Encouragement

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Imagine...

Imagine yourself in a passionate relationship with the God of all creation. Imagine waking each morning thinking only of him. Your first words, praise only him. Your every thought consumed by his glorious presence throughout the day. Imagine drifting off to sleep each night expecting his comfort in your dreams. Imagine yourself loving God with all of your heart, mind, strength and soul. Imagine loving God as he loves you.

You are saved: delivered from condemnation of sin, delivered from sickness and disease, delivered from poverty and lack, delivered from all of life’s calamities. You are proficient in the Word of God and burning with the same desires that burn in him. You are driven by the same love that caused him to make man, spare man, endure man and ultimately send his son to redeem man.

Imagine yourself aligned with God’s co-mission in the earth. Imagine yourself as a wise winner of souls, encouraging others to share in the same love of God that you enjoy.

Now imagine yourself at the end of your life. A life that moved from death to life, from life to abundant life and is now prepared to enter the life to come. You are well established, fully engaged, completely spent and ready to depart, having left a legacy to your children and your children’s children for generations to come.

Imagine yourself having lived a life that pleased God, thrilled you and blessed people.

That is how God imagined you. Made in his likeness, you are the spitting image of your father -- no matter what you have become.

I have spent my entire life trying to be an individual. I wanted my own personal style. Like the younger (prodigal) son, I moved out of my father's house and set out to make it on my own. But try as I may, the older I get, the more I look like him.

All relationships go through their own peculiar adolescence, I suppose -- even our relationship with God. (1 John 2:12-14) We all have to “overcome the wicked one” -- the beast full of ‘I’s’ (Isaiah 14:9-17 esp. vss. 13 & 14) that wants to separate us from our father. But beware the strength of the blood.

The blood of Christ on you and the Spirit and the Word of God in you, are changing you. Accessorize and individualize all you want. One day you are going to just disappear (Hebrews 11:5) and people are going to see less of you and more of Him.

Just as you imagined.

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