WEEKLY DEVOTIONAL

When you think about yourself, what comes to mind?

Aristotle observantly said, “The soul never thinks without a picture.”

According to child psychologist Sally Goddard Blythe, author of The Genius of Natural Childhood: Secrets of Thriving Children, “the importance of imagination in all areas of child development cannot be overstated.” She says imagination can be defined as “the ability to create visual images in the mind’s eye, which allows us to explore all sorts of images and ideas without being constrained by the limits of the physical world.”

Our God and Creator gave us an imagination! God equipped each one of us with the ability to produce mental pictures and ideas; i.e.: imaginations.

Each one of us has and/or has had mental pictures regarding who they are and what they would like to be.

Ephesians 2:10 says, “For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.”

The word, workmanship, literally means “a thing that has been made.” It was a word used to refer to a work of art, such as a painting. We are God’s “masterpiece” – a product of His creative imagination.

Our God told the prophet, Jeremiah, “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you; Before you were born I sanctified you; I ordained you a prophet to the nations” (Jer. 1:5). Jeremiah was a product of God’s mental image of who he would become.

Likewise, you and I are products of God’s will. God has decided what you could be and should be. Being formed by God, You are the outcome of what God envisioned.

Here is the point: God has a mental image of who you should be and what you should do. He has placed this “image” inside each of us.

God envisioned Abraham believing Him and relocating to an unknown land.

God envisioned Moses delivering the Israelites from slavery.

God envisioned Joshua leading the Israelites to conquer Canaan.

God envisioned Nehemiah rebuilding the walls and gates of Jerusalem.

God envisioned Peter evangelizing the Jews.

God envisioned Paul evangelizing the Gentiles.

There is nothing in the entire world like knowing how God wants you to invest your life and then doing it.

Philippians 3:12-14 says, “Not that I have already attained, or am already perfected; but I press on, that I may lay hold of that for which Christ Jesus has also laid hold of me. Brethren, I do not count myself to have apprehended; but one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forward to those things which are ahead, I press toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.”

The Apostle Paul said that his life ambition was to get a hold of that which Christ Jesus got a hold of him. This brings us two points of application for our lives.

First, Jesus loves you, and He wants to get a hold of your life. Give Him your life.

Second, make it your life ambition to get a hold of what God created you to become. Seek Him. Know Him. Put the past behind you. Reach forward with all your energy – that you might live up to God’s imagination for your life.

When you think about yourself, what image comes to mind? It is God’s picture of you?