Bill Johnson - Dreaming Creative Solutions
A yielded imagination becomes the sanctified imagination. A sanctified imagination is positioned for vision and dreams. It’s the sanctified imagination that becomes postured to hear and to see from God. I believe that there’s a whole new release of creativity that’s about to take place through the church, for the sake of the world and for the nations. If the mind weren’t important, it wouldn’t be worth renewing. God values the mind, the intellect of the individual, so profoundly that Jesus went to great lengths of suffering to protect that mind, knowing that the unrenewed mind is hostile toward Him and is at war with God, according to Romans 8.
So, He takes the risk to protect something in order to keep people independent in their thinking so they can be instruments, if you will, instruments of God, hearing what He’s saying and doing what He’s doing to illustrate heaven on earth, to illustrate the actual will of God through their yielded imagination. A yielded imagination becomes the sanctified imagination. A sanctified imagination is positioned for vision and dreams. It’s the sanctified imagination that becomes postured to hear and to see from God. I believe that there’s a whole new release of creativity that’s about to take place through the church, for the sake of the world, for the nations, in medicine, science, technology, and all these areas. I believe very strongly.
Let me also insert here that it wouldn’t be good for us if all the creative ideas came from the church; we’ve become way too proud and arrogant and think we’re something. Thankfully, the Lord knows what measure, but I do think if we reposition ourselves in our thinking, He will release ideas to us. All right, the renewed mind is the target of the Lord in your life every single day. He’s constantly speaking to us, leading us into experiences and encounters that will reposition us for thinking, not just creatively but thinking like Christ. The renewed mind is able to create a context for faith. It’s important you understand this: faith doesn’t come from the mind. The Bible says it’s with the heart that man believes unto righteousness.
So, faith is not an intellectual matter, but the renewed mind creates the context for faith, much like the banks of a river create a context for the river to flow in. It was the centurion who understood the ways of God and the nature of the kingdom that caused Jesus to respond, so impressed with his understanding that He called it faith. So, unimpressive was his understanding that He called it faith. He said, «Go your way; your servant lives.» So, faith will often demonstrate itself in kingdom understanding. It is not the product of discipline. Self-discipline, I believe, is important, and I downplay it somewhat, so forgive me for that; someone else will balance it out, but it won’t be me. I believe in discipline; I really do, but it creates the context for something to happen.
Faith comes from surrender, not striving. It’s the product of yielding to the Spirit of God and the Word of God and the encounters or experiences that He takes us into to think and to see differently. There are enemies to the renewed mind. Obviously, everything that the enemy wants to do in our life is to disengage us from the renewed mind. The reason is he wants people to think in ways that, even though they appear logical and reasonable, are actually hostile toward God and the ways of God. The mindset on the flesh, Romans 8, is hostile toward God. It’s not neutral; it’s not like the mindset of the flesh is just having a bad day. No, it’s at war with the things of God. It’s important to understand that the mindset on the flesh, but the mindset on the Spirit is life and peace. The mindset on the Spirit is capable of moving in great faith.
A couple more comments to say—well, we’ll read that. Did I tell you where to go? James 3. No? How many of you were there? I just want to see how many discerning people are in the room. None? All right, well, I’ll give you another chance. James chapter 3, turn there in your Bibles; we’ll read out of there in just a moment. Now, I’m perceiving something like—you remember the phrase «looking through a glass darkly»? That’s where I’m standing right now; I’m peering through a glass, and I can’t see it clearly, but I’ll tell you what I do see. The scripture says, «By faith, we understand the worlds were made out of nothing.»
By faith, we understand. I believe that the Lord is introducing us to an understanding that will benefit humanity, an understanding that doesn’t elevate you or elevate me as some Christian smarty pants. I see a t-shirt—no, I don’t; do not make that t-shirt for me; I will not wear it—Christian smarty pants; it just came to me; I’m not sure it was the Lord though. All right, yeah, probably not. He’s not interested in elevating the believer to a place of applause and worship; what He is wanting to do is to elevate the fact that He has the entire world in His heart and that there are practical solutions for every problem, and He knows what they are, and surrendered, yielded people will come into those.
So, I do believe that as we expand and grow in our faith in these areas, I think there’s going to be more dreams, more visions—sometimes you get a dream and a vision and it seems supernatural; sometimes you just work hard and come to a right conclusion, and that too is the work of God. Sometimes, I know our teams that write songs have these moments where songs just seem to come. From talking with Brian, there are these moments where two-thirds of the song is written, but the last third is ground out over a period of time, and both are necessary. Does that make sense to you? So, I believe that the Lord is going to release understanding for us to have creative solutions, expressions, etc. All right, by faith, we understand.