Empowering Words

There is a structure in marketing known as the four powers of mass motivation:

1. What’s in it for me?  Example: How do I make out in this deal?
2. Quick and easy.  Example: Microwave dinners.  Lose ten pounds in ten minutes.
3. Curiosity.  Example: Find the 37 mistakes in this picture.
4. News.  Example: The greatest discovery in baking since baker’s yeast.

A great marketing offer will incorporate all four of these concepts in the headline of the offer.  God’s marketing offer to man is truly the greatest of all time:

1. What’s in it for me?  A life full of forgiveness, goodness, purpose, and hope, capped off with eternal life in Christ Jesus.

2. Quick and easy.  Salvation is not joining a church or attending a set of classes.  But, it takes place instantly when an individual believes upon Jesus Christ, repents of sin, and follows the Lord of Glory.

3. Curiosity.  What could be more curious than being born into the house of God and personally knowing the creator of the universe and learning marvelous supernatural truths?

4. News—the news that you have become a child of the Almighty God—the God whose angels now encamp about you.

Are you ready to respond to the marketing offer of all time?  Are you ready to have all your sin and shame expunged from your record?  GodSaidManSaid has good news.  Today is your day of salvation.  Click onto “Further With Jesus” for childlike instructions and immediate entry into the Kingdom of God.  NOW FOR TODAY’S SUBJECT.

GOD SAID, Isaiah 57:19-21:

19  I create the fruit of the lips; Peace, peace to him that is far off, and to him that is near, saith the LORD; and I will heal him.

20  But the wicked are like the troubled sea, when it cannot rest, whose waters cast up mire and dirt.

21  There is no peace, saith my God, to the wicked.

GOD SAID, Proverbs 18:21:

Death and life are in the power of the tongue: and they that love it shall eat the fruit thereof.

MAN SAID: The Bible is for the uneducated and easily-led.  These Christians go to church and check their brains at the door.

Now THE RECORD.  If God created all that you see with His words (for the Scriptures declare that we were literally spoken into existence), then words should have a dramatic effect on our lives (and they do).  We are a compilation of words.  When scientists began to understand DNA, they discovered that it functioned with a four-letter alphabet, giving life’s building instructions, in what is uncannily similar to sentences, paragraphs, and chapters.  Words are everything.  On GodSaidManSaid we have written concerning this life-changing understanding on numerous occasions.  At the end of this feature we will list a sampling of them.  I cannot exaggerate the importance of visiting these subjects.  They will fill your life with life and life more abundantly.

This feature will highlight some of the latest gospel-confirming findings on the subject of words.  The following paragraphs are being lifted from a GodSaidManSaid feature titled, “Nocebo, Placebo, and You:” 

Proverbs 23:7:

For as he thinketh in his heart, so is he:

Much of God’s word deals with thoughts and principles of developing and controlling them.

II Corinthians 10:4-5:

4  (For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strong holds;)

5  Casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ;

Every thought must be brought into alignment with Jesus Christ.  When thoughts are brought into subjection to God’s Word, abundant and dynamic life is the product even to where God describes it like unto the days of heaven upon the earth (Deuteronomy 11:21).  Once an individual enters the miracle of the new birth (see “Further With Jesus” on this web site), God gives power to transform the mind’s thoughts.  This process is akin to a blood transfusion.  We replace the bad carnal thoughts with God’s thoughts.  The procedure is called the renewing of the mind—putting on the mind of Christ.

Romans 12:2:

And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God.

Romans 13:14:

But put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make not provision for the flesh, to fulfill the lusts thereof.

We are directed to control our thoughts.  Phillipians 4:8:

Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things.

Thoughts affect our lives in a dramatic fashion.  For example, Jesus equates an adulterous thought with the actual deed of adultery (Matthew 5:28).  God places such heavy weight on thoughts simply because, as God says of man, “as he thinketh in his heart, so is he.”

Thoughts are silent words that become deeds and speech.  The Bible says God spoke us into existence with words from that which is invisible and that the power of death and life are in the tongue (Proverbs 18:21).  Words are serious business.  Words affect our overall well-being and controlling them is critical.

Thousands of years before it began to be abundantly clear that thoughts were pivotal to health and peace and purpose, God said it was so, and He said it over and over again with great emphasis.  It is just another point that the creator of all things also knows all.

You have of course heard of the placebo effect.  Basically, the placebo effect is the ability of the mind to think oneself better.  Many clinical measurements have been made over the years concerning this phenomenon.  In these studies people were treated for a particular ailment.  Part of the group was treated with the appropriate medication while the others were given a placebo, often a harmless sugar pill.  After the trial, the results of both groups were measured.  The improvement rate of those taking the harmless sugar pill ranked in at about one out of three, or 33%, and the improvement number of the placebo group is sometimes greater than the improvement percentage turned in by the group actually treated with the appropriate medication.  Just recently a study was conducted on an actual operation procedure.  The placebo operation actually turned in a higher improvement percentage than the medically recommended procedure.  It also was noted that the placebo benefit skyrockets when the doctor promotes the fake placebo cure’s benefit with words.  “As he thinketh in his heart…”

As you should suppose there is an opposite to the placebo effect and it is called the nocebo effect, which is basically the physically negative things that take place in one’s body simply as a result of thinking on the wrong words.

The following excerpt concerning the nocebo effect is from an article written by Stacey Colino titled, “Mind Over Medicine.”  It reads:

In an experiment at the State University of New York Downstate Medical center in Brooklyn, people with asthma were given inhalers that contained a harmless saline mist but were told that they were inhaling a mist that contained irritants.  Nearly half of the subjects experienced airway inflammation—a major symptom of asthma—and several actually suffered a full-blown asthma attack.  It was a classic illustration of the nocebo effect at work.

You may already be comfortable with the general notion that your moods and thoughts affect your physical health—you get sick to your stomach when you're under pressure at work, for example.  (Nocebo’s flip side, the placebo effect, is another form of this mind/body connection.  That’s the tendency people have to feel better after they receive a treatment—even if it has zero therapeutic value—simply because they think the treatment will work.)  But in the more specific form of the nocebo effect, the cause is a particular thought or belief, not something vague like stress or a bad mood.  In one experiment, 13 teenagers were told they were being rubbed on the arm with a plant similar to poison ivy.  The leaves were, in fact, harmless, but all of the kids had some reaction—itching, redness, blisters.  Their specific belief that the plant was poisonous actually caused them to break out in rashes.

Doubters, incessant moaners, and other types of pessimists, according to Doctors Brennan and Charnetski in their book, Feeling Good is Good For You, should be avoided like any kind of contagious problem because pessimism is a psychologically contagious disease.  In God’s system of mind control these mindsets are commanded against as I quoted earlier, and yes, they are of nocebo kin.

The way you think is the way you are.  The following excerpt was taken from an article written by health writer Anna Roufos in a feature titled, “Nix Negative Thinking.”  It reads:

Looking at the bright side may also lead to a longer life.  Researchers at the Mayo Clinic gathered the results of a personality test taken thirty years ago.  When they followed up with 839 test takers, they found that those who were pessimists had a 19 percent increased risk of death.

Proverbs 4:23-24:

23  Keep thy heart with all diligence; for out of it are the issues of life.

24  Put away from thee a froward mouth, and perverse lips put far from thee.  [End of quote]

The power and effect of words is all-encompassing.  The following paragraph is from Science News, March 14, 2009:

Think positive!  People who attended a few sessions on how to focus on positive words or images had at least four months of freedom from anxiety disorders.  [End of quote]

An estimated 6.8 million Americans suffer with generalized anxiety disorder which involves constant, exaggerated worries about impending disasters regarding health, money, or other issues.  According to Science News, about 15 million have been diagnosed with social anxiety disorder.  This disorder is characterized by a debilitating dread of everyday social situations and a fear of being watched and judged by others.  The following paragraph, found on sciencenews.org, under the header, “Don’t Worry, Get Attention Training,” demonstrates that world and image therapy are at least as effective as psychotherapy and drugs.  It reads,

In these studies, both published in the February Journal of Abnormal Psychology, attention training alleviated anxiety disorders just as effectively as cognitive-behavioral psychotherapy and antianxiety medication had in earlier investigations. Yet attention training requires minimal professional supervision, causes no side effects and could be completed over the Internet.  [End of quote]

Science has now arrived at the conclusion that words are consequential and a whole lot more consequential than could ever imagine.

GOD SAID, Proverbs 18:21:

Death and life are in the power of the tongue: and they that love it shall eat the fruit thereof.

GOD SAID, Philippians 4:8:

Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things.

MAN SAID: The Bible is for the uneducated and easily-led.  These Christians go to church and check their brains at the door.

Now you have THE RECORD.

 

References:

Authorized King James Version

Bower, B., “Don’t Worry, Get Attention Training,” Science News, February 18, 2009

“Humans,” Science News, March 14, 2009, p4

 

 

Related Features:

Everything Made of Words

It’s Not What Goes In But What Comes Out That Defiles

Life Series — Part Four — Learning To Talk (Session One)

Life Series — Part Four —- Learning To Talk (Session Two)

Secrets and Demonstrations of Power-Speaking

Some of the Greatest Principles of All Time, Part Three, Harnessing the Supernatural Power of Words

Some of the Greatest Principles of All Time--Part One--Brains and Words

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