I've wanted to publish blog entries about my experiences with The Sedona Method and The Work for a little while now. Originally, I was going to post these blog entries in my grace Christianity blog The Divine Nature. But I feel that it would not be fair to the followers of that blog to publish something that they might not understand and are not ready for at this moment in time. Hence, I saw fit to create this new blog.
Let me begin with a bit of a background about myself. I have been a Christian now for about 15 years. I only really got serious about Christianity in 1997 when I first started going to Kensington Temple in London. Things really changed for me when I was dramatically baptised in the Holy Spirit in October 1998. Up until that moment I had been struggling with depression and anxiety all of my life. But in that moment in October 1998 God came into my life in an incredible way. For a couple of months after that dramatic experience I experienced a profound sense of peace and joy that I never before knew existed. But it was not long before those dark clouds of depression and anxiety started rolling back in. I think that my negativity was never quite as bad from that moment on -- but was still bad enough for me to continue my spiritual quest for peace, success and fulfilment.
It was around 1994 when I first read the book The Power of Your Subconscious Mind by Dr Joseph Murphy. It was this incredible book that changed my perspective on life forever. All of a sudden I could see that my depression and the struggles that I had in life, all the disappointments frustration I had -- was all caused by my negative thinking. Being an anxiety sufferer I could see the detrimental effects that my negative thinking had on my life. From that moment on I try to use positive affirmation is in order to change my thinking, and thereby, change my life.
It was around about the time when I was baptised in the Holy Spirit that I began studying the faith teaching of Kenneth E. Hagin. Hagin is considered by many to be the father of faith. I was amazed by the wonderful testimonies; the signs are miracles that Hagin would write about his books. Hagin's teaching also seem to focus more on the power of God working in man more than any other preacher that I knew of at the time. For instance, Hagin would teach that we are not to follow the Ten Commandments and that in the New Testament we are to simply follow love: love fulfils the law. Hagin's teaching is something that I could liken to a combination of the Christian teaching of E.W. Kenyon and the positive thinking and affirmations branch of self-help: such as Dr Joseph Murphy, The Secret and The Law of Attraction. I pursued Hagin's faith teaching, known by some as Word of Faith, for about seven years till the year 2005. By this time I had well and truly burned myself out on trying to control my life and make things happen by following principles and formulas: through confessing Scriptures as a means of controlling my life and making God bless me, how I want when I want.
I think it was about the year 2003 when I stopped going to Kensington Temple and started going to a small, local charismatic church. I was delighted with this church at first: I liked the people, pastor and the worship. I tried to get noticed by the pastor with a means of serving in the church and somehow moving into full-time ministry. Like many other Christians, I saw full-time ministry as the ultimate achievement for a Christian. After about a year or two of attending the church I started to become rather disillusioned. I just felt guilty all the time because the pastor would be constantly preaching about behaviour modification; it was all about performance and I just felt that I just never seem to have the ability to measure-up. I finally left that church because I just couldn't stand it any more.
It was during the year 2005 that I finally started attending Hillsong London church. Hillsong is a large, contemporary church that meets him a large theatre in central London. This church was like a breath of fresh air to me: the worship was professional and invigorating, the A.V. presentations were slick and professional, preaching was non-condemnatory, but above all people were friendly, positive minded, sociable and fun to hang out with. I still go to this church today, but not every week.
I have now moved away from the idea of making the institutional church the prime focus of my Christian life. There is a revolution going on at the moment in Christianity whereby Christians are tending to move away from the institutional church. This has started with books like Pagan Christianity by Frank Viola and blogs and podcasts by The Free Believers Network.
What bothers me about church and Christianity as a whole is that it doesn't seem to do much in the way of delivering on its promise of inner transformation. I've really calmed down from the days when I was trying to manifest incredible miracles and wealth through making affirmations and repeating Bible verses. Nevertheless, I still desperately needed some means of coming out of this depression and anxiety that I have and to find true happiness and fulfilment in life.
It actually seems to me that most of the people in Hillsong London didn't really need inner transformation of any kind; these people seem to live from the sense of security that life at imparted to them. I'm not saying that these people are in perfect, they have their problems just like anyone else that, but it seemed to me that they were more interested in church life rather than seeking freedom. By the turn "church life" I mean social events, serving on team, conferences, visiting speakers, CDs and books.
From around the year 2005 God gave me an incredible urge to write. Based on the teachings of Kenneth E. Hagin, I started moving more into the area of Christ living his life in me, without me having to try to do things for God; without me having to follow principles and formulas. It was a year or so later that I finally came across the grace teaching of Joseph Prince, of New Creation Church in Singapore. Hillsong London is privileged to have a few visits from Joseph Prince each year. I would say that the preaching at Hillsong has become a lot more grace oriented ever since Joseph's first arrival at Hillsong in 2006. Up until that time I thought that I was going crazy because it seemed like no one seemed to agree or understand with the kind of revelation that I was receiving. I began to find that there were more grace preachers on the Internet and I downloaded as much of their messages as I could. I would say that my favourite grace preacher at the moment it is a man from South Africa called Bertie Brits who has a web church called Dynamic Love Ministries.
Perhaps you are a Christian and you are fed up with the following rules; perhaps you used to be a Christian and grew up in a religious family; may be you use The Sedona Method or The Work and have no intention of becoming a Christian. Wherever you may be at this moment in time spiritually speaking -- I would like to encourage you to check out the links to great preaching that I have on my Christian blog The Divine Nature, a lot of good grace teaching which is available for free download. Click on the label Grace Preachers List for a set of links to some great preaching.
Ever since I was at Kensington Temple around about 2002, I had bought a book by Liberty Savard called Shattering Your Strongholds. This book suggested that the struggles that the Christian faith in life which you to mental strongholds that existed in the mind. By praying what she termed "loosing and binding" prayers, one could destroy these strongholds. I did not make much headway with this new method until 2005 when I bought the second book in Liberty Savard's trilogy called Breaking the Power. I felt that this second book was much better than the first and for me it laid down in foundation for the case of praying prayers that deal with the accumulated thoughts, attitudes, beliefs, desires and motives of a person.
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