"You Are Precious In God's Eyes". So says the title of the article in question. In this article, they talked about Jesus as a person that cared about people. The religious leaders of the day had contempt for the common people, unlike Jesus. Back in those days, the Pharisees were trying to make common people feel worthless.
Now compare that with the Watchtower Society. They make common worldly people look contemtible, suitable only as bird food. Those within the fold are made to feel worthless if they have any vestiges of worldly possessions. Note that they are now cracking down on college, perhaps creating people with few or no possessions (making anyone feel bad if they go to college so they can support a family). Anyone that they feel could do more in field circus is disparaged. And there are so many rules that one feels horrible for using too much toilet paper at the a$$embly.
Paragraph 3 tells us that Satan is trying to get us to feel unloved and unworthy. Here is where Satan gets undeserved blame. It does mention that Satan appeals to vanity, but is willing to crush self worth.
This whole paragraph is a blatant attempt to set people up. They used that as the seed to get all the sisters to totally reject me at the Great and Grand Boasting sessions, behind my back, in 1995. They wanted to make sure I would be celibate for the Value Destroyer Training School, and now they have the tool needed to make me do it. Get all the sisters to reject me, then blame Satan, and then tell me that I can slap Satan in the face (whom they blamed for my troubles) by serving the ones that actually created the problem by joining the Value Destroyer Training School. What a scam--so blatant that it was the beginning of my seriously turning apostate.
They make a major logic error in paragraph 4. They tell us that personal worthlessness is against the fact that God paid a high price to get us (as a group) salvation. The fallacy becomes blatant when one realizes that God only had to pay that price once. The first person to come under that arrangement was paid for by the full price of Jesus' sacrifice. Anyone else that comes under this arrangement cost nothing extra. The marginal cost for YOUR salvation, therefore, is ZERO. Notice that the paragraph continues to use the plural form, as in "us" instead of the singular "you". This means that God loves the group, NOT the individuals in it, enough to pay that price.
Going beyond here, I suggest a pause to get your puke buckets and barf bags ready.
Now, they tell us why the encouragement. According to the article, it says that it becomes difficult to serve Jehovah if we are discouraged. Self serving! Meaning many people will not take the time to pioneer if money is too tight. For me, it was a blatant attempt to get me into the Value Destroyer Training School. It goes on to tell us that we need to take this beating (of which much seems to be coming from the hounder-hounders lately) as encouragement. You are not going to be encouraged if all they tell you is that we need to do more. It goes on to tell us that more time in studying the Watchtower Society's littera-trash is all that's really necessary to cure it.
Paragraphs 7 and 8 go on to tell us that Jehovah is capable of resurrecting us. He claims to value us as more than the sparrows that are used as examples. The sparrow is the cheapest game bird, and God is cited by this article as not seeing one fall without taking note (I wonder what He notes about it, because it does not say if He takes note as in missing it, or if He only takes note because it leaves a mess when it lands). Notice that it also tells nothing about whether God actually views the sparrows as precious, since many of HIs promises and claims do prove specious.
And what about God being able to recreate us? The text tells us that Jehovah can resurrect us. Now, having the power to do so is one thing. But there is nothing in the Bible or in the article that proves, or even strongly suggests, that Jehovah is willing to do this. Without being willing, there is no value in being able. In a similar vein, I could tell the hounders that I could pioneer, or go to the REJECT Jesus party this Saturday, and then not do it.
The paragraphs that follow will explain that Jehovah has searched through billions of hearts and found nothing but badness (which is a blatant lie). So, He has found us and found something good. The article continues and tells us that, even if we do not excel in something, Jehovah found something good in us. What they don't tell us in this article (but there are enough later articles that tell us that) is that no matter how much we do, it will not be enough. Pioneers are expected to start more Watchtower studies. We are supposed to do ever more. They make people feel guilty if they want a little recreation. There are more than a few threads on this board where people were beat up on for having a party with a little music, dancing, or some sports. Miss a boasting session, and you can expect Brother Hounder to show up.
After wasting about 5 paragraphs on this, paragraph 14 tells us what the work Jehovah values in us is. And, anyone could guess that it would be spreading the cancer worldwide. This is the dominant work cited in this paragraph as "in imitation of Jesus", which is another blatant lie (Jesus did not want people to become mindless God machines, but independent thinkers--therefore, if I am actively trying to get people to think independently, I am more following Jesus than any "Christian" would and especially any witless).
Endurance is mentioned in paragraph 15. Enduring what? Remember, the article was written in 1995 and the religion has changed for the worse even since. People have had to endure a steady erosion of entertainment as the Tower has encroached on it. People have had to endure being molested as children and then silenced under threat of being disfellowshipped. People are now having even more embarrassment as these pedophile cases are being more public. They have to endure leaders that insist that no amount of field circus is enough, and that insist on making rules that make it miserable and less fruitful. Now, they have to endure high gas prices.
And it is going to get a lot worse. People are going to enter old age, destitute, and with no skills or achievements to fall back on. Those following the Filthful and Disgraceful Slavebugger will not be able to afford anything because they will not be able to get decent jobs. And any money they do chance to have goes right into the Worldwide Pedophile Defense Fund. Inheritances go to the Pedophile Defense Fund, too. Another build up, another crash. More people having trouble paying credit card bills because they had to quit their jobs or work part time so they could pioneer. Endure? My foot!
Paragraphs 17 and 18 repeat the pay-one-price fallacy. Now, they tell us that Jehovah personally draws us in so we can benefit from the ransom. Bullsxxx! This is done en masse, and everyone gets hounded. Only the gullible and those without access to knowledge of the Bible and the scam get suckered in. We are personally trained for one reason only: To get us into doing more of the work so Ted Jaracz can have more people to bully.
Prayer is another fallacy. We have the "privilege" of prayer, and as we will see in this coming week's study, there is no guarantee that we will get an acceptable answer. Instead, we might continually get "NO" for an answer, and referred to the stock prayer answerings. That means that the prayer was a waste of time--just another empty privilege put there to make God look like something He is not.
The article resorts to circular arguments and specious logic to tell us that we are loved by Jehovah. What He does love is what He can get out of us. There is no proof or strong evidence that Jehovah actually loves us as individuals, and is willing to do what He needs to in order to fulfill us independent of His nefarious will. For sure, this is one study article I wish would have been snowed out.