Awhile back - I literally believed that I could transform my mind into a state of unbelief just to prove that the law of believing works…Now I don’t believe it works.
Basically this law of believing (which is no law at all) surmises that we can tell God what He will or will not do. Now that's downright laughable and incredibly egomanical. We can ask, but we can't 'tell'.
The Bible even teaches against such thinking in the book of James which I would quote if I had my Bible with me - I don't cause I'm out of town, but it goes along these lines:
"Those of you who say tomorow we will go to such and such a place, and buy and sell and make a great profit ought to say, tomorow, IF THE LORD WILLS IT, we will do such and such..."
My paraphrasing, but you get the gist - go read it.
This teaching of this bogus law, no matter who teaches it, gets people further from the truth, not closer to it.
The truth being that God runs the show, not us.
People with big arrogant egos find this concept impossible to swallow.
Amen Dawn Redwood.
Here are the verses you were thinking of in James.
James 4 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."
It's not our will be done, it's His will be done. We ask God not tell God, we have faith in God's promises and it's His power that brings them to pass, not our believing in our believing.
Danny stated it well. "The whole teaching was making a little idol or big one putting it before God and saying why do I need you I have believing."
dmillers story of the guy believing to win the Harley is a typical example of how we were taught in twi. But again the word says to ask, knowhere in the Bible does it say to "believe for" something.
check out these verses also in James 4.
"2You want something but don't get it. You kill and covet, but you cannot have what you want. You quarrel and fight. You do not have, because you do not ask God. 3When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures."
I disagree. I think calling it a law took a perfectly valid "positive thinking" principle and turned it into something that was not only easily disprovable, but a source of tremendous self-condemnation.
I prefer to think of it as a proverb: often works, but don't make a law out of it.
"Train up a child in the way that he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it."
There's a statement straight out of the Bible. Often true. But it's not a law, and sometimes a child raised well goes astray anyway. It happens. It's called real life. Doesn't negate the principle, and doesn't mean a child should NOT be raised properly. It just doesn't always work out because it's NOT a law!
Really nice, Raf.
I'll go on to say that "believing" or "positive believing" have no power whatsoever to cause anything to happen or not happen. The only power they have is to influence the attitudes and actions of the person, sometimes to the point of bringing the "believed for" thing into reality, through their own efforts. Of course, then folks will say 'I believed for it and God did it'.
No He didn't. He does what He wants, not what you or I want.
People who have a negative attitude towards life very rarely get up off their butts to go out and do something. They seem more content to sit complain, whine and blame others for why they don't have what others have. People with a positive attitude recognize that they actually need to work at things to get somewhere in life.
But this is about your ATTITUDE not your 'believing'. Attitude and (biblical)believing are not synonyms.
Attitude works for saint and sinner alike - because we all have attitudes regarding everything.
"Believing", as used in the Bible, is really about having faith in God and His power. VPW took "biblical faith" and relegated it to the stature of secular "belief" and "attitude" and formed his very own doctrine - well, plagerised his very own doctrine...lol.
Biblical faith is NOT for saint and sinner alike. It's for saints. People who, in their lives have chosen (for their own personal reasons whatever they may be) not to look to God for their sustenance have no use of "faith" (in God). They can believe whatever they choose to believe and live their lives accordingly. But their belief is not "biblical belief", aka faith.
People who have decided to look to God for their well being, rely on "faith" in God.
The majority of people who sat throught PFAL were there because they(we, I) were looking to know God better. They(we, I) were looking for "biblical faith" through that class. But what we got was a substitue, a copy cat counterfeit, feel good till it bites you in the a$$ doctrine.
We didn't get the truth about faith, we got some secular facts blended with some religious overtones.
That thing about the mother and son really ate me up too.
Most mothers that I know worry constantly and obsessively over the safety of their children. It is how we are wired and how we spot the dangers ahead of time to protect.
Trust me, if the *law of believing* worked, my first born would have never made it to 18.
I wish that I could pretend that my *believing* would make everything hunky dory, I`d have a lot less stress and gray hair these days.
One of the great books I have read that handles the subject of positive believing myths is Winning Through Intimidation. The author stresses that being honest with yourself, acknowledging reality, and preparation are the basis for any real personal confidence.
Great point Inkernet. Acknowledging reality was viewed with scorn in TWI. You were chided as "walking in the flesh" by your 5 senses. Most biblical accounts of miracles did not leave out the harsh realities those delivered were facing at the time. In TWI even the slightest mention of reality was a negative confession.
I remember when I was in residence and I did a word study on "faith" - or believing as VP liked to call it.
I quickly saw, it means TRUST. We are to trust in God.
In TWI, we pictured what we wanted and believed God to bring it to pass - just keep that "mind picture" there.
In other words, with our minds and our mind pictures, we were directing the God of the Universe to do our bidding. Because by the law of "the magic of believing" - he MUST bring it to pass.
We made God our magical genie. We told him what we want, he must bring it to pass.
When you think about it,
How arrogant of the creature to tell the creator what to do.
The book of Hebrews solidified it.
All those great acts of trusting in God (or those great acts of "believing" for some of you) were very instructive.
First, God gave revelation. The man carried it out, trusting God would perform.
I.e., Moses didn't take it into his head to part the red sea. God told him to. He believed, or trusted, what God said.
God tells Joshua to march around the walls of Jericho for 7 days. Now, he could have said, you are nuts! I mean, it does sound crazy, but he trusted in what God told him.
In other words, the men didn't get an idea in their head and tell God what to do.
Its the other way around, God told them and they carried it out.
We are now to trust God's Word and God in our lives. Trust he has us in his care. That is much easier than the "believing" we used to do.
I am beginning to think that this mathematical and scientific precise doctrine does little more than to try to put God in a cleverly manufactured, air-tight box.
If my God has to fit inside of that thing, he's too small..
Here are the verses you were thinking of in James.
James 4 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."
It's not our will be done, it's His will be done. We ask God not tell God, we have faith in God's promises and it's His power that brings them to pass, not our believing in our believing.
Danny stated it well. "The whole teaching was making a little idol or big one putting it before God and saying why do I need you I have believing."
dmillers story of the guy believing to win the Harley is a typical example of how we were taught in twi. But again the word says to ask, knowhere in the Bible does it say to "believe for" something.
check out these verses also in James 4.
"2You want something but don't get it. You kill and covet, but you cannot have what you want. You quarrel and fight. You do not have, because you do not ask God. 3When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures."
Good post! The truth is that we are to believe the word concerning our need/problem.
Remember 3 John?
3 John 1:2:
2 Beloved, I wish above all things that thou mayest prosper and be in health, even as thy soul prospereth.
exactly..everything that we do revolves around our flesh..even prayer..(sigh) so when we pray we have our own flesh in mind, we dont want to suffer, we dont want to lose, we want to
"prosper", etc...so that is why we are to pray for God's will..it is for His glory to be furthered rather than spare and pamper the flesh. not that we dont have the right to petition, we do, but that we ought to submit to the will of God rather than our will.
RE: the death of the child from the mother's fear and the thriving of the children because the father said a simple pray everyday.
Both these stories reek of being bogus because in order for either one to be true as told by VPW, there would have to be an eye-witness to corroborate not only the actions taken by the parents, but also be a mind reader to know what these parents were "really" believing....and this would have to take place over a period of years and years and then this person or persons would have to tell these stories and swear that the reasons for any good or bad out comes was due to what was really going on in the hearts and the minds of THOSE parents! Only God could know that....OMG, I just realized, God must have sat VPW down and TOLD him these things!!! I believe now, I believe....not.
PFAL...learn the truth by reading and studying The VPW Version of the Bible of Urban Legends
Docvic couldn't hold a candle to these other guys.
He copied their work, just like he did all the other stuff.
He passed it off as his own.
Nothing new in any of that I suppose. Most of them are plagiarists (to use a term) pinching bits and pieces from all over the place and tacking it together.
I thought it hilarious that those that told us to believe big enough to tithe, received the tithe. Those on staff were given salaries based on their expenses, then ten percent above that so that they could tithe. In the real world, the employer doesn't care about your tithe or giving. You get as little as possible.
In order to tithe, and then later at 15%, I often went without food, shelter and drove junk cars. I obeyed this tithe. When I suffered financially like this, I was blamed for not giving to God or tithing. When I proved my tithe and beyond, then the blame went to my "faulty" believing.
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Awhile back - I literally believed that I could transform my mind into a state of unbelief just to prove that the law of believing works…Now I don’t believe it works.
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Outin88.
Amen Dawn Redwood.
Here are the verses you were thinking of in James.
James 4 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."
It's not our will be done, it's His will be done. We ask God not tell God, we have faith in God's promises and it's His power that brings them to pass, not our believing in our believing.
Danny stated it well. "The whole teaching was making a little idol or big one putting it before God and saying why do I need you I have believing."
dmillers story of the guy believing to win the Harley is a typical example of how we were taught in twi. But again the word says to ask, knowhere in the Bible does it say to "believe for" something.
check out these verses also in James 4.
"2You want something but don't get it. You kill and covet, but you cannot have what you want. You quarrel and fight. You do not have, because you do not ask God. 3When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures."
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TheEvan
Really nice, Raf.
I'll go on to say that "believing" or "positive believing" have no power whatsoever to cause anything to happen or not happen. The only power they have is to influence the attitudes and actions of the person, sometimes to the point of bringing the "believed for" thing into reality, through their own efforts. Of course, then folks will say 'I believed for it and God did it'.
No He didn't. He does what He wants, not what you or I want.
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Dawn Redwood
Exactly.
People who have a negative attitude towards life very rarely get up off their butts to go out and do something. They seem more content to sit complain, whine and blame others for why they don't have what others have. People with a positive attitude recognize that they actually need to work at things to get somewhere in life.
But this is about your ATTITUDE not your 'believing'. Attitude and (biblical)believing are not synonyms.
Attitude works for saint and sinner alike - because we all have attitudes regarding everything.
"Believing", as used in the Bible, is really about having faith in God and His power. VPW took "biblical faith" and relegated it to the stature of secular "belief" and "attitude" and formed his very own doctrine - well, plagerised his very own doctrine...lol.
Biblical faith is NOT for saint and sinner alike. It's for saints. People who, in their lives have chosen (for their own personal reasons whatever they may be) not to look to God for their sustenance have no use of "faith" (in God). They can believe whatever they choose to believe and live their lives accordingly. But their belief is not "biblical belief", aka faith.
People who have decided to look to God for their well being, rely on "faith" in God.
The majority of people who sat throught PFAL were there because they(we, I) were looking to know God better. They(we, I) were looking for "biblical faith" through that class. But what we got was a substitue, a copy cat counterfeit, feel good till it bites you in the a$$ doctrine.
We didn't get the truth about faith, we got some secular facts blended with some religious overtones.
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rascal
That thing about the mother and son really ate me up too.
Most mothers that I know worry constantly and obsessively over the safety of their children. It is how we are wired and how we spot the dangers ahead of time to protect.
Trust me, if the *law of believing* worked, my first born would have never made it to 18.
I wish that I could pretend that my *believing* would make everything hunky dory, I`d have a lot less stress and gray hair these days.
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Danny
VP threw in the thing in India where the guy said
I don't believe in you Jesus. He was healed.
You can turn on the tv and see people getting healed
never mentioning God. It was a great hook.
Setting me up to believe in a false God Believing. (a religion-belief system) (law)
I tryed to win the lotto so I walked out on my believing spent all the money
now I'm writing this from my jail cell.
Have no other Gods before me
Of course that was in the Old testament and it wasn't written to us.
Let not read that stuff to closely
and the gospel that's when Jesus was around
we don't want to look at that to close either it came before Acts.
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Calflor
Great point Inkernet. Acknowledging reality was viewed with scorn in TWI. You were chided as "walking in the flesh" by your 5 senses. Most biblical accounts of miracles did not leave out the harsh realities those delivered were facing at the time. In TWI even the slightest mention of reality was a negative confession.
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outandabout
If the law of believing actually worked like we were taught, the world would be in chaos.
I believe for this, you believe for that, Joe Schmoe believes for something else......
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Sunesis
Outandabout - that's a great way of seeing it.
I remember when I was in residence and I did a word study on "faith" - or believing as VP liked to call it.
I quickly saw, it means TRUST. We are to trust in God.
In TWI, we pictured what we wanted and believed God to bring it to pass - just keep that "mind picture" there.
In other words, with our minds and our mind pictures, we were directing the God of the Universe to do our bidding. Because by the law of "the magic of believing" - he MUST bring it to pass.
We made God our magical genie. We told him what we want, he must bring it to pass.
When you think about it,
How arrogant of the creature to tell the creator what to do.
The book of Hebrews solidified it.
All those great acts of trusting in God (or those great acts of "believing" for some of you) were very instructive.
First, God gave revelation. The man carried it out, trusting God would perform.
I.e., Moses didn't take it into his head to part the red sea. God told him to. He believed, or trusted, what God said.
God tells Joshua to march around the walls of Jericho for 7 days. Now, he could have said, you are nuts! I mean, it does sound crazy, but he trusted in what God told him.
In other words, the men didn't get an idea in their head and tell God what to do.
Its the other way around, God told them and they carried it out.
We are now to trust God's Word and God in our lives. Trust he has us in his care. That is much easier than the "believing" we used to do.
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Ham
I am beginning to think that this mathematical and scientific precise doctrine does little more than to try to put God in a cleverly manufactured, air-tight box.
If my God has to fit inside of that thing, he's too small..
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Ham
I think it's not unlike Schroedinger's Cat. Schroedinger claimed that as long as the cat was in the box, it would be dead and alive at the same time..
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Ham
I can see God looking at the box.. "you're not getting ME in that thing".
:)
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outandabout
I never could quite believe that mathematical exactness and scientific precision thing. Never seemed that exact to me. Maybe because it's not.
If believing worked like that, we'd all be living in mansions and I'd be a rock star.
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Ham
Yeah.. anybody can be anything they want to be, IN THEIR OWN MIND.
The rest of the world may not agree
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dmiller
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mdsnpp
the law of believing turned out to be real lucky for me. i found it it didn't work as advertised and left twi:)
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Neo
Good post! The truth is that we are to believe the word concerning our need/problem.
Remember 3 John?
3 John 1:2:
2 Beloved, I wish above all things that thou mayest prosper and be in health, even as thy soul prospereth.
Neo
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motherof2
exactly..everything that we do revolves around our flesh..even prayer..(sigh) so when we pray we have our own flesh in mind, we dont want to suffer, we dont want to lose, we want to
"prosper", etc...so that is why we are to pray for God's will..it is for His glory to be furthered rather than spare and pamper the flesh. not that we dont have the right to petition, we do, but that we ought to submit to the will of God rather than our will.
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rascal
Well said Momo2.
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likeaneagle
Hey, just call me slow, if you wish..I just realized "The Law of Believing" was twisted to the "Law of Fear and Intimidation".......wooooo..
But, it was not fear thet caused me to love..just seperating to differences here.
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Dawn Redwood
RE: the death of the child from the mother's fear and the thriving of the children because the father said a simple pray everyday.
Both these stories reek of being bogus because in order for either one to be true as told by VPW, there would have to be an eye-witness to corroborate not only the actions taken by the parents, but also be a mind reader to know what these parents were "really" believing....and this would have to take place over a period of years and years and then this person or persons would have to tell these stories and swear that the reasons for any good or bad out comes was due to what was really going on in the hearts and the minds of THOSE parents! Only God could know that....OMG, I just realized, God must have sat VPW down and TOLD him these things!!! I believe now, I believe....not.
PFAL...learn the truth by reading and studying The VPW Version of the Bible of Urban Legends
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Combination
Nothing new in any of that I suppose. Most of them are plagiarists (to use a term) pinching bits and pieces from all over the place and tacking it together.
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Combination
Maybe there were unresolved issues you had that weakened your resolve (belief ability).
I want to hear about this. How did that Fear and Intimidation thing occur in your experiences?
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Eagle
I thought it hilarious that those that told us to believe big enough to tithe, received the tithe. Those on staff were given salaries based on their expenses, then ten percent above that so that they could tithe. In the real world, the employer doesn't care about your tithe or giving. You get as little as possible.
In order to tithe, and then later at 15%, I often went without food, shelter and drove junk cars. I obeyed this tithe. When I suffered financially like this, I was blamed for not giving to God or tithing. When I proved my tithe and beyond, then the blame went to my "faulty" believing.
I completely agree with dmiller.
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