why he was the Lamb slain from the foundation of

the earth, God saw you in Christ before you had

day number one. Meaning the book he wrote about you

is not a book of despair. It's not a book

of defeat. It's not a book of sickness. It's not

a book of disease. It's not a book of failure.

It's not a book of fear. It's not a book

of sorrow. It is a book of victory, a book

of grace, a book of blessing, a book of health

and wholeness. He wrote the book he wrote about you,

he wrote it in and through the beloved who covers you.

So the book he wrote about you couldn't be any

different than the book he wrote about the sun. You

hear what I'm saying, Like he didn't write a book

about Okay, Oh your Shua all right now, he's gonna

be the word made flesh, and he's my heart made flesh.

And oh, he's gonna raise the dead, and he's gonna

he's gonna pay his taxes by calling coins out of

the and he's he's oh, he's gonna walk on water.

That's your Shoa. Dwyane, poh, where Dwayne the bathtub. Let's see,

Dwayne's gonna have this going, Dwayne, He's not gonna qualify

for that great No, Jesus qualified me for a good

book before I ever came along, when the polywog hit

the seed. You know what I'm talking about. At that moment,

God had a book written about me, and he sent

me into this generation for a divine purpose. I'm sent

like an arrow, thrust into this generation out of the

quiver of God for divine purpose that he already saw.

Now that's what hope is. This is why when you're

born of the spirit, you're reconnected to your divine assignment,

your divine purpose, your divine identity. It's impossible for you

to fail unless you just keep believing you have to.

How stubborn are you now? I just want to be

a failure. I just like it. I just like it

down here under the circumstances, I like living under the

very far. I'm way down down, I'm under them, under

the circuman. Listen to the Listen to the ESV. The

ESV is the closest to the Hebrew, so it is

a trustworthy translation and I like to read it, especially

as it pertains to the Old Testament. Because of the

manuscripts that they use to write the ESV. So it's

not as groovy for the New Testament, because the New

Testament's Greek, but the Old Testaments Hebrew, and it's a

little more groovy. And listen to the way it says this,

your eyes saw my unformed substance. In your book were

written every one of them, the days that were formed

for me. In your book, we're written every one of them,

the days that were formed for me, when as yet

there were none of them. How precious to me are

your thoughts of God? How vast is some of them,

if I would count them, they are more than the sand.

When you are born of the spirit, you are immediately

connected to that reality you are immediately connected to and

that's the living hope and in you is directly connected

to the testimony of Jesus over you, which is the

fulfillment of God's identity and purpose and redeeming power over you.

Even when you don't know what it says. I gave

my life to the Lord when I was four years old.

Don't say it didn't happen. It was vivid. I remember

every moment of it. And as an adult fifteen years later,

I got to call the evangelist the Cruzy Brothers in Everett, Washington,

and talk to Johnny Cruzy who was in Ben Doregan

leading the Tinkers in and thank him. So I've been

going on with the Lord for sixty two years. I

still don't know all the thoughts that are in the book.

I still want to know more of the thoughts that

are in the book. I'm still pressing in. Paul says,

I've obtained a bunch, but I haven't obtained at all.

This is Philippians three twelve. So I press on that

I might fully obtain, that I might fully know why

he took hold of me. Right, I want to fully

know why he took hold of me. And so that's

that's like we're pressing in because why because not one

single imagination that God had, not one single thought as

he as he literally wrote a book about me for

my life and my generation, not one single thought was

anything other than precious and magnificent. And it is literally filled,

it is ladened with That book is ladened with promise.

It is filled with promise. So this is this is

why we prophesy. You know what prophecy is. No true

prophet is creating anything, nor is any new revelation actually

coming into existence. Any true prophet is just reaching into

the book. What's already written. They're just reaching into And

if it's if administering to Dennis, it's like, Holy Spirit,

show me what's in the book. All I'm doing is

reaching into the book because that's where hope is. And

wherever hope is, see, hope has to precede faith. And

once there's an incubation of hope, once there's an incubation

of hope, then faith can come. And faith is where

I partner with God through agreement. This is where I

partner with God through agreement. God nursed. I'm watching the

time God nursed. Yeah, thank you thinking easy for you

to sent. God nursed Abram along with imagination, and then

at one point he required Abram to believe. Starts in

Genesis chapter twelve, and his name is Abram, and he

calls him out from his family's household, and he begins

to paint pictures of promise over him to quicken his imagination.

I'm gonna make you a great nation. I'm gonna make you.

Every nation's gonna be blessed for you. And this just

goes on. It goes on in chapter thirteen. He says,

open your eyes and look around as far as you

can see, to the north, southeast, and the west. I'm

gonna give you this land. And just over and over again,

there's visitations and there's conversations, and he's appealing to Abram Abram,

and Abram says, you're gonna give me this land. I'm

gonna be the father of many nations. That's all great,

But I have a hope I want to present to you,

hoping this is going to come through my lineage. I

would like my loins to be involved. And all I

have is Eliezer, a servant in my house right And

God says, no, this is going to come through you.

And so God just continues, you know, to romance him

with these downloads, leading him to fully believe. Are you

with me? Chapter fifteen, verse four, Then where the Lord came,

This man will not be your heir, but a son

who will be your own flesh and blood will be

your heir. And he took him outside and said, look

at the sky and count the stars. Do you hear

God talking about imagination? This is God imagination. God wants

to partner with your imagination. So shall your offspring be

and Abraham believe the Lord, and it was credited to

him as righteousness. Abraham believed so when he believed, then

the Lord came to him and said, all right, now,

I want you to change your name. I want you

to change your name. I want you to I want

you to now begin to go by Abraham instead of Abram.

And when God did this, when God asked him to

change his name, so much time had occurred through this

process that he was all dried up, right, his loins

were dried up. And Sarah had all dried up. She

had gone through menopause. She had paused for men. Use

your imagination. But God said, God said, change your name.

And he said, not only you, I want you. I

want her to change her name. It's no longer Sarah,

but he said it will be Sarah. Now listen, I

want to talk to you real quick. We're supposed to

change our name. Isaiah prophesied it about it, he said,

and they will be called by a new name. We

change our name to Christian. And when we call ourselves Christian,

it's supposed to emote an imagination within us that we

begin to see that as He is, so are we

in this world. We begin to see ourselves healing the sick.

We begin to see ourselves blessed going out and blessed

coming in. We begin to see ourselves raising the dead.

We begin to see ourselves. We begin to see ourselves

loving the unlovely. We begin to see ourselves reconciling where

there's been problems. We begin to see ourselves over coming

evil with good. We begin to see ourselves. Because we

bear the name Christian, it's not supposed to be just

a nomenclature. It's not supposed to be just a tag

or something that we put on because we go to

a church. It's an indication of a change of nature.

It means that we're allowing Holy Spirit to conquer our soul,

and we are putting aside everything that hinders and we

are submitting our imagination not only to him, but the

partner with him, so that heaven can come. He can't

bring heaven, and we talk about it all the time.

He can't bring heaven any further than he can bring you.

The book he wrote about you, it's a book of

heaven on earth. He can't bring heaven to you or

through you if you keep resisting him, or you won't

partner with your imagination. Every word, every promise he's spoken

over you, it's meant to fuel your imagination, your god

like ability to begin to see it come to pass.

He doesn't need to tell you everything. He just needs

to fuel your imagination when it says in Deuteronomy eight eighteen,

he gives you the power to create wealth. That's supposed

to provoke your imagination. Oh, my goodness, the power to

create wealth, Holy Spirit, What do you want to do?

How can we do that? How can we partner? What

do you have in mind? Holy Spirit? All of these

words are meant to draw us near to Him in hope,

so that we begin to receive the downloads of promise

from him, so that we begin to come into agreement.

Because it's not just the name Christian that I want

to embrace, but I want to come into agreement with

every promise he's spoken over me, every promise in that book.

I want to come into agreement. When I come into agreement,

I can enter into rest Hebrews fourth. There's no rest

if there's no agreement, as long as you're continuing to

push against, or fight or exalt your carnality against the

testimony of his promise, then there's no rest for you.

But when you enter into rest, then you experience what

abra Ham experienced. Romans Chapter four, seventeen through twenty one.

He considered his body as good as dead, even though

he was ninety nine and his loins had dried up.

Her loins had dried up. He considered his body as

good as dead. But with regard to the promise, he

did not waver, considering him who made the promise well

able to bring it to pass. So instead of wavering

in doubt or unbelief for fear, it says that he

grew stronger in faith, giving glory to God. Giving glory

to God. I'll say this morning, heaven on earth, Heaven

on earth, Heaven on Earth is going to come as

you continue to press in. But you're not pressing in

prayer just to overcome the ten commandments and stop sinning.

God has a much higher calling than that for you.

You're pressing in because you want to know what's in

that book. You want to know what's written in that book,

because on earth is written in your book. Concern you

concerning every Christian expression and concerning the fulfillment of your purpose.

It's all in that book, and so you want to

press in and you want to receive, because as you

receive downloads prophetically or by the Spirit visiting you or

ministering to you or touching you, giving you rama. And

you write it down, It says, Mary, cherish the Word

in her heart. We cherish the rama in our heart.

The renewing of our mind that doesn't come through the

logos alone. Be no longer conformed to this world, but

be transformed into a heavenward being by the by the

by the renewing of your mind. Well, the renewing of

your mind comes through what's in the book. It's the

promises over you. You're working your tail off, you're exasperated

with frustration, you feel like a failure. You go into prayer,

You press into prayer, and Holy Spirit says, no, you're

my son, you're my daughter. You're victorious, You're royalty to me.

You're the apple of my eye. Try this. Put your

net on the other side of the boat and see

what happens. Oh, oh, a spirit, thank you, thank you.

What did he do? He washed failure out of your heart,

the washing of the water of the Word, the washing

of the water of the Rama. He washes the failure

out of your heart. He washes the plan that you

thought was going to work out of your heart. He

shows you a better plan, and you leave the place

of prayer in victory and you launch into seeing it

come to pass. It works, and Heaven comes. Now you're

manifesting more of Heaven, and you're parting with him with

your imagination, seeing what he could do. Seeing now, the

enemy wants you all wrapped up in stupid stuff. Right.

He doesn't want you praying. He doesn't want you seeking.

He doesn't want you running after God. He doesn't want

you looking beyond the logos. He doesn't want you paying

attention to prophecy. He doesn't want the spear of prophecy

ministering to you. He wants your whole life engaged in

streams and stupid stuff. Why Because he knows your imagination.

If God, he knows. If God and you partner in

the realm of imagination, then you will partner in faith.

And if you partner in faith, you'll partner in victory,

and Heaven will come. Heaven will come, Heaven will come

if your imagination will partner with God. Heads about just

for a minute, eyes closed, real quick I want the

whole prayer team up here. We're we're just gonna close,

just offering this morning that if you feel blockages in

your soul, I want you to come forward. If you

feel like you're lacking this hope, this infusion of hope,

I want you to come forward. If you've gotten a

revelation of how this hope comes, and this is your

morning to lean into that and say yes to it.

I want you to come and be prayed for. If

you've been afraid of what God would say over you,

I want you to be prayed for and ministered to.

If there's a blockage of distrust or bitterness, if you've

not been seeing the goodness of God over your life

and you've not been able to dream with him, would

you come be prayed for, be ministered too. As we

close this morning, Holy Spirit, we thank you for this beautiful,

beautiful morning in you and in the Word and in

the Spirit, we give you the praise for what you're

doing and saying we honor you today in Jesus' name,

and everybody said, let's worship as we go church. Mm hmm.