negative thinking an absolute power

HOW CAN NEGATIVE THINKING BECOMES AN ABSOLUTE POWER

To begin with, I'm uneasy of writing this very controversial topic in secular views or beliefs. Perhaps, you never heard of-" HOW CAN NEGATIVE THINKING BECOMES AN OBSOLUTE POWER", instead, maybe you have heard or even study the power of positive thinking which is a very popular subject. I do not deny the power of positive thinking even though it has limitations. It is limited to some point because positive thinking is always a man made thought.

There were many popular men in history who made great success and finally failed in their career. I am truly convinced that these men applied positive thinking in their achievement which resulted them success and finally failure. To name some , we have Adolf Hitler (1889-1945), ruled Germany as dictator from 1933 to 1945. He turned Germany into a powerful war machine and started World War 11 in 1939. He conquered most of Europe before he was defeated in 1945 . Benito Mussolini (1883 -1945),founded Facism and ruled as dictator of Italy for almost 21 years. He tried to build Italy into a great empire. Instead, he left it occupied by the armies of other nation. Napoleon Bonaparte ( 1769- 1821), crowned himself emperor of the French and created an empire that covered most of the western and central Europe. He was the greatest military genius of his time. Napoleon's armies crushed one foe after another until he seemed invincible. For nearly 20 years, many European nations fought him and finally he fell from power.

Right now , If you are using positive thinking in your accomplishment for anything , you know better how hard to obtain continuous success, because whether you like it or not, by using your own power to discipline your mind is a very difficult training, and I am very sure that you cannot reach the absolute power.

Before going farther, let me prove my point by defining the word absolute. According to new world dictionary -absolute means-free from any restriction, limitation or exception: being fully or perfectly as indicated: independent of any arbitrary standard: not comparative or relative, Absolute implies an unquestionable finality.

According to Dr. Charlene Proctor, PH.D- Positive Thinking is a discipline that trains the human mind to change a perceived reality by repeatedly making positive mental statements. Positive thinking is a process of choosing positive emotions from stimuli in the environment and applying them to perceptions and beliefs. The objective is to create an outlook that translates unto a new or better chosen reality.

On the contrary, I would like to give the definition of the positive attitude of a scientist towards future. It is the ability to learn from that failure. As Thomas Edison said "I have failed. I have just found 10,000 ways that won't work ". Sometimes, when positive thinking is applied, it can be likened unto a blind man, seeking for a black cat in a dark room that is not there.

Positive thinking started in the garden of Eden when Eve was tempted by the devil to eat the only forbidden fruit. She started applying positive thinking by walking according to her own will, instead by walking according to God's will. She willed to be like God. Here, we could see that whenever we walk according to our own will we are applying positive thinking in any accomplishment we are in. But whenever we are walking according to God's will we are applying negative thinking because we think and believe that we can do nothing away from God. In (John 15:5) says, I am the vine: you are the branches. If a man remains in me and I in Him, he will bare much fruits: Apart from me you can do nothing.

Somebody says that there are other kinds of thinking in the bible besides negative thinking. We have the positive thinking which is very popular in our society today. We have arrogant thinking, lustful thinking, transform thinking, faithful thinking, persistant thinking, surrendered thinking, sensitive thinking, etc.. Seemingly ,all of these thinkings have power when applied diligently in any endeavor, but they cannot produce absolute power, because they are coming from our mental desire which has limitation. Negative thinking, though, is also coming from our mental desire which has limitation also and cannot produce absolute power by itself, but when it is surrender to God's will, believing that we cannot do anything away from God, then it produces absolute power because God is absolute and infinite: It is God then who will produce the absolute power through us. The word of God proved that negative thinking will always produce absolute power when it is surrendered to the will of God, and the power of our faith in Christ will become the absolute power of Christ in us. So then, by surrendering our negative thinking to the will of God, it will not only produce the absolute power of Christ through us, but also it will produce the absolute power of our faith in Christ.

By this time, I am fully confident to present the accomplishment of some people in the bible from Genesis to Revelation, Who , in their life time had walked according to God's will.

In (Gen. 6:9) says".......Noah walked with God ". Because Noah walked according to God's will, God delivered him and his family from the judgment of the flood. We are told that " by faith Noah, when warned about things not yet seen, in Holy fear built an Ark to save his family. By his faith he condemned the world and became heir of the righteousness that comes by faith " (Heb.11:7). It took faith to prepare an Ark on dry land when it had not even drizzled. Noah was able to finish building the Ark on appointed time because he had walked according to God's will, and it was God who produce the absolute power through him.

I planned to talk about the accomplishment of Abraham, Moses, Joshua, David, Gideon, Joseph, Daniel, Paul, etc. in the bible, and the people during the reformation in Europe like Martin Luther, John Calvin, etc. And also the Godly people of our generation like John Macarthur , R.C. Sproul, Chuck Smith, and also the people whom I mingle with like Bro. Ray Sleiman. These people had accomplished great deed in their life when they walked according to God's will. Most of them they did not even realized the tremendous power of their achievement that effects the lives of millions for many generations, especially the people in the bible like Moses. When he wrote the 5 books called pentateuch, he did not even understand most of what he was writing .He just knew that he was walking according to God's will and the Holy Spirit guided him to write.

But God made me realized that this issue is very broad. It will take at least 200 pages of book and several months to finish in order to satisfy the promulgation. For this reason, I would like to skip and set aside this issue for future writing, instead I would like to move and talk about the faithfulness of God's promise to Abraham. And I believe that it is more beneficial, for the meantime, to know that when God made a promise, He will carry it through.

When God called out Abraham and brought him out of Ur of the Chaldean, He promised to give him land (Gen. 12:1b,7).

If we read (Gen.12:1-3) we could find that God gave threefold promise to Abraham, and this promise is the hub of the bible. The rest of scripture is an unfolding of this threefold promise. The first of the threefold promise is the land (Gen.12:1b, 7) " Go to the land I will show you: and to your offspring I will give this land ". The second part of the promise is the nation (Gen.12:2-3a) " I will make you into a great nation and I will bless you; I will make your name great. " He also promises him, "I will bless those who bless you and whosoever curses you I will curse" (Gen. 12:3a.). The third part of the promise is that he would make him a blessing. " And all people on earth will be blessed through him (Gen. 12:3b ) This is God's threefold promise.

Now the question arises : Has God made good on His promises to Abraham? God has certainly brought from Him a great nation, and it has probably the longest tenure as a nation of any people on this earth. No one can quite match them. How about the third promise- Has Abraham been a blessing to all mankind? Yes, through the Lord Jesus Christ he has been a blessing to the whole world. Also the entire word of God has come to us through Abraham.

How about the first promise-The land? God made two distinct territorial land promise to the descendants of Abraham. The larger territory was described in (Gen. 15:18-21). On that day the Lord made a covenant with Abraham and said, " To your descendants I give this land, from the river of Egypt to the great river, the Euphrates -The land of the Kenites , Kenizzites Kadmonites, Hittites, Perizzites, Rephaites, Amorites, Canaanites, Girgashites, and Jebusites. " The smaller territory which is a part of the larger territory was described in (Gen.17:7-8) " I will establish my covenant as an everlasting covenant between me and you and your descendants after you for the generations to come, to be your God and the God of your descendants after you. The whole land of Canaan , where you are now and alien, I will give as an everlasting possession to you and your descendants after you and I will be their God. "

In (Josh.21:43-45) God had kept His promise to give Israel the land of Canaan as recorded in (Gen.17-18) which is the smaller territory. It says, " So the Lord gave Israel all the land he had swore to give for their forefather , and they took possession of it and settled there. The Lord gave them rest on every side, just as He had sworn to their forefathers . Not one of their enemies withstood them; The Lord handed all their enemies over to them. Not one of all the Lord's good promises to the house to Israel failed : everyone was fulfilled. "

It is true that the Israelites had not yet fully conquered the larger territory described in (Gen.15:18-21), but God had told them they will do so gradually. (Deut. 7:22) says, " The Lord your God will drive out those nations before you, little by little. " The promise of (Gen 15:18-21) involving a larger territory will be fulfilled in the Millenuim.

I would like to quote the commentary of Dr. Mcgee about the promise of the land to the Israelites. "God said that He would not let them be in the land if they were disobedient and if they were away from Him. And they are away from Him today. As a result they are having trouble over there. Do not say that God is not making good His promise. The fact of the matter is that God is doing exactly what He said He would do. The day will come when God will put the people of Israel back in the land, and when He does it, they won't have only a toehold. They will have the land all the way to the Euphrates river and all the way north as far as the Hitttite nation was as all the way south to the river of Egypt, which is a little river in the Arabian dessert. They have never really occupied the land God gave them. At the zenith of their power, they occupied 30,000 square miles, but that is not all that God gave them. Actually, He gave them 300,000 square miles. They have a long way to go, but they will have to get it on God's term and in God's appointed time."

In (Rev. 7:4) says," Then I heard the number of those who were sealed : 144,000 from all the tribes of Israel ". From the day God called Abraham, there has always been a remnant that is true to God. There is a remnant today. There are at least one million Christian Jews living in the world today. During the great tribulation period the 144,000 remnants from the twelve tribes of Israel are the ones who are going to witness of Christ. In (Matt. 24:14), speaking of this period, the Lord Jesus said: "And this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come." The Holy Spirit guarantees that the 144,000 remnants will make it through the great tribulation. They are going to be saved and protected in order to perform some service for God during these days. They are going to evangelize the world and through them a great multitude composed of many racial and geographic groups will be redeemed. The remnants who survived the tribulation period will enter the millinium and there will be a great population explosion during that time. It is evident that God will fulfill His everlasting covenant to the children of Israel during the millinium.

Written by: OSMUNDO S. SABADO

Edited by: ORMAN L. SABADO