1 Corinthians 8:2 If anyone imagines that he knows something, he does not yet know as he ought to know.

Imagination is a construct of the mind and cannot be trusted.

Issues of faith are grounded in trust.

2 Corinthians 1:9 Indeed, we felt that we had received the sentence of death. But that was to make us rely not on ourselves but on God who raises the dead.

The resurrection of the dead is not someone’s imagination.

1 Corinthians 15:6 Then he appeared to more than five hundred brothers at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have fallen asleep.

Are you someone that cannot trust the witness of others?

John 20:25 So the other disciples told him, “We have seen the Lord.” But he said to them, “Unless I see in his hands the mark of the nails, and place my finger into the mark of the nails, and place my hand into his side, I will never believe.”

Then Jesus revealed Himself to doubting Thomas. So if this is about your inability to trust others, what is to be done?

2 Corinthians 13:5 Examine yourselves, to see whether you are in the faith. Test yourselves. Or do you not realize this about yourselves, that Jesus Christ is in you?—unless indeed you fail to meet the test!

Place your faith in the atoning work of Jesus Christ and be tested. What do you have to lose?

Hebrews 11:1 Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.

I guess that depends on what you are hoping for doesn’t it?

Deuteronomy 28:66 Your life shall hang in doubt before you. Night and day you shall be in dread and have no assurance of your life.

Perhaps you have never feared for your own life. Fear does not disappear through imagination, that is where nightmares are born..

Matthew 10:28 And do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell.

Ephesians 3:16 that according to the riches of his glory he may grant you to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in your inner being,

Break this verse down.

According is a pathway word, it tells us why things work.

His Glory, not ours

May grant is no guarantee that all of us will be strengthened.

The power is released by the Holy Spirit into our inner being to effect change.

Less we forget too soon, all this is in accordance with the will of God the Father.

So what can we do to prepare ourselves in order to be strengthened? I said that yesterday.

Psalm 119:28 My soul melts away for sorrow; strengthen me according to your word!

The amount of time we spend in the Word prepares us to be strengthened.

The Word is Jesus, we know Him through the bible. The more time we spend reading and studying the bible the better chance we have of understanding how the Holy Spirit works in us, changing us and growing the inner man.

Romans 7:22 For I delight in the law of God, in my inner being,

2 Corinthians 4:16 So we do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day.

This does not happen overnight. We change one day at a time. 

Isaiah 28:10 For it is precept upon precept, precept upon precept, line upon line, line upon line, here a little, there a little.

Isaiah 28:9 To whom will he teach knowledge, and to whom will he explain the message? Those who are weaned from the milk, those taken from the breast?

Hebrews 5:13 for everyone who lives on milk is unskilled in the word of righteousness, since he is a child.

Hebrews 5:14 But solid food is for the mature, for those who have their powers of discernment trained by constant practice to distinguish good from evil.

Training comes through constant practice. 

1 Corinthians 8:2 If anyone imagines that he knows something, he does not yet know as he ought to know.