A BALANCED PERSPECTIVE ON POSITIVE CONFESSION

Although I posted the following under another thread it seemed it might be appropriate to give it a thread of its own to consider.

"Positive Confession", as it has been labeled, is nothing more than choosing to believe and agee with God's Word rather than circumstances or situations that indicate that God's Word is not true.

As an example.....

If I were to get up tomorrow morning and "feel" as if I were no longer saved would that mean I had lost my salvation? Of course not! I am born again because I repented of my sins, believed the Gospel, and fully embraced Jesus Christ and His precious blood as the only means of my salvation and justification. That is the truth no matter what my feelings say.

If I then begin to quote and take comfort in God's Word and promises that show me to be in right relationship with him, regardless of what devils, inlaws, or my fickle feelings say, THAT IS POSITIVE CONFESSION. It is when I confess God's word to be true no matter the circumstance, how I feel, or what my eyes see. God's eternal truth will be proven true when the dust is settled. To receive that promise, or truth, that God has made simply requires us to actually believe it and hold fast to it. Again, just like at salvation it is believing God's Word to be true by faith.

That is all that positive confession is. Undoubtedly some people have taken it to extremes at times. I admire their zeal and commitment but encourage them to be more accurate discerners of God's Word. On the other hand I have found it just as likely that the person up in arms over a so called, "error of positive confession", simply does not have the faith or nerve to actually take God at His Word, stand on it in faith, and be willing to confess it as true even when life circumstances say it won't be. I encourage folks to be cautious that you are not found guilty of speaking badly of those whom God may view as exercising great faith in Him and His Word.

In addition to obtaining two Bachelors degrees I also attended and graduated from Ken Hagin's Rhema Bible Training Center. How I described positive confession is EXACTLY how Hagin taught it....in a concise nutshell it is this......

We can confess to be true and receive by faith anything that God has specifically promised us in His Word. If He has not promised it in His Word we can not recieve it by faith for faith only comes by hearing the Word. Therefore we CAN NOT have faith for anything that is not promised in His Word.. but we can have faith in, confess as true, and recieve anything He DID specifically promise in His Word.

That is the lock, stock, and barrel of the teaching on "Positive Confession" as taught by Kenneth Hagin to the students at RBTC. I fail to see fault in that... of course there may be any number of people you meet that teach in error on this point. However, it is also regrettable that many Christians now live well below God's desire in many areas of their life because they have wrongly understood the term "Positive Confession".

It really does just mean that we agree with God and His Word.

Thank you brother for your post! There is a balance that the Church needs to be brought back into concerning "positive confession". The confession of the Word of God is for the Lord's purposes and for His glory, and we cannot use it to get things out of God that are apart from His will for our lives.

Near the end of his ministry, Kenneth Hagin dealt with many of the excesses and errors of the Faith and positive confession movement in a book entitled "The Midas Touch".

Kenneth Hagin’s Forgotten Warning

by J. Lee Grady

Before he died in 2003, the revered father of the Word-Faith movement corrected his spiritual sons for going to extremes with their message of prosperity.

Charismatic Bible teacher Kenneth Hagin Sr. is considered the father of the so-called prosperity gospel. The folksy, self-trained “Dad Hagin” started a grass-roots movement in Oklahoma that produced a Bible college and a crop of famous preachers including Kenneth Copeland, Jerry Savelle, Charles Capps, Jesse DuPlantis, Creflo Dollar and dozens of others—all of whom teach that Christians who give generously should expect financial rewards on this side of heaven.

Hagin taught that God was not glorified by poverty and that preachers do not have to be poor. But before he died in 2003 and left his Rhema Bible Training Center in the hands of his son, Kenneth Hagin Jr., he summoned many of his colleagues to Tulsa to rebuke them for distorting his message. He was not happy that some of his followers were manipulating the Bible to support what he viewed as greed and selfish indulgence.

Those who were close to Hagin Sr. say he was passionate about correcting these abuses before he died. In fact, he wrote a brutally honest book to address his concerns. The Midas Touch was published in 2000, a year after the infamous Tulsa meeting.

Many Word-Faith ministers ignored the book. But in light of the recent controversy over prosperity doctrines, it might be a good idea to dust it off and read it again.

Here are a few of the points Hagin made in The Midas Touch:

1. Financial prosperity is not a sign of God’s blessing. Hagin wrote: “If wealth alone were a sign of spirituality, then drug traffickers and crime bosses would be spiritual giants. Material wealth can be connected to the blessings of God or it can be totally disconnected from the blessings of God.”

2. People should never give in order to get. Hagin was critical of those who “try to make the offering plate some kind of heavenly vending machine.” He denounced those who link giving to getting, especially those who give cars to get new cars or who give suits to get new suits. He wrote: “There is no spiritual formula to sow a Ford and reap a Mercedes.”

3. It is not biblical to “name your seed” in an offering. Hagin was horrified by this practice, which was popularized in faith conferences during the 1980s. Faith preachers sometimes tell donors that when they give in an offering they should claim a specific benefit to get a blessing in return. Hagin rejected this idea and said that focusing on what you are going to receive “corrupts the very attitude of our giving nature.”

4. The “hundredfold return” is not a biblical concept. Hagin did the math and figured out that if this bizarre notion were true, “we would have Christians walking around with not billions or trillions of dollars, but quadrillions of dollars!” He rejected the popular teaching that a believer should claim a specific monetary payback rate.

5. Preachers who claim to have a “debt-breaking” anointing should not be trusted. Hagin was perplexed by ministers who promise “supernatural debt cancellation” to those who give in certain offerings. He wrote in The Midas Touch: “There is not one bit of Scripture I know about that validates such a practice. I’m afraid it is simply a scheme to raise money for the preacher, and ultimately it can turn out to be dangerous and destructive for all involved.”

(Many evangelists who appear on Christian television today use this bogus claim. Usually they insist that the miraculous debt cancellation will occur only if a person “gives right now,” as if the anointing for this miracle suddenly evaporates after the prime time viewing hour. This manipulative claim is more akin to witchcraft than Christian belief.)

Hagin condemned other hairbrained gimmicks designed to trick audiences into emptying their wallets. He was especially incensed when a preacher told his radio listeners that he would take their prayer requests to Jesus’ empty tomb in Jerusalem and pray over them there—if donors included a special love gift. “What that radio preacher really wanted was more people to send in offerings,” Hagin wrote.

Thanks to the recent resurgence in bizarre donation schemes promoted by American charismatics, the prosperity gospel is back under the nation’s microscope. It’s time to revisit Hagin’s concerns and find a biblical balance.

Hagin told his followers: “Overemphasizing or adding to what the Bible actually teaches invariably does more harm than good.” If the man who pioneered the modern concept of biblical prosperity blew the whistle on his own movement, wouldn’t it make sense for us to listen to his admonition?

Amen brothers.

If I thought the definition of salvation as "Working really hard in my flesh to earn a spot in heaven", then I would be prone to denounce anyone who started talking about that "salvation doctrine". The problem in that case would not be the true teaching of salvation, but my erroneous perception of the term, though I may have came upon this wrong perception by looking at people who taught or practiced a perversion of salvation.

If I am ever to stand in faith, I must learn to call those things that be not as thought they were. I must learn to speak from my mouth the truth that the Word of God says about any situation in life. Positive confession by that proper definition is not only OK, but absolutely vital.

Let us not see the Word of God through the glasses of man's teaching or denominational doctrines or creeds. Let us dig into the Word prayerfully and allow the Holy Spirit to reveal that Word to us.

Travis

edit: By the way, you cannot "name and claim" anything that was not provided for you in the Word of God. But you can speak the Word of God in faith in regards to anything that is already provided for. These things are not automatic, but available through faith.

Thank you for your post, I agree that there are things that we must confess such as our salvation. We must believe God at His word no matter what we feel or what the situation looks like.

My only question on this topic is if what Hagin taught was correct then why is every preacher on TV that came out of the Rhema movement preaching a health and wealth gospel? Tell me of one well known Rhema teacher that is not teaching a health and wealth gospel. I have friends caught up in this prosperity movement, breaks my heart to see them more concerned with getting more material things on this earth than seeing the lost saved. That is a wicked doctrine of devils. They go to a church where there pastor went to the Rhema school, and the are caught up with things in this life. Show me in the bible where Paul, Peter, John, or any of the apostles for that matter were concerned with getting big houses and new chariots. I don't find it anywhere. I agree with Carter Conlon on this RUN FOR YOUR LIVES FROM THIS DOCTRINE.

This is a good sermon to listen to on this topic, preached the Sunday after 9/11.

[url=https://www.sermonindex.net/modules/mydownloads/singlefile.php?lid=1724]Run For Your Life[/url]

Though this was posted on another thread, however, twayneb,consider where you objectify your faith and place your focus.
Should you walk in an ideology not supported in the teachings of Jesus and the apostles?

Is True faith all about Jesus finished work, or is it about what you do to acquire God's blessing through your own efforts?

Phanetheus: Though you have read my words, I think you have not understood my message. Anyone who teaches or believes that faith is about ones own efforts does not understand faith at all. In Hebrews we find that just as God ended His own labors, ceased from them, and entered into the sabbath rest, we too should come to a place where we enter into a rest that is a ceasing of our own labors. God does not have a personal faith-o-meter that he gauges our faith in order to see if we have "believed enough to get an answer". That would be to obtain by our own labors which we are to cease from. Faith is not about reaching out to obtain by our own words. It is positive response to what God has already done. It is receiving what He has already provided. But the things of God are not automatic. It is faith that pleases God. It is simply the way He set up the kingdom. Take your example of the air compressor. When you prayed did so with full assurance that God was able to provide the need at hand. He gave you instructions. If you did not believe, you would not have acted in obedience. Your actions were the works of faith that James talked about when he said I will show you my faith by my works. You received what God desired to do through responding in faith which manifests itself in obedience.

Faith is not about repeating the right words as though it was some sort of incantation. That is witchcraft. But confessing of faith is about proclaiming the Word of God over the situation. This exercise does not directly change the situation. A lost man can proclaim, "By His stripes I was healed." until he is too hoarse to speak and it will not change the situation. But if I as a believer and sick and in need of healing and if I am battling unbelief in my life, I can proclaim the Word of God over my body and as a result of speaking and hearing the Word of God my mind and heart can be renewed to His Word and faith will rise within me so that I can freely receive what He has already provided but what I must receive by faith.

What did Jesus tell His disciples when they were puzzled at a demon they could not cast out? He said their lack of success was due to their unbelief. Their focus was on what their physical senses told them, not on what He had told them. "Positive Confession" as some have called it, when rightly understood and applied, helps us to renew our minds and adjust our thinking so that we are Word minded instead of carnally minded.

Situations and circumstances do not indicate that God's Word is not true. If any Christian thinks such, they are not resting their hope in what God says. Their focus is in the wrong place

Amen! I don't think anyone implied anything to the contrary. Lets say an emergency comes up and I am in need of finances to meet my needs. This does not imply at all that the Word of God is not true. But, I may be focused on my need and the stress of the situation and be wringing my hands wondering what I am to do. My faith my be weak, or I may be in unbelief. How do I respond? I open the Word and begin to renew my mind about God's promise and desire to meet my needs. I speak those scriptures out loud in faith and in prayer as a means of renewing my mind. I am not implying the Word is not true. I am acknowledging the power of the Word to transform my mind Romans 12:2, and i am putting that into practice. I am, in a real and practical way, resting my hope in what God says.

It is never about my great faith or my ability to move God. It is all about my response to His Word in faith. There is a huge gulf between these two points of view. Unfortunately we divide the body into camps based on our perception of what the other camp believes. Yes there are those who preach error. Yes I need to avoid them. But don't throw out the baby with the dirty bathwater. There is a valid and legitimate truth to speaking the Word of God in faith that many are tempted to reject because they equate it with a perverse doctrine that some practice. In doing so we fall into the same error. To erroneously reject truth is no different than erroneously accepting a perversion of truth.

Travis