Phil, if I understand right, some of Jim Bakker's thinking was changed in
prison.  Problem is, I don't have a source to back my statement.

At 09:47 AM 10/19/03 -0600, you wrote:
>Victory Or Success
>
>
>                          By Phil Scovell
>
>
>
>      Seated in a man's office, we began to pray.  I was there
>because I was having anxiety and panic attacks, hearing voices,
>and was so dizzy most of the time, I was often disoriented.  I
>even fainted once, due to lack of sleep and food, and falling on a
>concrete porch, cracked my head pretty hard.  Even the
>prescriptions recommended by our family doctor weren't doing a
>whole lot of good.
>
>      Sleep had become something to fear.  Voices literally
>awakened me at times even when I was able to finally drift into
>sleep.  Yes, I knew exactly who, and what, the voices were but try
>telling your doctor or pastor or close Christian friends that and
>see what they think.  Furthermore, terrifying nightmares invaded
>what little sleep I was able to achieve.  To complicate matters, I
>began to jerk with muscular spasms when falling to sleep at night
>or any other time I tried to sleep.  This happens to everybody
>occasionally but for me, it happen even if I were falling asleep
>sitting up in a chair.  My muscular spasms were so violent at
>times, I literally knocked things over on my bookshelf at the head
>of the bed.  One night, my leg jerked so violently, I kicked one
>of our small pet dogs right off the bed.  Have you ever been so
>frightened that you were too afraid to go to sleep and you were
>too afraid to stay awake?  I have.
>
>      My mind and thoughts felt cloudy and foggy every day and just
>trying to focus on anything for very long was nearly impossible.
>My attention span diminished to seconds and I could not
>concentrate on anything long enough to accomplish much of
>anything.  I felt as if I were whirling around and around at a
>rapid rate of speed in side of a huge funnel; dropping closer and
>closer to the opening at the bottom.  My fear was what might
>happen when I dropped out the bottom; I knew I would die and that
>would be my final failure.  To complicate my confused state of
>mind, I was afraid that what God was asking me to do was something
>I was incapable of doing and I didn't want to fail God again.
>this was a lie of the enemy but at the time, I did not recognize
>it.  The bottom line?  I was, at this stage, about 95 percent
>dysfunctional.  Most people, at this point, would be hospitalized.
>
>Sadness became so tangible at times, it was like a physical weight
>pressing against my skin.  Crying became common in my life and
>came from so deep within me, I felt at times as if my own life was
>literally slowly ebbing away.  I also had no control over the
>tears and they came at all hours of the day and night.  Although
>they tried, no one in my family could say or do anything to
>comfort me and believe me, they tried.  A friend would jump in his
>truck, drive rapidly over to my house whenever I called him, and
>try and read Scriptures to me.  He stayed up nights with me
>because of my fear.  He called me from work in order to pray me
>through the day.  Yet nothing was working.  The levels of fear
>became more and more acute.
>
>      During this emotionally critical time of my life, I lost my
>job.  3500 dollars a month suddenly disappeared.  I don't know
>about you, but losing that much over night was financially
>devastating and put tremendous stress on my family.  To make
>matters worse, my wife had to work overtime just so we could keep
>our nose above water.  I had failed at preaching, pastoring,
>providing for my family, raising my children, serving the Lord and
>everything else was a failure in my life.  I truly wanted to die
>and begged God to kill me hundreds of different times in my
>prayers.  The voices in my thoughts encouraged me to take my own
>life but I never would do that because of guilt; I simply did not
>want to cause my family even more suffering.  Again, have you
>ever been too frighten to live and too frightened to die?  I have.
>
>      When most of this began, I had just turned 50 years of age.
>as I sat in my own office one day, I realized I couldn't point to
>a single thing in my life where I could say I had been successful.
>In fact, I had, in my mind, literally failed at everything.
>Later, as the Lord began to heal the woundedness in my life, I
>realized I was being deceived and that these were lies used by the
>enemy to keep me from doing the will of God for my life which was
>now very near at hand.  I knew there were things I could point to
>in my life which were pleasing to the Lord but my deepest desire
>was to simply serve the Lord in ministry.  That I wasn't doing so
>why bother to live?  Who wants to live if you can't serve the
>Lord?  Not me!  Yes, I now understand the origins of this thinking
>but at the time, I was completely confused and that was the
>purpose of the enemy's attack in the first place.
>
>      Oddly enough, before all of this began, I felt the Lord
>telling me two things.  He told me I would be working with people
>on a one-to-one bases.  Later, within weeks, He told me I would be
>involved in teaching others how to be intercessors.  This wasn't
>too surprising because I have been an intercessor since 1985 but
>somehow I knew in my heart that this intercessory prayer was a
>focused form of prayer with which I was totally unfamiliar.  None
>of this information helped and I seemed to be even more
>spiritually frustrated because of it.  In fact, things turned
>worse.
>
>      As the man, in whose office I sat, began to pray, somehow the
>Holy Spirit brought me to the notion that I believed I wasn't
>successful at anything.  As we prayed, I clearly heard the Lord in
>my thoughts telling me something that suddenly changed my life.
>The True Lord Jesus Christ said, "I never asked you to be
>successful."  It was as if someone had let the air out of a very
>large balloon.  I felt the relief.  I was startled by this
>revelation because I had somehow, although raised in the church
>all my life, gotten the idea that every man had to be successful.
>If it was ministry related, well, then, he had to be successful in
>that, too.  If he wasn't?  Well, he wasn't, at the least,
>spiritual, and at the worst, he was out of God's will.  Seated in
>my own living room one day, even my own pastor told me I had
>failed and I was out of God's will.  Try carrying that heavy
>weight around for awhile and see how heavy it becomes.
>
>      So when the True Lord Jesus Christ said, "I never asked you
>to be successful," it somehow rocked the foundation of what I
>thought was Biblical theology.  Yet I realize, with sudden
>clarity, it was true; He never had asked me, or required me, or
>told me, or commanded me, or demanded me, or ordered me, or
>insisted, or even suggested I be successful.  Quickly digging into
>my theology, I suddenly realize the only thing the Lord required
>is that I "follow" Him and that, fortunately, I was already doing.
>Thus, following Jesus equals victory and victory equals success.
>
>      Over the next few months through intercessory prayer
>sessions, healing came to dozens of places in my life.  The
>anxiety and panic attacks went away.  The voices vanished.  More
>peaceful sleep returned and my life slowly returned to stability.
>I began to learn that salvation was maintenance free victory.
>
>      My ministry, the very one the Lord called me to, began to
>slowly surface and take shape.  I now work with sexual abused
>women, multiple personality cases, demonized people, and
>everything else in between.  I use nothing more than intercessory
>prayer on a one-to-one bases and the True Lord Jesus Christ does
>the rest.  I am also the happiest I have ever been.  Who but God
>could do such a thing in the heart and life of such a wounded
>person?
>
>      This raises a lot of questions for most.  Isn't a person
>with anxiety and panic attacks mentally ill?  don't they have a
>chemical imbalance in the brain and that's why they have these
>emotional problems?  There really isn't such a thing as demonic
>voices, is there?  If so, isn't that a clear sign they are indeed
>mentally ill?
>
>      Christians complicate the issue even more by suggesting that
>such problems can only be solved by the professional medical
>community because the church just simply isn't trained for this
>sort of thing.  Jesus had a different viewpoint.  He empowered His
>disciples to not only cast out demons and to do what He did but He
>told them that when He left to go to the Father, He would send the
>Comforter, the Holy Spirit, whom would dwell within us and cause
>us to do even greater works than Jesus did.  (See John 14:12-20).
>I realize that many, if not most, believe this to mean that the
>church collectively, worldwide, would do more than Jesus did when
>He was upon earth conducting His own ministry for three and a half
>years but that isn't what Jesus said.  We are simply guilty,
>therefore, of not following the great Commission, which I like to
>call "The Only Commission," and going out without obeying exactly
>what Jesus commanded His disciples to do.  We are either His
>disciples today or we are not.  You can, if you choose, believe
>that many such miraculous things died out with the last apostle,
>whoever he was, but proving that philosophy from the bible is
>impossible.  Why?  Because it simply isn't in the Bible no matter
>how hard some radio preachers or megachurch pastors or parachurch
>ministers try and make you believe.
>
>      The truth lies in the title:  Victory Or Success.  Yes, I
>know what God said in Joshua 1:8 concerning success so shall we
>consider that particular passage in order to be absolutely certain
>we understand what the Lord meant by success?
>
>Joshua   1:8
>This book of the law shall not depart out of thy mouth; but thou
>shalt meditate therein day and night, that thou mayest observe to
>do according to all that is written therein: for then thou shalt
>make thy way prosperous, and then thou shalt have good success.
>
>      Frankly, this verse has been one of my favorites for all of
>my adult life.  It is a solid rock upon which to stand regardless
>of circumstances.
>
>      Let's consider how the King James translators employed the
>word "success" found in this verse.
>
>      The word "success" in this passage is used some 63 times in
>the Old Testament.  Here is how it breaks down.
>
>understand 12
>wise 12
>prosper 8
>wisely 6
>understanding 5
>consider 4
>instruct 3
>prudent 2
>skill 2
>teach 2
>Miscellaneous 7
>
>      The King James renderings gives us a lot of insight to the
>meaning of "success."  Let's go one step farther and consider the
>actual Hebrew interpretation and application of the word to see
>what else can be learned.  This information can be found in your
>Strong's concordance.
>
>Hebrew Definition of Success.
>1  To be prudent, be circumspect, wisely understand, prosper.
>      1a  To be prudent, be circumspect.
>           1b1  To look at or upon, have insight.
>           1b2  To give attention to, consider, ponder, be prudent.
>           1b3  To have insight, have comprehension.
>                1b3a  Insight, comprehension.
>           1b4  To cause to consider, give insight, teach.
>                1b4a  The teachers, the wise.
>           1b5  To act circumspectly, act prudently, act wisely.
>           1b6  To prosper, have success.
>           1b7  To cause to prosper.
>2  To lay crosswise, to cross hands.
>
>      Without a doubt, it can be implied that the word "Success" in
>Joshua 1:8 does mean success in a traditional sense.  The Hebrew
>interpretation, however, is so much deeper than the idea of just
>being successful in life, that it cannot be ignored.  It really
>boils down to one word, and that is, understanding.  As you can
>easily see from the definitions given, understanding, coupled with
>wisdom, is real success.  Thus, if you understand the Lord and His
>Word, you will be successful at applying it to every situation and
>circumstance you face.  Being ignorant of His will and His ways,
>concerning His Word, makes it impossible for you to be prosperous
>nor successful in any sense of the word.
>
>      I pose this question.  If it really was the Lord whom I heard
>in my prayer time who said, "I never asked you to be successful,"
>was He violating His own Word in Joshua 1:8 and dozens of other
>passages which say He does, in fact, desire us to be successful?
>The only way that could be true is that Jesus doesn't know the
>meaning of the word "success" and I am pretty certain that isn't
>the case.  So then, what is success for the Christian?
>
>      My definition of grace is when the Lord does more for you
>than you do for Him.  Victory, in my opinion, is walking in grace.
>So, in short, we need to allow the Lord to do everything.  If we
>do exactly that and nothing more, we will be successful.  I am not
>dismissing the physical implications of Joshua 1:8; quite the
>contrary.  I am suggesting, on the other hand, we have been doing
>all the work instead of allowing Him to build His own church
>within us.  How is this accomplished?  Through prayer and
>submission and accountability to other Believers.  Isn't the
>church already doing this?  You can answer that question for
>yourself.  As for me and my house, as Joshua said, we will serve
>the Lord.  That is successful Christian living.  Add your
>Christian works to that and you won't be walking in the grace of
>god.  You will also discover more and more spiritual conflict
>occurring in your own life.  When you come to that point, give me
>a call and we will pray together about it in order that the Lord
>may heal you of the spiritual confusion which has been generated.
>
>      Finally, the Hebrew definition of "success" in Joshua 1:8
>means (to lay crosswise).  What does that mean?  Those who are
>"successful" in the things of the Lord will throw their life
>across the path to block anything that attempts to come against
>their relationship with god.  It is putting up a block or shield
>or wall saying, "Come this far but no further."  It is literally
>death to self.  Unfortunately, by the time you have made a few
>hundred mistakes and listen to a few hundred sermons and Bible
>lessons which have taught you a lot of wrong thinking about God,
>His Word, and His nature, this makes little sense to you.
>Sacrifice and suffering, however, to the one who has lived through
>it knows what it means.  They will not allow anything to come
>between them and their relationship with God.  It isn't pride or
>arrogance or perseverance and spiritual growth, it's called love.
>Do you love god today?  "Oh, sure," someone says, "I love God more
>than anything in this world."  Will you lay your life down for
>Him?  How about your cable TV or broad band internet or your video
>games or your movies or your car or your house?  How about your
>children or your grandchildren?  How about your wife or husband or
>fiance?  Here's one I bet you've never considered.  Would you lay
>aside your sexuality for the Lord if He has called you to ministry
>which precludes a sexual relationship in marriage with someone you
>love?
>
>      Let's turn this around and stop being so negative.  What
>would you lay down for the Lord?  Now, that list gets pretty big
>pretty fast but it isn't what the Lord wants.  He wants you to
>prosper and be successful by giving yourself to Him.  What is
>self?  It is who you are.  "But I'm not a very nice person right
>now.  I have things to get settled in my life.  I'm already doing
>the best I can do."  God doesn't want the best you can do; He
>wants the best He can do for you, in you, and through you.  That
>means He will have to do the work and you get none of the credit.
>Now your flesh rises up and says what Jim Bakker said on national
>television one night.  He said, "I built PTL with my own two
>hands."  No, Jim, you didn't build anything and that's why you
>lost it all.  If you are unable to take yourself out of the
>Biblical equation for success, you will not prosper.  If you
>don't die to self, you cannot obey the command to renew your mind
>in Christ as a Christian.  As I said, if you need help, call me.
>The rest is up to the Lord and you have nothing to do with it.
>I'm sorry if that bruises your ego but God isn't after your ego;
>He's after you.
>
>WWW.SafePlaceFellowship.COM

John

A)bort, R)etry or S)elf-destruct?<*>