Daring To Imagine Series

DARING TO IMAGINE

A few years ago, they opened a new area in Disney World themed around the Star Wars movies called Galaxy’s Edge. The whole area is like visiting a different planet with 2 new rides. I saw a special about the people who designed it. They are called Disney Imagineers. They planned out the whole thing before anything existed. God has called all of us to be Imagineers. Not Disney Imagineers but Jesus Imagineers. People who use their God given imaginations to build what God wants us to build.

Ephesians 1:17-19 I keep asking that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, may give you the Spirit of wisdom and revelation, so that you may know him better. 18 I pray also that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints, 19 and his incomparably great power for us who believe…

Today we are continuing in our series called Daring Faith. Today I want to talk about Daring to Imagine. Someone once said “Let the size of my God determine the size of my goals.” How big are your goals today? How big are your dreams?

Imagination – the act or power of forming a mental image of something not present to the senses or never wholly perceived in reality. In other words, it is seeing something that does not yet exist.

One of the greatest gifts that God has given us is the gift of imagination. The ability to see things in our minds, to think and to create with mental pictures. The reason we have this ability is because we were created in the image of God, and God has an imagination. The Bible tells us that God imagined the entire universe and it was created. He thought it up before it became reality. God has already seen all of human history even before it has happened.

It has been said that we are most like our Creator when we are being creative. Does that make sense? You are most like your Creator – God – when you are being creative. God gave us the ability to create with our imagination. When you use your imagination for good it brings Him glory.

Everything starts with imagination. Nothing becomes reality unless somebody first thinks it up. This room that we are sitting in did not just come about by chance. Last year we finished a renovation. People planned what it would one day look like. Every great business, every great company, every piece of art, every musical note somebody imagined it before it became reality. Nothing happens unless somebody imagines it.

Why is imagination so important? Four reasons;

1. Imagination fuels my passion

In this passage we read this morning, Paul prays that the Christians at Ephesus would have their eyes and hearts opened by God so that they could truly see and understand the hope to which God has called them. That is a powerful prayer.

My imagination shapes my life. In other words, the way you think is going to affect the way you feel and the way you feel is going to affect the way you act. If you want to change behaviour, start by changing your thinking. Imagination fuels our passion; it gives us direction.

The person who says “I can’t do this” and the person who says, “I can do this” are both right. If you think that you can’t do something then you probably will not try to do it and therefore not do it. If you think you can do something, you can imagine yourself doing it, then odds are that you will try to do it and hopefully succeed. What we think in our minds shapes our actions.

Imagination is more important than knowledge. Logic will get you from A to B; imagination will take you everywhere. There is no limit to imagination. The true sign of intelligence is not knowledge but imagination -- Albert Einstein

Imagination is the beginning of creation. You imagine what you desire. You will what you imagine. Then you create what you will. -- George Bernard Shaw

Imagination has brought mankind through the dark ages to its present state of civilization. Imagination led Columbus to discover America. Imagination led Franklin to discover electricity. Imagination has given us the steam engine, the telephone, the talking-machine, and the automobile, for these things had to be dreamed of before they became realities. -- L Frank Baum (Wizard of Oz)

Imagination is the organ of meaning -- C. S. Lewis

We started by talking about Disney World. Walt Disney himself said, “Disneyland will never be completed. It will continue to grow as long as there is imagination left in the world.”