Section 13—Personality
Chapter 63—Imagination (Part 3)
Keep Off Satan’s Enchanted Ground (counsel to a self-centered family)—You should keep off Satan’s enchanted ground and not allow your minds to be swayed from allegiance to God. Through Christ you may and should be happy and should acquire habits of self-control. Even your thoughts must be brought into subjection to the will of God and your feelings under the control of reason and religion. Your imagination was not given you to be allowed to run riot and have its own way without any effort at restraint or discipline. If the thoughts are wrong, the feelings will be wrong; and the thoughts and feelings combined make up the moral character. When you decide that as Christians you are not required to restrain your thoughts and feelings, you are brought under the influence of evil angels and invite their presence and their control. If you yield to your impressions and allow your thoughts to run in a channel of suspicion, doubt, and repining, you will be among the most unhappy of mortals, and your lives will prove a failure.—Testimonies for the Church 5:310 (1885).
Seeing Life as It Is—Unless you view life as it is, cast aside the brilliant fancies of imagination, and come down to the sober lessons of experience, you will awake when it is too late. You will then realize the terrible mistake you have made.—Testimonies for the Church 3:43 (1872).
Acquisitiveness Creates Imaginary Wants—The case of Brother I is fearful. This world is his god; he worships money…. He needs the censure of none but the pity of all. His life has been a terrible mistake. He has suffered imaginary pecuniary want while surrounded with plenty. Satan has taken possession of his mind and, exciting his organ of acquisitiveness, has made him insane upon this subject. The higher, nobler powers of his being have been brought very much into subjection to this close, selfish propensity.
His only hope is in breaking the bands of Satan and overcoming this evil in his character. He has tried to do this by undoing something after his conscience has been wrought upon, but this is not sufficient. This merely making a mighty effort and parting with a little of his mammon, feeling all the time that he is parting with his soul, is not the fruit of true religion.
He must train his mind to good works. He must brace against his propensity to acquire. He must weave good works into all his life. He must cultivate a love for doing good and get above the little, penurious spirit which he has fostered.—Testimonies for the Church 2:237, 238 (1869).
Superstition Arising Out of Imagination—Your experience was shown to me as not reliable because opposed to natural law. It is in conflict with the unchangeable principles of nature. Superstition, my dear sister, arising from a diseased imagination, arrays you in conflict with science and principle. Which shall be yielded? Your strong prejudices and very set ideas in regard to what course is best to be pursued relative to yourself have long held you from good. I have understood your case for years but have felt incompetent to present the matter in so clear a manner that you could see and comprehend it and put to a practical use the light given you.—Testimonies for the Church 3:69 (1872).
Mothers and Imagination—I have been shown mothers who are governed by a diseased imagination, the influence of which is felt upon husband and children. The windows must be kept closed because the mother feels the air. If she is at all chilly, and a change is made in her clothing, she thinks her children must be treated in the same manner, and thus the entire family are robbed of physical stamina. All are affected by one mind, physically and mentally injured through the diseased imagination of one woman, who considers herself a criterion for the whole family….
Persons bring disease upon themselves by their wrong habits; yet in the face of light and knowledge, they will adhere to their own course. They reason thus: “Have we not tried the matter? and do we not understand it by experience?” But the experience of a person whose imagination is at fault should not have much weight with anyone.—Testimonies for the Church 2:524 (1870).
Harnessing the Mind—All are free moral agents. And as such they must bring their thoughts to run in the right channel.… Here is a wide field in which the mind can safely range. If Satan seeks to divert the mind from this to low and sensual things, bring it back again and place it on eternal things; and when the Lord sees the determined effort made to retain only pure thoughts, He will attract the mind, like the magnet, and purify the thoughts, and enable them to cleanse themselves from every secret sin. “Casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ” (2 Corinthians 10:5).
The first work for those who would reform is to purify the imagination. If the mind is led out in a vicious direction, it must be restrained to dwell only upon pure and elevated subjects. When tempted to yield to a corrupt imagination, then flee to the throne of grace and pray for strength from Heaven. In the strength of God the imagination can be restricted to dwell upon things which are pure and heavenly.—Appeal to Mothers, 29, 30 (1864).
https://m.egwwritings.org/en/book/78.1117#1151
Dear Heavenly Father, Thank You for the power and encouragement to control the imagination. With it, please bless us to share the gospel so that it inspires cheerful obedience and sets free those captive to debasing habits. Please grant to us that strength of abiding faith, which produces good works of service and continual contentment. Bless us with a submissive heart to Your Holy Spirit that we might love and be merciful and compassionate toward others, according to Your divine purpose. Through the power of Your Holy Spirit, please bless us to lay hold on eternity and in this world be exactly all You would have us be. Please grant to us the mind and love and faith of Jesus that others might be drawn to You eternally through how we live and what we say, especially in the most trying of circumstances. Because we ask all these in the Awesome name of Your Son, Almighty Jesus the Christ, our Savior, we say Thank You and Amen.
*****
DID YOU KNOW THIS…?
Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. —James 4:7 KJV —The WORD OF GOD— It’s the only flesh that is safe to eat (meditate on) to live forever!]
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Do you feel sorrowful, disconnected—without a place to feel at home or useful? I pray this might show you the way forward. Watch…
https://www.youtube.com/live/2QB6fcwVuws?si=fsEvZU-rkI-BngfD
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
FREE HEALTH TALK* open to the public Thursdays at 5pm at Country Life Natural Foods Store and Vegan/Vegetarian Restaurant, 1217 Eberhart Avenue, Columbus, GA.
Thursday, October 22: “Is Your Food Feeding Your Brain or Fighting It?”
*Exception: $10 for any cooking class
*****
WHGR 91.5 FM went LIVE noon on Thanksgiving Day 2025, for Hurtsboro (my childhood home town) and surrounding areas, including Tuskegee, Alabama.
If you want to support Christian radio programming for these final days, please visit
https://www.ucheepines.org/radio
Thank you!!!
****
I coordinate wonderful health and worship events and conferences online and onsite as a gospel medical missionary at Uchee Pines, a total plant-based health retreat, where doctors and practitioners specialize in lifestyle medicine. For event details, visit https://www.ucheepines.org/events
Therefore, if at any time you fail to receive this post as a text, please visit
https://baiom.org/author/audreystovall/
where devotionals are first posted daily (almost without fail). From there devotionals are publicly shared to my page on FB, LinkedIn, and Signal (in My Story), and to a response-restricted group on WhatsApp (once again when I am able to find the time to successfully rebuild it).
NOTE: These began as daily texts to encourage my academy roommate and dear friend of nearly 50 years, until she suddenly passed March 2023. Now I continue to compile and send them to anyone who will receive them and to her family in honor of their mom. Lately, I have begun featuring consecutive chapter portions of a select Bible-based book.
If you agree to continue receiving them, then this is my personal gift to you; and in this way, I not only honor God but the memory of a very dear friend whom I desperately miss.
My personal prayer is that God will bless me to find ways to multiply this gift, so that we all may be encouraged to be found faithful in the sight of a Holy God, whenever Christ returns or our eyes are shut in the sleep of death.
It is a prayerful process that leads me to share from my personal study.
So please feel free to forward to your loved ones or to anyone, as God leads you.
I’m calling them Barb’s Devotionals.