T-Bone

Yo chief, we need to get an APB out on those missing letters.

Welcome to GSC, Deciderator...My wife got me interested in GSC – and for awhile I'd just check out lots of the threads…The more I read and reflected on my own TWI experience – the more I felt a moral obligation to talk about TWI's hypocrisy and toxic doctrines. This is not coming from a self-righteous I'd–better-warn-others attitude…As a Christian, it is very sobering to think of the evils of TWI – I think it speaks volumes to those who desire to please our Lord – this is what happens when sin goes unchecked! In my opinion, we're all part of a fallen race – with strong tendencies to sin. So why put my relationship with God in jeopardy or any other believer for that matter, by condoning what they do, whitewashing what they do, or ignoring the fact that they give Christianity a bad name! I don't think we're to focus on darkness either. However I think it is our moral duty to focus the light of God's Word on the moral darkness of these predators. II Peter 2 comes to mind, warning people of false teachers and their moral depravity. Yes – it's nasty business talking about the hypocrisy and moral depravity of TWI– not something I particularly enjoy. But it seems to be one of the necessary tasks of Christians submitting to the moral dictates of the Bible. Consider Paul addressing the matter of sexual immorality that was going on in Corinth. This was not some private counseling session – it's in a church epistle – for all to read: I Corinthians 5:1-13 NIV 1It is actually reported that there is sexual immorality among you, and of a kind that does not occur even among pagans: A man has his father's wife. 2And you are proud! Shouldn't you rather have been filled with grief and have put out of your fellowship the man who did this? 3Even though I am not physically present, I am with you in spirit. And I have already passed judgment on the one who did this, just as if I were present. 4When you are assembled in the name of our Lord Jesus and I am with you in spirit, and the power of our Lord Jesus is present, 5hand this man over to Satan, so that the sinful nature[a] may be destroyed and his spirit saved on the day of the Lord. 6Your boasting is not good. Don't you know that a little yeast works through the whole batch of dough? 7Get rid of the old yeast that you may be a new batch without yeast—as you really are. For Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed. 8Therefore let us keep the Festival, not with the old yeast, the yeast of malice and wickedness, but with bread without yeast, the bread of sincerity and truth. 9I have written you in my letter not to associate with sexually immoral people— 10not at all meaning the people of this world who are immoral, or the greedy and swindlers, or idolaters. In that case you would have to leave this world. 11But now I am writing you that you must not associate with anyone who calls himself a brother but is sexually immoral or greedy, an idolater or a slanderer, a drunkard or a swindler. With such a man do not even eat. 12What business is it of mine to judge those outside the church? Are you not to judge those inside? 13God will judge those outside. "Expel the wicked man from among you."[b] The high moral standards of the Bible, the warnings of sin - are just as much a part of God's Word as doing a word study on "righteousness." Maybe one reason TWI avoids the gospels like the plague is because of the strong moral content in many of Jesus' dialogues. One of the deadliest aspects of the TWI mindset is the way it lulls the conscience to sleep. It's uncomfortable to think about TWI's crap - because God gave us a conscience!!!!!!!! And it's spiritually deadly - because it is the farthest thing from being the church of Jesus Christ! Any mention of Christ in PFAL was window dressing to sucker in the unsuspecting Christian - because once you're a grad - Jesus is no where to be found.

That is GREAT news!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I'm not sure if this would go with what you're talking about but I would be concerned with what may cause another to stumble. Which could be some blatant sin in my life or me simply flaunting my freedom [in a non-moral issue] and compelling a brother to do the same – against their own conscience [for some reason they believe violating a particular non-moral issue is sin – as talked about in Romans 14]. Matthew 18:5-9 NIV 5"And whoever welcomes a little child like this in my name welcomes me. 6But if anyone causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him to have a large millstone hung around his neck and to be drowned in the depths of the sea. 7"Woe to the world because of the things that cause people to sin! Such things must come, but woe to the man through whom they come! 8If your hand or your foot causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. It is better for you to enter life maimed or crippled than to have two hands or two feet and be thrown into eternal fire. 9And if your eye causes you to sin, gouge it out and throw it away. It is better for you to enter life with one eye than to have two eyes and be thrown into the fire of hell. Romans 14:13-23 NIV 13Therefore let us stop passing judgment on one another. Instead, make up your mind not to put any stumbling block or obstacle in your brother's way. 14As one who is in the Lord Jesus, I am fully convinced that no food[b] is unclean in itself. But if anyone regards something as unclean, then for him it is unclean. 15If your brother is distressed because of what you eat, you are no longer acting in love. Do not by your eating destroy your brother for whom Christ died. 16Do not allow what you consider good to be spoken of as evil. 17For the kingdom of God is not a matter of eating and drinking, but of righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit, 18because anyone who serves Christ in this way is pleasing to God and approved by men. 19Let us therefore make every effort to do what leads to peace and to mutual edification. 20Do not destroy the work of God for the sake of food. All food is clean, but it is wrong for a man to eat anything that causes someone else to stumble. 21It is better not to eat meat or drink wine or to do anything else that will cause your brother to fall. 22So whatever you believe about these things keep between yourself and God. Blessed is the man who does not condemn himself by what he approves. 23But the man who has doubts is condemned if he eats, because his eating is not from faith; and everything that does not come from faith is sin. I Corinthians 10:31-33 NIV 31So whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God. 32Do not cause anyone to stumble, whether Jews, Greeks or the church of God— 33even as I try to please everybody in every way. For I am not seeking my own good but the good of many, so that they may be saved.

A little modification was in order for the Corps principles: #1 Acquire a skewed perception and awareness of the utter depths of legalism and indentured servitude in TWI – so you will learn to love it. [Note: The big payoff for indentured servitude – possibly a gift ministry…maybe…] #2 Receive training in the whole PFAL series, so as to be able to teach others also. #3 Physical pain - abusing your physical body for the work of TWI to the point you look [and feel] like a vehicle after a bad wreck. #4 Practice deceiving yourself into giving any material abundance you acquire to TWI. When they talk about a non-profit operation it is actually in reference to you. #5 Go forth as manipulators and moochers in areas of concern, interest and need. Before you go – check with TWI leadership on the specifics of those areas – they're more than happy to point you in the right direction.

Double-Egg 7 here again…you’re really onto something. Just between you, me and that fence post – I think they’re slipping everyone a mickey in the nuts…I’ll look you right in the eye and tell you straight up – I wouldn’t take any nuts from those Nuts! Damn them all to shell!

Excellent point, Oak! VPW's version of the law of believing were marked by a shift in the focus of believing and assuming a commanding role in the process. I remember from the Blue Book, the chapter Release from Your Prisons, get clear on what you want in your mind…focus on that! The object of our faith was not God but what we wanted. Reorienting what we put our faith in - dissolved any connection with the God of the Bible. After all, the law of believing worked for saint and sinner alike. Assuming a commanding role eliminates the need for God altogether! I even remember a phrase being circulated, "believe in your believing." A few things to note from Jesus' teaching on faith in Mark: To Peter who was awestruck by the fig tree dying over night – Jesus said have "faith in God." He didn't say "have faith in yourself" or "believe in your believing." When He spoke of throwing a mountain into the sea – He didn't specify how it would be done – but He did state "it will be done for him." And in reference to prayer and believing He indicated we're to ask – implying we acknowledge a higher authority – in other words, the one we're praying to: Mark 11:20-24 NIV 20In the morning, as they went along, they saw the fig tree withered from the roots. 21Peter remembered and said to Jesus, "Rabbi, look! The fig tree you cursed has withered!" 22"Have[f] faith in God," Jesus answered. 23"I tell you the truth, if anyone says to this mountain, 'Go, throw yourself into the sea,' and does not doubt in his heart but believes that what he says will happen, it will be done for him. 24Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours. The passage of the two blind men coming to Jesus for healing, clarifies where they placed their faith. They responded to Jesus' question by saying they believed He was able to heal them. Matthew 9:27-30 NIV 27As Jesus went on from there, two blind men followed him, calling out, "Have mercy on us, Son of David!" 28When he had gone indoors, the blind men came to him, and he asked them, "Do you believe that I am able to do this?" "Yes, Lord," they replied. 29Then he touched their eyes and said, "According to your faith will it be done to you"; 30and their sight was restored. Jesus warned them sternly, "See that no one knows about this." 31But they went out and spread the news about him all over that region. VPW's version of the law of believing gave rise to a bunch of positive affirmation braggarts that assumed a commanding role in the make-believe-world of TWI. Better talk a good game when around these folks – or they'll be all over your case! Of course, that's a little out of line with the humble attitude shown in James – but hey – when did that ever stop them before? James 4:13-17 NIV 13Now listen, you who say, "Today or tomorrow we will go to this or that city, spend a year there, carry on business and make money." 14Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes. 15Instead, you ought to say, "If it is the Lord's will, we will live and do this or that." 16As it is, you boast and brag. All such boasting is evil. 17Anyone, then, who knows the good he ought to do and doesn't do it, sins.

If a squirrel was God – could he create a nut that he cannot lift?

You're darn right!!!!!!!!!! I've been on both sides of this believing game with TWI. Here's my take on how the game works. A believer tells a TWI leader they're having a hard time believing for something – and not seeing results, maybe there's even a hint of something is not working right. This is actually a serious challenge to the validity of PFAL – however, a sharp TWI leader recasts their challenge as one of questioning God's Word - and thereby knock the ball back in the believer's court. The assumption being there's nothing wrong with PFAL. TWI leaders used the law of believing as a measuring stick – and through an endless set of variables maintain their advantage in the game. There could be a million reasons why they're not seeing the desired results: they weren't believing for the best in the situation, haven't been abundant sharing, have been out of fellowship awhile, they have worldly music in their home which gave devil spirits entrée to their lives, should have gone W.O.W. or Corps by now – they're just coasting, haven't mastered PFAL, haven't spent much time in the Word, the unbelief of their spouse or the community is the problem, etc. For the believer it's a game of utter frustration. Like playing Battleship with an opponent who constantly cheats by moving the pieces…TWI's law of believing was always an effective manipulative tool – for there will always be some aspect of a person's life that can be called in question – and this can be exploited.

This is a special message to the disciples of Whitewashing Incorporated. You’re wasting your time here trying to cover up the sins of TWI. This tactic is not good – you are giving away your position…unless of course, you think defending hypocrisy is a good thing.

Let’s think about TWI’s application of loving God and neighbor… “God, I love the hope of prosperity I see in your word and thanks in advance for bringing to pass everything on the needs-list that I dropped off this morning during my four 15s. Thank you for filling me with the boldness to confront my neighbor on worshipping the wrong god and show me a loving way to challenge him to take the class.”

scene from The Exorcist Your mother talks trash at twig!

Happy Birthday, Top of the World !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Have a good one, Biker Babe!

Do you know what I like about Grease Spot Café? The freedom everyone has to think for themselves and be themselves. It's about exposing the hypocrisy, mind games, plagiarism, manipulation, toxic doctrines and sexual predators of TWI. It's a meeting place for folks [great folks I might add…and uhm mostly folks who are sick and tired of TWI's BS I should add on top of that] to connect, share wisdom…to get healed and help others heal…develop friendships…and a million other wonderful things! I'm not surprised when all that gets missed by a TWI sympathizer. TWI produced a virulent strain of idolatry – a worship of the Bible. Symptoms of TWI's infection: self-assuming, arrogance, pride, preference for a knowledge of the Bible over genuine relationships with God and people, blind legalism, and thinking the knowledge of Scripture makes one spiritually and morally superior to others. I've got a hard time believing TWI was ever a Christian organization. What throws many people off is their Christian veneer. They quote lots of verses and say they're Christian. But what it comes down to – is that TWI folks worship their interpretation of the Bible. Mind boggling to think about. Jesus Christ said at the heart of the law and the prophets [the Bible of His day] was a love for God and people. TWI twisted that around - loving knowledge of the Bible over loving God and people. It may seem odd to think of people worshipping the Bible – it's something from God. However, people can make an idol out of anything. In Numbers, God told Moses to make a bronze snake for people to gaze upon and be healed. A while later in Kings we read of the Israelites worshipping it! Numbers 21:6-9 NIV 6 Then the LORD sent venomous snakes among them; they bit the people and many Israelites died. 7 The people came to Moses and said, "We sinned when we spoke against the LORD and against you. Pray that the LORD will take the snakes away from us." So Moses prayed for the people. 8 The LORD said to Moses, "Make a snake and put it up on a pole; anyone who is bitten can look at it and live." 9 So Moses made a bronze snake and put it up on a pole. Then when anyone was bitten by a snake and looked at the bronze snake, he lived. II Kings 18:1-4 NIV 1 In the third year of Hoshea son of Elah king of Israel, Hezekiah son of Ahaz king of Judah began to reign. 2 He was twenty-five years old when he became king, and he reigned in Jerusalem twenty-nine years. His mother's name was Abijah [a] daughter of Zechariah. 3 He did what was right in the eyes of the LORD, just as his father David had done. 4 He removed the high places, smashed the sacred stones and cut down the Asherah poles. He broke into pieces the bronze snake Moses had made, for up to that time the Israelites had been burning incense to it. (It was called [b] Nehushtan. [c] ) I like the broad spectrum of viewpoints everyone brings to GSC. This is a very healing, loving, and enlightening place. Everybody has their own way of doing things, and it all works together so well. What freedom! And to any Christian that finds fault in another Christian helping people deal with TWI BS – please consider the following passage: Mark 9:38-41 NIV 38 "Teacher," said John, "we saw a man driving out demons in your name and we told him to stop, because he was not one of us." 39 "Do not stop him," Jesus said. "No one who does a miracle in my name can in the next moment say anything bad about me, 40 for whoever is not against us is for us. 41 I tell you the truth, anyone who gives you a cup of water in my name because you belong to Christ will certainly not lose his reward.

Where I find fault in the law of believing is the idea that you can manipulate reality. And by that I mean having a direct overriding influence on something or someone outside of myself. Even to say a Christian does this by petitioning God in prayer is a misunderstanding of prayer. It is not our prayers that accomplish anything but rather the God to whom we pray! Our faith merely submitting to our sovereign Lord…and in a sense humbly acknowledging a partnership with Him in our prayer or acts of faith. In my opinion, what you believe shapes your mental map of reality. When I was in TWI, my mental map of reality was of downtown Oz but my feet were actually in Kansas. It makes a lot more sense to have the right map for where you want to go. Like Covey talks about in his 7 Habits book, using a map of downtown Manhattan will not help you at all in downtown Chicago. I agree with Covey when he says the closer our mental maps are to reality the more valuable they become. Something we can control are our attitudes and actions – two dynamic factors that determine our accomplishments. Perhaps at a subconscious level they steer us to and prepare us for that which has occupied our thinking – like a self-fulfilling prophecy. Maybe there's a lot more going on in these "mental subroutines" than we're aware of, things like: determination, self reliance, persistence, good habits, hopeful, focused thinking, discipline - or - bad habits, fear of failure, self sabotage, scatterbrained, hopelessness, laziness. TWI's fascination with the law of believing was seen as a shortcut to get what you want without having to do all the required work. I guess I'm old fashioned – I think success happens when opportunity and preparation converge. That translates to smart focused work and keeping an eye out for the opportune moment. TWI takes a wishful thinking approach – never earning a right to the payoff and hoping they can magically rig the game in their favor.

I used believing images of victory to overcome the law of believing…and when that didn’t work I resorted to positive affirmations.

Welcome to Grease Spot Café, Waytrix Survivor. I love your name and avatar!!!!!!! The Matrix is one of my all time favorite movies. Oops, where’s my manners – let me offer you a cup of coffee. You’ll have to make a choice though…Drink from the cup on the left and you will forget about everything discussed on this thread and wake up tomorrow morning with an incredible hangover with your head in the sand…Drink from the other cup and you’ll remember everything discussed on this thread, and wake up tomorrow morning with an incredible hangover with sand in your hair.

I dunno...Rosie is already a sourpuss...you'll just make things worse!

Hi Bumpy…So, you joined about a year after me – guess that makes me your older brother on GSC – which means you get hand-me-down coffee mugs … Well, 3 minutes brainstorming time may seem fast to some folks – but check out the initial post time of my post # 52 – 1:21 PM…Now check out the final edit time – 1:41 PM…Sometimes I'll get ideas fast like a rabbit but edit at a turtle's pace. I've been known to edit a post long after the life has been wrung out of it . I once road a friend's Triumph. I couldn't get used to the gear shift pedal being on the opposite side. At the time I owned a Yamaha 250 Street Scrambler – bought it used. It was sort of my W.O.W. motorcycle – no fuel pump [had to premix gas/oil] and it would foul out spark plugs if I didn't have the Volkswagen baffles in the tailpipe tuned just right…Similar to my writing process – that bike could tear up the road – but man oh man, a pit stop could eat up half a day. [edited just to prove my point - ]

Thanks, Bumpy…As far as my points being negative – that’s just my viewpoint as an ex-TWIt. Someone who is still in TWI would find the list positive…perhaps even using the list to help him or her set some goals …I came up with the list in about 3 minutes - reflecting on some PFAL highlights, I then translated them into a typical PFAL grad experience.

Welcome to Grease Spot, Ephesians 4:32, and thank you for the blessing – but I have to ask…What are you doing here? Your advice is not good. And do you really think you should be telling people what they should do? Are you a TWI sympathizer – criticizing GSC, a place that is all for setting the captives free! GSC folks cover a broad spectrum of beliefs. I for one happen to be a Christian and strive to please my Lord. When it comes to folks who want to be healed and understand more about the poisonous power of TWI – I am loving and tender. When it comes to folks who get on GSC to stir up trouble by whitewashing TWI's hypocrisy, predatory legacy and unchristian viewpoint – I confront them – they are in violation of the ways of Jesus Christ…Now – which group of folks are you in – so I now how to address you in the future.

Thanks, DMiller - great stuff !!!!!

That's so funny - especially in another language, thanks Paw!...hmmm been thinking about upgrading from a scroll myself - just waiting until they work all the bugs out of the first version.

The really great things I learned from PFAL were things I realized after leaving TWI. Like the life lessons one can garner after surviving some traumatic event. I will NEVER make the same mistake again! The poison of PFAL resides in some of its content, and some in its application. The following points qualify a successful PFAL graduate by challenging them to meet certain criteria: 1. The greatest sin a PFAL grad can commit: doubting PFAL. 2. The unforgivable sin of any PFAL grad: letting people know the teacher is a sexual predator. 3. The PFAL grad's basic spiritual problem is becoming aware of the lack of integrity of the teacher. Once a grad overcomes that "problem" – there are no other problems. 4. The PFAL grad learns to create their own "reality" through the law of believing equals perceiving. Though nothing actually changes in the real world, the perception by the grad that they can manipulate reality is all that matters. 5. The PFAL grad learns to interpret the Bible by being well versed in PFAL principles, always in the context of PFAL or by a previous teaching using PFAL principles. 6. The PFAL grad learns to receive anything from God, one must: Know what PFAL says is available, know how PFAL says to get it, know what PFAL says you should do with it after you've got it, have TWI's needs and wants parallel with PFAL principles, and believe mastering PFAL makes God willing and able to grant your every wish. 7. The PFAL grad believes the greatest secret in the world today is that PFAL is the will of God. And that VPW has some purpose for the things he says, where he says it, why he says it, how he says it, to whom he says it, when he says it - and doesn't care if he plagiarized it. Based on the above criteria I have since disqualified myself from being a successful PFAL grad by reason of sanity.