Positiveness... a Modern Heresy
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A little lesson about positive thinking, positive speaking, and positive confession:
Many years ago, I came into a house, in which an old man was outside his senses. The old man had been prayed for and his son had been told that whatever the symptoms might be, he was to confess that his father was healed. Obviously, it would be inconsistent that a "healed" man should take medicine, so the son had discontinued his doses.
I got the old man into a car and rushed him to the emergency entrance at the nearest hospital, where he was given insulin and soon his mind began to function as it should. The attending doctor gave his son and I (although I was not the guilty party) a heated scolding.
Well, my friend, that was enough to teach me that "positive confession" is not only a minor error, but a dangerous weapon that can kill! It is supposed to promote faith, but in truth, it kills faith. I have talked to people, who are broken-hearted, because they did not have enough faith to see their loved ones healed. They would say that they had done everything that they were told to do, and yet there was no improvement. I talked to a family that was totally unprepared for the death of the wife/mother, because they were taught that "by faith, she is healed".
Here is an even greater concern... If, as they are told, God promises to always heal the sick, then who do you blame, when they do not get well. Of course, the sick person and those, who are concerned for him, are blamed. (I notice that the faith healer never takes the blame, when his prayers are not answered.) Worse than this, God is sometimes charged a liar for not keeping His word. Of course, this is blatant blasphemy! I fear for the one, who, in failing to get an answer for prayer in a physical situation, will begin to doubt, whether God has answered his prayer for salvation. Are you beginning to see the savage, demonic lie behind positive confession and its destructive power to undermine faith rather than build it?
I could never count the times that I have said that a true Christian is concerned with TRUTH, whether that truth be positive or negative. Positive thinking, positive speaking and positive confession mean absolutely nothing to me. They are unrealistic and dishonest approaches to Scripture. Positiveness is a modern-day heresy that has nothing to do with Christianity. I´ll say it, whether people agree with me or not; whether they wonder, what kind of a strange character this is, who has not bowed to the god of positivism. Mary Baker Eddy (Mind over Matter founder of Christian Science), Norman Vincent Peale (The Power of Positive Thinking), Kenneth Copeland and other Charismatics (Positive Confession), have been and are, well off the path marked by the Bible. Every battery needs a positive and negative pole in order to function, and the Christian who does not have a well-balanced positive and negative doctrinal position is of no use to the Kingdom of God.
A. W. Tozer, one of the most balanced and useful writers that I know about, wrote: "The notion that Christians should always be optimistic and congenial is heresy pure and simple. An ill-founded optimism may, under certain conditions, be extremely harmful. A Christian is not obliged to be either pessimistic or optimistic or glad or sad or positive or negative after a preconceived rule of philosophy. He should (and will if he is Spirit-taught) reflect the will of God in any given situation. His one concern is with God’s will. His one question in any set of circumstances is... What does God think of this? To him nothing else matters. What the current popular attitude may be is of no importance to him. He will approve or disapprove altogether as the written Word and the indwelling Spirit indicate. Religious vogues, passing moods or popular notions will affect him not at all. His heart is fixed, trusting in the Lord."
"This rather rigid attitude will, in a world like ours, quite naturally work against the one who holds it and earn him a reputation as a pessimist. People like the man who agrees with them, even if a day later they change their minds and require him to change his, too. This inconsistency they laugh off as an amiable weakness, and why be so pious about it anyway?""
"Well, the sons and daughters of eternity care very little about this maypole dance of popular favor. Like the water bird on the shore of the lake at the approach of winter, they feel within them a strong instinct to migrate. They expect before long to take off on a journey and they're not coming back soon. So whether they leave behind them a reputation for pessimism or optimism is of little consequence to them. They are, however, eager to be remembered as children of God and followers of the Lamb. That’s all that matters to them."
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