I define willpower as the ability to still imagine the promises of God no matter what your circumstances or senses or feelings say.
Every leader, especially leaders in the body of Christ, should be eager for increase, for abundance, for more. Not because you want more money – or even a bigger ministry – but because you want to grow. Trust me running a church of 5 does not need you to be as big as a church of 50. Pastoring pastors needs you to be bigger. Believing for 100000 pounds needs you to be bigger than believing for 1000 pounds. Growth on the inside produces growth on the outside and growth on the outside forces growth on the inside. It’s a beautiful and brilliant circle and it is one we all need to be on the inside of!
To do this, you must put some grit in your imagination. You need to dream big and hold on tight to those dreams. You need imagination with grit in. You need to start at the end not the beginning. Do not look around and let your circumstances tell you what to dream. Look at the dream. ALL MIRACLES START AT THE END. You imagine the END. You dream the end until the end motivates you, inspires you, fills you with love and peace and joy. You get to that place then it will absolutely come to pass. This is where most pastors fail. They stop dreaming before it comes to pass.
People say live in the moment, but what we need to do is bring the future into the moment. Dream the future right now. I am in meetings right now about adding over 100k a year to our budget, and I know that is not enough and that is not the size that God wants Tree of Life to end up at. We have a huge destiny, and it’s my job to hold it in my dreams and act like it is so now. In the last two months, we have paid for the first month’s TV bills of two ministries starting on TV. Why wouldn’t we do that? We are a huge ministry in my imagination. We are stepping up all the time to reach the dream I have been holding onto in my head for years! That is how ministry should work.
Now other people (including other leaders, sadly) will think you are crazy. But that’s none of your business. Most people who think I am crazy think it because they cannot grasp why I am progressing – the answer is because I am doing things the Bible way and have some grit in my imagination. I think maybe only 1 in 20 pastors are doing the same, sadly. Success is 5% how you do things, and 95% your ability to use your imagination to expect good to come your way.
The world programmes us to be average, but we are not! We are born again, we are beloved of God, we are revivalists, we are apsotles and prophets and evangelists and pastors and teachers! We are the children of the living God – let’s dream big and hold on to our dreams.
Listen – it’s time to dream big. If you only have goals you KNOW HOW TO DO – you are wrong. You are dreaming too small. Dreams should be big enough to unlock the power of God inside you. I was speaking to a man a couple of weeks ago believing God for a new car, and it was the same car he was driving, just newer. It was the same dream from seven years ago when he bought the car he had now. He hadn’t grown or stretched his dreams! I know pastors whose only dream is to survive! That is not a big dream, and you should repent of dreaming that small. God doesn’t care what car you drive, but He cares you learn how to dream big, and a car is a great place to start your dream.
Other people dream “if that person helps me, and if this person sees me and invites me to preach, and that happens, I might be able to do this”. Their dreams are dependent on earthly circumstances and other people. That is not a big enough dream. If your dream is standing on one person’s platform, your dream is tiny. If your dream is to teach at the Bible College you went to without going anywhere before teaching, your dream is miniscule.
What we need are dreams that you have no idea how they could possibly happen. I mean they are entirely a mystery to your peanut brain and you need spiritual power t o walk in them. Beyond anything you have ever done, but you want to do them. You so want to do them. The house you want, the job you want, the ministry you want, the influence you want. All done in love and peace and joy. Things you have no idea how to do, you don’t have the money, the time, you don’t have the power to make it happen – but it is a dream, and it is in your imagination. If you can hold a dream like that in your information and want it so much that it develops a grit inside it – then that is your spirit speaking and you need to yield to it and watch it manifest. Your spiritual self is perfect and limitless, you need to hold that in your imagination until it moves you forward.
Yesterday God spoke a new dream to me, one I have never seen before, but it immediately resonated with me. Within 24 hours I was sitting in front of the man who can make it happen telling me how much he wanted to help make it happen. That is the power I am talking about. I will share it all with you when it happens, and it will!
Selah selah selah!
Job said the thing I greatly feared came upon me. He used his imagination to attract evil into his life. We can reverse this principle and say “the thing I desired and dreamed and expected is come upon me”. Selah.
Next post – How to join all the dots.
Inspiring and Challenging Dreamers 