Imagination

Greetings Friend.

My suggestion is to meditate through the below in an atmosphere of quietness.

Regarding your Imagination: Does your imagination serve your godly passions and desires or do you often (it may seem) awaken to yourself and find that you’ve been on a road of imaginative thoughts which, in and of themselves, could be identified as unholy, earthly, of the flesh, or even demonic? Friend, you and I need not be subject to an ungodly imagination, but we often remain so for long periods of time. Recognize this and change. Force your imagination to serve you, to lift you into God’s presence, to behold the glories and graces of God, to manifest to your mind—by the Spirit—the inheritance of the saints. Do not live as a slave to your corrupt imagination, whereby the bulk of your idle time consists in nurturing unholy contemplations, when you’ve been made a child of the King!

Consider the following hymn and how godly imagination works for you and presents to you the objects described.


“Now let our souls, on wings sublime, rise from the vanities of time,
Draw back the parting vail, and see the glories of eternity.

Born by a new, celestial birth, why should we grovel here on earth?
Why grasp at vain and fleeting toys, so near to heaven’s eternal joys?

Shall aught beguile us on the road while we are walking back to God?
For strangers into life we come, and dying is but going home.

Welcome, sweet hour of full discharge, that sets our longing souls at large,
Unbinds our chains, breaks up our cell, and gives us with our God to dwell.

To dwell with God, to feel his love, is the full heaven enjoyed above;
And the sweet expectation now is the young dawn of heaven below.”

(Rev. Dr. Thomas Gibbons, d. 1785)


Imagination can work for you and present to you. Perhaps while reading the above hymn one verse or another attracted your thoughts above the others. The first? Maybe the second? Perhaps imagination lifted up to you an idea instead, such as the difference between “vanities of time” and “heaven’s eternal joys,” or “walking back to God” or “dying is but going home.” Friend, permit me to ask, do you have times during each day where your mind and heart employ imagination’s craft for a journey into “the expectation of entering” into God’s full presence when your life here is done? Consider the below and let imagination serve you.


“COURAGE IN THE DAY OF JUDGMENT”

“Have we not often imagined that redeemed souls must have a strange meeting at the judgment, when the secrets of hearts shall be revealed? Is the prospect of it altogether welcome to us? It has been said that, if in this world every man’s heart could be open to the gaze of every other man, no two could ever again be friends, for no two could look each other in the eye. How, then, will our self-respect bear the last ordeal? The beloved apostle gives us the answer. ‘God dwelleth in us. Hereby know we that we dwell in him, and he in us, because he hath given us of his Spirit. We know that when he shall appear, we shall be like him. Herein is our love made perfect, that we may have boldness in the day of judgment, because as he is so are we.’ If we indeed know this, why should we not be bold?

In that day, we shall revere in others the clear image of God, wrought by God’s own hand. They will revere the same in us. We shall meet each other without a blush. Some of our departed kindred have been glorified so long before us, that we are apt to think of them as vastly our superiors. Their distance from us, which years are lengthening, disheartens us. But we shall overtake them, and that will be no crestfallen meeting. We shall receive their welcome without confusion. We shall not fear their secret contempt when they take us by the hand. Their greetings will have no hollow sound. The salutations of angels will not abash us. The morning stars, which exult in a sinless history of thousands of years, will not look chillingly upon us. Gabriel, Michael, the seven spirits before the throne, will not recognize us haughtily. Even the eye of the Infinite One will not close itself in disgust at our appearing. It shall search us,—He that formed the eye, shall not he see?—it shall search us indeed, but as light searches a prism. It shall find only itself reflected at every angle, and in a radiance of beauty which nothing but itself could evoke.

(Austin Phelps, The New Birth: or, The Work of the Holy Spirit, 1867, p. 227-229)


Does what you just read prompt you to consider (Imagine) any possibilities for your first moments in God’s presence after your earthly life ends, when you depart this world and join the heavenly community, when you become fully aware of yourself in the way God knows you, when you cannot escape the realization of all God has been to you? Give room for your imagination to roam above earth’s dusty ways to spheres where all is filled with nothing less than divine praise! Do you ever go there? Would going there even briefly each day make any difference for your life now—the anticipation of joining the heavenly throng?

Imagination can work for you and present to you. But, imagination can also make the godly expressions of saints from times past yours in times present. Imagination can help you see differences for your life now and lift you into the life to come. Imagination can let you see and share in what another has seen. The hymn below can be yours. As you read it, read it from your perspective, not the author’s. Be the subject. Use your imagination to see what another has seen and go where it leads.

Once you experience the cherished benefits of godly imagination, you’ll not again submit yourself (for long) to the wiles and ways of that which can easily enslave you to corruption. Use your imagination to your advantage and God’s honor.

God’s best to you.


“How bright these glorious spirits shine! Whence all their white array?
How came they to the blissful seats of everlasting day?

Lo! These are they from sufferings great who came to realms of light,
And in the blood of Christ have washed those robes which shine so bright.

Now, with triumphal palms, they stand before the throne on high,
And serve the God they love, amid the glories of the sky.

His presence fills each heart with joy, tunes every voice to sing;
By day, by night, the sacred courts with glad hosannas ring.

The Lamb that dwells amid the throne, shall o’er them still preside,
Feed them with nourishment divine, and all their footsteps guide.

In pastures green he’ll lead his flock, where living streams appear;
And God, the Lord, from every eye, shall wipe off every tear.”

(Isaac Watts, d. 1748)