2 Corinthians 5:5-8 (NKJV) 5 Now He who has prepared us for this very thing is God, who also has given us the Spirit as a guarantee. 6 So we are always confident, knowing that while we are at home in the body we are absent from the Lord. 7 For we walk by faith, not by sight. 8 We are confident, yes, well pleased rather to be absent from the body and to be present with the Lord.
My theme for 2016 is not some new revelation or even a “catchy phrase” that looks good on a banner. It is an idea that most bible believing Christians take for granted. If we can believe, all things are possible with God. If God is what he says he is in the Bible, and he is, then this goes without saying. The problem is that we believe this statement in theory and theology but we do not tend to accept it as everyday reality.
What God is saying to me for 2016 is that I have to get back to the place where this thought becomes my “default position” in every circumstance. A default setting is the setting a machine like a computer automatically goes to whenever it is turned on. If you browse the internet, the program you use probably goes to a “home page.” That is the default. You can change it if you need something else, but every time you open the web your default home page loads. Every time we are challenged our default response must become “all things are possible.”
I believe that faith is a specific thing and that we need to believe specific promises to get results. Right now I want to step back to a less specific place. All things are possible is not specific. It is where we must begin if we are going to get to the place where we can believe for specific results. When Jesus was faced with his desire to avoid the cross, he started by reminding himself that all things are possible with God. We found out the importance of what he said next last week. Nevertheless, that is where he began.
This week I want to continue with this idea. One of the casualties of our current world situation is the loss of confidence. In my country the level of confidence in government is almost laughable. No one really believes the government has the ability to solve our problems. Confidence in the economy is not there either. For the first time in generations of Americans, parents do not believe their children can have a better life than theirs. We might some the crisis of confidence up in the fact that there is no confidence in the future.
Where does confidence come from? It comes from knowing that certain things are at least possible. Most people in the world see less possibility for their lives than in a very long time. If we are looking only at the natural, that will be our conclusion. However, there is another view we can take. We can see possibility in the supernatural.
In the above scripture, Paul is speaking about heaven. I believe we can also apply the principle stated here to the present. Paul says that he is where God wants him to be and the “gift of the Holy Spirit” in his life is the guarantee that this is true. He says that he is always confident knowing that he has an eternal future in the presence of God.
He is confident because he walks by faith and not by sight. He cannot see heaven. The only way he can be confident that it exists is to see it with the eye of faith. He is not saying he walks without sight. He is saying he sees on another level. He sees by faith. Faith is seeing past the natural into the supernatural.
Although the context is heaven, this also applies to what is possible. If I see only natural possibility I will not be confident. However, if I can begin to see by faith instead of with my natural eyes alone, I will be, like Paul, confident in my prospects.
I will see that if I am sick, I am not limited to the ability of the Doctor or my ability to pay him. There are other possibilities. If I need money I will see that I am not limited to what is possible via my job or my resources. One of the definitions of the word translated wealth in the bible is “other means.” I have other means through which my needs can be supplied. When I run out of natural possibilities in any area of life, I can see other possibilities in God. I can look forward with confidence, knowing that he will always cause me to triumph by his power and grace (2 Cor. 2:14.)
I want to stress that the cultivation of God’s possibilities over natural possibilities is not the fullness of faith. There is more to effective faith than that. It is however, where faith begins. If we do not begin to think in terms of God’s limitless possibilities, we will never be able to progress to believing the promises for our own circumstances.
That is also why the devil works so hard to get us to minimize this idea. He knows that he cannot cause you to stop believing in the reality of God. For the most part, he will never get us to stop believing that God still does things like healing and prospering. However, he can get us to lower our expectations by causing us to subconsciously accept that certain things really are not possible for us. No! All things are possible for all believers all the time!
As I have been thinking about this I feel the Lord said something to me that may sound a little strange, but I believe it is a key to regaining our edge of possibility. I believe we need to exercise our imagination again.
Imagination is often seen as the province of childhood. We know that they use imagination as a way to “train” for adulthood. They play house and truck driver and soldier. They may play at being teachers and doctors. They simulate relationships. Not they their relationships are not real but they are not on the same level as adult relationships. The purpose is that they cultivate the ability to see things that are beyond their current experience.
Sometimes we think adulthood means we leave the imaginary behind but this is never true. Imagination is part of humanity. Every culture has stories. They are used to entertain but also to instruct in the truths of life. Our stories are very important to us. This has never been more true than today.
We have movies, TV shows and video games. These are the most sophisticated outlets for imagination we have ever seen. They make the imaginary seem so real that too often we live our lives in the imaginary world instead of the real world. That is not healthy. It is a perversion of what God intended. That does not mean we should cast off imagination. When we use imagination as God intended we see beyond the natural possibility. We can begin to see God’s possibility.
The function of imagination is to see beyond the life we currently live. If we get lost in imagination that does not take into account God, his principles and his Word, we will not build faith but we will simply avoid reality. When we use our imagination to think about what God could do in our lives, something wonderful happens.
Joshua 1:8 (NKJV) 8 This Book of the Law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate in it day and night, that you may observe to do according to all that is written in it. For then you will make your way prosperous, and then you will have good success.
God told Joshua to use his imagination to “meditate in my word day and night.” This is how God said Joshua would succeed. You are no different. Take some time today and ask God to help you see what he could do to help you. You will eventually need to believe what he will do, but start with could first. You will open a door to a life walked by faith and not just by sight.
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