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Like Aristotle and The Scholastics of the Church – the Southern Baptist Convention does not seem to think you can alter your God-given natures through Wisdom either. Apparently all you need to do is be Born Again and your troubles are over. Perhaps that is what seems to be confusing Billy Graham (Holy Spirit, 31). But for all of you believing Sheep out there – I know that you know better. Just because you are a true Believer does not mean all of the troubles of this world cease. Our troubled fleshly bodies do not find peace until we cross the Waters of Sheol (Job 26:5-7 and Ecclesiastes 7:1). You know the spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak (Matthew 26:41). So what then, are we just to resolve ourselves to the fact that we are trapped inside our weakly flesh? Are we just to accept the fact that we are enwrapped in a fleshly nature and left all alone to deal with the god of this World (II Corinthians 4:4)? Are we just to grin and bear our Adversary’s daily adversities with a fleshly response of fight, flight, or sink? Heaven forbid I leave you with this kind of counsel. First of all, a fight or flight mechanism is a response to an outside stimulus - a stimulus of fear that sets our caveman hangover ablaze with fiery passions (Positive Thinking, 157). And second of all, I do not want you to face daily obstacles with these kinds of fleshly and primitive responses. I do not want you to react with your adrenaline pumping and treating something as mundane as rush hour traffic with the same force our ancestors would react against a predator. I do not want you treating every mundane daily obstacle as if it were a life and death struggle. Instead, I want you to reap the fruits of the Holistic Healing Arts. I want you to build and exercise your spiritual bodies just as you would your natural body so you can enjoy these benefits to both natures. The Holy Spirit By Billy Graham Warner Books New York, New York 1978 The Power of Positive Thinking By Norman Vincent Peale A Fireside Book Published by Simon & Schuster New York London Toronto Sydney Copyright 1952, 1956 by Prentice-Hall, Inc. Copyright renewed © 1980 by Norman Vincent Peale Foreword copyright © 2008 by Dr. Robert H. Schuller
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