The part of you that hopes is a result of the part of you that imagines. How? Because when you hope, you’re creating a mental picture of what you’d like to see happen. There are many scriptures on this topic. Let’s start with a verse in Hebrews.

Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.

Hebrews 11:1

You could say it this way: faith is the substance of your positive imagination, the evidence of things not seen. According to this verse, faith brings into reality the things that you positively imagine. Your imagination is like your spiritual womb. It will conceive what God’s Word says, and then faith brings to birth the things that you’ve conceived.

Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on thee: because he trusteth in thee.

Isaiah 26:3

The Hebrew word translated “mind” in this verse is yetser, which means conception. The word yetser was also translated as “imagination.” I don’t know if that helps you, but it blesses me! This is so important, because there are a lot of people who look at hope as a non-issue. As a matter of fact, many faith people have downplayed the role of hope. It says this in 1 Corinthians 13:13:

And now abideth faith, hope, charity, these three; but the greatest of these is charity.

People in the faith crowd, of course, will emphasize faith. And they understand the importance of love and how it’s the greatest of all. But did you know that hope should be right up there as one of the greatest forces, with faith and love?

When I’ve heard people use the word hope when talking about receiving from God, I’ve heard others criticize them, saying, “You don’t need to hope; you need to believe!” They don’t realize that without hope—without a positive imagination—you can’t believe! If there’s nothing hoped for, faith doesn’t have anything to give substance to.

It’s not just believe and receive. You have to conceive the Word, then you believe what it says, and then you receive what it promises. You might ask, “How do you conceive the Word of God?” Proverbs 23:7 says, “For as he thinketh in his heart, so is he.”

What you think or meditate on is how you conceive things, whether good or bad. If you meditate on your circumstances, that’s what you’ll conceive. It’ll be a self-fulfilling prophecy! But if you meditate on what God’s Word has to say, you’ll conceive what God’s Word says. It’ll change everything about you—how you see yourself, your circumstances, everything. That’s powerful! I hope you are getting this.

Blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor standeth in the way of sinners, nor sitteth in the seat of the scornful. But his delight is in the law of the Lord; and in his law doth he meditate day and night.

Psalm 1:1–2, emphasis added

Why do the heathen rage, and the people imagine a vain thing?

Psalm 2:1, emphasis added

The word meditate in Psalm 1:2 is the same word that’s translated “imagine” in Psalm 2:1. Your heart is like soil that’ll grow whatever thoughts are sown into it (Mark 4:26–28). What goes into your heart is what you imagine happening. Your imagination will go in the direction of your dominant thoughts. That’s why you have to make sure that you guard your heart (Prov. 4:23).

You know, if don’t have a specific place to go, then any old road will do. You could just head in any direction because it wouldn’t matter. But if you want to go to a specific destination—say, from Texas to New York—you have to picture in your mind where New York is and visualize the direction that you’ll be going.

Whether you look at a map or use a GPS, you have to move in a certain direction. You have to have the end goal in sight. And if you’re traveling a long distance and it’s going to take you more than one day to get to a certain place, you know what? You have to have some idea that you’re going to spend the night somewhere along the way. You have to think about these things. All of that is your imagination.

Hope is a powerful force! A great illustration of hope is in the book of Romans, where it talks about Abraham:

Who against hope believed in hope, that he might become the father of many nations, according to that which was spoken, So shall thy seed be.

Romans 4:18

God had to bring Abraham outside of his tent (Gen. 15:5) so that he could look up and count the stars. God gave him a visible presence of what his seed was going to be like. And just like Abraham had to step out of his tent to see the stars that represented God’s promise to him, each of us has to do the same. We all have “tent ceilings” that represent things that block us from seeing our full potential. So, God has to bring us out of our small, wrong thinking to get us to look up and see the enormous vision He has for our lives.

How much time do you spend imagining yourself healed, prosperous, and productive? You’re going to be envisioning something. So, if you aren’t “seeing” yourself healed, then you’re going to see yourself stuck or getting worse. If you don’t use your imagination in a positive way, then it’s going to be working against you. Either way, your imagination is going to work—you just get to pick whether it’s going to be positive or negative; whether it’s going to be unbelief, doubt, and fear; or whether it’s going to be what the Bible calls hope. Faith brings things that are hoped for into reality.

Faith gives substance to things that are hoped for, and it’s evidence of things not seen. Hope is like a thermostat that turns faith on and off. And you can’t have faith unless you first of all have a hope, which is a positive imagination. If you can’t see yourself doing something, then your faith won’t be activated to bring it to pass.

Some of the things I’m saying are hard to put into words because I’m talking about things you can’t see. But this is the way I live! My ministry and my relationship with God would not be where they are today without putting these things into practice. There are a lot of goals that I’ve set that I believe are from the Lord. The only way that I know I’ll get there is if I imagine the things God has put on my heart and meditate on them. When I do, they’ll paint a picture on the inside of me that I’ll be able to see manifest through faith. They are going to come to pass.

Sometimes it may not look like it, but you watch: Whether it’s finances or healing or whatever, I am going to have all that I need to accomplish everything that God has told me to accomplish. Whatever I do shall prosper!

I really believe that the things I’m sharing with you will change your life. If you want to experience more of the supernatural power of God, if you want to see more of His provision, if you want to see more healing, this is the way to do it. You can start today by believing God, meditating on His Word, and envisioning His will for you coming to pass.