Temptation comes in waves

Joab was a general in King David’s army. He was loyal to David, but only to a point. Then David’s son Solomon began to reign. As kings did, Solomon also began cleaning house by removing those who were disloyal.

When the news came to Joab—for Joab had supported Adonijah although he had not supported Absalom—Joab fled to the tent of the Lord and caught hold of the horns of the altar. (1 Kings 2:28)

Joab’s loyalty kept him from following Absalom, David’s handsome and wily son, but later he went after another son who wanted David’s throne. Solomon was dealing with those usurpers and when Joab realized it, he also realized he was in line for a death sentence.

Chambers takes a big picture look at this situation, seeing it as an example of what happens to Christians today. We get tested by a supreme and difficult temptation. We might pass that test, but fail to remain on the alert when the second wave comes. Somehow, the first victory gives a false sense of invincibility.

While I’ve never been able to prepare for temptation, I know it is a common and frequent enemy. I also know that God will help me stay standing under it . . .

No temptation has overtaken you that is not common to man. God is faithful, and he will not let you be tempted beyond your ability, but with the temptation he will also provide the way of escape, that you may be able to endure it. (1 Corinthians 10:13)

Temptation happens to everyone, but falling into sin is not inevitable. God provides the means to overcome the temptation. My problem is discovering whatever means will work. Is it running away? Crying for help? Calling for supportive prayer? Identifying the lie behind it? Doing something right instead? All of the above?

Chambers says the Bible characters failed on their strong points, not their weaknesses. If that is true, it seems a good idea to examine my strengths. Each one of them has a down-side where the tempter makes his appeals.

For instance, I’m continually told that I have a wonderful imagination. It shows up when making meals, designing quilts, and in other ways. But that imagination also goes to work in areas that people cannot see. Not only do I have vivid (and usually funny) dreams at night, but I can daydream with the best script writers. Sometimes those dreams take my mind in places it should not go. For this temptation, God’s way of escape is usually a challenge where I can use my creativity in productive ways. Instead of getting into trouble, I can take part in advancing His kingdom.

Another God-given strength is the spiritual gift of discernment. For years, this helps me perceive the spiritual condition of others. The Holy Spirit gives good information, but I’ve not always handled it well. When I should praise the positives and pray for the weaknesses, my pride can turn the information into criticism or other forms of negativity. Duh.

Even as temptations come to exploit strengths, there is no way I can predict when, where, or even exactly what form they will take. Often I’m tempted after a victory, or a time of endurance through an intense trial. I can know they will come, but am usually surprised.

Also, as Chambers says, it isn’t wise to be on the lookout with morbid introspection and dread. I need to be alert and guard my strengths by wearing spiritual armor. I must also rest in the fact of God’s sovereign. The enemy cannot throw his lies at me without God’s permission and purpose.

Even thought temptation is not God’s idea, but He can turn it into a test that has a way of firmly convincing me that I always need grace and that I am always kept by the power of God.

A controlled imagination

Most television shows cannot hold my interest. If I’m doing something else at the same time, I can watch, but even then my mind wanders. My imagination takes me elsewhere.

However, we have what seems a new channel; at least new to me. The programs are about nature, both flora and fauna, without commercials except to advertise upcoming shows. Ignoring the few speculative parts about how these things came to be, I am totally captivated with the beauty and the intricacies of God’s creation.

This morning, I asked God to speak to me about my imagination and how better to use it. I had not yet looked at today’s devotional reading and was startled at the title: “Is your imagination of God starved?”

To whom then will you compare me, that I should be like him? says the Holy One. Lift up your eyes on high and see: who created these? He who brings out their host by number, calling them all by name, by the greatness of his might, and because he is strong in power not one is missing. (Isaiah 40:25–26)

Chambers points out that the people of God in Isaiah’s day starved their imagination by looking on the face of idols. We do that today too because the human heart is “an idol-making factory.” Instead of focusing on God, many people tend to exalt all sorts of other entities. Even Christians can do this.

Isaiah told the people to look up at the heavens so they could begin to use their imagination as God intended. It is the first revelation of God. The New Testament says “. . . what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made . . . .” (Romans 1:19–20)

Chambers says that to Christians, nature is sacramental, a tremendous treasure. He says, “In every wind that blows, in every night and day of the year, in every sign of the sky, in every blossoming and in every withering of the earth, there is a real coming of God to us if we will simply use our starved imagination to realize it.”

This explains why that TV channel is so fascinating; the images are the handiwork of Almighty God. It also gives me a partial answer of how to better use my imagination. Again, quoting Chambers, “The test of spiritual concentration is bringing the imagination into captivity. Is your imagination looking on the face of an idol?” Regardless of whether that idol is me or something else, my imagination of God is starved.

When that happens and trials come, the resources needed tend to come out of my memories of what God has been like in the past rather than what He is like right now. Chambers says not to do that —it is God whom I need. I must go out of myself and away from any idols or whatever else that has been starving my imagination, and deliberately turn my thoughts and imaginings to God and what He is able to do.

With these thoughts in mind, no wonder a walk in the woods is so refreshing and such a perfect time and place for prayer. It takes my thoughts to His work instead of whatever is distracting me, and talking to Him becomes easier.

Chambers uses a big word that I don’t know. He says, “One of the reasons of stultification in prayer is that there is no imagination, no power of putting ourselves deliberately before God. We have to learn how to be broken bread and poured-out wine on the line of intercession more than on the line of personal contact. Imagination is the power God gives a saint to posit himself out of himself into relationships he never was in.”

Stultification means: to make, or cause to appear, foolish or ridiculous; to render absurdly or wholly futile or ineffectual, especially by degrading or frustrating means (Menial work can stultify the mind); to allege or prove (oneself or another) to be of unsound mind.

I get it. My prayer life can be lousy because I’m not fully using my imagination in the right way. Yet all is not totally off the mark. Sometimes I do imagine myself sitting with God, His hand holding mine, as I tell Him what is in my heart. Yet it is no surprise that this is easier to do on a park bench than in the living room or in front of my computer.

Right now, all sidewalks and trails covered with ice because of unusual weather so a walk in the park is dangerous. However, again God has quickly answered my request. He tells me to guard my heart (including my imagination) and points my wandering mind toward Him that I might “take every thought captive to obey Christ” (2 Corinthians 10:5)

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Bob worked five hours today, then came home and slept for an hour before supper. He says five hours is his limit. He is still coughing, but sleeping more soundly. I am really tired today, but my mind has been filled with good thoughts!

The power of a sanctified imagination

A man involved in annual outdoor presentations of the Passion Play said that most of his best ideas come from dreams. Some listeners were horrified because their own dreams are never creative and more like nightmares. However, the man explained the power of a sanctified imagination. When the mind is given over to Jesus and controlled by the Holy Spirit, who knows what grand things it could conceive?

Today’s devotional reading adds to the theme of yesterday, that God can do great things through our human imaginations. Because I am created in His image, I can be amazingly creative and able to love others. Today, the same writer says that because it is possible to have a holy imagination, God can use it to help me see the unseen.

Thomas answered him, “My Lord and my God!” Jesus said to him, “Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.” (John 20:28–29)

No one is saved by their imagination. The world suggests that religion is only that, and that Christians have made up a God and a Christ. They assume both are figments of the imagination and manufactured by needy souls. If that were the case, how then can thousands of people from all walks of life and all nations and languages believe the same thing? How could so many imagine the same story of a Savior who was born of a virgin, lived a sinless life, died a horrible death, and rose from the dead to offer forgiveness and eternal life? It would simply not happen that way from mere human imagination.

Aside from that, God does use our imaginations to help us see the mysteries that He reveals. Because of this faculty, I have a vision of the grace and the beauty of Jesus Christ that envelopes my heart and will not let it go. It is that image, tender and loving, brave and patient, silent and unselfish, that casts a spell on my imagination and reaches my heart.

The devotional says that no worse curse can fall on a person than to have a corrupt imagination. I agree. I am able to imagine horrible sins and crimes against my enemies. I am able to imagine doing things I would never do except in the hidden places of my heart. My imagination can be a curse instead of a blessing.

But I also know that there is no greater power than an imagination that is pure. This God-given ability fills me with His ideas and ways to make them a reality. Not only that, a sanctified imagination has purifying power. The person who dwells in that inner communion with Christ has a vision of what is fair and lovely. A mind that is under the control of the Holy Spirit and filled with joyful and holy thoughts soon realizes that all things unclean and bestial, the base stuff of a sinful imagination, must “steal away” into the forests and gloom of the night.

The Bible says that before God destroyed the world with a flood, the people’s hearts were filled with evil imaginations. Little wonder that the New Testament gives instructions like this…

Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect. (Romans 12:2)

…put off your old self, which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires, and to be renewed in the spirit of your minds, and to put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness. (Ephesians 4:22–24)

Last week I asked God to help me with my wandering imagination and He has shown me how it can be used to love others, and to get a better grasp of the beauty that is in Christ. He challenges and renews my thinking and continues to charge me with a greater consecration to the Lord Jesus Christ.  

Imagine that!

Whatever else it implies, being created in God’s image gives human beings the power of imagination. Imagination can be used for great good, to build bridges and create art, to find solutions to problems and make music.

Imagination can also become the tool of a sinful and selfish mind. When it does, there is no beauty, only sorrow and destruction (see Genesis 6:5, 8:21 as an example).

Today’s devotional uses an odd verse to talk about the importance of imagination in loving others…

When (Jesus) saw the crowds, he had compassion for them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd. (Matthew 9:36)

Christianity is an historical faith, not coming out of abstract ideas or the imagination of sinners. Instead, it is the revelation of God to His people from the beginning through their journeys and finally in the incarnation, life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. That means what I believe is based on events that happened and that are recorded in the grand Book that has been a perpetual best-seller for generations.

However, as I read what God has revealed, my imagination is fired up. Being able to imagine is God’s gift that makes the facts of history real and alive and answers the cry of hearts… “Sir, we wish to see Jesus.” (John 12:21) Yet I know that this powerful ability must always be based on reality. When I begin to imagine things that are not true or not revealed by God’s Word, I go backwards into the darkness of sin and unbelief.

In contrast, as I read the Word of God, my faith is strengthened and refreshed because the past, in which my faith is rooted, “leaps up in life like the bones of Elisha’s vision under the power of imagination.”

Taking this farther, the devotional writer offers a brand new thought, at least new for me. He says that imagination is a religious power because it is so helpful to compassion, and answers the reason for a seeming lack of love for others. I can think of many other faults for my failure to love others, but he suggests that a lack of imagination is at the root of it.

“A vast deal of people’s callousness and cruelty and of their severe or unkindly judgment does not arise so much from lack of heart as from failure to understand imaginatively. A person who has no imagination is certain to be tactless. A person who has no imagination is an unsympathetic person.”

That statement surprises me. The devotional writer goes on to say that sympathy and tact come from the ability to grasp another’s situation, to realize their burdens. This is not the same as love because the work of love begins after I grasp someone’s need. The power that helps me to do that is God’s gift to me — the power of imagination!

For example, I finished a small quilt yesterday in colors and design that are not my taste. However, as I looked at it, I thought of a friend in a nursing home. I imagined the chill of sitting in a wheelchair instead of being able to move about freely. My mind quickly formed a picture of this little quilt across the lap of someone in that situation. I imagined their fingers playing with the flowers on the fabric and their smile at feeling warmth and comfort. Imagination produced a loving and compassionate thing to do with a little quilt.

The devotional says that every dramatist and novelist who reveals “us to ourselves” is a person of imagination.  Using that imagination to express true sympathy and compassion can be a powerful expression of the love of God, making that image of God in us a power for serving Him and others, a power of the highest order.