Showing posts with label positive thinking. Show all posts
Showing posts with label positive thinking. Show all posts

October 1, 2018

Gender Polarization and alignment

Gender polarization is an ancient monster that has reared its ugly head menacingly and is increasingly prowling around looking for victims to devour in this time. But I cannot remember my siblings and I being deliberately brought up in the polarization way. We were just flowing with life and circumstances.
In my family the women could appear stronger than the men. For example, when a gigantic venomous monitor lizard (or viper) entered our house the men (my dad and eldest brother) ran away and my mom was the one who took up a weapon (a long sharp metal something) pierced the head of the monster and pinned it to the ground. She shouted for the man folk to return and deal with the threshing dying beast. They had no clue what to do. So she instructed them to fetch a tough huge sack so she could cast it into it, tie the sack up and ask them to cart it to the back yard and burn it to ashes. We children were stunned and awed by the cool, composed, tough and bloodless execution all done without display of any emotion on her part.
If my eldest sister was home she probably would have run away too. As for me? I neither fled nor fought. I was just a curious eight years old bystander. Courage is not gender specific. When we kids grow up and have our own family we have displayed immense courage too when needed to protect our loved ones. I cannot think of any specific trait labelled gender-specific in my family.
No, my mom was not a superwoman of gigantic size and prowess. She was a beautiful, intelligent and knowledgeable average size business woman. She was considered the best dressed woman for all time in the oil town where she lived most of her adult life. She rose to the monster-killing occasion when needed. Her goal? Protect her little chicks (including a toddler and an infant) like a mother hen does. After the incident she sat down and continued her afternoon tea as if nothing had happened. Then she instructed us to return to our homework. She was capable of and focused on multitasking as the circumstances required. That was my typical mom.
So where do all these ugly scenes of gender polarization out there come from? Knowing where they come from helps us to resolve them or kill them, just as my mom did with the “monster”.
What about running to the street and crying wolves? You may be too late. The monster (mobster) is really big and evil out there and its sole purpose is to use you and other human to steal, kill and destroy everything human value and love.
What is the solution? This is a question for every Christian to turn inward and ask oneself. One thing I know, aligning with the polarization monster will not bring salvation or deliverance. Whatever you do, if the outcome is creating more divisiveness, more hurt and more destruction, then your alignment is with the death monster and not with the super-abundant life that God has promised and given you and your loved ones in Christ Jesus.
My solution? Come to the point where our sole identity is in Christ. Start afresh from this equality foundation. Unshakable. See yourself the way that God has made you in Christ changes how you think about yourself and that matters most. God is a lot more concerned with where you are going than where you came from. God is in the spiritual realm. He has the best thoughts for you. Why don’t you go to Him for your inner healing instead of calling out the dead and let other more destructive men use you for their ends?

Just thinking aloud: mind deception and truth

My thinking has a lot to do with where I go in life. God is a lot more concerned with where I am going than where I came from. God is in the spiritual realm. He has the best thoughts for me. If I do not begin to think there, I cannot go there in the natural. But if I begin to think in a different realm, that is, the spiritual, my thoughts will help me go there and bring back to the natural every spiritual blessing and prove the perfect will of God in my natural life.

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The way we think influences the contents we speak of. Some people may prefer their life colors remain in varying shades of grey. But there are times in lives we stand at the watershed between truth and untruth and need to make a clearly demarcated decision.
A current news event has stirred up my memory of a story I read sometime ago about a young woman uncovering her unmarried aunt’s reason for remaining single. She still could not forget her first love from junior high school. She did not marry him because she was ambitious and felt that he could not possibly give her the financial freedom she yearned for. They separated and lost contact for decades. She became a famous commercial artist in her own right. The young niece did some sleuthing and finally tracked down the man in question. He turned out to be a very successful but reclusive industrialist manufacturing highly sought after exquisite glassware. He had married, divorced and remained single. He soon detected this young girl stalking him and confronted her. Here is the anti-climax: when she told him she was trying to reconcile him with her aunt, he categorically denied having ever known her aunt!
What really happened? The girl was disappointed and puzzled. The aunt told her the name of her first love and this man bore that name. But this man had no idea who the aunt was and denied ever loving any woman of that description. The girl finally found and showed him the faded photo of her aunt and her young lover from high school. It dawned on the industrialist that the young man was his classmate and good friend then. Apparently the aunt remembered a wrong name. The girl was shocked. All these years the aunt was stalking/thinking of the wrong man when she kept abreast of news about his development and achievements in life.
But what happened to the other man? The undistinguished real lover? The girl eventually found him, an ordinary man at his death bed in a hospice. He had married, propagated, widowed, retired and lived with his grown-up son and family. He thought she was her aunt because of the resemblance. In the story she let this poor man hold her hand until he breathed his last.
I know my memory cannot be classified as totally objective, factual, accurately organized and stored like untempered computer data. I used to think otherwise. But one day my younger sister unknowingly challenged the accuracy of my facts. I overheard her recalling a historical family incident to our younger relatives. I remember everything just as she narrated except for one crucial fact. In my memory I was the hero who did that act of charity. In her narration she became that charitable person! How can that be? I was stunned. I stayed silent. Either one of us has to be wrong. Who is it? She is an honest person. I know that as a fact. So am I. But one of us remembers an untruth.
What affects my memory? How do I remember things? I use ways to memorize different details, often by associations which are not entirely reliable. Despite being a very careful reader of maps, when I am driving in a less familiar terrain (and without GPS), suddenly realizing that some familiar landmarks have changed without my previous noticing, I would find myself stopping my car in the middle of the road, pulling aside to figure out where I am on the map, because I cannot rely on my internalized auto-pilot system anymore.
I personally find that faces, names and places are the most difficult items to synchronize when recalling. Often I have to put memory pieces like jigsaw puzzles (real and imagined?) together to form a coherent (in my thinking) narrative picture. Association can be misleading and deceptive too like the story above of the two young men and their names being mixed up in the memory of a young girl.
Being fond of writing and reading words, I realize that my thinking formulates pictures the way I see them in my mind which is in turn influenced by many variable factors, some real, some unintentionally and often unconsciously creatively imagined. After awhile, I even speak as if they are real. I am thankful that I have a family and loved ones with enough common sense and who are not afraid to point out where I err in this memory-recalling processing task.
What matters is how God sees us. Knowing how He sees me and aligning with His view will be the best guide for every aspect of life. What about memory? Leave it aside unless it fits the following happy thoughts.
So keep your (my) thoughts continually fixed on all that is authentic and real, honorable and admirable, beautiful and respectful, pure and holy, merciful and kind. And fasten your (my) thoughts on every glorious work of God, praising Him always. (Philippians 4:8)

May 2, 2014

the positive power of the word: "confess"

Today we come to one powerful positive word: “confess”. Take note that this is a verb and not a noun. The word has often been associated with fear. No one wants to make public his or her deepest secret. The word “confess” intrudes. However, today we look at the positive side of this word which is in truth a key to opening the door to victory in life!
Here are some powerful and real life and death matters on positive confessions in the Bible:
Jesus ‘confesses’ good reports about believers to God in heaven, for recording purposes! (Praise God for such a system of positive record – the Book of life !)
Matthew 10:32[ Confess Christ Before Men ] “Therefore whoever confesses Me before men, him I will also confess before My Father who is in heaven. Matthew 10:31-33 (in Context)
Revelation 3:5 He who overcomes shall be clothed in white garments, and I will not blot out his name from the Book of Life; but I will confess his name before My Father and before His angels. Revelation 3:4-6 (in Context)
Apostle Peter ‘confesses’ correctly (as led by the Holy Spirit) and is commended instantly by Jesus:
Matthew 16:15-17
15 He said to them, “But who do you say that I am?” 16 Simon Peter answered and said, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” 17 Jesus answered and said to him, “Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jonah, for flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but My Father who is in heaven.
Confessing rightly with our mouths bring us to salvation!
Romans 10:9-10 that if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart one believes unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.  Romans 10:8-10 (in Context)
When one confesses, God is listening. Each individual confesses to the Almighty God.
Romans 14:10-12
10 But why do you judge your brother? Or why do you show contempt for your brother? For we shall all stand before the judgment seat of Christ.[a] 11 For it is written:
As I live, says the Lord,
Every knee shall bow to Me,
And every tongue shall confess to God.”[b]
12 So then each of us shall give account of himself to God.
When one confesses, one is giving glory to God. The name of Jesus is exalted. it has to come from the heart and not mere lip service. God knows. 
Philippians 2:10-12
10 that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of those in heaven, and of those on earth, and of those under the earth, 11 and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.
12 Therefore, my beloved, as you have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling;
One confesses to God for sins. Why? Because God wants to forgive you.
1 John 1:9 If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. 1 John 1:8-10 (in Context)
I confesses who Jesus is, to me. Why? Because God wants to live in me.
1 John 4:15 Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in him, and he in God. 1 John 4:14-16 (in Context)
What shall I do, after confessing Who Jesus is to me? Hold fast to my confession.
1 Timothy 6:12 Fight the good fight of faith, lay hold on eternal life, to which you were also called and have confessed the good confession in the presence of many witnesses. 1 Timothy 6:11-13 (in Context)

August 8, 2011

End Times Witnessing: Famine Years – Bad to Worse

One day before the stock market plummeted, while praying a routine prayer for his family, the watchman was led in the spirit to read the following passages: 2 Kings Chapters 6,7, and 8:1-6. It was indeed awesome when he saw the headline the next day!

Summary:

6:1-7 th floating axe head. He has not yet received the meaning of this passage in relation to his family. But he found relevance in the statement from the disciple prophets to Prophet Elisha that “this place where we meet with you is too small. let’s go…there we can build a new place for us to meet.” Indeed lately he has run out of rooms in his house for the sudden arrival of the younger generations.

6:24-7:20 Samaria was besieged but the lepers plundered the enemy’s camp. There was a great famine in the city. But God intervened and caused the enemy to flee for their lives, abandoning all their possessions to Israel. Overnight there was a drastic drop in market prices!

8:1-6 This is about a woman from Shunem whom Elisha advised to leave home with her family during the seven years of famine and after the end of which returned home to re-claim her house and land successfully. She was even compensated for the values of the harvest of her crops during the period of her absence.
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The watchman suggested that readers SEEK GOD NOW for your own situation and direction for the famine years. Decode the above passages yourselves.

April 13, 2011

Watchman’s adventure: memorize the names of 66 books in the Bible (the lighter Asian way)

The class asked the watchman for tips to memorize the names of the 66 books in the Bible. So the watchman woke one day hearing all the sounds in the oriental way. The following is strictly meant for those who desperately need creative help to visualize words. (You will find sounds like Asian names. Indeed there is a story in these sounds!) However, the best way is still to keep reading the Bible until you know all the books inside out.


Old Testament Books


Gen Ex Le Num De (a Gen-X Asian man named ‘Li Num-De’)

Jos Jud Ru Sam Sam (making a watery dessert ‘Jud Ru’, which is the same as a popular green asian jelly ‘chendol’)

Kin Kin Chron Chron Ez N Es (making a lot of sound in vain; so he has to SMS his friends to come to his aid)

Job Psalm Pro Eccl Song (2 men came : “Jackson Po’ and ‘Edgar Song’)

Isa J Lam Eze Dan (another 3 men came : “Isa’ , ‘J Lam’ and ‘Easy Dan’)

Ho Joe Amo O (his son ‘Ho Joe’ and daughter in law ‘Amo O’ also helped)

Jon Mi Na Hab Zeph (his friendly neighbor ‘Jominah Haja’ helped)

Ha Zech Ma (another Japanese friend ‘Hajima’ also helped)

(Together they worked as a team and finally produced the delicious dessert ‘Jud-Ru’ which all enjoyed eating!)



New Testaments Books


Ma Ma Luk John ( a man named John was to make marmalade)

A Ro Cor Cor (they are cocoa flavored)

Gal Eph Phili Co (he asked his little boy ‘Phili Co’ to get up to help)

Thess Thess Tim Tim Ti Phile He (to taste the sweet stuff; also asking his little girl ‘Phile He’ to taste)

Jam Pet Pet 123 John Jud R (finally he finished and packed the jam and his children cheered him on)

(They worked as a happy family and lived happily ever after enjoying the delicious jam.)

May 20, 2010

Management according to Jack (part two)

What are some essential requirements for effective management? Here are some tips:
1. Effective management works on the assumption that resources are scarce and limited and valuable.
2. Effective management's success does not depend on the dead know how (systems, records, files, figures, practices). Effective management's success comes from the availability of and effective use of dynamic living things: e.g. people who manage and are being managed, and other essential resources (tangible and non-tangible: opportunities, time, money, premises, equipment, technology, creativity, relationship, distribution channels etc.) that can produce, create values and contribute to desired growth.
3. Effective management means using available and limited resources in optimum combination to produce maximized results/targets as expected.
4. A primitive man with the basic essential resources can still produce something even when he has to start from zero with no figures, no files, no records, no established system etc.
5. In a modern organization, management system is created or adopted to enhance the effectiveness and efficiency of management, often with the objective of maximizing and optimizing the use of limited resources for improvement and expansion of desired results (in quantity and quality).
6. Management system changes overtime like a live creature, adapting to various forces (internal and external environment) working for survival. It therefore requires to renew and often transform, to keep up if not move ahead of its competition for scarce resources.
7. Effective management system aims to be ahead of the pack, based on the assumption that desirable resources are scarce.
8. Christian management system is different from others. The main distinction is the management manual (the words of God).
9. When Christian manager follows God's management manual, he can only succeed. This is guaranteed by the ultimate Authority Himself.
10. Effective Christian management practice requires: faith in the unseen God, supernatural belief in all His promises, knowledge of and adherence to the words of God, submission to His will and being led by the Holy Spirit in all aspects of decision making and operational execution.

Management pearls for Christians according to Jack

Background
Jack has been practicing management since 1970s. He has been through many facets of various management fields. To him, management is like a part of life and indeed encompasses many daily living aspects whether one knows it or not.
After his career as a corporate employee he has branched into training and coaching others (business owners and employees). He also did postgraduate studies in health (physical, emotional and mental) and social behavioral management. All this while, he has been active in church (organizational and spiritual) and other similar non-profit organization management counseling as well. Due to the nature of his job, he has had numerous encounters with public sector management/administration practices.
He has now sensed an increasingly urgent need to put down some of his thoughts (in bullet form) on the management of life in view of such a lot of management messes out there even for Christians. 

 Management according to Jack (part one)
1. Management is part of daily living. You can live on comfortably by managing effectively.
2. You manage effectively by identifying values, setting goals and priorities, and act on them accordingly.
3. The most important thing is to identify your values. If tomorrow is end day what would be the one thing you do today? Give top priority to do that one thing.
4. Focus your resources on doing the one thing that guarantees to bring you to your goals.
5.  Do not manage by documentation or theory. Manage by practice (e.g. act on your faith, be doers of the Word, walk by the Spirit.)
6. Manage lives (people) and not dead things (system).
7. Admit that there is no perfect plan or program or man (woman). There is only one perfect Savior (God).
8.  Build on solid foundation. Who is your foundation (your real Rock)?(Don't be like the foolish man who built on sand).
9. Use one management manual that lasts, the Word of God.
10. Be accountable (to yourself, family, human authorities, and the ultimate Authority in heaven).

February 20, 2010

Chapter Seventy: Prosper through The Seed (Word of God) and Water from Heaven (the Holy Spirit)


One day Jack was strongly urged in the spirit to do a search on all the verses about the rich provision of God. What was revealed has transformed his whole perspective about the blessings of God. He discovered that indeed God has supplied seeds and ensure material security and provision growth for all God’s children.
He is overjoyed to see how God provides the seeds for the sowers and food for them as well. The Lord supplies the resources he needs, ensures the right circumstances and environments and produces the abundant end results / fruits and profits of his labor/investment.
However, there is one crucial key: the whole operation process requires the pouring of the Holy Spirit! It is all about the Holy Spirit bringing forth the blessings (as covenanted with Abraham and re-validated by Jesus) and making them materialized. The word of God is the seed and the Holy Spirit is the water.
Isaiah 32:15 “Until the Holy Spirit is poured upon us from on high, and the wilderness becomes a fruitful field, and the fruitful field is counted as a forest.”
Isaiah 32:20 How blessed you will be, sowing your seed by every stream. (The word of God and the Holy Spirit go hand in hand!)
Deut 32:2 Let my teaching fall like rain and  my words descend like dew, like showers on new grass, like abundant rain on tender plant.

Those who believe will be richly and abundantly blessed by these verses!
Isaiah 30:23-26 God will provide rain for the seeds you sow. The grain that grows will be abundant. Your cattle will range far and wide. Oblivious to war and earthquake, the oxen and donkeys you use for hauling and plowing will be fed well near running brooks that flow freely from mountains and hills. Better yet, on the Day God heals his people of the wounds and bruises from the time of punishment, moonlight will flare into sunlight, and sunlight, like a whole week of sunshine at once, will flood the land.
Isaiah 55:10-11
10 “ For as the rain comes down, and the snow from heaven,
And do not return there,
But water the earth,
And make it bring forth and bud,
That it may give seed to the sower
And bread to the eater,”
11 “So shall My word be that goes forth from My mouth;
It shall not return to Me void,
But it shall accomplish what I please,
And it shall prosper in the thing for which I sent it.”
Psalm 65:9-13
9 You visit the earth and cause it to overflow;
You greatly enrich it;
The stream of God is full of water;
You prepare their grain, for thus You prepare the earth.
10 You water its furrows abundantly,
You settle its ridges,
You soften it with showers,
You bless its growth.
11 You have crowned the year with Your bounty,
And Your paths drip with fatness.
12 The pastures of the wilderness drip,
And the hills gird themselves with rejoicing.
13 The meadows are clothed with flocks
And the valleys are covered with grain;
They shout for joy, yes, they sing.
Psalm 104:13-14
13 He waters the hills from His upper chambers;
The earth is satisfied with the fruit of Your works.
14 He causes the grass to grow for the cattle,
And vegetation for the service of man,
That he may bring forth food from the earth.
Psalm 72:6 He will be like rain falling on a mown field, like showers watering the earth. In his days the righteous will flourish; prosperity will abound till the moon is no more.
Psalm 72:16 Let grain abound throughout the land; on the tops of the hills may it sway. Let its fruit flourish like Lebanon; let it thrive like the grass of the field.
Psalm 144:13 Your barns will be filled with every kind of provision.
Psalm 147:14 He grants peace to your borders and satisfies you with the finest of wheat.

July 8, 2008

positive thinking vs Christian faith



positive thinking for wellness and success
There are differences between positive thinking and the Christian faith.

Today I need to explain the difference between positive belief vs Christian faith. There is a crucial difference.

In secular teachings, everyone can believe that God is good and kind and loving and will make whatever man says posi come true.

In Christian faith we believe the same goodness of God based on the words of God and based on His Son Jesus' life on earth. So what is the difference?

The key difference is about life and death.

Based on God's words as recorded in the Bible, and based on what Jesus had accomplished on the cross 2000 years ago, Christians believe that God is righteous too.

In the Old Covenant God had demonstrated this requirement by saving only those people with the sacrificial blood on their door posts. The blood made the difference. No amount of positive thinking and positive belief and positive saying managed to save anyone who did not have the sacrificial blood on their door posts.

In the New Covenant, which encompasses all the good promises and blessings of the Old, only one sacrificial blood was made once on the cross and this was shed by Jesus - the Son of God. Christian faith requires the belief of having this blood on our lives' door-posts. The righteous effect of this blood lasts the whole eternity.

Christians speak positive sayings and believe positive goodness about God and believe that He will give us all that he has promised in both the Old and New Covenant because we believe that Jesus has secured the delivery of these blessings for us who believe in Him.

We have become the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus and can now receive all the blessings God had reserved for the righteous person. We have also become the children of God and the heirs of Abraham and can now enjoy all the blessings that God has promised to Abraham and his descendents.

This is not wishful thinking or positive belief that our words have power to make God carry out our wishes. We merely believe in what Jesus has done for us and receive with thankfulness by faith in His accomplished work on the cross. Our positive thinking is based on His assurance.

The key here is Christians believe in the positive outcome by faith in the reality of a spiritual realm, the goodness of an eternal loving and righteous God and all these are based on the promises in His Word (the Bible). 

A MATTER OF HAVING THE SUPERNATURAL POWER TO TRANSFORM FROM WITHIN US AND MANIFEST IN ALL ASPECTS OF OUR PHYSICAL LIFE
For I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God that brings salvation to everyone who believes: first to the Jew, then to the Gentile.
In Context | Full Chapter
by the power of signs and wonders, through the power of the Spirit of God. So from Jerusalem all the way around to Illyricum, I have fully proclaimed the gospel of Christ.
because our gospel came to you not simply with words but also with power, with the Holy Spirit and deep conviction. You know how we lived among you for your sake.
In Context | Full Chapter

Here is an article on Christian Philosophy
Every person views their life through a filter. For example, optimists see opportunity in every situation they face, while pessimists can only see defeat and failure. Both could be facing the same circumstances, but their filter determines how they respond. That filter could also be called their philosophy.
A philosophy is simply a way of thinking. And whether you know it or not, the direction that your life is going has been influenced and controlled by your personal philosophy or your dominant way of thinking. Proverbs 23:7 says, “For as he thinketh in his heart, so is he.” If that is true—and it is—then it makes sense to be sure that you are viewing your life through the right filter.
Colossians 2:8 says, “Beware lest any man spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit, after the tradition of men, after the rudiments of the world, and not after Christ.”
In this scripture, Paul was giving the believers in Colosse a warning. The word “beware” is being used in the sense of a sentry on guard duty. It’s a military term talking about being on guard, being on the lookout. And the word “spoil” is not talking about food; it’s talking about the spoils of war that go to the victor—the gold and silver and land.
Paul was saying to be on guard lest you be overcome by an Enemy that will strip you of your treasure, which is the truth that God has placed in your heart. That Enemy, the devil, wants to steal what God has given to you, using the world’s philosophies and the religious traditions of man.
Jesus referred to this in Matthew 15:8-9, which say, “This people draweth nigh unto me with their mouth, and honoureth me with their lips; but their heart is far from me. But in vain they do worship me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men.”
The people believed the commandments of men more than the Word of God. They maintained a form of godliness but denied the power of the Gospel of Jesus (2 Tim. 3:5). Jewish leaders were saying that Jesus was not enough, that the people still needed to observe rituals and ceremony, and those requirements were making the Word of God of no effect in their lives: “Thus have ye made the commandment of God of none effect by your tradition” (Matt. 15:6).
They were operating according to a philosophy, but the wrong one. Many Christians are doing the same thing today. They have bits and pieces of the Word of God filed away in their brains, but they have not meditated on them enough to change their core beliefs. When the pressures of life come, they are able to quote dozens of scriptures claiming God’s promises, but they act according to their heart values.
A good example of this can be seen in the life of one of our recent Bible college students. She’s in her sixties and a really great woman of God. She had listened to my teachings on prosperity and could quote all the related verses. Intellectually, she understood everything I taught.
But at the heart level, she still had a poverty mentality, or you could say a poverty philosophy. She had been raised by parents who went through the Depression and had successfully indoctrinated her with the fear of lack. She was so fearful that she stored and hoarded everything, even keeping her money at home, not trusting banks.
Although she had accumulated some money with her philosophy, she still saw herself as poor, and it affected all of her decision making. Her philosophy, or way of thinking, was actually holding her captive and limiting what God could do through her life.
If at your core, you have a philosophy—a way of thinking—that is negative, it will manifest in your life. If you see yourself as broke, sick, or a failure, it will become a self-fulfilling prophecy. On the other hand, if at your core you see yourself as prosperous, healthy, and successful, that will be what manifests in your life. So, it’s important that your philosophy is based on the truth of God’s Word.
It’s through the subtle deception of human philosophy that Satan tries to deceive us. The first example of that can be found in Genesis 3:1-5.
Now the serpent was more subtle than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made. And he said unto the woman, Yea, hath God said, Ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden? And the woman said unto the serpent, We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden: But of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God hath said, Ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it, lest ye die. And the serpent said unto the woman, Ye shall not surely die: For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil.
Now think about this: It says that the serpent was more subtle. The word subtle means crafty, sly, cunning, and deceptive. He wasn’t using a frontal attack to overpower Adam and Eve; he was attempting to change their way of thinking, their philosophy.
Adam and Eve began with a pure philosophy. They were completely dependent upon God and never questioned His wisdom and goodness. Satan first caused them to question God’s word, and then he caused them to question God’s goodness. He beguiled them, which is what Paul was writing about in 2 Corinthians 11:3 – “But I fear, lest by any means, as the serpent beguiled Eve through his subtlety, so your minds should be corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ.”
Satan has never changed his tactics. He is at work through our society and culture trying to create a philosophy that is contrary to God’s Word. He is always trying to devalue the finished work of Jesus and His Word. Sad to say, it’s working. Even most Christians today do not have their belief systems firmly in place. They are influenced more by culture, motion pictures, their upbringing, or the opinions of others than by the Word of God.
Many of you reading this letter know what the Scripture says. You have read that God wants you to prosper and be in health even as your soul prospers. You have read that by His stripes, you were healed and that Jesus came to give you life and life more abundantly. Yet when you look in the mirror, you see a failure, a loser, or a sick and defeated person. Why is that?
It’s because of your core philosophy. Maybe your parents told you that you would never amount to anything, or a previous mate convinced you that you were worthless. Or perhaps a religious leader told you that you were cursed because of your behavior, and you believed him or her. Whatever the root cause for your belief (philosophy), you are being spoiled, and your treasure is being stolen.
If that is you, then begin changing the way you think. Study and meditate in the Word of God, and change your basic core beliefs. “For the word of God is quick, and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart” (Heb. 4:12).
In my own life, as I began to change the way I thought, it opened the door to the blessings that God had for me all along. I was actually limiting God by my small thinking; i.e., my philosophy. You may be doing the same thing. If you are, don’t waste any more time—change your mind.
Every believer needs to have a clear biblical philosophy, and it must be based solely on the Word of God. Without it, you will be tossed to and fro with every wind of doctrine.
(By Andrew Wommack)
Please visit their web site for more positive words!

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