[Faith-talk] Daily Thought for Saturday, September 14, 2013

Sat Sep 14 20:47:12 UTC 2013

Absolutely; I have been studying this for several years.  Outstanding. 

-----Original Message-----
From: Faith-talk [mailto:faith-talk-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of Poppa
Bear
Sent: Saturday, September 14, 2013 3:23 PM
To: Faith-talk, for the discussion of faith and religion
Subject: Re: [Faith-talk] Daily Thought for Saturday, September 14, 2013

I would like to hear more in this series. It hit the Spiritual spot right
about now.
Blessings
----- Original Message -----
From: "Paul" <oilofgladness47 at gmail.com>
To: <iccshare at yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Saturday, September 14, 2013 11:08 AM
Subject: [Faith-talk] Daily Thought for Saturday, September 14, 2013

> Hello and good day to you all.  I hope and pray that, by God's 
> matchless grace and His providential care, that your Saturday is going 
> well or about to end.  To you in the UK, if rugby season is in full 
> swing, I hope that your favorite team was the winner today, whether 
> that be Manchester United, Doncaster Rovers or whatever your favorite 
> or local team is.  And for you cricket fans, if teams in your part of 
> the world had test matches today, that they did well.  Not being very 
> cognizant of rugby and cricket, won't comment here.  We in the United 
> States, if we are obsessed with Saturday football (somewhat similar to 
> rugby), we have our favorite college or university teams, and may the best
one win.
>
> Today we have the first of at least a two-part article, the second of 
> which will appear sometime next month if there is sufficient interest.  
> It was written by the late Dr. Ralph Montanus (1919-1986), founder of 
> the Gospel Association for the Blind and editor of its house organ, 
> "The Gospel Messenger." His article for today has a rather unique 
> title.  It is "Your Thoughts Govern Your Life" and is rendered as follows:
>
> Someone said, "Sow a thought and reap a character." That statement is 
> in conformity with God's Word.  In Proverbs, chapter 23, verse 7, we 
> read, "For as a man thinketh in his heart, so is he."
>
> Some years ago, a famous physician wrote the book, "You Are What You Eat."

> It was one of the greatest selling books of its day and was jam-packed 
> with wise nutritional information.  The physician who authored the 
> book showed how a balanced diet, which is called the 20-20-60 diet, 
> made for excellent health and even improved our personality.  What was 
> meant by the
> 20-20-60 diet was that the intake should be 20% protein, 20% fats and 
> carbohydrates, and 60% vitamins and minerals found in leafy vegetables 
> and other sources of plant life.
>
> No matter how excellent that book was, it was just a matter of time 
> before the adherents, together with the author of the book, would pass 
> on into eternity.  In fact, as I write to you today, the author of 
> that book has been gone from the land of the living now for a number of
years.
>
> There is something far more meaningful to our lives than even food and 
> raiment.  That is the proper use of our thought life.  Remember these 
> words from the Scriptures, "For as a man thinketh in his heart, so is he."
> Perhaps a book with the title "You Are What You Think," would be more 
> meaningful than the former.
>
> Your mind is the master control of your entire being.  Fortunately, 
> God has so constructed us that we have the power of choice.  We are 
> not mere creatures of chance, but of choice.  God has given us the power
to will.
> One could make a lifetime study of that mental quality and emotional 
> guide of our words and actions called our will.  Not only has God 
> given us a will, but He has also given us sensibility and intellect.  
> Intellect, sensibility and will are resident in the master control 
> called our mind which, as the Bible frequently refers to it, is our 
> heart.  Whenever the Bible speaks of our heart, it never means the 
> pump in our chest, but speaks of the seat of our affections.  For 
> example, Jesus asked, "Why reason ye these things in your heart?" 
> (Mark 2:8).  On another occasion, our Lord said, "Out of the abundance of
the heart the mouth speaketh"
> (Matthew 12:34).
>
> Still another admonition is given to us to keep our hearts with all 
> diligence for out of them proceed the issues of life.  How magnificent 
> that God, in creation, has bestowed upon man the ability of intellect, 
> sense, and choice.
>
> Now, let us go back to our key text, "As a man thinketh in his heart, 
> so is he." This reveals to me that my thought life affects my 
> deportment and character.  Let us illustrate by thinking that we have 
> awakened in the morning and look out the window.  We suddenly exclaim, 
> "Oh, what a rotten day." This thought immediately triggers a whole 
> chain of reaction in our nervous system, resulting in our emotional 
> state becoming affected in an adverse way.  It cannot be long that the 
> thought of a rotten day results in the emotional state of our feeling 
> rather rotten.  The thought that results in feelings very soon will be
expressed in both words and deeds.
>
> If you think badly, it is not long before you feel badly, and you 
> speak and act in the most unbecoming way.  That is why the psalmist 
> gave the secret to the child of God found in Psalm 118:24.  "This is 
> the day which the Lord hath made; we will rejoice and be glad in it." 
> There is the secret of victory.  There is the area of well-being.  A 
> rejoicing attitude results in a merry, happy, emotional state that 
> expresses itself in cheerfulness, both in word and in deed.
>
> Today, a brand new science has sprung up called psychosomatic medicine. 
> Over the years, physicians have discovered that frequently patients 
> who visit them with symptoms are not at all organically sick.  In 
> fact, it is estimated that 70% of all patients visiting their family 
> physician are not organically sick, but they are truly 
> psychosomatically hurting.  Upon further investigation, it has been 
> found that our thought life can affect our physical well-being and 
> create such illnesses as arthritis, lumbago, sciatica, tooth decay, 
> and all sort of rheumatic aches and pains.  In the coming days, we will
give some documented evidence of this truth.
>
> Not too long ago, a well-known specialist in the treatment of ulcers 
> wrote a book regarding this ailment.  To sum up his entire book in a 
> very brief statement, it brought out the fact that "ulcers are not 
> caused primarily by what you eat, but what is eating you." Such 
> beginnings in the area of observing what the mind can do in adverse 
> reaction to the body has made psychosomatic medicine some sort of
specialty.
>
> It has also been discovered that the normal adult does not use more 
> than the capacity of 1/3 of his mind during his entire lifetime.  This 
> very source of knowledge, this God-given and God-created computer of 
> wisdom, discernment, and choice is never used in its entirety.
>
> There has been one other interesting discovery concerning the mind and 
> that is that we can just think one thought at a time.  It is true that 
> the thoughts are rapid, sometimes ambiguous, even in various clusters, 
> but when all is said and done, in the final analysis, you can think 
> but one thought at a time.  If you do not believe this, then make the 
> following experiment.  Lean back, relax, and endeavor to think of the 
> full moon and, at the same time, what you are going to do tomorrow 
> morning.  That ought to be sufficient evidence of the fact that you 
> cannot think of two things at the same time.
>
> Now what does all of this have to do with God's proclamation of the 
> fact that you are what you think? Well, let us, once again, examine 
> the progress of thought.  We first think about something which, in 
> turn, influences our emotional state, and we have feelings which are 
> the result of those thoughts.  Then, in turn, our thought life that 
> has affected our emotional state is reflected or manifested in our 
> actions.  So, the simplest breakdown is thought, feeling, action.  By 
> an act of our will, we can govern our thoughts.
>
> Right hear, I can hear someone say, "How do you do that?" God willing, 
> next month, we are going to dwell on the answer to that question.
> However, between now and then, may I say that God would never tell us 
> to do anything that we would not be capable of doing.  When someone 
> says, "I did not want to say that," or "I did not want to go there," 
> that is an absolute lie and an insult to their own power of choice, 
> let alone to that of transgressing God's will.  You and I never say 
> anything that we do not want to say, and we never go anywhere that we 
> do not want to go.  What a horrible thing it would be if we did not 
> have control over our thought and acts and mouth.  If all at once, if 
> your mouth began to talk with no approval from you, if one leg wanted 
> to go in one direction while the other wanted to go in the opposite, you
would be in terrible trouble.
> Well, such things never happen.  You must will to say what you say, 
> and you must will to go where you go.  Perhaps what we mean to say is 
> something like this, "I should not have said what I did." That would 
> be a spirit of repentance.  Or, "I should never have gone where I 
> went." Here again, that would be repenting of a wrong choice which, by 
> an act of your own will, you decided.
>
> We will only mention what, God willing, we will prove next month from 
> the Scriptures, that God's will over our thought life is that we 
> accentuate the positive and endeavor to minimize the negative.  To be 
> a happy, victorious, overcoming Christian, we must think positively.  
> We must feel positive, and we must speak and act in a positive way.  
> Where is that found in the Bible? God willing, next month, we shall see.
>
> Well folks, time to put Dr. Montanus back into his grave, so to speak. 
> I'm referring, of course, to his body.  For those of you who knew her, 
> I wonder what the late Pastor Karolyn Phillips, founder of Seasons of 
> Refreshing Fellowship, would say if she read Dr. Montanus' article? 
> I'm sure that she would have something to say; she always did, as 
> those of you who knew her more intimately would agree.
>
> Again, if you'd like the continuation of this series, please let me 
> know, and if I get a sufficient amount of responses, will comply with 
> your wishes to post the next and succeeding articles in this series, 
> if there are any more.  You can't deny that there is a lot of things 
> to ponder in what Dr. Montanus had to write.  I've read this article I 
> don't know how many times, and I have always come up with ideas that 
> the Spirit has implanted in my mind.
>
> And now may the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob just keep us safe, 
> individually and collectively, in these last days in which we live.  
> Your Christian friend and brother, Paul 
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