DARING FAITH PART 6 DARE TO DREAM

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1 DARING FAITH PART 6 DARE TO DREAM Page 1 of 5 God wants you to dare to dream great dreams for Him. God has given each of us the ability to imagine what is not yet a reality. He has given you and me the gift of imagination. It is the ability to think creatively, to see things in your mind s eye and to have a mental picture of something that does not yet exist. You have this gift because you were created in the image of God. God imagined the universe before He created it. He thought of you before He made you. The Bible calls this the foreknowledge of God. You are like your Creator when you dream and image what could be and when you use your imagination to create good. Everything that has been created by people on this planet started in the imagination. Everything starts with a dream. ILL Let me give you an example. The Hippo Water Roller was created in 1991 by two men that grew up on farms in South Africa, (Mr. Pettie Petzer and Johan Jonker.) They saw firsthand the effect of the water crisis on people in rural communities where access to water is a daily struggle for millions. Hippo Water Roller is now being used in 20 other countries. *Video First 45 sec. Let s Pray. God help us see the relationship between dreams, imagination, and faith. Please help us unlock our potential. *1. MY DREAMS SHAPE MY LIFE. In other words, the way you think is going to affect the way you act. And if you want to change the way you act, you need to change the way you think. *Look at Proverbs 23:7 For as he thinks within himself, so he is. NASU God works in your life and mine through our thoughts. Your thinking shapes who you are and what you accomplish. *Look at Proverbs 4:23 Guard your heart above all else, for it determines the course of your life. NLT Your thinking determines the course of your life. Your dreams shape your life and your imagination shapes your dreams. I want to share with you what some have said about the importance of imagination.

2 Page 2 of 5 *Einstein said, Imagination is more important than knowledge. Knowledge is limited. Imagination encircles the world. The true sign of intelligence is not knowledge but imagination. *C. S. Lewis, one of the great Christian thinkers of the last century said, For me, reason is the natural organ of truth; but imagination is the organ of meaning. *Napoleon Bonaparte said, Imagination rules the world. *George Lucas, You can t do it unless you imagine it. Think about him imagining the entire Star Wars trilogy. That took a lot of imagination. Imagination is a gift from God and an essential part of living by faith. *Hebrews 11:1 Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see. NIV God has given us two ways of seeing. We see through our physical eyes and we can also see with the imagination of our mind. You can picture things in your mind that you cannot see with your eyes. That is what dreams are made of. When you can t see something physically, you can imagine it in your mind. Dreams help us visualize what God wants to accomplish in and through us. When we read the rest of Hebrews 11, we are told about all those heroes of faith who believed God would accomplish what they could not see with their eyes. They used their imagination guided by faith to visualize the promises of God. For instance, God came to Abram when he was in his eighties and changed his name to Abraham which means father of a great nation. This was a strange name to give a man in his eighties who had no children. *Look at Genesis 15:5 He (God) took him (Abraham) outside and said, "Look up at the heavens and count the stars if indeed you can count them." Then he said to him, "So shall your offspring be. NIV God told Abraham to count stars to activate his imagination. God wanted Abraham to visualize what He was going to do in his life. Listen to this! God wants to do the same in your life and mine. He wants to enable you to visualize what He is going to do in your life. *Look at 2 Corinthians 4:18 So we don t spend all our time looking at what we can see. Instead, we look at what we can t see. What can be seen lasts only a short time. But what can t be seen will last forever. NIrV The material world is temporary and the immaterial is eternal.

3 Page 3 of 5 God wants to activate your imagination so that you might dream great dreams for God. *William Carey the great missionary to India put it this way. Attempt great things for God expect great things from God. William Carey dreamed of taking the Gospel to the people of India and God used him in a mighty way to accomplish that dream and to start the modern missionary movement. *2. GREAT LIVES ARE BUILT ON GREAT DREAMS. No one is born a great person. It is a great purpose and a great dream that causes a person to become great. You need a dream bigger than yourself and a purpose greater than yourself. Until you have a great dream, you will never be a great person. God has already given you a great purpose. It is the greatest purpose on earth! That purpose is building the Kingdom of God, the Church. God also wants to give each of you a dream, a vision of how you can be a part of building His Church. *Look at what Paul prayed in Ephesians 1:18 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. NIV God wants to activate your imagination. God wants you to be able to see His dream for your life, His vision for your life. God has called you to build His church and He wants to be able to visualize your ministry. Every child of God has a ministry. That is your God given dream. God s dream for my life is bigger and better than my dream. *Ephesians 3:20 God is able to do far more than we could ever ask for or imagine. NIrV You could have a self-centered dream of being a billionaire or a rock star and you could achieve it but God s dream is even bigger and better than that. God s dream for you is not self-content. God s dream for your life is bigger than yourself. Many people miss God s calling in life because they re following their own self-centered dreams instead of God s dream for their life.

4 Page 4 of 5 It is terrible when people miss God s dream for their life. When we make up our own dream, we miss out on all the blessings God has for us. God wants to give you His dream for your life. Start dreaming big dreams for God. We should base our dreams not on what we can do, but on what God can do. *3. DOUBT IS THE ENEMY OF DREAMS. Doubt and fear neutralize what God wants to do in your life. It takes courage to imagine the great dreams that God has for you. Fear is what causes so many to fail to realize the dreams that God has for them. Doubt is the enemy of imagination. It takes courage to dream. Remember that courage is doing the thing you fear the most. If you re not afraid, you don t need courage. When you step out in faith and courage to do what God has called you to do, that is when God shows up in power. ILL The first block party we did I was afraid of failure. I looked around while we were setting up and saw all the work that everyone had done and I thought, What if no one shows up? Let me give you some perspective. We had just done a recreation night in our gym for students from Lamar College and not one student showed up. But here is what I did know. God had given me the dream of leading our church to reach our community for Christ, of becoming a healthy growing church. I knew that connecting with the community was a vital part of that dream. I knew that block parties had been used successfully by other churches. So in spite of my fear of failure, I stepped out in faith. The block party that day was far more successful than I had imagined. But if fear and doubt had ruled the day, that block party would never have happened. Sometimes you have to ignore all your insecurity,fears, and doubts and move forward in faith. I would rather fail attempting to do great things for God than to succeed in doing nothing. *Look at James 1:5 If any of you lacks wisdom, he should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to him. 6 But when he asks, he must believe and not doubt, NIV You ve got to believe your beliefs and you doubt your doubts.

5 Page 5 of 5 Your life is either going to be governed by fear or by faith. It s your choice. If you let your imagination be governed by fear, you re going to worry all the time and be miserable. God wants us to allow faith to dominate our thinking. He wants us to trust Him and to believe His Word. ILL There s a great story in the Bible about a man who had a son who was possessed by a spirit who came to Jesus. *Mark 9:21 Jesus asked the boy's father, "How long has he been like this?" "From childhood," he answered. 22 "It has often thrown him into fire or water to kill him. But if you can do anything, take pity on us and help us." 23 "'If you can'?" said Jesus. "Everything is possible for him who believes." 24 Immediately the boy's father exclaimed, "I do believe; help me overcome my unbelief!" NIV I love the honesty of this guy. I believe but I also have some doubts, but I want to overcome them. You know how Jesus responds? He rebuked the evil spirit and set the boy free. I don t have to have all my doubts resolved to follow Jesus Christ. God is looking for people who are tired of self-centered dreams. God wants you to dare to dream great dreams for Him. God s goal for your life is so big you cannot even imagine all that He wants to do in and through you. God is looking for people who will step out in faith. God will use you if you will just say yes. He will use your imagination and give you great dreams. Great lives are built on great dreams. *God has given our church a great dream of reaching our community for Christ. Ask God to give you a vision of what you can do to fulfill that dream. Let s pray. I pray that we will dream together big dreams for God. I pray that God will take away our doubts and fears and enable us to move forward in faith to do great things for God.