#SixAyesOfFaith (well, #KennethCopeland @CopelandNetwork calls them "I's"; but '#SixIS' or '#6iS' don't "tweet" well) #Aye #Ay

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I've known about Rev. Brother Kenneth Copeland's "Six I's of Faith" for a while now (maybe months, maybe years ... I think he originally discussed them as "Six I's of Prayer"—6 "I's" that no valid prayer can go without), but some recent months of prayer/meditation gave some knew knowledge when he reviewed 'the six I's' in this Partner Letter.

The "I" that stuck out for me was "I Take It!" That's one of the main reasons I get annoyed at people (including Brother Kenneth) who ask others to pray for them ... because Jesus Himself spoke against that!

He said, "When you pray, go to your private room and shut the door and pray in secret"! Oh, He said plenty of other things about 'agreeing in prayer with fellow disciples,' and other disciples said plenty about 'keeping their colleagues & disciples in their prayers,' and none of my fully-indoctrinated Christian friends pay this conflict any thought as they continue to pray to Yahweh as if he's their 'magic genie' ... 💢

But they always leave out the 'I Take It!' Because that's how one gets 'the answer to one's prayers'—if you ask for a car & he delivers it but you do not take the keys, you don't get the car he gives you.
That might be the source of a lot of my frustration-with-prayer ... people asking Yahweh to give them something, when they refuse to see that he's already given it to them (or refuse to take 'what he's given them instead').

I might be 'an example of that': he gives me life, provided that I take good care of it. I've prayed for a wife (for almost 20 years), but I'm not married. Oh, I'm sure he's given me chance-after-chance-after-chance to get a wife; but I wouldn't "jump through the hoops" to become 'a good husband' ...
But today's Christian Church actually does understand it as ...
    Six 'Aye's (probably related to 'Amen') of Faith
  • Do you have a firm faith in Yahweh? Aye!
  • Do you accept Yahweh's will? Aye!
  • Do you go out to get Yahweh's gift when it's given? Aye!
  • Do you count that gift among your possessions? Aye!
  • Do you appreciate the item/circumstance Yahweh has given you? Aye!
  • Will you 'pay it forward'? Aye!
The word “Aye” is built on words that mean “(I) |Assent, |Yes, |Yea, |Always, Ever” (|Vital Force, |Long Life, Eternity, Age, |Space of |Time).

In the Partner-Letter, Brother Copeland recalls 'the night Lord Jesus gave him The Six I's':
          ... About 4 a.m., I was awakened suddenly, and had a vision of Jesus standing at the foot of my bed. He was holding a large tray. It was a big, wide serving tray heaped high with cookies. You’d think someone with a huge tray filled with cookies would be smiling, right? He was not. He didn’t look mad, but He did look very stern. He said in a very bold voice, 
“HAVE A COOKIE!”
          I just lay there with, I’m sure, a very dumb look on my face. Then He said, Your response is, “I believe. I will. I take it. I have it. I praise You for it, and I forgive.”
          That was it. As I lay there meditating on what I had heard and seen, I saw myself, with a cookie in my hand, in a room full of people who were standing around visiting. Someone came up to me and said, “Would you like a cookie?” I said, “No, thank you. I have one.”
          One of the first things the Holy Spirit revealed to me about all this is that He’s not saying in Mark 11:22 that we should do all we can to have faith. That’s good, and we should, but He was, and still is, impressing on me that He has provided faith for us! He was offering it to me and was obviously upset that I wasn’t coming to Him and praising and thanking Him for it.
 Hmm ... not 'I Thank You for it,' but "I Praise You for
 it" ... Brother Copeland uses the two words interchangeably, but
 he only quotes Lord Jesus as saying 'praise' 🤨
 ... maybe a less-'feeling-focused' word there
 would be "Accredit"—I mean; that's what we're
 essentially doing when we 'praise Yahweh for the
 blessings in our lives': we're telling all who hear
 us that Yahweh is the one who 'rained them down'
 for us to take (in the Name of His Son), Amen?

And it seems odd to me that ... well, many things about this seem odd, but 'all at the same time'; they might seem "logical" addressed 'one thing at a time,' so I'm sure people's inability to focus on multiple things will make it easy for you to counter any of these arguments 'one by one':
  • Seems hypocritical, how Brother Copeland would refuse to have more than one cookie when he has no problem having 'more than one huge fortune!'
    • understandable that he'd limit himself to one cookie, as sugary-food becomes more-and-more dangerous to you as you get older. But I imagine he'd take a whole batch of cookies if they were given to him by Lord Jesus; yet ...
    • I wonder what 'roomful of people' Brother Copeland would be in where someone who offered him a cookie WEREN'T a disciple of Lord Jesus ... anyway ...
  • Brother Copeland's impression that Lord Jesus was upset—that's the reason I'm usually upset at pray-ers ... they've been duped into the idea that Yahweh's not giving blessings unless you pray for them—which isn't how it works!

    Yahweh "rains blessings upon the just & the unjust"; and our 'prayers' are essentially the same as answering, "Yes, please. Thank you," when our cohabitants offer us 'a cookie' or -the same as answering, "Yes, as soon as possible," when they ask us to 'take out the trash' or 'put away the dishes.'

That's gets me started 'rambling' about how Yahweh's perspective differs from ours. We humans see time 'linearly'—moment-to-moment, with 'the future' not yet existing & 'the past' only existing in our shared memories; Yahweh sees 'eternally' ... all moments—past, present & future—are "right now" from Yahweh's perspective—a good way to think of it might be 'we are all actor in the stage-play Yahweh is producing.'
So you could say 'the future is already decided and there's nothing we can do to change it,' but that's only partly-right. The full truth is that there are INFINITE futures to choose from, but when the future comes then we will all be forced to take the same one (and each of us have our own little influence on the one).

It's like when you're an actor in 'a play' (like 'a TV-show' or 'a movie,' but LIVE with no opportunity for The Producer to edit it). The script is written, so you know how 'the main story-arc' is going to turn out. But–from scene-to-scene–you decide to go along with the script or -to make little changes (usually just in phrasing & accent & dialect & choreography) to refine your character's 'trajectory' along the main story-arc.

So when I see people asking friends to "pray for them," I think I'll remind them that Yahweh's not changing the script and isn't editing-out any bad decisions we make.
... Bad decisions ... that reminds me ...

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