IMAGINATION

Imagination

John Lennon of The Beatle’s fame invites us, in his aptly named song ‘Imagine’, to use our imaginations. Great tune, but I once refused to sing this song when I auditioned for a band because I’m not impressed with the lyrics: ‘Imagine there’s no heaven/It’s easy if you try/No hell below us/Above us only sky.’ Then what about imagining ‘No religion too’? Let’s see, for the sake of world peace Lennon wants us to do away with heaven and hell. And he wants us to do away with Christianity, which would mean that the world would have no Saviour and no solution for evil and therefore would never have peace!

It’s not ‘religion’ that causes wars. Rather war is an extension of the evil desires of the individual human heart. James in chapter four of his epistle explains it. ‘Where do wars and fights come from among you? Do they not come from your desires for pleasure that war in your members? You lust and do not have. You murder and covet and cannot obtain. You fight and war. Yet you do not have because you do not ask.’ James 4:1-2. War therefore has to do with breaking the 10^th Commandment, ‘You shall not covet…’ Exodus 20:17. Coveting is a yearning to possess something, such as a world with no heaven and no hell below us and no religion too, whether imagined by the individual or ‘the brotherhood of man.’ Therefore, if we covet world peace, then we are to begin by imagining that there is no God, i.e., the God who has revealed heaven and hell to us.

What does God have to say about those who try to imagine there is no God? ‘The fool has said in his heart, “There is no God.” They are corrupt … Have the workers of iniquity no knowledge, who eat up My people as they eat up bread, and do not call upon God?’ Psalm 53:1a&4. Simply put, according to these verses those who covet a world without God are fools, they are corrupt, and they never call on God.

One of the main things that bothered me when I used to spend my time being a fool, corrupt and never calling on God, was the idea that the world, i.e., the cosmos or creation came from nothing. I don’t know about you, but my imagination does not allow nothing to become something. In fact, I find it impossible to imagine nothing, never mind imagining nothing somehow transforming itself into something! This is to go beyond imagination. It is to go ‘to infinity and beyond!’ to quote Buzz Lightyear. Space, time and matter are something, not nothing. These had to come from something. The Bible tells us that God is the eternal God who was, is and always will be. This God spoke, and things that were not became things that are. Or simply put: The Creator created creation.

Meanwhile back to ‘You shall not covet…’ As one Internet definition puts it: To covet is to ‘yearn to possess (something, especially something belonging to another). The Bible says, ‘The earth is the LORD’s, and all its fulness, the world and those who dwell therein’ Psalm 24:1. Therefore, you can use your imagination with all your heart, soul strength and mind, but you’re never going to get a world with no heaven, no hell below us, above us only sky, and no religion. Why? Because it’s not yours to have. It belongs to God your Maker. Therefore, if it’s world peace you’re after, wouldn’t you be better off by first seeking your own peace with God through Jesus Christ and then encouraging others to do likewise? Imagine that. It easy if you try.