Not singling anybody out, Mike. But if in 20 or more years you cannot point to any practical benefit - well, it seems to me that some local self-help group might be more helpful. Slimming World, or Assertiveness. Or even just an Art class. One would probably learn something practical at the very first session.
Did I say this? I thought I said I am not prepared to present.
In my own life I can point to things, but many would take a long time to present. Some are so personal I'd rather do it in private, and only to some people. Some are still being researched and pondered. I know that to present anything here I have to plan like George Washington crossing the Delaware River.
I know that as soon as I post anything it's going to draw crossfire from half a dozen adversaries. Have you ever presented anything to a jeering audience? I doubt it. I use jeering and catcalls as practice for doing stand-up comedy. When I'm on mic I have no time to think and edit, like I do here.
Here's a tid-bit I'll toss out on a relatively rare impulse post: "Christ formed in you." Anyone know anything about this topic, either in theory or in practice? I'm still working on this great benefit, but I'm greatly interested if anyone here knows anything about it. It's from Gal. 4:19 and a few SNS tapes.
Is that a standard ploy? Instead of dealing with the points of discussion you want to single me out for derision? When posters start resorting to distractions from what I post I think maybe I'm hitting a nerve or something.
I admitted to you that this is something I want to think about. Are you AT ALL interested in the topic of discussion or are you trying to hustle me around?
Expecting negative results again. Have you checked your believing?
I know that as soon as I post anything it's going to draw crossfire from half a dozen adversaries. Have you ever presented anything to a jeering audience? I doubt it. I use jeering and catcalls as practice for doing stand-up comedy. When I'm on mic I have no time to think and edit, like I do here.
More negative expectations. More negative believing.
I realize my posting tests peoples' emotions, and I can't blame anyone.
If someone had accurately and politely presented the God-breathed PFAL idea to me a few years earlier and without the special preps I got, then I'd have been strongly against it. I try to keep this in mind. The reason I press on with presenting it is it testifies of the goodness of God in an intensity that serves as proof for me.
I can see all the negatives that abounded with the ministry and that are reported here, but the goodness of God I also see in PFAL completely overshadows all of the TWI woes.
That one paragraph can serve as my mini-manifesto on a thumbnail.
I see this overshadowing as similar to Paul’s argument in Romans that the reason God tolerated the disobedience of Adam and death that resulted was He saw the obedience of Jesus Christ as FAR OVERSHADOWING all the woes in death. Paul argues that it’s worth it, what’s coming.
The goodness of God I see in PFAL is like what I see in the stars. Atheists look at the stars and see a testimony of man’s total insignificance. I see them as being there for us, the greatly significant ones, the ones who dare to believe in a God so good that He would create the entire universe just for us.
I realize my posting tests peoples' emotions, and I can't blame anyone.
If someone had accurately and politely presented the God-breathed PFAL idea to me a few years earlier and without the special preps I got, then I'd have been strongly against it. I try to keep this in mind. The reason I press on with presenting it is it testifies of the goodness of God in an intensity that serves as proof for me.
I can see all the negatives that abounded with the ministry and that are reported here, but the goodness of God I also see in PFAL completely overshadows all of the TWI woes.
That one paragraph can serve as my mini-manifesto on a thumbnail.
I see this overshadowing as similar to Paul’s argument in Romans that the reason God tolerated the disobedience of Adam and death that resulted was He saw the obedience of Jesus Christ as FAR OVERSHADOWING all the woes in death. Paul argues that it’s worth it, what’s coming.
The goodness of God I see in PFAL is like what I see in the stars. Atheists look at the stars and see a testimony of man’s total insignificance. I see them as being there for us, the greatly significant ones, the ones who dare to believe in a God so good that He would create the entire universe just for us
And continuing from before....
I've spent 42 years of my life with PLAF, following the principles of renewed mind and believing. That's ignoring ridicule for 42 years thinking: "Watch, I'll come out on top." That's 42 years of telling myself I was a super-conquer and that the best is yet to come.
Fourty-two years later, I find little in my life changed. Risks I've taken often failed and those same people encouraging me to take PLAF were no longer around to give me a sense of what I'd done wrong.
As I've related many times, PLAF failed me miserably.
Here's a tid-bit I'll toss out on a relatively rare impulse post: "Christ formed in you." Anyone know anything about this topic, either in theory or in practice?
IF you are supposing that much silence portrays some sort of great ignorance of that particular subject matter, perhaps you'd allow me to suggest otherwise. I don't doubt there are a few others that occasionally read here that know as much or more than I, and I'm no neophyte on the issue. What is it, exactly, that you would like to bring up or point out about it?
... I've spent 42 years of my life with PLAF, following the principles of renewed mind and believing. That's ignoring ridicule for 42 yeaers thinking: "Watch, I'll come out on top."
As I've related many times, PLAF failed me miserably.
I was luckier, somewhat.
I got some subtle results, but I also had lots of obvious failures in the first 15 years.Then I got a 10 year break from all TWI officialdom. After that period, my PFAL experience has been written only for 20 years now. The results I enjoyed got better. About 5 years ago I started seeing some spectacular results.
From my varied results, and from my lucky clean separation of written PFAL out from all the TWI trappings, I would say that what failed you was a complicated mix of PFAL with a lot of TWI junk.
I think it is possible to sort it all out, but it would take time and be a lot of work. I’ll do my best to motivate you should you want to try.
IF you are supposing that much silence portrays some sort of great ignorance of that particular subject matter, perhaps you'd allow me to suggest otherwise. I don't doubt there are a few others that occasionally read here that know as much or more than I, and I'm no neophyte on the issue. What is it, exactly, that you would like to bring up or point out about it?
I'm interested in the fact that written PFAL does not bring up that verse but in one scant place. I have found an edited article from an old SNS tape that looks like it was going to be a Way Magazine article. VPW did one more SNS on the verse, and Walter did one SNS on it. It looks like it was on the cutting edge of things.
I got some subtle results, but I also had lots of obvious failures in the first 15 years.Then I got a 10 year break from all TWI officialdom. After that period, my PFAL experience has been written only for 20 years now. The results I enjoyed got better. About 5 years ago I started seeing some spectacular results.
From my varied results, and from my lucky clean separation of written PFAL out from all the TWI trappings, I would say that what failed you was a complicated mix of PFAL with a lot of TWI junk.
I think it is possible to sort it all out, but it would take time and be a lot of work. I’ll do my best to motivate you should you want to try.
You apparently didn't read what was written a few post back.
I was in the ministry a total of seven years of those 42 years, so your rationalization about PLAF and Way trappings falls flat.
I'm interested in the fact that written PFAL does not bring up that verse but in one scant place. I have found an edited article from an old SNS tape that looks like it was going to be a Way Magazine article. VPW did one more SNS on the verse, and Walter did one SNS on it. It looks like it was on the cutting edge of things.
What can you tell me of it?
Why complicate it beyond when his (Christ's) thoughts become our thoughts?
Did I say this? I thought I said I am not prepared to present.
In my own life I can point to things, but many would take a long time to present. Some are so personal I'd rather do it in private, and only to some people. Some are still being researched and pondered. I know that to present anything here I have to plan like George Washington crossing the Delaware River.
Mike, in a few words, I could present quite a number of things I learned whilst in TWI. Possibly, probably, even from the Orange book. Things I learned then, and continue to believe now. And I know that it's in TWI that I learned those things, because I never learned them in the church I walked out of years before, because it was so boring.
So, then, I find it astonishing that you won't share anything that you learned. You are "not prepared to present" anything. Even though you have seen "spectacular results." Most Christians love to share when they've seen "spectacular results" from seeing God at work.
The difference between you and me (and other Christians), however, is that I (and other Christians) use the Scriptures as the basis for what I believe. And we give thanks and glory to God. Whereas, you use the Orange book as the basis of your beliefs. And give thanks and glory to a man.
Did I say this? I thought I said I am not prepared to present.
Not to use the figure of speech that our good friend from across the pond did (changing the M to N), but perhaps her point is still valid. "Just DO it."
As far as PLAF goes, here's a simple rule of life: It's easy to promise; it's a lot harder to produce.
PLAF proponents will promise you the moon and, when all is said and done, all you'll really get is excuses.
It sounds like you are focusing on the law of believing here. I agree that lots of work needs to be done there, but I think it's in our understanding.
But what about the other things PFAL promises? I received good when it comes to God being loving and forgiving. I found out how to read the Bible. I learned to SIT and serve others. Seeing that the dead are dead was a major benefit. I see most of those areas as very successful, even when we don't fully understand them. ...but believing needs some work.
Why complicate it beyond when his (Christ's) thoughts become our thoughts?
The complications are more than just our lack of understanding IMO.
Three more notable points:
(1) VPW points out clearly in the earlier of his tapes that this "Christ in" is not the same as "Christ in you the hope of glory" or the spirit category. This Galatians type of Christ FORMED within is in the soul/mind category.
(2) In the Preface to OMSW the triplet "made, formed, and created" is in a different order than the "body, soul, spirit" triplet a few sentences later.WHY? VPW made special efforts in a Way Mag article about these triplets and their order. Yet he changes that order for "made, formed, and created."
(3) The earlier tape of VPW seems to have an odd mirroring between the ministry in the 70s and Paul's Galatians church. Both VPW and Paul are pulling their hair out, working very hard to get Christ formed in top leadership, but failing totally. The tape has this odd negativity about it and ends that way. It seems to say that Christ formed within just wasn't possible...yet... just like it wasn't happening for Paul with the Galatians.
Putting all three of these together I'm looking at Christ FORMED in the minds of students being not quite available for Paul nor for VPW in the early 70s. The goal of getting all of PFAL into written form is what happened next. That made it finally available with OMSW and the finishing of PFAL.
The reason I look at it this way is the GREAT need. We were given a perfect spirit, but it does not affect the mind. When we read the Word with our natural man mind it's just not possible for the nature of that mind to change itself. It cannot. The things of God are foolishness to it. Once Christ is formed within, then it can be renewed according to the Word.
Having a natural man mind automatically change into the mind of Christ sounds impossible to me. I see the first purpose of PFAL is to get us walking with spirit, and THEN the next step is to get that new Christ formed within. I think that's what PFAL was designed (by God) to do when we stick with it.
So, in answer to your question, I think Christ's thoughts CANNOT become our thoughts as long as we are stuck with a natural man mind.
The difference between you and me (and other Christians), however, is that I (and other Christians) use the Scriptures as the basis for what I believe. And we give thanks and glory to God. Whereas, you use the Orange book as the basis of your beliefs. And give thanks and glory to a man.
You're forgetting that men wrote the scriptures also. It's not whose pen did the writing, it's which God did the inspiring, in both cases.
Not to use the figure of speech that our good friend from across the pond did (changing the M to N), but perhaps her point is still valid. "Just DO it."
There's too many things to "just do" so I'll have to choose one by one in the best sequence I can.
Why complicate it beyond when his (Christ's) thoughts become our thoughts?
There are two other odd taped comments of VPW that seem to fit in with Gal 4:19 Christ formed.
One is the first SNS tape VPW did after LCM's inaug in 1982. Oddity #1 King Saul's downfall was in the teaching. At the end VPW talks about all his disappointments and about all the things that can and do go wrong. At the end he says he is able to OVERSHADOW all his frustrations "...because I saw him who is like Jesus Christ."
My take is VPW once saw a vision of the first grad to believe PFAL all the way and have Christ formed within the soul.
The other is in Living Victoriously in Hope. On that tape VPW talks about Abraham and how he turned his hope into believing. VPW then goes on to apply this hope-to-believing thing to OUR hope! He pulls a fast one and then buries the whole passage. I've never met a grad yet who heard what I just reported, neither live nor on tape. It's on the tape now, but no one knows about it but me and the people I told... I think. I could be wrong, but there it is, on tape, turning hope to believing, and WHOOSH! it's gone from everyone's memory.
My take on it is that the Christ Formed thing was becoming available for the first time.
Mike, I think you would do much better if you studied the scriptures. Read in several versions. Get some decent Bible software. I recommended this in a much earlier post. Set your thoughts on GOD and / or on JESUS CHRIST, try to think what the scriptures are saying about heart, integrity, and looking forward to the life to come.
Your hunt through PFAL is a trip underground down a rabbit warren. There is a way out, but will you find it?
Anyway, I think I'm done with this. Somebody please wake me up if Mike ever comes up with something of substance.
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DontWorryBeHappy
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Here's an idea: we each drop out of this topic and go read a book.
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Can anyone tell me dictor paul's scriptural position on the word "Covfefe"? What is the true meaning of that word?? Mike's textual criticism, and use of the basic dictor "keys to research", is as made
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Mike
Did I say this? I thought I said I am not prepared to present.
In my own life I can point to things, but many would take a long time to present. Some are so personal I'd rather do it in private, and only to some people. Some are still being researched and pondered. I know that to present anything here I have to plan like George Washington crossing the Delaware River.
I know that as soon as I post anything it's going to draw crossfire from half a dozen adversaries. Have you ever presented anything to a jeering audience? I doubt it. I use jeering and catcalls as practice for doing stand-up comedy. When I'm on mic I have no time to think and edit, like I do here.
Here's a tid-bit I'll toss out on a relatively rare impulse post: "Christ formed in you." Anyone know anything about this topic, either in theory or in practice? I'm still working on this great benefit, but I'm greatly interested if anyone here knows anything about it. It's from Gal. 4:19 and a few SNS tapes.
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So_crates
Expecting negative results again. Have you checked your believing?
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So_crates
More negative expectations. More negative believing.
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modcat5
I am far more guilty of that behavior than you. That's how I recognized it. ;)
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Mike
If it helps anyone, I feel no grudges from it.
I realize my posting tests peoples' emotions, and I can't blame anyone.
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Mike
Continuing from before…
I realize my posting tests peoples' emotions, and I can't blame anyone.
If someone had accurately and politely presented the God-breathed PFAL idea to me a few years earlier and without the special preps I got, then I'd have been strongly against it. I try to keep this in mind. The reason I press on with presenting it is it testifies of the goodness of God in an intensity that serves as proof for me.
I can see all the negatives that abounded with the ministry and that are reported here, but the goodness of God I also see in PFAL completely overshadows all of the TWI woes.
That one paragraph can serve as my mini-manifesto on a thumbnail.
I see this overshadowing as similar to Paul’s argument in Romans that the reason God tolerated the disobedience of Adam and death that resulted was He saw the obedience of Jesus Christ as FAR OVERSHADOWING all the woes in death. Paul argues that it’s worth it, what’s coming.
The goodness of God I see in PFAL is like what I see in the stars. Atheists look at the stars and see a testimony of man’s total insignificance. I see them as being there for us, the greatly significant ones, the ones who dare to believe in a God so good that He would create the entire universe just for us.
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So_crates
And continuing from before....
I've spent 42 years of my life with PLAF, following the principles of renewed mind and believing. That's ignoring ridicule for 42 years thinking: "Watch, I'll come out on top." That's 42 years of telling myself I was a super-conquer and that the best is yet to come.
Fourty-two years later, I find little in my life changed. Risks I've taken often failed and those same people encouraging me to take PLAF were no longer around to give me a sense of what I'd done wrong.
As I've related many times, PLAF failed me miserably.
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TLC
IF you are supposing that much silence portrays some sort of great ignorance of that particular subject matter, perhaps you'd allow me to suggest otherwise. I don't doubt there are a few others that occasionally read here that know as much or more than I, and I'm no neophyte on the issue. What is it, exactly, that you would like to bring up or point out about it?
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Mike
I was luckier, somewhat.
I got some subtle results, but I also had lots of obvious failures in the first 15 years. Then I got a 10 year break from all TWI officialdom. After that period, my PFAL experience has been written only for 20 years now. The results I enjoyed got better. About 5 years ago I started seeing some spectacular results.
From my varied results, and from my lucky clean separation of written PFAL out from all the TWI trappings, I would say that what failed you was a complicated mix of PFAL with a lot of TWI junk.
I think it is possible to sort it all out, but it would take time and be a lot of work. I’ll do my best to motivate you should you want to try.
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Mike
I'm interested in the fact that written PFAL does not bring up that verse but in one scant place. I have found an edited article from an old SNS tape that looks like it was going to be a Way Magazine article. VPW did one more SNS on the verse, and Walter did one SNS on it. It looks like it was on the cutting edge of things.
What can you tell me of it?
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So_crates
You apparently didn't read what was written a few post back.
I was in the ministry a total of seven years of those 42 years, so your rationalization about PLAF and Way trappings falls flat.
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Mike
I think I was confusing you with skyrider there. Sorry. I've been reading his thread on TWI-2.
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So_crates
As far as PLAF goes, here's a simple rule of life: It's easy to promise; it's a lot harder to produce.
PLAF proponents will promise you the moon and, when all is said and done, all you'll really get is excuses.
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Grace Valerie Claire
Soc,
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TLC
Why complicate it beyond when his (Christ's) thoughts become our thoughts?
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Twinky
Mike, in a few words, I could present quite a number of things I learned whilst in TWI. Possibly, probably, even from the Orange book. Things I learned then, and continue to believe now. And I know that it's in TWI that I learned those things, because I never learned them in the church I walked out of years before, because it was so boring.
So, then, I find it astonishing that you won't share anything that you learned. You are "not prepared to present" anything. Even though you have seen "spectacular results." Most Christians love to share when they've seen "spectacular results" from seeing God at work.
The difference between you and me (and other Christians), however, is that I (and other Christians) use the Scriptures as the basis for what I believe. And we give thanks and glory to God. Whereas, you use the Orange book as the basis of your beliefs. And give thanks and glory to a man.
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Rocky
Not to use the figure of speech that our good friend from across the pond did (changing the M to N), but perhaps her point is still valid. "Just DO it."
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Mike
It sounds like you are focusing on the law of believing here. I agree that lots of work needs to be done there, but I think it's in our understanding.
But what about the other things PFAL promises? I received good when it comes to God being loving and forgiving. I found out how to read the Bible. I learned to SIT and serve others. Seeing that the dead are dead was a major benefit. I see most of those areas as very successful, even when we don't fully understand them. ...but believing needs some work.
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Mike
The complications are more than just our lack of understanding IMO.
Three more notable points:
(1) VPW points out clearly in the earlier of his tapes that this "Christ in" is not the same as "Christ in you the hope of glory" or the spirit category. This Galatians type of Christ FORMED within is in the soul/mind category.
(2) In the Preface to OMSW the triplet "made, formed, and created" is in a different order than the "body, soul, spirit" triplet a few sentences later.WHY? VPW made special efforts in a Way Mag article about these triplets and their order. Yet he changes that order for "made, formed, and created."
(3) The earlier tape of VPW seems to have an odd mirroring between the ministry in the 70s and Paul's Galatians church. Both VPW and Paul are pulling their hair out, working very hard to get Christ formed in top leadership, but failing totally. The tape has this odd negativity about it and ends that way. It seems to say that Christ formed within just wasn't possible...yet... just like it wasn't happening for Paul with the Galatians.
Putting all three of these together I'm looking at Christ FORMED in the minds of students being not quite available for Paul nor for VPW in the early 70s. The goal of getting all of PFAL into written form is what happened next. That made it finally available with OMSW and the finishing of PFAL.
The reason I look at it this way is the GREAT need. We were given a perfect spirit, but it does not affect the mind. When we read the Word with our natural man mind it's just not possible for the nature of that mind to change itself. It cannot. The things of God are foolishness to it. Once Christ is formed within, then it can be renewed according to the Word.
Having a natural man mind automatically change into the mind of Christ sounds impossible to me. I see the first purpose of PFAL is to get us walking with spirit, and THEN the next step is to get that new Christ formed within. I think that's what PFAL was designed (by God) to do when we stick with it.
So, in answer to your question, I think Christ's thoughts CANNOT become our thoughts as long as we are stuck with a natural man mind.
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Mike
You're forgetting that men wrote the scriptures also. It's not whose pen did the writing, it's which God did the inspiring, in both cases.
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Mike
There's too many things to "just do" so I'll have to choose one by one in the best sequence I can.
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Thomas Loy Bumgarner
Let's go fly a kite, up to its highest height-song from Mary Popins
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Mike
There are two other odd taped comments of VPW that seem to fit in with Gal 4:19 Christ formed.
One is the first SNS tape VPW did after LCM's inaug in 1982. Oddity #1 King Saul's downfall was in the teaching. At the end VPW talks about all his disappointments and about all the things that can and do go wrong. At the end he says he is able to OVERSHADOW all his frustrations "...because I saw him who is like Jesus Christ."
My take is VPW once saw a vision of the first grad to believe PFAL all the way and have Christ formed within the soul.
The other is in Living Victoriously in Hope. On that tape VPW talks about Abraham and how he turned his hope into believing. VPW then goes on to apply this hope-to-believing thing to OUR hope! He pulls a fast one and then buries the whole passage. I've never met a grad yet who heard what I just reported, neither live nor on tape. It's on the tape now, but no one knows about it but me and the people I told... I think. I could be wrong, but there it is, on tape, turning hope to believing, and WHOOSH! it's gone from everyone's memory.
My take on it is that the Christ Formed thing was becoming available for the first time.
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Twinky
Mike, I think you would do much better if you studied the scriptures. Read in several versions. Get some decent Bible software. I recommended this in a much earlier post. Set your thoughts on GOD and / or on JESUS CHRIST, try to think what the scriptures are saying about heart, integrity, and looking forward to the life to come.
Your hunt through PFAL is a trip underground down a rabbit warren. There is a way out, but will you find it?
Anyway, I think I'm done with this. Somebody please wake me up if Mike ever comes up with something of substance.
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