THURSDAY THOUGHTS

Self-sabotage happens when you booby-trap your own brain with the negative trigger points of fear, regret, bitterness and un-forgiveness...you allow your perceptions of your own shortcomings to cause you to overreact to criticism...whenever you struggle, you automatically get down on yourself for all your past challenges...troubles in your relationships remind you of troubles in former ones, and that pulls you right back to them....when you encounter difficult circumstances (which is really just life), you read more into what's going on than with what is really going on...when you have a tough day, it overwhelms you unnecessarily because you inevitably start thinking about the life you could be living now if you just had a different past...the self-inflicted wounds of "shoulda woulda coulda" stay infected, and sustain within your soul an emotional low-grade fever that prevents you from relaxing into your life and just enjoying the journey...

Refuse to let your past hold you back any longer...NOW is what matters...it's really all that matters...you can decide to stop dwelling on things that happened in your past and re-create/re-write your own life story...you can change the script, and become the hero of your own tale...you can opt for an authentic, happy ending to it, and become so focused on that reality that nothing can pull you out of the present moment, and no ghost from your history can haunt your current thoughts and cause you to feel anxious...when you are walking in your "I AM" consciousness, you are limitless in your ability...when you live IN THE NOW, you continually give yourself permission to be in every moment and enjoy the present...

You can turn off the internal video loop that keeps replaying past events in your head..."faith comes by HEARING"...what you hear over and over again you will eventually believe, so you need to understand the story that you’re telling yourself every minute of every day, both verbally and non-verbally...once you understand why you keep telling your story to yourself and to others the way that you tell it, it will be easier to edit it, and allow it to change your life for the better...

Stop complaining about the bad hand that you’ve been dealt, put on the poker face of faith, and play the game of life to win...it doesn't matter that you didn’t have money growing up, the Universe is still filled with abundance, and that abundance is so vast, so limitless, that your sense of lack, or your inherited ancestral poverty mentality is simply irrelevant to your current reality...the abundance will come to you IN THE NOW, and as soon as you catch up with the present and tune your thinking into the frequency of the I AM, you will see the growth begin...it doesn't matter that you didn’t get a job that you should have gotten, or lost the good one that you had, you were just making room in your life for something so much better, and that better reality will manifest IN THE NOW...cut yourself free from regrets...they're just weighing you down...NOW IS ALL THAT MATTERS!

Love yourself.

Forgive yourself.

Love your life.

Re-write your story.

Make it work for you...

I AM WHAT I AM...I WILL BE WHAT I WILL BE (Part 2)

I Am that I Am (אֶהְיֶה אֲשֶׁר אֶהְיֶה, ehyeh ašer ehyeh) 

These days there is so much being discussed and written about the subject of  "I AM" declarations/affirmations, especially among people who are aware of and in sync with the Law(s) of Attraction...in a similar flow, those of us who have a background in and connection to the 'Word of Faith' movement have heard teaching about "positive confession" for many, many years, which has been largely based on a passage in the Gospel of Mark (Chapter 11, verse 23) where Jesus told His disciples that they could have what they say if they would believe with their heart that what they said would come to pass...actually, there are many Scriptures that make a similar connection between the heart and the mouth ("Let the words of my mouth, and the meditation of my heart be acceptable...", "Out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks...", "With the heart man believes unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation", etc.)...

Jesus is recorded, especially in the Gospel of John, as making many different "I AM" declarations..."I AM the Bread of Life"..."I AM the door..."I AM the Good Shepherd"..."I AM the way, the truth and the life", "Before Abraham was, I AM", etc...even in the Gospel of Luke, when He stands to read Isaiah's famous prophecy in the assembly ("The Spirit of the Lord God is upon Me..."), He seems to be walking in a new awareness of who He is when He says "This day this prophecy is fulfilled in your ears"...it's nearly as if He is speaking Himself into existence by His own creative words...

“I AM” declarations/affirmations are powerful positive statements or commands of self-talk...intentions that are verbally expressed which describe a desired outcome...in the same way that Isaiah said that God "declared the end from the beginning", and Paul said that He "called those things which are not as though they are", these declarations ideally connect the present with the future...to really work they are supposed to be repeated many times a day, in order to impress the subconscious mind, and trigger it into positive action through vibrational frequency to the brain...Jesus warned His followers to be aware of "vain repetitions", and said that they should not assume that God would answer their prayers simply because of their "much speaking" (He was particularly referring to the empty religious ritual of "chanting" that was quite popular in the day and in that part of the world), but in fact there is proven validity in saying positive words, and continually repeating them in order to ensure their effectiveness...the repetition is not for God's sake, but for the sake of the individual who is doing the speaking...these affirmations should be repeated with intention, conviction, belief, and desire...two of the most powerful words in your every day language are “I AM”, because what you insert after them will ultimately shape your reality...Paul said that "faith comes by hearing", which just means that what you hear the most you end up believing the easiest, and the person you hear speaking the most is of course you!

Thoughts certainly have vibrations, and the internal monologue is very powerful and creative ( or destructive), but putting a thought into a word definitely takes the vibration to another level...tunes it into a higher frequency...God didn't think the words 'Let there be light', He said the words 'Let there be light!'...Jesus said to speak to the mountain, not just to speak about the mountain...what you tell yourself on a daily basis, whatever you are feeling, is what you are vibrating, and whatever you are vibrating is what you are attracting...

Yesterday I posted about God's declaration of "I am that I am" to Moses in the book of Exodus, and how it's actually more accurately translated "I will be what I will be"...we discussed how the words "I will be" contain a different energy than even the words "I am", because they speak not just to present reality, but to future potential...when I posted Part 1 on Facebook I got a lot of good response...my good friend Richard Garganta commented on it and said, "I heard a Rabbi expert on Hebrew once say this could be said, 'I exist because I am existence.'..."...I love it...just shows you how much variety and shades of meaning there are in the living, vibrating words of God!

 

Also on yesterday's post, Leslie commented and posed a great question when she said  "In the flow....but how do you change what you've already spoken? Spiritually I know this, however manifesting it in the natural is quite the obstacle. How far back do you go to lay the axe to the root? Would love to hear your perspective."...to which I responded,  "I'll answer in the next post, but let me go ahead and say that it's not that hard...the most profound changes usually happen with the least amount of effort..."the light shines in darkness, and the darkness cannot overtake it"...one positive word is more powerful than a thousand negative ones..."

Another good friend of mine, Donald Cofield, also responded to her question with this: "...Leslie that is an interesting question you had. My first thought carried me back in my mind to the old TV show "Bewitched". On it Endora...was often casting a spell (speaking a reality into existence) and it...never benefited her target. When her daughter Samantha got hip to her shenanigans she would finally get her to speak another spell which would cancel out the first spell. And personally I grew up on a farm and we have been known to literally disc a crop under (that's farm jargon) in order to make room for another crop that had more profit potential. I think that possibly a similar principle could apply to us in the spirit realm."

I couldn't have said it better...I do believe that what we are today is the product of what we said yesterday, but I also believe that the present is stronger than the past, that light is stronger than darkness, that positive energy is stronger than negative emergy, and that "I will be what I will be" is even stronger than "I am that I am"!

That which is now already has been, and that which is to be already has been; and God seeks that which has passed by [so that history repeats itself]. (Ecclesiastes 3:15 - Amplified Bible)

 

This passage in this translation talks about history repeating itself, but as we discussed in a previous post, I believe that you can even re-create your history by your words..."I was what I was...I am that I am...I will be what I will be"...God is apparently evolving and increasing...the Universe is growing and "appears to be accelerating faster and faster instead of slowing down, purportedly faster than the speed of light" (thanks for that, Lonna), and you are getting better every day! 

 

You will be what you will be, and you're going to be AWESOME!

I AM THAT I AM...I WILL BE WHAT I WILL BE (Part 1)

I Am that I Am (אֶהְיֶה אֲשֶׁר אֶהְיֶה, ehyeh ašer ehyeh) 

For many years I've taught on the concept of God revealing Himself to Moses as the "I AM", and how that relates to the NOW, and how it has implications for us, and for the way we talk about ourselves, and the things that we say about ourselves on a daily basis...in these sermons I used to always say, "He didn't call Himself the great 'I Was', or the great 'I Will Be', and would make the connection with the word "AM" to the word "IS", as in 'God is in the NOW/we are in the NOW'...I would use the passage in the book of Hebrews that says "they that come to God must believe that HE IS..."  to make my point...

But as I have studied this more over the years, I have modified my teaching on the subject somewhat...as it turns out, the real interpretation of what God actually said to Moses is closer in meaning to "I will be what I will be" than it is to "I that I am"...Hayah means "existed" or "was" in Hebrew; "ehyeh" is the first person singular imperfect form and is usually translated in English Bibles as "I will be" (or "I shall be"), for example, in Exodus 3:14... Ehyeh asher ehyeh literally translates as "I Will Be What I Will Be", with attendant theological and mystical implications in Jewish tradition...but in most English Bibles, in particular the King James Version, this phrase is rendered as I am that I am...

Ehyeh-Asher-Ehyeh  (often contracted in English as "I AM") is one of the Seven Names of God accorded special care by medieval Jewish tradition...the phrase is also found in other world religious literature, used to describe the Supreme Being, generally referring back to its use in Exodus...the word Ehyeh is used a total of 43 places in the Hebrew Bible, where it is often translated as "I will be" (as is the case for its first occurrence in Genesis 26:3), or "I shall be", (as is the case for its final occurrence in Zechariah 8:8)...used by God to identify himself at the burning bush, the importance placed on the phrase, as it is, stems from the Hebrew conception of monotheism..that God exists by Himself for Himself, and is the uncreated Creator who is independent of any concept, force, or entity; therefore "I am who I am" (ongoing)...

In the Hellensitic Greek literature of the Jewish Diaspora the phrase "Ehyeh asher ehyeh" was rendered in Greek "ego eimi", or "I am the BEING"....in the Septuagint (the Hebrews Scriptures translated into Greek), Exodus 3:14 is rendered "And God said unto Moses, I am HE WHO IS (ho ōn): and he said, Thus shall you say unto the children of Israel, HE WHO IS has sent me unto you.^"

The great Philo of Alexandria (who is credited with coming up with the concept of 'Logos') translated it this way: "And God said, 'At first say unto them, 'I am (egō eimi) THE BEING', (ho ōn, nominative of ontos) that, when they have learned that there is a difference between THE BEING (ontos, genitive of ho ōn) and that-that-is-not (me ontos), they may be further taught that there is no name whatever that can properly be assigned to Me (ep' emou kuriologeitai), to whom (hoi) only (monoi) belongs (prosesti) the existence (to einai)."

What's the point of bringing all this up? Isn't the difference in shade of meaning between"I am that I am" and "I will be what I will be" so subtle that it couldn't possibly matter that much?...

Well, I think it's important for several reasons...it seems to me that the real meaning of the phrase is not just a declaration of present existence, but a statement of prophetic potential...what if God isn't static? What if God and the concept of God is evolving? As I have already posted, the Greek literally says, "Within a beginning (or: In union with Headship and Sovereignty) there was the Logos (the Word; the Thought; the collection of thoughts; the Idea; the Reason; the discourse; the communication; the verbal expression). And the Logos (the idea; the thought; the expression; the Word) was facing, [directed, and moving] toward, (or: continued being face to face with) God. And the Logos (the Word; the thought; the idea; the reason; the expression) continued being God" (John 1:1 - JMNT)...

In the beginning was the "Thought"..."the collection of thoughts"..."the Idea"...wow(!)...they say that the Universe is expanding and growing and continuing to create and re-create itself...what if there's a God-connection to that? What if our personal evolution is connected to God's personal evolution? 

What if when Jesus asked His disciples "Who do you say that I am?", He was implying more than we thought before? Was He telling them that they could in a sense "create" who He was by what they said about Him? The writer of Hebrews said, "Though He (Jesus) was a son, He learned obedience through the things he suffered (through process)"...Jesus clearly had to grow into the knowledge of who He was (or into Christ-consciousness, if you will)...what if we're all on the same journey? John said, "Beloved, NOW are we the sons of God, and does not yet appear what we shall be..."

With every statement that you make about yourself, you're not just saying who you are, you're declaring who and what you want to become...there is a greater version of you on the inside that is trying to manifest...talk up your future...talk up who are you becoming!

You're somewhere in the future, and you look much better than you look right now!

To be continued...