Adversity vs. Stress
Adversity is what we all will have
in life, in one form or another. This adversity is inevitable. Adversity
results from the freewill of man in this world. It is inevitable that the sin
of man will hurt each other. So many bad decisions made from the sin nature
creates havoc in nations, families, and individuals. Adversity also comes from
God himself, for example natural disasters. But, God has given us the tools we
need to overcome adversities and prevent them from becoming stress within our
soul. Pschology is actually a very precise science when it comes to the
analysis of human instability within the soul. Schizophrenia, manic depression,
disassociation, hysteria, psychosis, are results of adversity becoming stress
in the soul. And contrary to popular belief, these psychological problems are
not just the problems of unbelievers, but also believers in Jesus Christ. Now
psychology says neurosis is lack of psychic energy in the stream of
consciousness. Neurosis can be feelings of anxiety, obsessional thoughts, or
compulsive acts. Neurosis can lead to what psychologists call a splitting of
the mind resulting in split personalities. This condition is far more common
than even most experts will admit. Some people are able to keep their irrationality
within the soul, and thus appear to be perfectly normal. Of course, no one
fools God. He knows our every thought, our every motive, and he has always
known these things. Neurosis can result in a believer when he lacks Bible
Doctrine in his stream of consciousness. The only defenses against any form of
neurosis are the 2 power options, the filling of the Holy Spirit, and the daily
intake of the Word of God. The same goes for the unbeliever, however, without
belief in Jesus Christ, he can only rely on the divine laws of establishment
given to every member of the human race in the Mosaic law. The unbeliever must
rely on honor, integrity, honesty, and upholding rights of life, liberty,
privacy, and property given to men that are true divine laws of establishment.
Unbelievers that fail to live by the divine laws of establishment, and
believers that fail to intake Bible Doctrine in their soul will result in some
form of neurosis. Now psychology has a vast amount of information on how they
can fix a soul. And, medication is a good thing if it can bring a person to a
point were he can concentrate on the Word of God. However, the Bible
emphatically says that human solutions (psychology) are NO solutions, divine solutions (Bible Doctrine and the divine laws of
establishment) are the only solutions. The problem with psychology is focusing
on the problem, instead of offering real solutions.
As a child, we all form defense
mechanisms within our souls to cope with the outside world. The worse the
childhood, the more defense mechanisms we develop. Defense mechanisms are the
only means of surviving childhood for many who struggle through it. But, when
the child becomes an adult, these same defense mechanisms will destroy the
soul. Reaction and blame will only create more problems within the soul. The
woman who wrote the letter realized that the solution was not to continue being
the victim, to feel sorry for herself, but to realize that what she thinks now,
will determine her future. The same principle applies when the apostle Paul
says to forget what lies behind, and move toward the goal which is in Christ
Jesus. If we continue to let past or present adversities penetrate our souls,
we are the ones choosing to live in misery and stress, instead of God’s plan
and purpose for our lives. We are all imperfect, and we have all done things we
regret, or have had things done to us by others that cause us grief, but we
have the option as to whether these problems destroy us. If we choose to focus
on the problem, we are in essence saying to God that we can handle our own
problems, we don’t need His solutions. Or we can forget the past and move on. 1
Peter 5:5 and James 4:6 say basically the same thing. God makes war against the
arrogant believer, but he gives grace to the humble believer. This means that
if we continue to focus on the problems and adversities of life, past or
present, thenGod will allow the pain and misery to continue and we will only
have ourselves to blame. Most believers do not even realize this, but even
unhappiness is arrogance.
Yes, I will say it again, it is
arrogant to be an unhappy believer. We choose our state of mind. YOU ARE A
SLAVE TO WHATEVER RUINS YOUR PIECE OF MIND. God never coerces our decisions. He
allows us to choose for or against his plan. It is impossible to be unhappy in
God’s plan. But wait, hold that thought. We don’t just suddenly become
incredibly happy at the moment of salvation. God wants His creatures to be
happy. This requires spending your lifetime learning about who He is, and what
it is all about. We either continue to strive toward the goal of occupation
with the person of Jesus Christ by renewing our mind with the Word of God, even
giving thanks in the difficulties of life, or we choose to focus on the
problems and continue to live in misery. We sow to the wind, and we reap the
whirlwind. We make our own choices in life, and in the end we only have
ourselves to blame. Do we make the Word of God our #1 priority in life? This is
the question we must ask ourselves within our own soul. God already knows the
answer. He already knew the outcome of your life billions of years before you
were born. So, the solutions He provides will work. Jesus Christ our Lord made
this life possible and perfected those solutions. When I start thinking about
how infinity superior and stable our God is, it brings me to incredible joy
inside my soul. What comfort!!! What security!!!
The sad fact is that most believers
in Jesus Christ will not achieve the ultra-supergrace life. They would rather
hear what they want to hear, and so they never advance farther than what they
want to hear. The following are 8 stages of reversionism which Paul was
inspired to communicate to the Galatians and Corinthians, many of those who had
fallen out of fellowship. Reversionism simply means that a believer in Jesus
Christ, even a spiritually mature believer, can revert back to his old
unbelieving ways. This is proof that until the day we die, we will constantly
need to fill our minds with Biblical truths to avoid reversionism.
--------Most
believers trap themselves somewhere in the 8 stages of
reversionism-----------------------------
1) Reaction and Distraction
As a believer, you can either
respond to circumstances and people in your life (using Bible Doctrine in your
soul) or you can react to them. This can be as simple as frustration, or it
could be reacting to other’s sins. Are you distracted from daily intake of the
Word of God? Are you hypersensitive to other’s sins, because they are different
from your own? This is when you start drifting from concentrating on your own
spiritual life, and become more concerned with what else is going on. Remember
this basic Biblical principle: Only you can live your spiritual life, no one
else can live it for you. Loss of fellowship through sin, and failure to apply
1 John 1:9 results in advanced stages of reversionism.
You see here, if you allow the
outside pressure of adversity to become the inside pressure of stress in the
soul, you are in the 1st stage of reversionism. The sin nature is not the fault
of sin. The sin nature is genetic and resides in every cell of the human body.
The soul, which was created by God, is perfect. Volition, mentality, and self
consciousness all reside in the soul. When we sin, we choose to sin. The sin
nature simply tempts us, and then we use the volition in our soul to choose to
sin. Only the 2 power options of the filling of the Holy Spirit and the
accumulated Epignosis knowledge of Bible Doctrine can defend us from this
temptation. Lack of these is lack of real strength. When we sin, it is
inevitable that stress will be present inside the soul, and if we fail to
rebound, we move to stage 2 Reversionism.
2) Frantic search for happiness
Because you are out of fellowship,
you seek happiness in the world to compensate from frustration, boredom, lonliness,
etc… And you must have more than just simple fellowship with the Holy Spirit to
avoid this stage of reversionism. You must have acquired epignosis knowledge in
your stream of consciousness—the right lobe of the soul, or heart. For without epignosis
knowledge, you will not have any spiritual strength to keep you inside the
divine dynasphere, or within fellowship with God. There are 2 types of
Christians who develop in this stage of reversionism. The ascetic or legalistic
Christian has a trend toward morality. He can have self righteous arrogance,
and produce mental attitude sins by judging and looking down upon others who do
not fit his moralistic image of a Christian. He does not have the truth within
him, because he is out of fellowship, and hence, without epignosis knowledge.
His frantic search for happiness is trying to show others how good he is, and
deceiving himself into thinking God actually favors him over others, when God’s
love doesn’t fluctuate. God loves all believers the same, he doesn’t love one
over another because of how good they are. It never depends on how they are. It
all depends on who and what God is. And God loves his own righteousness, the
righteousness that we receive when we believe in Jesus Christ, perfect
righteousness. So, he joins the church, and tithes, and says God bless you, and
smiles all the time, and tries to do the right thing, and therefore he never
gets it. It never depends on what he does or how he does it, it depends on
following the strict rules laid out to him in the Bible. He is not better than
others, but yet he depends on this belief that he is. He joins others who fit
his trend of the “human good” syndrome. I like to call these mutual admiration
societies. They think they are so great, and they frown on the rest of the
world. The problem hear is the tendency to focus on oneself for such high
morality, completely loosing track of what is truely in the Word of God. The
frantic search for happiness is the result of seeking happiness through people
and society, like churches, when only the Word of God in your soul can do this.
The second trend is fairly obvious. For the lascivious Christian, this could
mean drunkenness, sexual promiscuity, drug abuse or crime. This frantic search
for happiness leads a Christian to escape reality through overt sins.
3) Operation Boomerang
Just that, the more you react, are
distracted, and search for happiness outside your inner soul, the more these
reactions are intensified. Frustration becomes greater frustration.
Discouragement becomes depression. Lonliness become desolation. Here is where
you loose your common sense and you let emotion run your soul. Here is where
your soul becomes fragmented, and begins to literally split. This fragmentation
is prolonged stress inside the soul. The only defense is to use 1 John 1:9!!
When I reach this stage, it is usually from deep self pity or anxiety I have
accumulated over the years from garbage in my subconsciousness. As the years
pass by under daily perserverance of Bible Doctrine, I am able to fight this
battle more and more head on, and so I do not see this stage as much as I use
to. Epignosis knowledge inside the soul will become more and more a line of defense
in the battle that wages inside the soul. I can recall The Word of God more
quickly, and faith becomes more of a reality from inner proof of contentment.
However, without daily intake of Bible Doctrine, the believer is weakened more
and more as the stress takes over his soul. The stress will fornicate with the
old sin nature and when cognition of the mind is overrun, then stage 4 will
inevitably result.
4) Emotional revolt of the soul
Emotion is no longer the responder
or appreciator of the soul, it now becomes the dictator. Emotion in itself is
empty. It is entirely dependent on knowledge resident in the heart. When
emotion takes control of the soul, the believer becomes irrational. This
irrationality can be subtle, such as sincere and soft spoken pastors who
misinterpret the Bible. Here is where irrationality begins. Instead of using
Bible Doctrine in your heart to respond to circumstances, your emotion dictates
your behavior.
2 Corinthians 6:11-12
O you Corinthians, our mouth is open to
you (Bible teaching); our heart (right lobe of the soul) is enlarged (with
doctrine). You are not hindered (from learning doctrine) by us, but you are
hindered by your own emotions.
Christians distort Bible teaching when they
are under emotional revolt of the soul.
Romans 16:17-18
Now I urge you, brethren, keep your eye on
those who cause dissensions and offenses in opposition to the doctrine which
you have learned, and avoid them. For they are such who serve not our Lord Jesus
Christ but their own emotions, and by smooth and flattering speech they deceive
the right lobes of the stupid.
These are apostate believers who are
without Bible Doctrine in their souls. They interpret the scriptures with their
emotions, without discernment. Bible Doctrine is not about sweet, sentimental
emotional deception, it is about principles of truth and integrity that God recognizes
inside the soul and rewards accordingly. (Rev 2:23) Emotion was given to human
life as an appreciator of the things the Creator so graciously gives us.
Emotion, however, can be very destructive if given full control of the mind.
You do not have to be a believer to understand this point. Emotion breeds
irrational behavior and instability. The Christian way of life is all about
thinking, thinking, thinking. We are to understand Bible Doctrine by cognition,
by knowledge of God. Emotion has NO room in the Christian way
of life accept as an appreciator of what we know about the Lord. Emotion is a
wonderful gift from God, and I think you know how wonderful it can be when you
think about salvation and what Christ did for you at the cross. I myself get
quite ecstastic at times when I think about all that God has provided for us.
It can also be bad when you loose your train of thought, and you let anger or
bitterness rule your thoughts.
This stage of reversionism is very
destructive. You cannot recall Bible Doctrine that you previously had knowledge
of, because cognition in the right lobe is where Bible Doctrine resides. Your
emotion is running your soul. Simple use of 1 John 1:9 must be used. You must
be able to recognize your irrationality and confess the sin. Arrogance becomes
so blatant here!! Those that are in emotional revolt of the soul do not want to
hear the truth, and they despise it when you try and explain it to them. To
them, they want to continue telling you about their distorted views about the
Bible, such as loving your neighbor as you love your self means personally
loving everyone else!! This is impossible. I will explain this further below.
Another example would be that you have to feel sorry for your sins (emotion).
Wrong! How you feel about your sins is inconsequential. There is nowhere in the
Bible that it say you must feel sorry for your sins. If this was a
prerequisite, then you would have an influence in God’s plan, and this would
mean God’s plan is not perfect because it relies on you. It does not rely on
you. The sins were already judged at the cross. How you feel about them is not
the issue. The issue is to cite them, HOMOLOGEO, as per 1 John 1:9. This
word actually comes from 5th century Attic Greek, used by Socretes, and Plato,
and meant to cite a court room case. It did not require how the lawyer felt
about the case, he was simply required to state the facts. We are to only state
the facts to God and move on. We are not punished for our sins anyhow, again
these were judged at the cross. We are disciplined for being out of fellowship.
Believe me, it begins to make since over time, because we actually learn from
thought (citing our sins to God), not from emotion (feeling sorry for sin).
Lastly, Godly sorrow is an incorrect translation in Corinthians. If you break
down the Greek exegetically, you find that it actually says, “distressed as God
would have it.” What this means when you anaylize the passages leading up to
the verse, is that when we fail to regain fellowship, then we are distressed as
God would have it. In other words, we are disciplined for being out of
fellowship. Failure to follow these rules will inevitably result in emotional
revolt of the soul. Prolonged periods in this stage will result in neurosis and
other psychological disfunctions. This can explain why perfectly normal
believers suddenly become mad. They overwhelm themselves with guilt and other
emotional sins that drive them to this madness. We are helpless to do anything
apart from the filling of the Holy Spirit. And we cannot fight large battles
without a large battalion lined up to defend our soul. This is Bible Doctrine,
accurate Bible teaching!! Yet, so many of us refuse to use the tools of God
(eventually I will cover all 10 of these in detail later) and rely on our
emotions.
5) Negative Volition Toward Bible Doctrine
At this point believers are
apathetic to the Word of God, and actually shrug it off as needless repetition.
A person now may find a church that suits their emotional needs, ignoring
doctrinal messages and content. They sit in Bible class, but they are performing
rituals without reality. You are so caught up in the adversities of your life
that you cannot apply Bible Doctrine to circumstances. You in essence say,
Bible Doctrine doesn’t work, but it is you who are negative to the Word of God.
Here is where Christians feel so full of self pity and emptiness inside and
just cling to the salvation message. They were given such an extraordinary
spiritual life, yet they waller in their self pity, because they do not
understand why. Ignorance is no excuse in the Word of God. God will always
provide actual Bible teaching, we must seek it, hear it, and live it. Hearing
the Word (academic knowledge) is not good enough, we must be doers of the word (epignosis
knowledge believed, understood and applied).
6) Blackout of the Soul
We are still talking about a
believer in Jesus Christ. He never looses his salvation, what grace!!!!! Here
is were a vaccum opens in the left lobe (the staging area or the mind) of the
soul called MATAIOTES in the Greek. Literally,
this means vanity as in Ephesians 4:17. Satan understands more Bible Doctrine
than you think he does. So, he feeds on believers blackout of the soul. You
see, Satan knows his fate, he realizes it is only a matter of time. But, he
will continue to try and break the link in God’s plan. He has already tried
several times, from extermination of the Jews to avoid the covenants with
racial Isreal from being fulfilled, from attempting to destroy the line of
David in the Old Testament to prevent the birth of Christ, to setting up his
own utopia millineum to prove Christ a liar in saying there will be wars and rumor
of wars until my return. All he needs is to prove one Biblical promise wrong.
Even in his genius, he is no match for the perfection of God. One of his best
attacks on the plan of God is distortion of the truth. Anything to lead the
Christian from the path of righteousness. Christians want to teach about love,
love, love, and yet they have no idea just what love is!!! True love is a
virtue. It is acquired through God’s word, not through emotion. The true power
of love is not personal love directed toward others, but impersonal love. Love
directed toward everyone, because it does not depend on an object it is
attracted to, but it is dependent upon the integrity inside the soul. Yet, most
Christians talk sincere and smile and teach about loving the neighbor. I’ll
tell you what true love is!!! True virtue love is when God the Father judged
His only Son, the uniquely born one, with all the sins of mankind. He had
personal love for Jesus Christ. Yet, he judged him. Why? Because integrity
always comes before love. The righteousness and justice of God the Father
judged Christ on the cross for us, so that His plan would make it possible for
us to have an eternal relationship with us. That is impersonal love!!! HE loves us not for who and what we are, but for who and what he is!!!
Perfect righteousness and fairness will always find a way to give his creatures
a chance.
Timothy 4:1
The Spirit clearly says that in later
times some will abandon the faith and follow deceiving spirits and things
taught by demons.
Satan wants us to feed on
distortions such as love and peace for all. Because he knows that if we focus
on the emotional love we feel, then we rely on our own weak and pathetic
strength. Even in love, we must rely on the Word of God, never on emotion. These
believers in Jesus Christ have neglected Bible Doctrine and are now influenced
by the knowledge of the world such as Darwinism, New Age Philosophy, Atheism,
Conversion to another religion, etc.… The result is subjectivity, confusion,
instability, and frustration. They buy into liberalism, world peace and
disarmament programs, socialism, universal brotherhood of man, and rights for
the criminal. Can you imagine, rights for the criminal??? In our system today
we make the criminal the victim, and the victim the criminal!! Since the
believer in Jesus Christ is permanently indwelted by the Holy Spirit (the
mentor promised by Christ), he can never be demon possessed, but his thinking
brings about darkness of the soul. (Eph 5:11, 6:12, Col 1:13, 2 Pet 2:4) At
this point, the believer can possess 2 personalities. When things go his way,
everything is wonderful, and he is nice to be around. But, when adversity hits,
he falls apart. Even simple adversities such as sitting in traffic that is gridlocked.
Happiness and stress in the soul are mutually exclusive. Happiness is a state
of mind. If we are influenced by any circumstances in life that result in
unhappiness, then we have a long way to go in the spiritual life.
7) Scar Tissue of the Soul
“Hardness of the heart” .Evil
influence enters into the right lobe of the soul where epignosis knowledge is
stored and actually begins to remove the truth of Bible Doctrine.
John 12:40
He has blinded their eyes (perception),
and He has hardened their heart: lest (result of scar tissue) they should see
with their eyes, and perceive by means of their heart (right lobe), and be
turned around (receive conversion), and I restore them.
This hardening of heart can happen
for believers and unbelievers. An example was Amenhotep II, the Pharoah of the Exodus, hardened his own heart through constant
resistance to the salvation message. (Exodus 7:22, 8:15, 32: 9:34). Believers
in Jesus Christ have reached this point as well. The Meribah incident by the
Exodus generation (Exodus 17:1-7) Here is where a breakdown of norms and
standards taught by the Word of God are substituted for human good, resulting
in an unruly and unstable generation. Christians determine the fate of a client
nation to God, and when they loose the principles of Bible Doctrine in the
soul, human viewpoint takes precendence. The rate of forgetting exceeds the
rate of learning, and they loose any epignosis that they may have gained in the
past.
8) Reverse process reversionism
hey revert back to their unbelieving
ways. At this point, they are still saved whether they know it or not. There is
no overt sign to the fact that they have ever believed in Christ, that they are
born again, and are sons of God. Christians are shocked at what other
Christians do, so they don’t believe they are really Christians but merely
professing Christians. The sad thing about it, is so few can ever recover from
this point. It is not from the failure of the Word of God. It is because these
same Christians who judge these people are in reversionism themselves, and the
false doctrine they create destroys any possibility of recovery for these
people.
God’s justice is his grace policy.
He condemns those who do not believe in Jesus Christ. He blesses those that
believe in His name. Faith alone in Christ alone is the power of grace. He
provides it all A wonderful grace life is provided to every believer, but we
must understand what the Bible teaches. At salvation, God the Holy Spirit gives
us 7 ministries (explained later), one is a spiritual gift. The spiritual gift
of pastor teacher is given to men so that they may study, and beat their brains
out each and every day and night to give to the congregation the accurate
message, coherently, orderly, and understandably. The scriptures are to be
understood in their original languages and in the time they were written. We
must understand the language syntax (exegesis), the historical interpetations
to understand things such as metaphors, idioms, etc… and the pastor must be
able to categorize these interpretations for the congregation to understand.