It SEEMED to imply that to me, but in case you haven't noticed, I have several, count them, SEVERAL conversations going on at once here. Do you think we could start all over? I hate playing games. Say what you want to say, and I have to go to work soon.
I don't need to go to San Diego to see. I already know a lot about your personal life...remember I was a San Diego believer too...I hate shame and that was not my intention. It just seems the more you are questioned the more condesending you become.
You keep delivering the message that if we get back to PFAL our lives will be more than abundant...that the promises of the green card will come to life. You keep telling us that you bring this message after all these years of study...but if you are not manifesting this life of which you speak then it is just a lot of words.
More importantly, it is these words that are causing a great division in the body. Look at this thread. You have those who stay and argue and those who leave all together. GSers get so frustrated trying to talk to you they go and start another thread just to vent. God is not glorified and NO ONE is getting "delivered".
Every organization, religion, mlm....uses personal success stories to get interest.
I propose when you have really mastered it, come back and post. Everything you tell us is lacking in our lives is also lacking in yours.
We are all the same, but unlike you, we have learned from the one mistake you keep hammering away at us to go back to...
I am just tired, Mike...You keep twisting things and changing things and critizing things and this thread has not put to rest one thing...
I saw lots of situations arise, especially later on, where the people who ran the class didn?t have their finger on the pulse of each and every new student. I saw lots of things happen like what you described with your mother, and it was how well the local leadership played up or played down certain things that determined how comfortable some were in taking the class.
It was a battlefield, and lots of things went wrong. I?m grateful for what went right, and for what promises to more than make it all up for us.
***
When terrible events happen they stir up lots of negatives and fears. I think sometimes we can step in and make it even worse by trying to make a forced and premature inventory of who blew it and where. I see very little to no profit in trying to figure ?blame? for terrible events when looking at other people.
I only really have access to my OWN thoughts, so it sometimes CAN be useful for me to look at where I may be negative and need some tune up. But if a calamity happens, the LAST thing I need is someone ELSE telling me where I blew it. Maybe I didn?t blow it! Maybe it was more complicated than that. If I did, it may take time to learn from it, and condemnation makes it much more difficult.
Uriah died, so should we blame his believing? No. God shows us that there were lots of things going on in that situation besides Uriah?s believing. It was complicated. I try to not dive into complications like that.
The point I was bringing out with Job was how the the word "greatly" indicated intensity.
This is something I've handled before:
The fact that Job "greatly feared" that something would happen to his children is not unusual for any parent. It did not cause the calamity that befell him, nor did it play any role in it. Any reading of Job without Wierwille's horrific bias should indicate to the honest reader that Job was a righteous man and that the attack on him was unprovoked. His fear did not cut a hole in God's hedge of protection around Job. The attack was unfair, unjust, unprovoked, unwarranted, etc. Job's fear did NOTHING to bring this to pass because Job's fear was not unusual in the slightest.
God never blames Job for what befell him. He does not credit Job, He does not hold Job responsible, and when Job asks Him repeatedly why this happened, God never responds "because of your fear." Why not? Because Job's fear had nuttin to do with it, despite Wierwille's unfair and disgusting assertion.
Wierwille would have been right at home with Job's miserable comforters, as he blames Job as wonderfully as any of them did.
Ginger I think that's an excellent point. In all the discussions I/we/they/us have had about that infamous tragedy, there really isn't enough in the original tale to base a solid or even reasonable analysis on. "It's all just guesswork!!!" :D--> "Scratch it out!!!"
It's taken on mythical proportions but really, we have no idea if it ever even happened, and if it did anything about the why's or the wherefores. It was presented wholecloth as a dramatic example of believing and fear.
'when you're in love, there's no time and no space. there's a permanent smile on your face...
and hey somewhere, you threw your fear in the sea of no cares...'
[This message was edited by socks on July 12, 2003 at 18:12.]
I realize that this section of PFAL was used later on to ?instill the fear of fear? as you put it, but I don?t think it was the original intent, nor the initial results, of PFAL. I think it instilled a healthy respect for fear and what runaway fear can do. If fear isn?t resisted then it can get into runaway modes at times. He taught that fear unchecked can be damaging.
One reason I don?t believe "fear of fear" was the intended result of this section is the abundance of OTHER sections that teach God?s great protection, and many, many soothing, fear calming verses, promises, and perspectives.
If Dr wanted to instill fear here, why does he wipe it away in so many more places?
As we slowly forgot those other places that teach NO-fear, as those printed passages dimmed in our memories, we still got exposed to the video class and the extreme story of the woman with the little boy. If we had been more obedient, and more familiar with the collateral charters in all the books, then the video soundtrack would have been tempered better with the soothing passages. There are many of them.
I agree that we know too little about this story to analyze it too much more. I agree we need to NOT take this as a prototypical set of events in the average grad?s life. It?s simply a dramatic example of the teaching.
I?ve documented here some of the many run-ins I?ve had with leadership here. I?ve done my best to confine my cantankerousness to leaders only, but all leaders have admirers who eventually heard of our spats and naturally sided with them.
You asked often of the results I get with coming back to this Word. When it comes to results with people in this area, all of my disasters occurred with them before I was shown Dr?s last teaching. After I returned to study PFAL I saw that some times in the previous ten years run-ins, I was the one in wrong. But the net result with them of my returning to PFAL revolved around the fact that I stood against their leadership in clone classes.
The results I get, in the areas I apply this Word, are totally satisfying to me. As I apply it to more areas in my life I expect to see more results. One area I am exercising a lot is receive, retain, release with my posting here. I?m very excited to see all the data I?ve been able to post here these months. I consider the range and depth of subjects we have covered here to be monumental and significant. Putting together the things I?ve had a chance to handle here has been a major accomplishment in my mind. I never would have believed this much could have been posted in such a short time.
The number of answers I enjoy, that used to be nagging questions is phenomenal. I feel like a wealthy man when I look at all the things I?ve found in the record in the past 5 years. The incredible pain I had for ten years following the meltdown regarding the elusive and mysterious behavior of so many previously wonderful leaders IS GONE! There were nights I literally didn?t sleep a wink I was so angry or perplexed with how the top leaders abandoned us in 1987 or so.
When I met Seaspray, he told me that for the past 15 years he had thought about the ministry meltdown EVERY SINGLE DAY since then. I could relate to that! He was ready to accept the answers I had accepted and he too felt exhilarated with the lifting of that Twilight Zone fog that top leadership had camouflaged their exits with.
I want to see more results as more grads come back.
As far as my number of houses and boats, I?m a light traveler.
and about his house, and about all that he hath on every side?
thou hast blessed the work of his hands,
and his substance is increased in the land.
But put forth thine hand now, and touch all that he hath,
and he will curse thee to thy face.
And the LORD said unto Satan,
Behold, all that he hath is in thy power;
only upon himself put not forth thine hand.
So Satan went forth from the presence of the LORD.
Let?s look at this:
And the LORD said unto Satan,
Behold, all that he hath is in thy power;
I see this verse as God recognizing that Job had placed all that he had in the adversary?s power with his great fear.
I do NOT see this verse as saying that God took Satan on the dare and granted all that Job had into his power.
God is simply beholding this unfortunate transfer of power.
BUT WAIT, God isn?t done. Here?s the whole line God speaks here:
Behold, all that he hath is in thy power;
only upon himself put not forth thine hand.
He sees the one area in Jobs life that has fallen apart believing wise, but He also sees that this fear had not extended all the way to Job?s very life, so God steps in and protects Job where He can.
Satan didn?t go into God?s presence to ask permission to inflict Job. He already got that permission from Job, and he went into God?s presence to razz Him about it! Satan wanted to show God that His law of believing was soon going to backfire on Job. But God stepped in and protected Job?s life immediately, and ultimately taught Job to believe again to receive double.
.
.
.
[This message was edited by Mike on July 13, 2003 at 0:53.]
It?s been exciting, discussing these things. I suggest you take your time to ponder all these things. Many of the things I?ve tried to bring into the mix here have been relatively missing from our collective consciousness for years now.
Earlier I mentioned that Dr had included, along with the story of the woman and her little boy, lots of other passages that helped people not fear. I thought I?d bring in a few of those fear soothing passages, that help to temper the extreme story of the mother in PFAL.
This is from GMWD p.19, from the chapter on Psalm 103.
?Healing for all is God?s will. But when we fail to rise up to our rightful and legal privileges, due to a variety of causes?the greatest cause being a negative society where people talk about, expect, and cope with negative things?we fail to be healed. To claim and manifest God?s healing we must believe on the positives of His Word, not the negatives of the world. If we would become immersed in the Word and start living, we would find that God is still able to quiet down the nerves; God is still able to bring health and peace without antibiotics, sedatives, or alcohol.
?Verse 4:
Who redeemeth thy life from destruction...
?God redeems us from the destruction that is constantly around to destroy us. Do you get the impact of this truth? That which surrounds us everyday, that which endeavors to kill us prematurely?God has redeemed our lives from that type of destruction. And He adds to this safeness the warmth and love which makes life enjoyable.?
?We must believe rightly without fear of anything, knowing that with the Lord in your life nothing can harm you. We must know the Lord is with us as stated in Psalms 139:8: ?...if I make my bed in hell, behold, thou art there.? We must expect to drive our automobiles and be safe. We must expect to go to our businesses and jobs without fear, because underneath us are the everlasting arms of God, on each side of us are the everlasting arms of God, and above us are the everlasting arms of God.
?What was it the angel said to the shepherds on the Judean hills the night Jesus was born? ?Fear not.? What did the angel say who appeared to Mary, the mother of Jesus? ?Fear not.? Wherever God is and wherever the power of God is known, the message is ?Fear not.??
I don?t believe the film class or the books do that, for the many reasons I?ve cited.
I do see that the TVT (Twi?s Verbal Tradition) DID INDEED resort to fear, starting in the late 70?s and progressing into the 80?s.
Why did post PFAL TVT proponents 'sell' God, packaged in fear? Because the love motivation was forgotten. As leadership drifted away from the pure revelation in the books, the love became less and less manifested. They had less and less a handle on the revelation manifestations as a result, and needed to resort to 5-senses management techniques, fear one of the biggest.
The overall presentation of fear IN THE CLASS, both video and books, is balanced and done with wisdom. Fear is presented as an avoidable foe, when the entire class record, all the book chapters, are included in the mix.
The presentation that prevailed in the later years in the TVT was not balanced, because the balancing chapters were not emphasized by leadership. As leadership became bored with the books, they presented them with less gusto in the later years, so new students were left with only part of the picture. If we all had gotten into mastering the books like Dr told us to starting in 1979, then we would have had a more balanced picture of fear for our own comfort and profit, as well for how beneficial a picture we transmitted to new people.
The imbalance of fear that prevailed was due to our lack of exposure to the entire PFAL message. Because we allowed that one extreme story of the mother with the little boy to have de facto preeminence, it was easy to build a quite distorted picture of Dr?s intentions for including the story.
When ALL of Dr?s teaching and references to fear are brought together, we have a simple, practical, and powerful understanding of how to work with God in great comfort.
Mmm, I'm back shoehorning in to your discussion with Gingertea, Mike, but she brings up a really interesting point about selling fear.
If I look at the original PFAL syllabus I have, the chart renderings are laid out to present it as the flip side of "positive" believing, right? Fear is "negative" believing. What you do when you have positive believing you do on the negative side when you have fear. Two sides of the same coin.
In fact, one of the listening with a purpose questions for session 1
was "what are the two sides of believing"?
Understanding and accepting fear as an element of believing was a basic teaching to be both understood and put into practice. Don't have "fear", have faith, believing.
Negative believing was an important point to understand that VP wanted people to examine and integrate into day to day living. Why? So they could identify the cause of bad results and events in their life that prevented the more than abundant life from being realized. PFAL was to learn H-O-W.
PFAL session one expounds the position that when something "bad" happens, it could be because of 1) not knowing a part of God's Word or 2) not believing it, and not believing it could clearly be believing "negatively", as in say, God says be healthy but you worry and have fear that you'll be sick. So you get sick because in that instance it was your negative believing or fear that you would get sick. It's not an extreme outlandish possibility, it's taught as a basic foundational first session let's get this straight first kind of thing.
Key point: it's not taught that it's the ABSENCE of "positive believing", it's the PRESENCE of negative believing that causes the result. Negative believing applied to a situation will produce those results that the person focuses on, and on the flip side positive believing will produce those kinds of results that the person focuses on and if...those results are those of God's Word, they will receive that.
It's right in the class, first two sessions. Believing isn't presented as being restricted in it's rightful place to God's Word, because as it's been stated in this thread before, if a person believes negatively there's no God's Word involved. Christian or non-Christian, saint or sinner, Joe Blow or VP,
Years ago I read a couple of Rufus Mosely's books, a lot of Kenyan, some of Lamsa, some Edgar Cayce stuff. There's a lot of stuff about the "god mind" and the "Christ mind", the eternal spirit mind, stuff like that. This idea of pneumatikos energy in operation is in a lot of those teachings that VP absorbed. If you took some of those ideas and attempted to teach them exclusively from the bible, that would be a lot like the PFAL teachings IMO.
'when you're in love, there's no time and no space. there's a permanent smile on your face...
and hey somewhere, you threw your fear in the sea of no cares...'
I?m trying to shoehorn smoothly as well. But it is hard to do with this thread.
RE: PFAL and the Book of Job and selling fear-formulas:
I re-read the book of Job the other night and thought of it in terms of this thread and the law of believing, PFAL, among other things.
It seems to me, that PFAL really failed to express most of the wisdom of this story. Almost as if the ?law of believing? was, in PFAL, the whole essence of the drama, particularly the consequence of fear. Because PFAL never seems to address the specifics of Job?s ?positive believing? that got him restored.
(And if this wasn?t the essence, how are we then to understand the book of Job via PFAL alone?)
Mike, does PFAL blame consequence on fear, therefore equating fear with sin?
Because Job?s 3 friends did.
And then Elihu took it a step further by claiming some sort of pinnacle of spirituality.
They expounded on the various ?unbreakable? laws of God, which Job must have broken. And they did it by telling Job how just God is, and how reliable his laws are, and how much more spiritual they were than Job, etc?
But Job knew he hadn't sinned.
And THIS was the essence of his integrity.
NOT his believing in the word of God.
NOT his love for God.
In fact, Job really cussed God good for wronging him.
And for filling the world with injustice.
Job knew that he knew himself better than God or anyone.
And he was p!ssed about it.
Funny thing is, that in this story, they were all wrong.
No Hollywood ending here.
God chastened them--Job too.
For what?
Because NONE of the characters of the story truly understood why things happen and how all things work. They should have all just kept their mouths shut and mourned with their friend, rather than foolishly try to package God?s laws and principles into the righteous formula to explain him to himself.
Sh!t DOES happen to innocent people, regardless of their fear or faith.
And there is always so much more to the story than we can know.
And nothing about us can be so broken that God will not fix it in season.
To me, this is more comforting than any success-or-failure formula.
Makes life and love into an art form again, rather than a program.
Yeah, I just spent a few days in Sedona and browsed around the metaphysical bookstores. VPWs doctrines do seem less and less unique as the years go by.
Sedona! Quite a place I've heard, still want to get there.
It'a a small one alright, much more connected than I knew at the age of 17. :)-->
One of the PFAL benefits on the old green card was "Disciplines the mind by believing".
Wassat mean? :)-->
Yknow, one of the interesting quandries of PFAL is that on the negative believing side of the coin, it stated that all the doubt worry and fear will issue in UNBELIEF. The net result of fear is UNBELIEF.
To unbelieve there has to be a belief. This is where I think PFAL leads to the idea of believing being bible/God's Word based - fear makes it harder to accept God's Word, but...that gets sticky.
Issuing in unbelief fits in to the chart and teaching built around the record of the man with the withered hand. He believed when he stretched forth his hand. He accepted the promise of God. Had he applied a negative attitude to his healing, he wouldn't have stretched forth his hand. No belief in the promise.
But just prior to that PFAL says that what we fear we will receive, IT'S a LAW. Fear of job-disease-accident-death. Again, there's no promise of God included here that isn't being believed or responded to. You're simply fearing that something will happen a certain way.
To quote directly:
To BELIEVE
Negative
--------
FEAR is Believing
-----------------
Believing in reverse.
Wrong believing.
Negative results.
There's several scripture references and the apostles prior to Pentecost are one example, they were in hiding, full of fear. The question is asked "what caused the change?". Answer - Pentecost.
All of which deals with people and promises of God.
???
So many of the examples had nothing to do with the promises of God...red drapes, no promises about those. Woman with the child, no mention that she had a promise of the Word she was deliberately denying. As the story goes, she just had great fear over her child's safety.
Another quote: "when and where we have fear in our lives we will not act on the promises of God. When and where we believe we will not have fear".
Soooo...fear/negative believing will keep us from acting on the promises of God. But the only sure way to eliminate fear is by believing those promises. So it's a catch 22 teaching if believing is limited to being intrinsic to the promises of God. I can't get rid of fear without believing the Word, but if I have fear I can't believe the Word. .....faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word? If that applies exclusively to building my believing by studying and listening to tapes, I may have a problem.
And many people did because this is a convoluted teaching IMO.
It would be much simpler to say that life is simply a matter of choice and decision. Period. What a person decides to think and do will likely lead to those things because that's what they choose to do. If a person wanted to rely on a scripture as their means to health and feels that God will provide, fine, do that. But don't overdo the entire teaching on BELIEVING being the key.
But if I believe that snails are oranges, I'm going to have a hard time opening a fruit stand because snails taste funny to a lot of people no matter what I believe. NO?
'when you're in love, there's no time and no space. there's a permanent smile on your face...
and hey somewhere, you threw your fear in the sea of no cares...'
[This message was edited by socks on July 13, 2003 at 5:17.]
The problem is, Satan has to come back and ask for more permission in the next chapter. Why is that? If, as you say, Satan already has the hole in God's hedge, and God has told him as much, why go back for more permission?
Because there was no hole in the hedge.
Miserable comforter, you are. More BTB and HMMADD. No matter how many ways you contort the Bible to fit in with what Wierwille taught, it will always be "Blame The Believer" "Horse Manure Masquerading As Disciplined Devotion."
What did Job's children fear? No evidence that they feared anything. Oh, but they all deserved to die because Job feared?
How moronically stupid is that?
Job and his children deserved NOTHING that happened to them. The calamity that befell them is totally unfair, not the result of some paralyzing fear on Job's part.
I?ve only begun to read this mornings posts and yours was first.
You wrote: ?can you explain where all fear is negative and will always have a negative result??
All of the intense, self built, self sustained kind of fear is negative.
The comparatively milder fear of heights or loud noises that is inborn is not always negative, in fact, it save people?s lives at times. The sudden fear of an oncoming speeding car is useful at times. The mild fear of a bad grade may sometimes be the motivation a student needs to study. But the cultivated, gnawing, runaway fear that people sometimes get trapped into is always negative.
This voluntary (deceived as it is) building and maintaining of fear will naturally lead a person into a less efficient life (negative results) and if the person is an unbelieving believer, someone with a strong connection with the True God, then the adversary has an extra motivation to see where he can add supernatural negative results to this person?s life, and thereby make God look bad. This is an opportunity the adversary can?t pass up, so for US GRADS, fear will always have a negative result.
We?re not talking about occasional worry or concern, but about ?pure and disciplined? fear. like that poor woman with the little boy.
Wont it be WONDERFUL when that little boy is raised from the dead and restored to his mother and entire family!!!
None of which establishes that her fear was responsible for the boy's death. Very pious sounding post there, Mike. But there's something about that smell. We wouldn't be at a stable, would we?
I just saw the tail end of your post, and have little time right now.
I don?t think Job deserved what he got from Satan. I think Satan pulled a technicality, God honored it, and then God gave Job double.
I don?t think Joseph deserved to be sold into slavery, and THEN later on, to be thrown into prison.
I do often wonder about injustices. Someone posted something about this two days ago, but I lost it. This is a frontier in my knowledge.
I wonder about transient fluctuations in results that can come in life. It seems the law of believing works over a time average. There may be oddities that happen outside the law of believing, but they tend to smooth out in time.
When Dr says something like ?you ARE where you are because of your believing? I take it that the place where ?you ARE? in this statement is stable and not a transient fluctuation. Where ?you are? is averaged over time a bit.
I?m still pondering injustices, and if they can happen, and how quickly they get straightened out.
I don?t think Job deserved what he got from Satan. I think Satan pulled a technicality, God honored it, and then God gave Job double.
HMMADD.
Satan did NOT pull a technicality. Satan was unaware of any hole in God's hedge of protection. Because there was none.
quote:I do often wonder about injustices. Someone posted something about this two days ago, but I lost it. This is a frontier in my knowledge.
One would think five years of mastery would have prepared you to address at least some of hte intricacies of session one.
quote:I wonder about transient fluctuations in results that can come in life. It seems the law of believing works over a time average. There may be oddities that happen outside the law of believing, but they tend to smooth out in time.
Again, he must distort and rewrite the law of believing in order to make it work. Fine and dandy, but it ain't what Wierwille taught. The further you go from the words of your idol, the more you establish that his doctrine had a lot of value but was not God-breathed.
quote:When Dr says something like ?you ARE where you are because of your believing? I take it that the place where ?you ARE? in this statement is stable and not a transient fluctuation. Where ?you are? is averaged over time a bit.
And to paraphrase what I've said earlier: Wierwille was often right about believing. The problem is you have set up a belief system in which he can never have been WRONG. But he was wrong. He was wrong to call it a law, he was wrong to equate fear with "negative believing" in that context, he was wrong to blame Job for his calamity, he was wrong to blame the heart and life of that woman, and he was wrong to say that God would have to change the laws of the universe in order to disprove Wierwille's preposterous theory.
The issue here is not the law of believing. It's not about the true effects and proper response to fear. The issue here is your idolatrous equation of Wierwille's flawed thesis with God-breathed doctrine. As long as you bind yourself to PFAL, you will never rise above it. I pity you.
I don't see any of Satan?s visits as asking permission. He?s razzing God about Job?s deteriorationg believing. After the first hit it declined.
For God to arbitrarily hand over all of Job?s possessions and family to Satan, simply because of a dare, would be very perplexing to me if I believed it.
I see God as having no choice in His conversations with Satan but to immediately honor the law of believing, and to ultimately help Job to utilize it properly.
****
For Job?s fear to be documented as it is in Chapter One means to me that it was runaway fear, like the poor woman with the little boy. It wasn?t mere worry or concern that drove Job to the temple every day, and it wasn?t mere worry and concern that cause God to have this habit pattern documented. Job was into it up to his ears.
Given this intense runaway fear that was taking over Job?s life on a daily basis, I see it as entirely likely that his family LEARNED this unhealthy attitude from him. They TOO were tricked into runaway fear. Satan took advantage of this.
You wrote: ?It's right in the class, first two sessions. Believing isn't presented as being restricted in it's rightful place to God's Word, because as it's been stated in this thread before, if a person believes negatively there's no God's Word involved.?
Yes. Believing is a mental process that anyone can do.
Dr does show in the class that there are those who believe things other that the promises of God. In these cases I think there is a natural component to the law of believing that does help them enjoy some positive results.
But to really get ALL there is to receive from God, then the most efficient application of this law, bringing in all the supernatural resources of God, will demand a knowledge of the promises and acknowledgement of the Promise Maker.
The first main point of the class was to help us receive, lambano. Thus Dr taught both the natural and supernatural ways the law helps us when we apply it most efficiently (the 5 things we know to receive).
As to the dark side of the force, I mean negative believing, I see there again a natural element, where bad attitudes get bad results. As to the supernatural enforcement of the law?s a$$-end by the adversary, I know very little.
You wrote: ?It seems to me, that PFAL really failed to express most of the wisdom of this story. Almost as if the ?law of believing? was, in PFAL, the whole essence of the drama, particularly the consequence of fear. Because PFAL never seems to address the specifics of Job?s ?positive believing? that got him restored.?
I agree. Dr says at the beginning of the class that he?s not going to teach all of it. In these early sessions of the class the topic was believing, not all the wisdom in Job. As to what got Job restored, it was God?s Word. Believing comes by hearing, hearing the Word.
Job had esteemed God?s Word as more important than food, and this is how God was able to teach him and give him double. THIS is taught much in the class, but not with reference to Job.
*****
?(And if this wasn?t the essence, how are we then to understand the book of Job via PFAL alone?)?
By first mastering PFAL and then applying the keys.
*****
?Mike, does PFAL blame consequence on fear, therefore equating fear with sin??
I can?t give you a reference yet, but it seems to me that NOT believing God is the bottom line for all missing the mark, sin. It?s the fear that trusting God won?t work that drives us to try something stupid or at least think about it.
*****
?Sh!t DOES happen to innocent people, regardless of their fear or faith.
And there is always so much more to the story than we can know.
And nothing about us can be so broken that God will not fix it in season.
?To me, this is more comforting than any success-or-failure formula.
Makes life and love into an art form again, rather than a program.?
I see that sh!t does SEEM to happen to innocent people, but we can?t see the condition of their heart and what kind of believing is in there.
I totally agree with: ?there is always so much more to the story than we can know.?
I?m all for the artistic dance of life, AFTER having been shown the formula of the steps. TEACHING the dance in formula form isn?t bad, it?s good. Once we learn it, we no longer need the 5-senses formula, and spiritual serendipity with Daddy is the name of the game.
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Yanagisawa
Did you say "get the ball rolling" or get the kaballa rolling...for it sounds like that's your current freak - some sort of hidden, mystical kaballa-esque gnostic esotericism. I'm fascinated with you
Mike
dizzydog,
It SEEMED to imply that to me, but in case you haven't noticed, I have several, count them, SEVERAL conversations going on at once here. Do you think we could start all over? I hate playing games. Say what you want to say, and I have to go to work soon.
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dizzydog
OK Mike. Respond at your leisure.
As far as the number of posts you are responding to...
You did invite them.
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karmicdebt
Mike,
I don't need to go to San Diego to see. I already know a lot about your personal life...remember I was a San Diego believer too...I hate shame and that was not my intention. It just seems the more you are questioned the more condesending you become.
You keep delivering the message that if we get back to PFAL our lives will be more than abundant...that the promises of the green card will come to life. You keep telling us that you bring this message after all these years of study...but if you are not manifesting this life of which you speak then it is just a lot of words.
More importantly, it is these words that are causing a great division in the body. Look at this thread. You have those who stay and argue and those who leave all together. GSers get so frustrated trying to talk to you they go and start another thread just to vent. God is not glorified and NO ONE is getting "delivered".
Every organization, religion, mlm....uses personal success stories to get interest.
I propose when you have really mastered it, come back and post. Everything you tell us is lacking in our lives is also lacking in yours.
We are all the same, but unlike you, we have learned from the one mistake you keep hammering away at us to go back to...
I am just tired, Mike...You keep twisting things and changing things and critizing things and this thread has not put to rest one thing...
I like ya, Mike....I'm just tired...
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Mike
Exy,
I re-read your post and had more thoughts.
I saw lots of situations arise, especially later on, where the people who ran the class didn?t have their finger on the pulse of each and every new student. I saw lots of things happen like what you described with your mother, and it was how well the local leadership played up or played down certain things that determined how comfortable some were in taking the class.
It was a battlefield, and lots of things went wrong. I?m grateful for what went right, and for what promises to more than make it all up for us.
***
When terrible events happen they stir up lots of negatives and fears. I think sometimes we can step in and make it even worse by trying to make a forced and premature inventory of who blew it and where. I see very little to no profit in trying to figure ?blame? for terrible events when looking at other people.
I only really have access to my OWN thoughts, so it sometimes CAN be useful for me to look at where I may be negative and need some tune up. But if a calamity happens, the LAST thing I need is someone ELSE telling me where I blew it. Maybe I didn?t blow it! Maybe it was more complicated than that. If I did, it may take time to learn from it, and condemnation makes it much more difficult.
Uriah died, so should we blame his believing? No. God shows us that there were lots of things going on in that situation besides Uriah?s believing. It was complicated. I try to not dive into complications like that.
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Mike
karmicdebt,
Last week you posted that you did not know me. Now you post that you know my situation. Looks like gossip to me.
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karmicdebt
Who said it was negative? I actually like you better having heard some really nice things about you, Mike....
ADD edit....
It's like you saying, " I am not a dick, I just play one on Grease Spot." I only realize there is more to you than all of your posting here...
[This message was edited by karmicdebt on July 12, 2003 at 17:04.]
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Raf
This is something I've handled before:
The fact that Job "greatly feared" that something would happen to his children is not unusual for any parent. It did not cause the calamity that befell him, nor did it play any role in it. Any reading of Job without Wierwille's horrific bias should indicate to the honest reader that Job was a righteous man and that the attack on him was unprovoked. His fear did not cut a hole in God's hedge of protection around Job. The attack was unfair, unjust, unprovoked, unwarranted, etc. Job's fear did NOTHING to bring this to pass because Job's fear was not unusual in the slightest.
God never blames Job for what befell him. He does not credit Job, He does not hold Job responsible, and when Job asks Him repeatedly why this happened, God never responds "because of your fear." Why not? Because Job's fear had nuttin to do with it, despite Wierwille's unfair and disgusting assertion.
Wierwille would have been right at home with Job's miserable comforters, as he blames Job as wonderfully as any of them did.
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socks
Ginger I think that's an excellent point. In all the discussions I/we/they/us have had about that infamous tragedy, there really isn't enough in the original tale to base a solid or even reasonable analysis on. "It's all just guesswork!!!" :D--> "Scratch it out!!!"
It's taken on mythical proportions but really, we have no idea if it ever even happened, and if it did anything about the why's or the wherefores. It was presented wholecloth as a dramatic example of believing and fear.
'when you're in love, there's no time and no space. there's a permanent smile on your face...
and hey somewhere, you threw your fear in the sea of no cares...'
[This message was edited by socks on July 12, 2003 at 18:12.]
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Mike
Ginger,
I realize that this section of PFAL was used later on to ?instill the fear of fear? as you put it, but I don?t think it was the original intent, nor the initial results, of PFAL. I think it instilled a healthy respect for fear and what runaway fear can do. If fear isn?t resisted then it can get into runaway modes at times. He taught that fear unchecked can be damaging.
One reason I don?t believe "fear of fear" was the intended result of this section is the abundance of OTHER sections that teach God?s great protection, and many, many soothing, fear calming verses, promises, and perspectives.
If Dr wanted to instill fear here, why does he wipe it away in so many more places?
As we slowly forgot those other places that teach NO-fear, as those printed passages dimmed in our memories, we still got exposed to the video class and the extreme story of the woman with the little boy. If we had been more obedient, and more familiar with the collateral charters in all the books, then the video soundtrack would have been tempered better with the soothing passages. There are many of them.
***********************************************************
socks,
I agree that we know too little about this story to analyze it too much more. I agree we need to NOT take this as a prototypical set of events in the average grad?s life. It?s simply a dramatic example of the teaching.
***********************************************************
karmicdebt,
I?ve documented here some of the many run-ins I?ve had with leadership here. I?ve done my best to confine my cantankerousness to leaders only, but all leaders have admirers who eventually heard of our spats and naturally sided with them.
You asked often of the results I get with coming back to this Word. When it comes to results with people in this area, all of my disasters occurred with them before I was shown Dr?s last teaching. After I returned to study PFAL I saw that some times in the previous ten years run-ins, I was the one in wrong. But the net result with them of my returning to PFAL revolved around the fact that I stood against their leadership in clone classes.
The results I get, in the areas I apply this Word, are totally satisfying to me. As I apply it to more areas in my life I expect to see more results. One area I am exercising a lot is receive, retain, release with my posting here. I?m very excited to see all the data I?ve been able to post here these months. I consider the range and depth of subjects we have covered here to be monumental and significant. Putting together the things I?ve had a chance to handle here has been a major accomplishment in my mind. I never would have believed this much could have been posted in such a short time.
The number of answers I enjoy, that used to be nagging questions is phenomenal. I feel like a wealthy man when I look at all the things I?ve found in the record in the past 5 years. The incredible pain I had for ten years following the meltdown regarding the elusive and mysterious behavior of so many previously wonderful leaders IS GONE! There were nights I literally didn?t sleep a wink I was so angry or perplexed with how the top leaders abandoned us in 1987 or so.
When I met Seaspray, he told me that for the past 15 years he had thought about the ministry meltdown EVERY SINGLE DAY since then. I could relate to that! He was ready to accept the answers I had accepted and he too felt exhilarated with the lifting of that Twilight Zone fog that top leadership had camouflaged their exits with.
I want to see more results as more grads come back.
As far as my number of houses and boats, I?m a light traveler.
***********************************************************
Rafael,
Here?s what I see in Job.
Job 1:9-12
Then Satan answered the LORD, and said,
Doth Job fear God for nought?
Hast not thou made an hedge about him,
and about his house, and about all that he hath on every side?
thou hast blessed the work of his hands,
and his substance is increased in the land.
But put forth thine hand now, and touch all that he hath,
and he will curse thee to thy face.
And the LORD said unto Satan,
Behold, all that he hath is in thy power;
only upon himself put not forth thine hand.
So Satan went forth from the presence of the LORD.
Let?s look at this:
And the LORD said unto Satan,
Behold, all that he hath is in thy power;
I see this verse as God recognizing that Job had placed all that he had in the adversary?s power with his great fear.
I do NOT see this verse as saying that God took Satan on the dare and granted all that Job had into his power.
God is simply beholding this unfortunate transfer of power.
BUT WAIT, God isn?t done. Here?s the whole line God speaks here:
Behold, all that he hath is in thy power;
only upon himself put not forth thine hand.
He sees the one area in Jobs life that has fallen apart believing wise, but He also sees that this fear had not extended all the way to Job?s very life, so God steps in and protects Job where He can.
Satan didn?t go into God?s presence to ask permission to inflict Job. He already got that permission from Job, and he went into God?s presence to razz Him about it! Satan wanted to show God that His law of believing was soon going to backfire on Job. But God stepped in and protected Job?s life immediately, and ultimately taught Job to believe again to receive double.
.
.
.
[This message was edited by Mike on July 13, 2003 at 0:53.]
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Mike
Hi Ginger,
It?s been exciting, discussing these things. I suggest you take your time to ponder all these things. Many of the things I?ve tried to bring into the mix here have been relatively missing from our collective consciousness for years now.
Earlier I mentioned that Dr had included, along with the story of the woman and her little boy, lots of other passages that helped people not fear. I thought I?d bring in a few of those fear soothing passages, that help to temper the extreme story of the mother in PFAL.
************************************************************
This is from GMWD p.19, from the chapter on Psalm 103.
?Healing for all is God?s will. But when we fail to rise up to our rightful and legal privileges, due to a variety of causes?the greatest cause being a negative society where people talk about, expect, and cope with negative things?we fail to be healed. To claim and manifest God?s healing we must believe on the positives of His Word, not the negatives of the world. If we would become immersed in the Word and start living, we would find that God is still able to quiet down the nerves; God is still able to bring health and peace without antibiotics, sedatives, or alcohol.
?Verse 4:
Who redeemeth thy life from destruction...
?God redeems us from the destruction that is constantly around to destroy us. Do you get the impact of this truth? That which surrounds us everyday, that which endeavors to kill us prematurely?God has redeemed our lives from that type of destruction. And He adds to this safeness the warmth and love which makes life enjoyable.?
************************************************************
And this other one is also from GMWD, page 42:
?We must believe rightly without fear of anything, knowing that with the Lord in your life nothing can harm you. We must know the Lord is with us as stated in Psalms 139:8: ?...if I make my bed in hell, behold, thou art there.? We must expect to drive our automobiles and be safe. We must expect to go to our businesses and jobs without fear, because underneath us are the everlasting arms of God, on each side of us are the everlasting arms of God, and above us are the everlasting arms of God.
?What was it the angel said to the shepherds on the Judean hills the night Jesus was born? ?Fear not.? What did the angel say who appeared to Mary, the mother of Jesus? ?Fear not.? Wherever God is and wherever the power of God is known, the message is ?Fear not.??
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Mike
Why 'sell' God, packaged in fear?
I don?t believe the film class or the books do that, for the many reasons I?ve cited.
I do see that the TVT (Twi?s Verbal Tradition) DID INDEED resort to fear, starting in the late 70?s and progressing into the 80?s.
Why did post PFAL TVT proponents 'sell' God, packaged in fear? Because the love motivation was forgotten. As leadership drifted away from the pure revelation in the books, the love became less and less manifested. They had less and less a handle on the revelation manifestations as a result, and needed to resort to 5-senses management techniques, fear one of the biggest.
The overall presentation of fear IN THE CLASS, both video and books, is balanced and done with wisdom. Fear is presented as an avoidable foe, when the entire class record, all the book chapters, are included in the mix.
The presentation that prevailed in the later years in the TVT was not balanced, because the balancing chapters were not emphasized by leadership. As leadership became bored with the books, they presented them with less gusto in the later years, so new students were left with only part of the picture. If we all had gotten into mastering the books like Dr told us to starting in 1979, then we would have had a more balanced picture of fear for our own comfort and profit, as well for how beneficial a picture we transmitted to new people.
The imbalance of fear that prevailed was due to our lack of exposure to the entire PFAL message. Because we allowed that one extreme story of the mother with the little boy to have de facto preeminence, it was easy to build a quite distorted picture of Dr?s intentions for including the story.
When ALL of Dr?s teaching and references to fear are brought together, we have a simple, practical, and powerful understanding of how to work with God in great comfort.
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socks
Mmm, I'm back shoehorning in to your discussion with Gingertea, Mike, but she brings up a really interesting point about selling fear.
If I look at the original PFAL syllabus I have, the chart renderings are laid out to present it as the flip side of "positive" believing, right? Fear is "negative" believing. What you do when you have positive believing you do on the negative side when you have fear. Two sides of the same coin.
In fact, one of the listening with a purpose questions for session 1
was "what are the two sides of believing"?
Understanding and accepting fear as an element of believing was a basic teaching to be both understood and put into practice. Don't have "fear", have faith, believing.
Negative believing was an important point to understand that VP wanted people to examine and integrate into day to day living. Why? So they could identify the cause of bad results and events in their life that prevented the more than abundant life from being realized. PFAL was to learn H-O-W.
PFAL session one expounds the position that when something "bad" happens, it could be because of 1) not knowing a part of God's Word or 2) not believing it, and not believing it could clearly be believing "negatively", as in say, God says be healthy but you worry and have fear that you'll be sick. So you get sick because in that instance it was your negative believing or fear that you would get sick. It's not an extreme outlandish possibility, it's taught as a basic foundational first session let's get this straight first kind of thing.
Key point: it's not taught that it's the ABSENCE of "positive believing", it's the PRESENCE of negative believing that causes the result. Negative believing applied to a situation will produce those results that the person focuses on, and on the flip side positive believing will produce those kinds of results that the person focuses on and if...those results are those of God's Word, they will receive that.
It's right in the class, first two sessions. Believing isn't presented as being restricted in it's rightful place to God's Word, because as it's been stated in this thread before, if a person believes negatively there's no God's Word involved. Christian or non-Christian, saint or sinner, Joe Blow or VP,
Years ago I read a couple of Rufus Mosely's books, a lot of Kenyan, some of Lamsa, some Edgar Cayce stuff. There's a lot of stuff about the "god mind" and the "Christ mind", the eternal spirit mind, stuff like that. This idea of pneumatikos energy in operation is in a lot of those teachings that VP absorbed. If you took some of those ideas and attempted to teach them exclusively from the bible, that would be a lot like the PFAL teachings IMO.
'when you're in love, there's no time and no space. there's a permanent smile on your face...
and hey somewhere, you threw your fear in the sea of no cares...'
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sirguessalot
Hi Mike and Ginger and the rest,
I?m trying to shoehorn smoothly as well. But it is hard to do with this thread.
RE: PFAL and the Book of Job and selling fear-formulas:
I re-read the book of Job the other night and thought of it in terms of this thread and the law of believing, PFAL, among other things.
It seems to me, that PFAL really failed to express most of the wisdom of this story. Almost as if the ?law of believing? was, in PFAL, the whole essence of the drama, particularly the consequence of fear. Because PFAL never seems to address the specifics of Job?s ?positive believing? that got him restored.
(And if this wasn?t the essence, how are we then to understand the book of Job via PFAL alone?)
Mike, does PFAL blame consequence on fear, therefore equating fear with sin?
Because Job?s 3 friends did.
And then Elihu took it a step further by claiming some sort of pinnacle of spirituality.
They expounded on the various ?unbreakable? laws of God, which Job must have broken. And they did it by telling Job how just God is, and how reliable his laws are, and how much more spiritual they were than Job, etc?
But Job knew he hadn't sinned.
And THIS was the essence of his integrity.
NOT his believing in the word of God.
NOT his love for God.
In fact, Job really cussed God good for wronging him.
And for filling the world with injustice.
Job knew that he knew himself better than God or anyone.
And he was p!ssed about it.
Funny thing is, that in this story, they were all wrong.
No Hollywood ending here.
God chastened them--Job too.
For what?
Because NONE of the characters of the story truly understood why things happen and how all things work. They should have all just kept their mouths shut and mourned with their friend, rather than foolishly try to package God?s laws and principles into the righteous formula to explain him to himself.
Sh!t DOES happen to innocent people, regardless of their fear or faith.
And there is always so much more to the story than we can know.
And nothing about us can be so broken that God will not fix it in season.
To me, this is more comforting than any success-or-failure formula.
Makes life and love into an art form again, rather than a program.
Like Japanese Gardening or something.
Todd
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sirguessalot
Yeah, I just spent a few days in Sedona and browsed around the metaphysical bookstores. VPWs doctrines do seem less and less unique as the years go by.
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WordWolf
*applauds SirGUess' post*
Bravo! You got the point!
Rafael has pointed out, on numerous occasions,
that God calls Job BLAMELESS. Those who place
the blame on JOB, therefore, contradict God.
"Why did Job's kids die? Oh, Job was afraid."
For those of you who somehow missed it,
that's BLAMING JOB.
----------------------------------------------
BTW, just for fun....
A few months after the 9/11 attacks, people in
NYC were more than a little hesitant to
congregate in groups. In fact, the Halloween
Parade that year was feared to be an excellent
target for a terrorist attack. (I won't go into
the reasons, but you can figure them out
yourself.) As a result, a LOT of people who were
all set to attend, even those with ready
costumes, cancelled their plans. They stayed
home, indoors, afraid with their families. In
fact, malls in general were deserted that
Halloween because of a rumour of an attack.
So, millions upon millions of people were afraid
there was going to be terrorist attacks, either
at the mall, or at the parade. (That includes
family of people who cancelled and family of
people who attended.)
What was the net result of all that fear?
Lowered attendance at the parade. People stayed
home.
What about the amassed fear of an attack?
Well, didn't result in anything, no matter how
many people feared it.
My favourite costume that year?
A guy with his head dressed like an Osama bin
Laden puppet, in prison stripes, wearing a
barred cage around the "prisoner". :)-->
I'll tell you, though...it was the FEAR....in
the HEARTS...of the people....that made it
easier to move thru traffic.
SARS, anyone? How about that flesh-eating
bacteria from years ago? Or getting AIDS off
dirty toilet seats from before that? Or the
absolute TERROR of Y2K in 1999, or "the bomb"
back in the '50s? Tens of millions of people
in the US alone feared all those.
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socks
Sedona! Quite a place I've heard, still want to get there.
It'a a small one alright, much more connected than I knew at the age of 17. :)-->
One of the PFAL benefits on the old green card was "Disciplines the mind by believing".
Wassat mean? :)-->
Yknow, one of the interesting quandries of PFAL is that on the negative believing side of the coin, it stated that all the doubt worry and fear will issue in UNBELIEF. The net result of fear is UNBELIEF.
To unbelieve there has to be a belief. This is where I think PFAL leads to the idea of believing being bible/God's Word based - fear makes it harder to accept God's Word, but...that gets sticky.
Issuing in unbelief fits in to the chart and teaching built around the record of the man with the withered hand. He believed when he stretched forth his hand. He accepted the promise of God. Had he applied a negative attitude to his healing, he wouldn't have stretched forth his hand. No belief in the promise.
But just prior to that PFAL says that what we fear we will receive, IT'S a LAW. Fear of job-disease-accident-death. Again, there's no promise of God included here that isn't being believed or responded to. You're simply fearing that something will happen a certain way.
To quote directly:
To BELIEVE
Negative
--------
FEAR is Believing
-----------------
Believing in reverse.
Wrong believing.
Negative results.
There's several scripture references and the apostles prior to Pentecost are one example, they were in hiding, full of fear. The question is asked "what caused the change?". Answer - Pentecost.
All of which deals with people and promises of God.
???
So many of the examples had nothing to do with the promises of God...red drapes, no promises about those. Woman with the child, no mention that she had a promise of the Word she was deliberately denying. As the story goes, she just had great fear over her child's safety.
Another quote: "when and where we have fear in our lives we will not act on the promises of God. When and where we believe we will not have fear".
Soooo...fear/negative believing will keep us from acting on the promises of God. But the only sure way to eliminate fear is by believing those promises. So it's a catch 22 teaching if believing is limited to being intrinsic to the promises of God. I can't get rid of fear without believing the Word, but if I have fear I can't believe the Word. .....faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word? If that applies exclusively to building my believing by studying and listening to tapes, I may have a problem.
And many people did because this is a convoluted teaching IMO.
It would be much simpler to say that life is simply a matter of choice and decision. Period. What a person decides to think and do will likely lead to those things because that's what they choose to do. If a person wanted to rely on a scripture as their means to health and feels that God will provide, fine, do that. But don't overdo the entire teaching on BELIEVING being the key.
But if I believe that snails are oranges, I'm going to have a hard time opening a fruit stand because snails taste funny to a lot of people no matter what I believe. NO?
'when you're in love, there's no time and no space. there's a permanent smile on your face...
and hey somewhere, you threw your fear in the sea of no cares...'
[This message was edited by socks on July 13, 2003 at 5:17.]
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Raf
Mike,
Problem with your thesis on Job 1:12.
The problem is, Satan has to come back and ask for more permission in the next chapter. Why is that? If, as you say, Satan already has the hole in God's hedge, and God has told him as much, why go back for more permission?
Because there was no hole in the hedge.
Miserable comforter, you are. More BTB and HMMADD. No matter how many ways you contort the Bible to fit in with what Wierwille taught, it will always be "Blame The Believer" "Horse Manure Masquerading As Disciplined Devotion."
What did Job's children fear? No evidence that they feared anything. Oh, but they all deserved to die because Job feared?
How moronically stupid is that?
Job and his children deserved NOTHING that happened to them. The calamity that befell them is totally unfair, not the result of some paralyzing fear on Job's part.
Enough with your MC, BTB, HMMADD slander of Job.
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Mike
Ginger,
I?ve only begun to read this mornings posts and yours was first.
You wrote: ?can you explain where all fear is negative and will always have a negative result??
All of the intense, self built, self sustained kind of fear is negative.
The comparatively milder fear of heights or loud noises that is inborn is not always negative, in fact, it save people?s lives at times. The sudden fear of an oncoming speeding car is useful at times. The mild fear of a bad grade may sometimes be the motivation a student needs to study. But the cultivated, gnawing, runaway fear that people sometimes get trapped into is always negative.
This voluntary (deceived as it is) building and maintaining of fear will naturally lead a person into a less efficient life (negative results) and if the person is an unbelieving believer, someone with a strong connection with the True God, then the adversary has an extra motivation to see where he can add supernatural negative results to this person?s life, and thereby make God look bad. This is an opportunity the adversary can?t pass up, so for US GRADS, fear will always have a negative result.
We?re not talking about occasional worry or concern, but about ?pure and disciplined? fear. like that poor woman with the little boy.
Wont it be WONDERFUL when that little boy is raised from the dead and restored to his mother and entire family!!!
I so yearn to see her set free!
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Raf
None of which establishes that her fear was responsible for the boy's death. Very pious sounding post there, Mike. But there's something about that smell. We wouldn't be at a stable, would we?
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Mike
Hi Rafael,
I just saw the tail end of your post, and have little time right now.
I don?t think Job deserved what he got from Satan. I think Satan pulled a technicality, God honored it, and then God gave Job double.
I don?t think Joseph deserved to be sold into slavery, and THEN later on, to be thrown into prison.
I do often wonder about injustices. Someone posted something about this two days ago, but I lost it. This is a frontier in my knowledge.
I wonder about transient fluctuations in results that can come in life. It seems the law of believing works over a time average. There may be oddities that happen outside the law of believing, but they tend to smooth out in time.
When Dr says something like ?you ARE where you are because of your believing? I take it that the place where ?you ARE? in this statement is stable and not a transient fluctuation. Where ?you are? is averaged over time a bit.
I?m still pondering injustices, and if they can happen, and how quickly they get straightened out.
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Raf
HMMADD.
Satan did NOT pull a technicality. Satan was unaware of any hole in God's hedge of protection. Because there was none.
One would think five years of mastery would have prepared you to address at least some of hte intricacies of session one.
Again, he must distort and rewrite the law of believing in order to make it work. Fine and dandy, but it ain't what Wierwille taught. The further you go from the words of your idol, the more you establish that his doctrine had a lot of value but was not God-breathed.
And to paraphrase what I've said earlier: Wierwille was often right about believing. The problem is you have set up a belief system in which he can never have been WRONG. But he was wrong. He was wrong to call it a law, he was wrong to equate fear with "negative believing" in that context, he was wrong to blame Job for his calamity, he was wrong to blame the heart and life of that woman, and he was wrong to say that God would have to change the laws of the universe in order to disprove Wierwille's preposterous theory.
The issue here is not the law of believing. It's not about the true effects and proper response to fear. The issue here is your idolatrous equation of Wierwille's flawed thesis with God-breathed doctrine. As long as you bind yourself to PFAL, you will never rise above it. I pity you.
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Mike
Rafael,
I don't see any of Satan?s visits as asking permission. He?s razzing God about Job?s deteriorationg believing. After the first hit it declined.
For God to arbitrarily hand over all of Job?s possessions and family to Satan, simply because of a dare, would be very perplexing to me if I believed it.
I see God as having no choice in His conversations with Satan but to immediately honor the law of believing, and to ultimately help Job to utilize it properly.
****
For Job?s fear to be documented as it is in Chapter One means to me that it was runaway fear, like the poor woman with the little boy. It wasn?t mere worry or concern that drove Job to the temple every day, and it wasn?t mere worry and concern that cause God to have this habit pattern documented. Job was into it up to his ears.
Given this intense runaway fear that was taking over Job?s life on a daily basis, I see it as entirely likely that his family LEARNED this unhealthy attitude from him. They TOO were tricked into runaway fear. Satan took advantage of this.
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Mike
Socks,
You wrote: ?It's right in the class, first two sessions. Believing isn't presented as being restricted in it's rightful place to God's Word, because as it's been stated in this thread before, if a person believes negatively there's no God's Word involved.?
Yes. Believing is a mental process that anyone can do.
Dr does show in the class that there are those who believe things other that the promises of God. In these cases I think there is a natural component to the law of believing that does help them enjoy some positive results.
But to really get ALL there is to receive from God, then the most efficient application of this law, bringing in all the supernatural resources of God, will demand a knowledge of the promises and acknowledgement of the Promise Maker.
The first main point of the class was to help us receive, lambano. Thus Dr taught both the natural and supernatural ways the law helps us when we apply it most efficiently (the 5 things we know to receive).
As to the dark side of the force, I mean negative believing, I see there again a natural element, where bad attitudes get bad results. As to the supernatural enforcement of the law?s a$$-end by the adversary, I know very little.
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Mike
sirguessalot,
You wrote: ?It seems to me, that PFAL really failed to express most of the wisdom of this story. Almost as if the ?law of believing? was, in PFAL, the whole essence of the drama, particularly the consequence of fear. Because PFAL never seems to address the specifics of Job?s ?positive believing? that got him restored.?
I agree. Dr says at the beginning of the class that he?s not going to teach all of it. In these early sessions of the class the topic was believing, not all the wisdom in Job. As to what got Job restored, it was God?s Word. Believing comes by hearing, hearing the Word.
Job had esteemed God?s Word as more important than food, and this is how God was able to teach him and give him double. THIS is taught much in the class, but not with reference to Job.
*****
?(And if this wasn?t the essence, how are we then to understand the book of Job via PFAL alone?)?
By first mastering PFAL and then applying the keys.
*****
?Mike, does PFAL blame consequence on fear, therefore equating fear with sin??
I can?t give you a reference yet, but it seems to me that NOT believing God is the bottom line for all missing the mark, sin. It?s the fear that trusting God won?t work that drives us to try something stupid or at least think about it.
*****
?Sh!t DOES happen to innocent people, regardless of their fear or faith.
And there is always so much more to the story than we can know.
And nothing about us can be so broken that God will not fix it in season.
?To me, this is more comforting than any success-or-failure formula.
Makes life and love into an art form again, rather than a program.?
I see that sh!t does SEEM to happen to innocent people, but we can?t see the condition of their heart and what kind of believing is in there.
I totally agree with: ?there is always so much more to the story than we can know.?
I?m all for the artistic dance of life, AFTER having been shown the formula of the steps. TEACHING the dance in formula form isn?t bad, it?s good. Once we learn it, we no longer need the 5-senses formula, and spiritual serendipity with Daddy is the name of the game.
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