Doubt Is the Enemy of Imagination

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CURRENT TEACHING SERIES Daring Faith

Doubt Is the Enemy of Imagination By Rick Warren — Jan 8, 2016 “If any of you lacks wisdom, you should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to you. But when you ask, you must believe and not doubt, because the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea, blown and tossed by the wind. That person should not expect to receive anything from the Lord.” (James 1:5-7 NIV) Doubt is the enemy of imagination. When you were a kid, you had a great imagination. But the older you get, the more your imagination grows rusty. You stop imagining what things could be, and you just start living the way they are. You get stuck in the status quo, which is Latin for “the mess we’re in.” Doubt and fear neutralize what God wants to do in your life. It takes courage to imagine. Do you know why most people don’t imagine? Because they’re afraid of failure. Courage is doing the thing you fear the most. If you’re not afraid, you don’t need courage. Courage is when you’re scared to death and you say, “I’m going to do it anyway.” Every great thing that we’ve done at Saddleback Church, I was scared to death to do. But I just said we’re going to do it anyway. Why? Because I’m not about to let fear dominate my life. So I move forward, trembling. Courage is when you do the right thing while you are afraid. You may wonder, “Should I wait until all my doubts are gone?” But you have to move against your fears. You have to ignore all the insecurity you’re feeling and just go for it. James 1:5-7 says, “If any of you lacks wisdom, you should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to you. But when you ask, you must believe and not doubt, because the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea, blown and tossed by the wind. That person should not expect to receive anything from the Lord” (NIV). Your imagination is either going to be governed by fear or it’s going to be governed by faith. That’s your choice. If you let your imagination be governed by fear, you’re going to go around being freaked out, stressed out, and worried all the time. When you allow fear to control your imagination, you live a miserable life. Instead decide that you’re not going to allow fear to dominate. Let your faith dominate. Trust in God. Then you can move forward in faith and allow your imagination to be filled with all kinds of possibilities, because all things are possible with God. PLAY today’s audio teaching from Pastor Rick>> Talk It Over What’s the big thing you believe God wants to do in your life but you’ve let doubt hold you back? Would you be afraid to truly open your mind and life to every possibility of God? Why or why not? When you ask God for something in prayer, why does he want you to believe in faith that he will answer?   CURRENT RADIO SERIES All Things New   CURRENT TV SERIES When Christ Returns   Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.            2 Corinthians 5:17            Augustine, the famed theologian and philosopher, was a very carnal young man, often frequenting houses of prostitution. So when he came to know Christ as his Savior, he was dramatically transformed and changed by the power of God. One day he was walking down one of the streets in his home town and a shady lady that he had known previously was standing on the street corner. She saw Augustine and said, “Augustine! Augustine! It is I!” So Augustine immediately turned the other direction and said, “Yes, but it is not I.” You see, when you become a believer in Christ, you are radically changed from the inside out. That’s because Jesus takes your sin away, liberating you from its bondage, and has given you the Spirit of God to live inside of you. The result is that your old self is dead and your new self enables you to live a life pleasing to God. God can give you a new heart and a new life if you’re in Christ. And as a Christian, you can make a commitment to holiness and godliness because of that new life. So if you’ve been made new in Christ, live your life focused on bringing glory to Him! In Christ, God has taken away your old self and given you a new life. so live your life in freedom from the bondage of sin and give the glory to God!