Imagine this! It's Sunday morning. You've worked hard all week at your job. You exhausted yourself working on projects around the house yesterday. So, you decide to not go anywhere today. You just want to fix a cup of coffee for yourself and be a couch potato. You start channel surfing the television with your remote and there he is. It's the Reverend Roban Tilted's Hour Of Miracle Power! He's got an upbeat tune with dazzling video graphics. Soon they fade to the Reverend Roban's smiling face and he is so excited to tell you of all the fantastic miracles the Lord has been doing in his ministry, from healing to financial blessings. Then he goes into a passionate rant of all the evils in this world and the starving children in Pottsylvania that need your immediate help. He also needs money to keep his program on the air so those poor children suffering and dying on the other side of the globe will be fed. If you will just give a vow of $1,000, the Lord will bless you a hundredfold. However, be warned! This is a vow, not a pledge. If you forsake your vow, the Lord shall smite, thee! Then he goes on to pray, "OOOOHHH Lord! Weeee beseech Theeeee! Have mercy on our wretched souls. Help those whooo have taken a leap of faith to keep their vows. Bless them a hundredfold, Oooh Lord of plenty."
Most rational people would perceive this to be religious entertainment not to be taken seriously. For one thing, do we really need to pray that way to talk to God? If you spoke that way to anyone else, they would wonder what you've been smoking. You are convinced that it is all fake and wonder just how this guy stays on the air. You see parodies of him and other evangelists all the time in syndicated cartoons and comedy shows. Yet they seem to have a large number of people following him with what looks to be blind faith. You ask yourself, "Can they really be that stupid?" Maybe I can help you understand.
Whether Reverend Tilted is real or fake, he understands something you may not. He knows how to use psychology to whip up an emotional frenzy in his followers. He sucks them in with his fire and passion. He shows them evidence (real or fake) that the Lord is doing miracles. He convinces them he is an oracle of God! He gives them a purpose by including them in his ministry. He promises that God has given His word to honor the gifting vows with a hundredfold return. This strongly appeals as an answer to those in need. You may notice this same type of psychology is being used by successful advertisers, Internet marketers and self help gurus.
On the other side is childlike faith. The believers just believe and it actually works for many of them. This convinces them that God is truly working through the good Reverend Tilted. However, it was their faith that manifested the blessings. The good reverend was merely the catalyst. Here is a story from the Bible that illustrates the power of faith.
The Healing Touch
As Jesus was on his way, the crowds almost crushed him. And a woman was there who had been subject to bleeding for twelve years, but no one could heal her. She came up behind him and touched the edge of his cloak, and immediately her bleeding stopped. "Who touched me?" Jesus asked. When they all denied it, Peter said, "Master, the people are crowding and pressing against you." But Jesus said, "Someone touched me; I know that power has gone out from me." Then the woman, seeing that she could not go unnoticed, came trembling and fell at his feet. In the presence of all the people, she told why she had touched him and how she had been instantly healed. Then he said to her, "Daughter, your faith has healed you. Go in peace." Luke 8:42b-48 NIV
Illustrating Faith
Now all this was said to illustrate the principle of faith. With all our advances in science and medicine, doctors are still baffled when it comes to cancer patients going into remission. Studies have shown that prayer, laughter and a positive attitude promote the healing process and sense of well being. I have even heard a story from a friend, who went through the AA program, who had an atheist friend in the program who quit drinking by adopting a doorknob as his higher power. He said, "That doorknob never drank!" Whether you realize it or not, you also walk in blind faith. Every day, you sit in a chair with faith that it will hold you up. You get on a bus, plane, train, boat or in a car with faith that you will arrive at your destination safely. You have faith in the things that you believe are true (real or not) until you learn new things that expand or correct your sphere of knowledge. How you perceive your world is your construct of reality, your Matrix so to speak. The Secret is in how your soul operates and what you focus on.
Your soul is your mind, will and emotions, as I spoke of in a previous blog post. Your soul is spiritual by nature and cannot be examined in a test tube. Test tubes are a manifestation of an idea brought forth from someones mind. Given the ingredients of what you can imagine, combined with your knowledge, force of passion and strength of will, you manifest what you are, what you have, what you will have and what you will become. Here is a truth I believe most everyone can agree with. Your attitude and perception of reality determine the choices you make each moment of every day. Those choices determine your future.
So I ask you, "What are you thinking about right now?" Are you worried about the economy? Is a Michael Jackson song playing in your head? Are you wondering where Pottsylvania is? Do you know what it means to have Jesus save your soul? Is it just about getting into heaven when you die or is there something more? Do you know your thoughts determine your focus? Do you know that your level of focus, passion and perseverance determine your success in life? Do you know there is an ongoing battle for your soul? Every day you are being bombarded with messages of do this, buy that, this is what you need to be happy and that is not. We are being psychologically conditioned to let others think for us.
What Is Your Focus?
Think about this. All that I have been saying in all of my blog posts have been meant to lay a foundation to build on a core idea that I found to have merit. It is called The Law Of Attraction expressed by the movie, The Secret. As I have also said in past blogs, there is New Age elements within the book and movie that may mislead people into thinking the universe is just a giant Genie eager to grant your wishes and that becoming completely divine is possible. It is true that God loves us and wants to bless us. It is true that becoming a yielded vessel in the Body of Christ makes you part of the divine.
The questions remain, can you handle the blessing? Like Bruce Almighty, would you use God's awesome power wisely? Are you overcoming your "stinking thinking?" (counter intentions) Are you faithful in the little things? As Ben Franklin put it,"Watch the pennies and the dollars will take care of themselves." Like many who have won the lottery, will you end up worse than you were before? God does not want to give you anything that would cause your destruction. I agree with Wallace D. Wattles, author of The Science Of Getting Rich, that getting rich is the result of doing things a Certain Way. I also believe the New Testament has been speaking of the same thing for nearly 2,000 years. As Dr. Michael Beckwith stated in an audio book, we need to be as a sunbeam is to the sun. This describes the Body of Christ that the Apostle Paul spoke of in 1 Corinthians 12:12-13. We follow Christ as the Head of the Body, not Reverend Tilted. Jesus laid the foundation of that Certain Way when he said, "But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well." Matthew 6:33 NIV
