DOCTRINE OF GRACE ORIENTATION (Part II)

G. Grace Versus Arrogance.

1. Antecedent Arrogance or The Function of the Arrogance Skills.

a. Antecedent arrogance occurred in eternity past with the fall of Lucifer, son of the morning.

(1) Satan’s motivation of arrogance is recorded in Isa 14:14, “I will make myself like the Most High God.” All precedence for the arrogance skills and for the sins of the arrogance complex originate from the prehistoric revolution of Lucifer, who is known to us as Satan or the Devil.

(2) In Ezek 28:14-17, we have a detailed account of the original function of arrogance. “You were the anointed cherub who guards [the throne room], And I placed you there. You were in the holy mountain of God; You walked in the middle of the stones of fire. You were blameless in all of your ways from the day you were created, until unrighteousness was found in you. By the abundance of your slander you were internally filled with violence, and you sinned; Therefore I have cast you as defiled from the mountain of God. And I have excluded you, O guardian cherub, out from the middle of the stones of fire. Your right lobe was lifted up because of your beauty; You corrupted your wisdom because of your glamour. I cast you to the earth; I placed you before kings, that they may see you.”

(3) As a result of antecedent arrogance, we have the creation of mankind to resolve the prehistoric angelic conflict. A part of that conflict is the Church Age. Never before in history has so much been given to the ordinary believer as in this dispensation.

b. The are three arrogance skills: self-justification, self- deception, and self-absorption.

(1) The arrogance skills are the greatest enemy of the grace of God and the greatest distraction to fulfillment of the protocol plan of God through the spiritual skills. The arrogance skills produce more loser believers than any other single factor. The arrogance skills are the source of legalism and the arrogance complex of sins.

(2) Christian activism is one of the great illustrations of how all three of the arrogance skills coordinate to distract the believer from the protocol plan of God.

(a) The evil function of Christian activism demands self-justification. Christian activism contends that the means justifies the end, and therefore, that leads to the greatest possible self-deception. However, a wrong thing done in a wrong way is wrong; a right thing done in a wrong way is wrong; a wrong thing done in a right way is wrong. Only a right thing done in a right way is right.

(b) The combination of self-justification and self- deception in the believer always result in the defense mechanisms of denial and projection. Denial is always self-deception because it divorces the believer from spiritual reality and the true content of the infallible word of God. Projection is always self-justification at the expense of someone else. Self-justification and projection results in a phenomenal outburst of both the arrogance complex of sins as well as the emotional complex of sins.

© Christian activism becomes a part of this, and is therefore described in the Scripture as dead works, human good, and evil. The inevitable result of this course of action is locked-in arrogance, called self-absorption. Combined with denial and projection, self- absorption results in the sins of vituperation, vilification, malice, judging, maligning, gossip, the creation of the public lie. All of this is the manifestation of the arrogance skills in Christian activism. Add to this the other sins of the arrogance complex and the spiritual skills are completely immobilized and replaced by the arrogance skills.

(d) Spiritual skills and arrogance skills cannot coexist in God’s plan. Either you function under the spiritual skills and advance to maturity, glorifying God, or you fail completely by being involved in the arrogance skills. When the arrogance skills are operational, the spiritual skills are defunct. When the spiritual skills are operational, the spiritual skills are defunct.

(e) All distractions and deviations from the protocol plan of God are justified through the function of the arrogance skills. Self-justification or crusader arrogance and Christian activism result in self-deception. Self-deception leads to denial, total divorcement from the reality of Bible doctrine and the evils of Christian activism as well as other forms of legalism. Self-absorption rejects and reacts to any suggestion that Christian activism is evil.

(3) Self-righteous arrogance, which is also crusader arrogance, results in self-justification. The arrogant believer is constantly justifying self. Self-justification enters into the defense mechanism of denial and the use of projection. Part of self-deception is being so divorced from reality that you take your own flaws and superimpose them on those around you. It is described in 1 Jn 1:8, “If we say that we have no sin, we are deceiving ourselves and the truth is not in us.” Gal 6:7, “Be not deceived, God is not mocked. Whatever a person sows, this he will also reap.” When the believer sows in the arrogance skills, he reaps the most miserable life and becomes a psycho-believer. Hos 8:7, “He sows to the wind and reaps the whirlwind.” Gal 6:3, “If anyone thinks he is something, when he is nothing, he deceives himself and the truth is not in him.” Self-deception results in self-absorption. Self-absorption is found in Jam 3:14, “But if you have bitter jealousy and strife in your heart, be not arrogant, and stop lying against the truth.”

2. The conflict between grace and arrogance is stated throughout Scripture.

a. Jam 4:6, “But He keeps on giving greater grace. Therefore it [Prov 3:34] says, “God makes war against the arrogant [believer], but gives grace to the humble [believer].” God cannot give grace to the arrogant believer.

b. Jam 4:14-15, “Yet you do not know what kind of life is yours tomorrow. You are just a vapor trail that appears for a little while and then vanishes away. But as it is, you boast [in your arrogance], `If the Lord wills, we shall live and also do this or that.’” Believers are designed to have maximum historical impact, but the arrogant believer has no impact at all.

c. Jer 9:23-24, “Thus says the Lord, `Let not a wise man boast of his wisdom, and let not the powerful man boast in his power, let not the rich man boast in his riches. Let him who boasts, boast this, that he understands and knows Me. That I am the Lord who exercises grace, justice, and righteousness on the earth.’”

d. 2 Cor 10:17-18, “But he who boasts, let him glory in the Lord. Not he who commends himself is approved, but whom God promotes.” Boasting in a bad sense is arrogance. Boasting in a good sense is the spiritual skills. God never promotes apart from His grace policy related to spiritual capacity righteousness. God promotes those who are grace oriented. God promotes on the basis of consistent function of the spiritual skills. Promotion, then, is a matter of doctrinal inculcation and grace orientation.

e. 1 Pet 5:5b-6, “...and all of you, clothe yourselves with humility toward one another, for God makes war against the arrogant believer, but He gives grace to the humble believer. Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God, that He may promote you at the proper time.”

f. The antidote to the conflict between grace and arrogance is given in 2 Pet 1:2-4, “May grace and peace be multiplied to you for your benefit by means of epignosis doctrine about God and Jesus our Lord, because His divine power has given to us for our benefit everything with reference to life even your spiritual life through the epignosis knowledge of Him who called us to His own glory and virtue, through which things He has given to us for our benefit His most valuable and great promises, that through these things you might become partners in the divine endowment, having escaped the corruption that is in the world by lust.” The multiplication of grace refers to the divine initiative of antecedent and eschatological grace. The final objective in the fulfillment of the spiritual life is the glory of God, and the means of getting there is the virtue of every believer, and that virtue is the function of the three spiritual skills. The arrogance skills wipe all of this out. Becoming partners in the divine endowment means equal privileges and equal opportunity for the function of the spiritual life and glorifying God. It also means equal dividends in the three spiritual skills for the execution of the protocol plan of God.

g. Rom 12:2-3, “And stop being conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renovation of your thinking, that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is absolute good and well pleasing and the mature. For I say through the grace which has been given to me to every one who is among you stop thinking of self in terms of arrogance beyond what you ought to think; but think in terms of sanity, as God has assigned to each believer a standard of thinking from doctrine.” Being conformed to this world is the thinking of the arrogance skills. The arrogance skills conform to this world. The spiritual skills are the renovation of your thinking.

(1) Prov 16:18, “Arrogance precedes destruction, and before a fall there is a lifestyle of arrogance.”

(2) Prov 23:29, “A persons arrogance will bring him low, but a lifestyle of humility will attain honor.”

(3) Prov 11:2, “When arrogance comes, then comes dishonor.”

(4) Prov 13:10, “Through arrogance comes strife, but wisdom is with those who receive instruction.”

h. 2 Tim 3:2-7, “For mankind [believers] will be lovers of self [self-absorption], lovers of money, boastful and arrogant, slanderers, disobedient to parents, ungrateful [failure to attain spiritual capacity righteousness], without a sense of responsibility, devoid of natural affection, implacable, malicious gossips, without self-control, brutal, haters of good [without spiritual values], treacherous, thoughtless, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God; holding to a superficial form of the spiritual life [legalism], but they themselves have repudiated its power; in fact avoid such persons as these. For among them are those who creep into households and seduce silly women who are loaded down with sins, led on by their multifarious lusts, always learning and never able to come to an epignosis knowledge of the truth.”

(1) The inevitable result of staying with the arrogance skills described in this passage is the destruction of your spiritual life.

(2) Believers living in the arrogance skills have repudiated the power of the spiritual life, i.e., the spiritual skills, which have been given to them for the execution of the spiritual life. They have rejected their very own portfolio of invisible assets. Every believer who rejects the fact of his own spiritual life provided for him in eternity past does not develop the spiritual skills. Every disaster becomes a warning to him that he is not living the spiritual life.

(3) We are to avoid such believers as these because often their influence through friendship or through some relationship makes it possible for them to influence a person away from the spiritual skills. They can be a very dangerous influence on your life.

(4) “Those who creep into households and seduce silly women” describes the trend toward antinomianism, which is motivated by sex, drugs, criminal lust, etc.

(5) Once you are involved in the arrogance skills, you may come and listen to the teaching of doctrine, but you are never able to come to an epignosis knowledge of doctrine. Instead, you are always learning something related to the arrogance skills, such as psychology.

3. Illustrations of how these arrogance skills work in daily life.

a. Unrealistic expectation is an area where the arrogance skills function.

(1) Very few people are loved the way they want to be loved or treated the way they want to be treated. When this attitude is combined with the arrogance of unhappiness or subjective preoccupation with self, the result is the arrogance of subjectivity. Out of this comes the fragmented life, which is a totally unhappy life.

(2) The fragmented believer is not loved the way he wants to be loved and is frustrated and does not have the solution to the misery and frustration which comes with the use of these arrogance skills. The believer who does not translate the way he wants to be treated is unstable and often jumps from church to church, idea to idea, and from social group to social group.

(3) Unrealistic expectation is self-deception, in which the believer seeks to solve his frustrations by adding arrogance to arrogance. This ends up in the arrogance preoccupation with self, which is self- absorption. Unrealistic expectation is self-absorption. Unrealistic expectation never takes responsibility for one’s own bad decisions from a position of weakness. Blaming others (or projection) results in the usual consequences related to arrogance: jealousy, bitterness, hatred, vindictiveness, implacability, self-pity, revenge, slander, maligning, gossip, trying to make others feel guilty so you can manipulate them. The believer fragments his own life, but he always blames others for his miserable state.

(4) The arrogance of subjectivity is constantly trying to change other people to conform to one’s own unrealistic expectation. This is the arrogance of manipulation. That ends up in self-absorption. Self- absorption is unrealistic expectation, never realizing that you can only change yourself, you can never change anyone else.

(5) The arrogance of unhappiness or subjective preoccupation with self is associated with unrealistic expectation. Unrealistic expectation intensifies the problems of the spiritual life to the point of no return apart from the problem solving devices. The fragmented believer, involved in subjective preoccupation with self, assumes that certain things will bring happiness, such as, a friendly church. People, money, prosperity and success cannot make you happy, only perception of Bible doctrine can produce the sharing of the happiness of God.

(6) Self-deception is the great problem of the so-called “free-spirit.” This person recognizes freedom without responsibility and freedom without authority, which is anarchy. This person is always looking for happiness. But the more the free-spirit seeks happiness, the more happiness eludes him. You are not happy because you are free to do what you want to do. You are free to use your own volition to destroy your own spiritual life and become frustrated, unhappy, and miserable. The free-spirit associates happiness with some form of stimulation, excitement, and self-indulgence. The free-spirit can never find happiness, because he seeks it in success, power, money, approbation, fame, pleasure, health, sex, romance, friendship, marriage, control of others. The problem of the free- spirit can only be resolved by understanding and utilizing the spiritual skills.

b. Iconoclastic arrogance is a good illustration.

(1) Iconoclastic arrogance is subjective preoccupation with other people resulting from disenchantment, disillusion, or the feet of clay syndrome. Iconoclastic arrogance creates an idol through excessive or misguided admiration or love for another person.

(2) When the iconoclastic believer discovers some sin or flaw in the object of their love, they become disenchanted and reacts. The reaction is part of the arrogance skills. Putting someone on a pedestal is part of those arrogance skills.

(3) The believer with iconoclastic arrogance is angry at self, but then must justify self, and finally must deceive oneself about the truth of the matter. He must retain that humanized dignity he has established within himself. Therefore, he has to be right no matter what the facts of the case may be.

(4) With the arrogance skills you can only put someone else on a high pedestal for a short time or you can put yourself on a pedestal. When you discover the feet of clay of the person you have put on a pedestal, you are shocked and react. When you react, you have to do two things: you have to justify yourself for being dumb enough to make an idol out of that person, and in so doing, you get into self-deception.

(5) Iconoclastic arrogance destroys friendship, romance, marriage, business relationships, church relationships. It is the message of the pastor that counts, not the person of the pastor. Occasional disappointment with others is normal and easily handled through the function of impersonal love. But iconoclastic arrogance results in permanent destruction of the spiritual life.

(6) Principles.

(a) The arrogant iconoclast never blames himself for what he has done in creating and destroying an idol. This is the second arrogance skill—self-deception. In his irrational state of arrogance, he or she fantasizes, and then blames the idol for being created by his own arrogance and for being a normal person with a sin nature.

(b) Arrogance never takes responsibility for being arrogant.

© Illusion created by arrogance becomes illusion destroyed by arrogance. What arrogance creates, arrogance also destroys. A person functioning under the arrogance skills will never have any real, genuine, permanent relationships in life. They are all superficial and all depend on other people feeding your arrogance.

(d) Arrogance creates illusion and the fragmented life destroys that illusion.

(e) Iconoclastic arrogance and the feet of clay syndrome is the inevitable results of getting out of fellowship and just neglecting the spiritual skills. The result is the polarization of the old sin nature trends resulting in self-justification and self-deception.

(f) The arrogant reaction of idolizing and rejecting your own icon is the vanity of transferring the blame for your failure onto the icon you have created. This is denial plus projection.

(g) Once you transfer the blame for your disillusion, disenchantment, disappointment to the idol you have created, then you malign, slander, judge, and seek to destroy the idol you have created.

(h) Arrogance destroys what arrogance creates.

(i) The feet of clay syndrome is arrogant irrationality of rearranging the doctrine of hamartiology (sin) to make it compatible with your own self-righteousness and with your own legalism regarding the trend of your own sin nature. Self-righteous arrogance inevitably results in creating a system of self-justification. Self-justification removes you from reality; you enter into denial; you try to compensate for all of this through projection.

c. Role model arrogance is a part of iconoclastic arrogance.

(1) Role is defined as a proper or customary function of an individual. Society and people in general have assigned certain customary functions to certain activities in life. When anyone departs from his role model, he is slandered, maligned, criticized, and rejected. People have a predilection for demanding that everything in life be in its proper place. Consequently, society resents any deviation from assigned role models. Therefore, out of this, society develops a double standard which comes from the arrogance skills.

(2) While a person may excuse his own sins, failures, and flaws, he condemns the role model for the same sins, failures, and flaws, often not realizing he is condemning the role model for his very own failures. This is the normal function of denial in trying to justify self. On the one hand, judging the role model for sins from your own trend of the sin nature is hypocrisy, while on the other hand, judging the role model for sins from the opposite trend becomes self-absorption. Self-absorption results in reinforcing self-deception and reinforcing the pattern of life: I must always be right, therefore, I must find a way to justify self.

(3) Role model arrogance gravitates toward the trend of self-righteous arrogance and legalism. Therefore, you have self- justification. Role model arrogance manufactures hypocrites out of self and victims out of the role model. That is self-deception.

(4) Role model arrogance rejects the problem solving devices and substitutes arrogant subjectivity of preoccupation with self and others.

(5) Role model arrogance ignores the fact that you cannot change others, you can only change yourself. Role model arrogance demands that others change and become compatible with the arrogant skills of the person in role model arrogance or suffer the consequences.

(6) Role model arrogance distracts the person in the pew by placing emphasis on the personality or the lifestyle of someone else in the congregation, or the pastor.

(7) Role model arrogance is a part of iconoclastic arrogance and the feet of clay syndrome. The double standard of role model arrogance originates from the polarization of the sin nature’s trends toward self- righteous arrogance or legalism, and therefore, self-justification. Role model arrogance (self-justification) plus unrealistic expectation (self- deception) combine to form the tragic flaw of legalism in the believer (self-absorption).

(8) The fragmented life of legalism rejects the grace policy of God and enters into a serious of sins related to anti-grace, rejecting, therefore, the divine initiative of antecedent and eschatological grace. The bad combination of unrealistic expectation and role model arrogance forms the tragic flaw of the double standard that never escapes the believer so involved. The bad combination of unrealistic expectation (self- deception) and role model arrogance (self-justification) results in the polarization of the sin nature trends, and this finally results in self- absorption. All of this is the great enemy of the Christian way of life.

H. The Song of Grace Orientation, Psalm 23.

1. David gave us a preview of coming attractions in the function of grace orientation as the problem solving device of the Church Age. David knew all about how God had provided for him in eternity past.

2. God’s grace policy in the promotion of David is stated in 1 Sam 16:7, “But the Lord said to Samuel, `Do not look at his outward appearance or at the height of his stature, because I have rejected him; for God sees not as man sees, for man looks at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart.’” David had the doctrinal rationales and knew how to apply them to his situation. He understood and used the faith-rest drill. He understood and used grace orientation.

3. Psalm 23 was written during the Absalom revolution, when David had fled from Absalom at the lowest point of his life. David had lost everything, when he fled. Every phrase in this psalm has a remarkable statement of David’s deployment of the problem solving devices on the FLOT line of his soul. This is a psalm of grace orientation. David realized that believers had been distracted by prosperity. There are two great metaphors in this psalm: the shepherd and the sheep (verses 1-4) and the host and the guest (verses 5-6). Both of these metaphors are designed to teach us the divine initiative of grace.

a. Ps 23:1, “A song of David. The Lord [Jesus Christ] is the one who keeps on shepherding me, I cannot lack anything.”

(1) In Jn 10:11, when Jesus Christ said “I am the good [honorable, noble] shepherd; and the good shepherd lays down his life as a substitute for his sheep,” He was making a direct reference to this psalm as the future king of Israel in His humanity. The Lord Jesus Christ is the shepherd to all who believe in Him. You become a sheep under the divine initiative of antecedent grace by personal faith in Jesus Christ. You come into this relationship with God totally apart from any merit. The analogy to sheep indicates the great power of Jesus Christ as the God-man and only savior and the total helplessness of the believer. Grace excludes works at salvation and in postsalvation experience. There are seven categories of sheep analogy.

(a) A sheep cannot guide himself. It has no sense of direction. As believers we have no direction after salvation. We are in lag time after salvation and must be positive to the three spiritual skills to advance spiritually. The Lord has provided for us the word of God as our shepherd. We are totally helpless as sheep to break out of lag time.

(b) A sheep cannot clean himself apart from the shepherd. Antecedent grace has provided the rebound technique to clean ourselves.

© A sheep is helpless when injured. Only the Lord Jesus Christ has provided through the divine initiative of antecedent grace what it takes to recover from our own failures.

(d) A sheep is defenseless. God has provided the defense systems in the ten problem solving devices on the FLOT line of the soul. God has provided for our protection through capacity righteousness and logistical grace.

(e) A sheep cannot find food or water. Our Shepherd has provided for us our spiritual food and the water of the filling of the Holy Spirit.

(f) A sheep is easily frightened or panicked. Our Lord has provided our security.

(g) While the sheep produces the wool, that wool belongs to the shepherd only. Our Christian service belongs to the Lord Jesus Christ; it is what He has provided for us.

(2) The second line indicates the application of the divine initiative of antecedent grace through the concept of logistical grace. The Lord always meets the needs of any believer. It is never what you want, but what the Lord wants that counts. What the Lord wants is your happiness. At the lowest point in David’s life he said he cannot and did not lack anything. David knew logistical grace was available to all believers under every circumstance.

(3) This verse expresses the believer’s relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ whether he is in fellowship or out of fellowship, whether winner or loser, whether spiritual or carnal, whether positive or negative. This is grace policy. God’s grace from eternity past is available to you even though you are a loser and do not even know anything about it. Even in intensive divine discipline, you do not lack for anything. No loser ever lost his portfolio of invisible assets. Your spiritual life is still there, even though you do not live it.

(4) This verse expresses the divine initiative of antecedent grace in logistical grace. Grace is in place forever and you can do nothing to cancel it or lose it. You do not have the power to cancel God’s grace by anything you do.

(5) Without logistical grace, there would be no equal opportunity for every believer to fulfill the protocol plan of God by becoming an invisible hero. It is the objective of God’s plan for the believer to manufacture from the divine initiative of antecedent grace a winner—an invisible hero with invisible impact on history. However, there is a warning, 2 Cor 6:1, “We urge you: do not receive the grace of God in vain.” 2 Tim 2:1, “Be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus.” 2 Pet 5:12, “This is the true grace of God. Stand fast in it.”

(6) Logistical grace supplies the information and power for a personal sense of destiny. This eventuates in spiritual adulthood. David still had the righteousness of God demanding blessing. Logistical grace includes life support, blessing, and equal opportunity to execute the protocol plan of God for every believer, winner or loser.

(7) The shepherd metaphor.

(a) Jn 10:11, “I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life as a substitute for his sheep.” This is amplified in Rom 5:8. In this concept, the good Shepherd was judged for the sins of the world. This is analogous to the divine initiative of salvation grace.

(b) Jesus Christ is the great Shepherd. That is analogous to the divine initiative of living grace. Heb 13:20-21, “Now the God of peace, who brought up again from the dead the great Shepherd of the sheep through the blood of the eternal covenant, Jesus our Lord, equip you with every good thing to do His will, working in us that which is pleasing in His sight, through Jesus Christ, to whom be glory forever and ever. Amen.”

© Jesus Christ is our shepherd, analogous to the divine initiative of dying grace. Jesus Christ is the one who provides for us our very own death-shadowed valley and accompanies us through that valley. Ps 23:1, “Because the Lord keeps on shepherding me, I cannot lack for anything.” Compare verse 4; it is impossible for the believer who utilizing living grace not to have dying grace. Since you cannot lack living grace, you cannot lack dying grace.

(d) Jesus Christ is the chief Shepherd. This is analogous to the divine initiative of eschatological grace in time. 1 Pet 5:4, “And when the Chief Shepherd appears, you will receive the unfading crown of glory.” The crown of glory belongs to the believer who utilized everything in living grace.

b. Ps 23:2, “He causes me to lie down in pastures of choice grass; He leads me to waters of refreshment.”

(1) Lying down in pastures of choice grass is a picture of tranquility from the three spiritual skills for learning doctrine. The believer must be relaxed and objective when he learns doctrine. “Choice grass” refers to the uniqueness of Bible doctrine as part of the infallible word of God.

(2) Being led “to waters of refreshment” refers to the application of doctrine to your life, doctrinal orientation or operation Z. True happiness and refreshment is what goes on in your soul. Metabolized doctrine circulating in your stream of consciousness is your spiritual refreshment. There is a right way of application of doctrine and a wrong way of the application of doctrine. God the Holy Spirit teaches us how to apply doctrine. When adversity hits your soul, if you have the problem solving devices deployed on the forward line of your soul, then they handle the adversity. That is refreshment and how you apply doctrine correctly. The only legitimate means of applying doctrine (the problem solving devices) is given to you by the grace of God.

(3) The application of doctrine to experience establishes your spiritual values. The application of doctrine apart from the use of problem solving devices results in false application, the function of arrogance skills, distraction from the objective of the spiritual life.

(4) The waters of refreshment include specific categories of the spiritual life: operation Z and metabolized doctrine. The spiritual advantages of Bible doctrine do not exist until that doctrine is located and circulating in your stream of consciousness. Then you can solve your own problems in the privacy of your own priesthood.

c. Ps 23:3, “He restores my soul; He guides me in the wagon wheel tracks of righteousness because of His person.”

(1) The soul out of fellowship must be restored. Antecedent grace provided for the restoration of the soul from a state of sinfulness. Restoration of the soul for the Church Age believer is restoration of the filling of the Spirit, recovery of fellowship with God, and perpetuation of the spiritual life through the function of the three spiritual skills. Where there is neglect of rebound, there is no spiritual life.

(2) Grace orientation must be distinguished from grace provision. The subject of grace provision is God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. The subject of grace orientation is the believer functioning under the third spiritual skill—the problem solving device of grace orientation. In the divine initiative of antecedent grace at salvation, there is only one party involved—the Trinity. The divine initiative of imputed righteousness from God the Father and receiving the righteousness of Jesus Christ through the baptism of the Spirit at salvation does not depend on the believer’s volition. Both came directly from the divine initiative of grace and no volition was involved. In the divine initiative of eschatological grace, there is also no human volition involved. Both antecedent and eschatological grace are the direct provision of grace. There is indirect grace which involves your volition. God provides the spiritual skills, but the volition of the believer is involved in a non-meritorious sense. Grace orientation is a response to the filling of the Spirit plus the perception and metabolization of doctrine.

(3) In the divine initiative of grace, we have two categories.

(a) Direct initiative. No human volition is involved. Whether you want it or not, God is going to bless you. God has given you imputed righteousness and you share the righteousness of Christ. God has given you the righteousness to live with Him forever.

(b) Indirect initiative. Human volition is involved. You are given grace assets to use your volition to develop spiritual capacity righteousness. In eternity past, God the Father deposited for you greater blessings for time and eternity. These blessings are in escrow and the conditions of the escrow are the divine initiative of indirect grace. God provided the spiritual skills as the grace means of fulfilling the conditions of the escrow. Positive volition will use the spiritual skills to execute the protocol plan of God, develop capacity righteousness, and receive these escrow blessings.

(4) The “paths of righteousness” refers to spiritual capacity righteousness, which is the only capacity righteousness given indirectly to every believer through the spiritual skills.

(a) The spiritual skills are the divine initiative of antecedent grace provided in our portfolio of invisible assets in eternity past. The fact that spiritual capacity righteousness is indirectly given means that believers must use their own volition to rebound and learn the word of God well enough to become familiar with the spiritual skills and how to use them. God never blesses a believer beyond his capacity. God can bless a loser believer with lesser blessings because He gave him the capacity for logistical grace blessings at salvation, when He imputed His very own perfect righteousness to that believer. When attaining spiritual capacity righteousness, the believer must chose the grace provision of the spiritual skills over his own human good, morality, dead works, and evil.

(b) The Lord both leads us and guides us into the paths of righteousness. In the dispensation of the hypostatic union, the Lord Jesus Christ leads us into the paths of righteousness by setting the precedence in his humanity. The path made by the wagon wheels is already there for us to follow. Jesus Christ leads the way. In the Church Age, He guides us by providing the three spiritual skills for the execution of the protocol plan of God.

d. Ps 23:4, “In additional to this [previous verse], when I walk through a death-shadowed valley, I cannot fear evil [the manner of dying]; because You [are] with me; Your rod [divine discipline] and Your staff [divine deliverance], they comfort me.”

(1) In addition to living grace, the Lord has provided dying grace. The shadow represents your dying. Your body which intercepts the light represents metabolization of doctrine. Your capacity for life is your capacity for death. Uses of the word “death-shadowed” in Scripture.

(a) In 1 Chr 29:15, a person’s life is compared to a shadow in that it has no permanence and disappears rapidly.

(b) In Job 17:7, “death-shadowed” is used to describe the failing condition of a person in their last illness. But here the word has another connotation. A shadow is a dark figure or an image cast on a surface by a body intercepting light. The dark side of the shadow is dying, while the intercepted light is Bible doctrine circulating in the stream of consciousness.

© In Job 12:22, he said, using this same noun, “He reveals deep doctrines from darkness [dying] and brings the death-shadow into light.”

(d) In Job 24:17, Job speaks about the unbeliever facing death, “For the morning is the same to him as the death-shadow; for he familiar with the terrors of the death-shadow.” The unbeliever is so frightened by death that what time of day or what’s going on outside means nothing to him.

(e) Job 34:22, “There is no darkness or death-shadow where the workers of inequity may hide themselves.”

(f) In Job 38:17, the Lord speaks to Job about this subject, “Have the gates of death been revealed to you. Or have you seen the death-shadowed gates?” In all of Job’s testing, the Lord never allowed him to face death.

(g) There is a dissertation on the grace deliverance of the loser-believer related to this word. Ps 107:1-2, 10-15, “Oh give thanks to the Lord, for He is good; For His grace is everlasting. Let the redeemed of the Lord say so, ...There were those who dwelt in darkness and in the death-shadow, Prisoners in stress and chains, Because they have rebelled against the doctrines of God, And spurned the instruction of the Most High. Therefore He humbled their heart with labor; They stumbled and there was no one to help. Then they cried out to the Lord in their danger; He delivered them out from their distresses. He brought them out from darkness and death-shadows, And broke their chains apart. Let them give thanks to the Lord for His grace, And for His wonderful dealings with the sons of men!”

(2) The dark side of the shadow is the experience of dying. The intercepting light is the metabolized doctrine applied through the problem solving devices under the filling of the Holy Spirit. The divine initiative of eschatological grace has provided for every believer his very own death-shadowed valley. (The only exception is the rapture generation.) No two death-shadowed valley is the same. Some are very short and sudden. Some are long and twisting. The same grace principle applies to all believers. The whole point in being prepared for dying is to intercept the light of the word of God, so that when you go through the death-shadowed valley, you have the light of the word of God circulating in your very own stream of consciousness.

(3) “Evil” refers to anything related to dying. The Hebrew word for evil (RA) is used in Jer 39:12 for injury, in Amos 6:3 for a time of distress, in Isa 45:7 for disaster, other passages use it for disease and violent death. It is associated with disease, adversity, pain, distress, disaster, harm, violence, dying because of someone else’s evil. Every believer has his very own death-shadowed valley. It is a time of ultimate blessing for those who have been consistent in the perception, metabolization, and application of doctrine. You never have to worry about your dying, because God picks the time, the manner, and the place. This is what it means to have your very own death-shadowed valley. God keeps you alive long enough to have the capacity to handle every twist and every turn in your death-shadowed valley. When you cannot handle those things in dying, it is because you did not have spiritual capacity righteousness.

(4) We can have no fear, when going through our very own death-shadowed valley, because the Lord Jesus Christ goes with us. Jesus Christ goes through the death-shadowed valley with every believer. This is David’s application of dying grace, occupation with Christ, and a personal sense of destiny. There is no excuse for any believer ever having to be afraid of dying, regardless of how you die, as long as you have used the three spiritual skills. Fear is an emotional sin, the believer’s failure to use the spiritual skills. The fear principle explains the sin unto death, 1 Jn 5:16b, “There is a sin face-to-face with death.” The function of worry and anxiety in living results in the function of fear in dying. There is a sin believers commit while taking the journey through their very own death- shadowed valley: fear, reaction to the fact you are dying, bitterness. Having your own death-shadowed valley means that God decides the time, the manner, and the place of your death. The experience of walking through your very own death-shadowed valley is the grace decision, the wise decision, the loving decision of the sovereignty of God. When we take that journey through the death-shadowed valley, it is God’s victory, which He has given to us.

(a) 1 Cor 15:55, 57, “O death, where is your sting? O grave, where is your victory?” but thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.”

(b) No fear in living means no fear in dying, Ps 56:3- 4, “What time I am afraid, I will trust in You; In God, whose doctrine I praise; In God, I have put my trust; I will not be afraid.”

© 1 Jn 4:18, “Fear does not exist in virtue-love; but virtue-love drives out fear, for fear causes punishment; in fact, the person who is afraid has not been matured by virtue-love.” Fear intensifies the problems of dying and shuts down the tremendous blessings of going through your own death-shadowed valley.

(5) If you do not have the problem solving devices deployed on the FLOT line of your soul when the pressure experience of dying comes, then the adversity will become stress in your soul, and the sin nature will control your soul and put your spiritual life out of action when you need it the most. Divine mandates prohibit fear, Deut 31:6; Isa 34:5, 41:10. Failure to utilize the problem solving devices to overcome fear, worry, and anxiety in the living phase of your life as a believer will result in walking through your very own death-shadowed valley without benefit and without blessing. The dying phase of the spiritual life is designed for the greatest blessings of grace.

(6) A detailed description of the death-shadowed valley is given in 1 Pet 1:3-9, “Blessed be God even the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who on the basis of His great mercy has caused us to be born again to a living confidence through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to obtain an inheritance which is incorruptible and undefiled and will not fade away, reserved in heaven for you, who are guarded by the power of God through faith because of salvation ready to be revealed in the last time. In this you greatly rejoice, even though for a little time, if necessary, you have been grieved by many testings, that the testing of your faith, being more precious than gold which perishes, even though tested by fire, may be found to result in the praise, glory, and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ; and though you have not seen Him, you love Him, and though you do not see Him now, but believe in Him, you greatly rejoice with joy inexpressible and full of glory, obtaining as the outcome of your faith the deliverance of your souls.”

(7) The Jews of the Exodus generation went through their death-shadowed valley while committing the sin face-to-face with death. 1 Cor 10:1-12 teaches that the things that happened to the Jews in the Exodus generation happened as an example for us in the Church Age and were written for our instruction.

(8) There is a relationship between verse three and verse four.

(a) In verse three, we have the phrase, “He restores my soul.” This is a reference to the rebound technique. The result of rebound gives us the freedom and opportunity to continue our very own spiritual life.

(b) In verse three, it also says, “He guides me into wagon tracks made by wheels of righteousness.” This is a reference to spiritual capacity righteousness, attained by the use of the three spiritual

skills. Our guidance comes through understanding from the New Testament Scriptures what has been provided for us to glorify God.

© The attainment of spiritual capacity righteousness through the consistent function of the spiritual skills results in the conveyance of escrow blessings for both time and eternity.

(d) Since the wagon tracks of righteousness lead the believer to his very own death-shadowed valley, the capacity for living grace becomes the capacity for dying grace. This is the connection between verse three and verse four.

(e) The attainment of spiritual capacity righteousness in living grace becomes the capacity for blessing in dying grace. How well or miserable you die depends on your volition toward doctrine.

(f) The attainment of spiritual capacity righteousness in living grace is the basis for no fear (Ps 23:4) and profit (Phil 1:21) in dying grace.

(9) There is a relationship between verse one and verse four in the shepherd metaphor. Because the Lord is the one shepherding me, I cannot lack anything [in living grace]. Because the Lord Jesus Christ as my grace shepherd accompanies me in the journey through the death-shadowed valley, I cannot be afraid of how I am dying. There is a definite relationship between the capacity for living grace and the capacity for dying grace. When, through the spiritual skills, the believer attains spiritual capacity righteousness, there is no fear in the manner of dying and profit in the journey through your very own death-shadowed valley. Therefore, the attainment of spiritual capacity righteousness in living grace is the basis for profit in dying grace. This is tantamount to occupation with Christ in living grace being parlayed into profit in dying grace. If you do not use the problem solving devices now, then you will not use them when you go through your death-shadowed valley.

(10) In the middle of verse four we move back to living grace. The rod is blessing from divine discipline. The staff is blessing from deliverance. The rod keeps us alert and gives us reality to the grace of God and all that He has done. The rod refers to God’s grace in the administration of divine discipline to every believer, when the indwelling righteousness of God demands discipline from the justice of God. What the righteousness of God demands, the justice of God executes. This is true for both blessing and discipline. The purpose of divine discipline is to lovingly bring us back into line.

(a) Prov 22:8, “He who sows iniquity will reap trouble; for the rod of His wrath will be ready.”

(b) 2 Sam 7:14, “I will be a father to him and he will be a son to Me. When he commits iniquity, I will correct him with the rod of men and strokes from the sons of men [I will discipline him through other people].”

© Ps 89:30-32, “If his sons forsake My law, And do not walk in My judgments [the establishment code of the Mosaic Law], If they violate My statutes, And do not keep My commandments, Then I will visit their transgression with the rod, And their iniquity with stripes.”

(d) Prov 10:13, “Wisdom is found on the lips of a discerning person, But a rod is for the back of him who lacks heart [metabolized doctrine].”

(e) Prov 13:24, “He who spares his rod hates his son, But he who loves him is careful to disciplines him.” Children will never have a sense of authority unless they are fairly and justly disciplined.

(f) Prov 22:15, “Foolishness is bound up in the heart of a child; The rod of discipline will remove it far from him.”

(g) Prov 23:13, “Do not hold back discipline from a child; although you beat him with a rod, he will not die. You shall beat him with the rod and deliver his soul from death.”

(h) Prov 26:3, “A whip is for the horse, a bridal for the donkey, but a rod for the back of fools.”

(i) Prov 29:15, “A rod and reproof give wisdom; But a child who gets his own way brings shame to his mother.”

(j) Divine discipline as a blessing to the believer is taught in the following passages.

(k) Prov 3:11, “My son, do not reject the discipline of the Lord, Or despise His reproof, For whom the Lord loves He disciplines, Just as a father, the son in whom he delights.”

(l) Ps 119:75, “I know, O Lord, Your judgments are righteous, And that in faithfulness You have afflicted me.”

(m) Heb 12:5-6, “Furthermore you have forgotten the exhortation which is communicated to you as sons, “My son, do not despise the discipline of the Lord, Nor faint when you are reproved by Him; For those whom the Lord loves He disciplines, And He scourges every son whom He receives.”

(11) The word rod connotes the two categories of punishment: the law of volitional responsibility and the law of divine punitive action.

(12) The rod is a source of comfort because of the evils of guilt. Guilt causes people emphasis to supercede God emphasis, resulting in guilt manipulation by legalism. Guilt eliminates grace orientation from the FLOT line of the soul. The rod brings us back, replacing the arrogance skills with the spiritual skills.

(13) The rod is deserved suffering. But there is also the staff, which is used to deliver the sheep from danger. Deliverance from danger and divine discipline are both designed for comfort.

e. Job 5:19-27 illustrates the same concept of grace deliverance in living grace and dying grace. “In six troubles He will deliver you, Furthermore in seven evil will not touch you. In famine He will preserve you from death, And in combat from the stroke of the sword. You will be hidden from the lash of the tongue, You will not be afraid of violent death when it comes. You will laugh [a relaxed mental attitude and sense of humor] at death and famine, even from wild animals of the earth you have nothing to fear. For you will be secure from the stones of the field; And the beasts of the field will be at peace with you. Therefore you will know that your tent [human body] is at peace [prosperous, secure], For you will visit your home and fear no loss [of escrow blessing]. You will know also that your descendants will be many, And your offspring as the grass of the earth. You will come to the grave in full age, Like the shucking of corn in its season. Behold this, we have researched it, this is the gist of it; Hear it, and apply it to yourself.”

(1) The believer cannot be removed from this life apart from the sovereign decision of a very wise and living God.

(2) Until God makes that decision, nothing can remove the believer from this life.

(3) The divine initiative of dying grace is God’s decision; therefore, in His great love and wisdom, He decides time, manner, and place of our death.

(4) Our death is God’s victory, and He has transferred the victory to the believer by giving him his own death-shadowed valley. He has provided Bible doctrine and the three spiritual skills, so that our dying experience will actually be the greatest blessing of our life on this earth.

(5) No believer can be removed from this earth until God decides to take him home. No one has the right to question God’s grace, God’s decision, or God’s timing in taking us or our loved ones through our death-shadowed valley. There are no accidents in the Christian way of life.

(6) Grace orientation must never be driven off the FLOT line of the soul by the death of a loved one, so that there is be no mental attitude sins. We utilize the faith-rest drill, a personal sense of destiny, and grace orientation to leave the matter in the hands of the supreme court of heaven, while we keep moving. We cannot destroy our spiritual life because those whom we love have died and gone to heaven. Grace orientation in life prepares for grace orientation in dying. You have the power from the spiritual skills to carry on. The attainment of spiritual capacity righteousness in living grace is the profit and blessing in dying grace.

f. Ps 23:5, “You have prepared [deployed] a table in front of me for my benefit in the presence of my enemies; You have anointed my head with oil; My cup overflows.”

(1) Verses 5 is the hospitality metaphor. Jesus Christ is the host and David is the guest. As the host, Jesus Christ provides in the divine initiative of grace a table (the three spiritual skills with emphasis on problem solving devices), the anointing (grace promotion), and the overflowing cup (escrow blessings for time and eternity). God has provided everything we need for our journey through this life, through our death- shadowed valley, and for the eternal state.

(2) This psalm was written at the lowest point in David’s life, when he had to flee from his son Absalom’s revolution. David’s enemies had formerly been his closest friends. Grace orientation responds to all categories of grace in a manner compatible with grace: no works, no merit, no human good, no intrusion into God’s plan with human resources. David was at the lowest point of his life and at the highest point of his grace orientation, when he wrote this psalm.

(3) God is the host and provided a table, analogous to the problem solving devices. Food on the table refers to doctrine metabolized, forming the problem solving devices. We are the guests at God’s table. The prepared table refers to the extrapolation of the problem solving devices from metabolized doctrine and deploying them on the FLOT line of the soul. God has provided the problem solving devices from the first two spiritual skills and deployed them on the FLOT line of the soul. David will use the problem solving devices to win the war against Absalom. David will not lose his anointing as king, 1 Sam 16:13; 2 Chr 21:7. As a guest, David will not lose the table—problem solving devices. As a soldier, David will not lose the battle. As a king, David will not lose the throne and his dynasty will continue forever as a part of God’s unconditional Davidic covenant. As a mature believer, David will not lose his overflowing cup—escrow blessings.

(a) The problem solving devices are designed to make the believer spiritually self-sustaining in dealing with every circumstance and problem of life. Adversity is the outside pressure of life; stress is the inside pressure of the soul. The problem solving devices have the only solution for you in every circumstance of life. The problem solving devices are the divine initiative of grace for the prevention of the outside pressures of adversity from becoming the inside pressures of stress in the soul. The counterattack against stress in the soul is rebound. David already has a FLOT line deployed before him in his soul. The table which God provided for David was the problem solving devices in his soul. In his soul, the victory was already there.

(b) The problem solving devices are part of the divine initiative of grace for accurate and precise application of metabolized doctrine to experience.

© The problem solving devices are the divine initiative of grace providing the only perfect environment for the soul in history.

(d) The problem solving devices are the divine initiative in providing spiritual values and self-motivation for perpetuation of your spiritual life.

(e) The problem solving devices are the divine initiative of grace for providing the greatest happiness and blessing in life regardless of the circumstances of life.

(f) The problem solving devices are the divine initiative of grace for winning battles in the soul: stress, sin, false doctrine, defense mechanisms.

(4) Distinguished guests were customarily met at the door when they entered the banquet hall and were anointed with some expensive oil or perfume. The anointing of the head with oil is a reference to promotion. David will not lose his promotion as king. Anointing in the ancient world was a symbol of promotion.

(a) The antagonism and conspiracy of David’s enemies cannot cancel, destroy, or remove God’s promotion of David. What God provides in grace, only God can remove. God’s promotion of you is based on your spiritual life and cannot be cancelled by the antagonism of others. You can destroy yourself, but conspiracy of others cannot remove God’s promotion.

(b) Whom God promotes, cannot be demoted by mankind. Your promotion is related to what is in your soul, and your enemies cannot take that away from you.

© If God does not promote you, you are not promoted. You are not promoted because of what others think of you.

(d) Even though David is facing the adversity of revolution, the power of evil men cannot overthrow the power of God. “For greater is He that is in you than he that is in the world,” 1 Jn 4:4. Absalom became arrogant and coveted his father’s throne, but “God makes war against the arrogant believer and gives grace to the humble,” Jam 4:6; 1 Pet 5:5-6. The fall of Absalom is described in Lk 14:11, “For everyone who exalts himself shall be humbled, and he who humbles himself shall be promoted.” Never covet what the Lord has not given you under the divine initiative of grace. Jam 4:10, “Humble yourselves before the Lord and He will promote you.”

(e) God promotes at the proper time, at the right time, 1 Pet 5:6. Grace orientation is the believer response to the divine initiative of grace.

(f) A personal sense of destiny motivates the continuation and perpetuation of the development of the function of the spiritual skills resulting in promotion. Promotion implies three things: execution of the protocol plan for the Church and subsequent glorification of God, the distribution of escrow blessings for time and eternity, and becoming an invisible hero with an invisible impact. The attainment of spiritual capacity righteousness guarantees being filled with all the fullness from God (Eph 3:19). This is the reality of escrow blessings and the capacity for them. This is your promotion.

(g) God is glorified by your promotion. The promotion is related to the function of spiritual skills, the attainment of spiritual adulthood. Because of the divine initiative of grace all believers have equal opportunity for promotion. If we fail to be promoted, it is because we fail to learn and use those spiritual skills.

(h) If God does not promote you, you are not promoted. God promotes prepared believers. Prepared believers are grace oriented. They are oriented to the divine initiative of antecedent grace in eternity past (your portfolio of invisible assets), the divine initiative of antecedent grace in time (common, efficacious, salvation and postsalvation grace—living and dying grace), the divine initiative of eschatological grace in time (dying grace, interim life, resurrection, judgment seat of Christ, escrow blessings for eternity, ruling during the millennium), and the divine initiative of eschatological grace in the eternal state (a new universe).

(5) A good host provides three things: the prepared food, the anointing of the honored guest, and the overflowing cup. The overflowing cup is the spiritual capacity righteousness for promotion plus the conveyance of your escrow blessings for time.

(a) In the Absalom revolution, David will lose his beloved son Absalom, but he will not lose his spiritual skills, his promotion to king, nor his escrow blessings for time.

(b) The table, the anointing, and the cup are often compared to hospitality in the ancient world. The Lord Jesus Christ is the host at the table. David is our Lord’s guest. The cup of blessings is grace hospitality from our Lord. The Host initiates grace hospitality; David responds with grace orientation.

© Under the ancient laws of hospitality, it does not matter who is the guest, but it does matter who is the host. Hospitality depends on the host, not on the guest; hence, the divine initiative of grace. David as the guest is the recipient of grace blessing. He will not

lose the table, the anointing, or the overflowing cup. He is separated from them, but has not lost anything. David will not lose his cup. His escrow blessings for time are assured.

(d) What is true for David is true for you. When you possess your escrow blessings because you have executed God’s plan, you cannot lose them.

g. Verse six is the third metaphor—the military metaphor. Ps 23:6, “No doubt about it, both prosperity [benefit, happiness] and grace will pursue me all the days of my life, And I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.”

(1) God is the aggressor in the divine initiative of grace. When God pursues David, there is great blessing. The momentum of offensive action on the part of the divine initiative of grace results in the blessing of grace pursuit. For the believer who is faithful in the function of the spiritual skills, the divine initiative of grace results in the pursuit of grace in two categories.

(a) The believer’s grace orientation to the divine initiative of antecedent grace in time.

(b) The believer’s grace orientation to the divine initiative of eschatological grace in the eternal state.

(2) The greatest offensive action in history occurs in the Church Age as the divine initiative of grace. We are on the defensive against Satan, as per Jam 4:7; 1 Pet 5:9; Eph 6:13. But the deployment of grace orientation on the FLOT line of the soul results in individual offensive action. The FLOT line of the soul is not only designed for defensive action against Satan, but is at the same time a staging area for offensive action—the individual initiative of the Church Age believer. This individual initiative demands consistent use of the spiritual skills for advance to the high ground of spiritual maturity and the greatest impact any one can have in history. Christian offensive action is designed to utilize the divine initiative of grace to become a winner believer.

(3) You do not have to look for grace. In His fantastic mercy, God has provided prosperity and grace, and He pursues you with them. Grace pursues us; we do not pursue grace. Ps 89:20, 49 show that David was always pursued by grace.

(4) “And I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever” is a reference to the divine initiative of eschatological grace in the eternal state. No one will ever be depressed in the eternal state. Peter describes the house of the Lord in 2 Pet 3:13, “We are looking forward with confidence to a new heavens and a new earth in which perfect righteousness dwells.”

4. Grace orientation is grace response to what God has provided in grace. The response of grace at salvation is a one time decision: believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved. Grace orientation in problem solving devices involves daily decisions regarding rebound, metabolization of doctrine, and the deployment of the problem solving devices on the FLOT line of your soul.

a. As the fourth battalion on the FLOT line of your soul, grace orientation is the believer’s response to the divine initiative of grace.

b. The FLOT line of the soul is not only designed for defensive action against Satan, but at the same time the FLOT line of the soul is the staging area for individual initiative of the believer in offensive action to take the high ground of spiritual maturity. The individual initiative of the believer demands the function of the spiritual skills for the advance to maturity.

c. The fact we are pursued by grace means that grace orientation is one of two battalions (problem solving devices on the FLOT line of the soul) is assigned to offensive action. The other battalion assigned to offensive action is impersonal love for all mankind.

d. The offensive action of grace orientation is directed toward all members of the human race. The support for this offensive action is impersonal love for all mankind.

I. The Distraction From Grace Orientation By the Arrogance Skills, 2 Cor 12:7-10.

1. 2 Cor 12:7, “And for this reason [the function of blind arrogance] that I should not begin to become arrogant, because of the extraordinary quality of the revelations, there was given to me a thorn in the flesh for my benefit, an angel from Satan that he might torment me—that I should not begin to become arrogant!”

a. The arrogance skills (self-justification, self-deception, and self-absorption) are the greatest distraction to the function of the spiritual life. Even Paul had to be warned and protected from the arrogance skills. Paul was so concerned about arrogance that he repeated himself twice in the same verse, “that I should not begin to become arrogant.”

b. The thorn in the flesh was not eye trouble, malaria, migraine headaches, insomnia, epilepsy, baldness, speech impediment, being single, or Jewish persecutions. Paul does not complain about it. Paul tells us in verse ten what the thorn in the flesh was: people testing (he was slandered a lot), thought testing (there was a lot of unusual pressure on him), injustices (persecutions), and troubles. This demon could not possess Paul, because all believers are indwelt by God the Holy Spirit. The thorn demons probably worked through unbelievers. The thorn in the flesh produces preventative arrogance skills and momentum from the spiritual skills. c. Paul was so concerned about the thorn in the flesh, he prayed for it to be removed. But this was the wrong thing for which to pray. There is a reason and purpose for every thing that happens to the believer. Prayer is not the solution. Prayer is not a problem solving device; it is the result of the problem solving devices. Whatever the function of the thorn demons, it brought Paul to the status of preventative arrogance.

d. The filling of the Spirit never demands that you justify yourself. When we sin, fail, or are trying to excuse our sinfulness, we try to justify our sins. This is self-justification. Then we deny our sins or superimpose our own flaws on others through projection. This becomes self- deception. Then we become preoccupied with ourselves as a part of self- absorption. This is the cycling of the arrogance skills, which moves the believer away from sanity, Rom 12:2-3.

(1) Biblical documentation for self-justification and self- deception.

(a) Ezek 7:10, “Behold the day. Behold it is coming. Your doom has gone forth. The rod of discipline has budded, because arrogance has blossomed.”

(b) Prov 16:18, “Arrogance precedes destruction, And before a fall, there is a lifestyle of arrogance.” This lifestyle of arrogance is a recycling of the arrogance skills.

© Prov 23:29, “A person’s arrogance will bring him low; But a lifestyle of humility will attain honor.” Humility is grace orientation.

(d) Self-justification and self-deception is the subject of 1 Jn 1:8, “If we say that we have no sin [self-justification], we are deceiving ourselves, and the doctrine is not in us.” Self-justification says, in effect, “I am right, everyone else is wrong.”

(e) Gal 6:7, “Be not deceived. God is not mocked. Whatever a person sows, that will he also reap.” Self-deception ignores this principle. Hos 8:7, “They that sow to the wind reap the whirlwind.” Prov 22:8, “He who sows wickedness, reaps trouble; And the rod of His wrath is ready.

(f) Gal 6:3, “If anyone thinks he is something, when he is nothing, he deceives himself.”

(2) Self-absorption draws heavily from the arrogance complex of sins for application to experience. The arrogance skills perform a similar function to the spiritual skills. The arrogance skills make application of the sins of the arrogance complex and the sins of the emotional complex to experience. It is a blessing to be around these kind of people, because this is the way you grow up spiritually. The things that you want to get rid of and do not like are the very things that take you over the hump to the high ground of spiritual maturity. Do not complain

about adversity.

(3) For example, the arrogant sin of bitterness is applied to experience through self-absorption. Bitterness is a reaction sin of arrogance. If you are bitter against anyone, you are cycling arrogance rather than functioning under the spiritual skills. People who are bitter inevitably think they are all right and the other person is all wrong. Bitterness is a reaction sin of arrogance. Bitterness, as an arrogant sin of self-absorption, refuses to take the responsibility for one’s own bad decisions from a position of weakness. When you stop taking responsibility for your bad decisions, you are divorcing yourself from reality, you will enter into denial, and eventually you must go to self-deception. Malice is a recycling of bitterness and motivates revenge.

(a) Jam 3:14, “If you are bitter and jealous and have strife in your right lobe, stop being arrogant and lying against the truth.”

(b) Eph 4:31, “All bitterness, both anger and wrath, both quarreling and slander must be removed from you along with all malice, but become kind toward one another [grace orientation], compassionate [impersonal love], even forgiving each other just as God also by means of Christ has forgiven us.”

© Heb 12:15, “See to it that no one comes short of the grace of God; that no root of bitterness springing up causes trouble, and by it many be defiled.”

(d) 1 Tim 6:4-6 describes the believer functioning under the arrogance skills. “He is arrogant and understanding nothing; he has a morbid obsession about controversies and verbal conflicts [they have to win an argument; they have to be right], from which originate jealousy, strife [you become a trouble maker], abusive language, evil suspicions; consequently, constant friction between persons of depraved mind [this is describing a Christian marriage] and deprived of doctrine, who assume that the spiritual life is a means of profit, but the spiritual life is a means of great profit, when accompanied by contentment.”

i. Trouble makers are self-deceived and will justify themselves come what may. They think they are right because they have a certain biblical doctrine, and that doctrine is already being covered over with scar tissue, because they are wrong. They are wrong because there is no grace orientation. Grace orientation is the first battalion on the FLOT line of the soul as a problem solving device to retreat when you begin to cycle arrogance skills.

ii. Every time you cycle the arrogance skills you are adding to the depriving of yourself of doctrine, because you are building scar tissue on the soul exactly as the Exodus generation did.

iii. The arrogant believer assumes that if you are spiritual and line up with God, then God is going to bless you and you will not have any adversity. There is blessing in the spiritual life, but not always the way the arrogant believer thinks. If the Lord had answered Paul’s prayer to take away his adversity, then Paul would never have reached maturity. Contentment is sharing the perfect happiness of God, a problem solving device. The profit is in using the problem solving devices.

(e) Jam 3:16, “Where jealousy and strife exist, there is unruliness [in the soul] and evil deeds.”

(f) 2 Cor 12:20, “For I am afraid that perhaps when I come I may find you to be not what I wish and may be found by you to be not what you wish; that perhaps there may be strife, jealousy, anger, flared tempers, disputes, slanders, gossip, arrogance, disturbances.” Where a congregation of believers are dominating by the cycling of the arrogant skills, it is a congregation in confusion.

(g) Jam 4:2, “You continue to lust and do not have [doctrine]; you murder; furthermore you are jealous; consequently, you are not able to obtain [the problem solving devices]; instead you fight and quarrel. You do not have because you do not ask.”

(4) The solution is given in Gal 5:25-26, “If we live by means of the Spirit, let us also advance by means of the Spirit. Let us not become arrogant, challenging one another, being jealous of each other.”

2. 2 Cor 12:8, “Concerning this I implored the Lord three times, `Make it go away from me.’”

a. It is not wrong to pray for people that are sick and it is not wrong for people who are sick to pray for help, but prayer is not a problem solving device. You were designed to learn and utilize the spiritual skills and deploy the problem solving devices on the FLOT line of your soul.

b. We live in an age of the greatest power that has ever been given to the ordinary believer. The power at your disposal is phenomenal, but you will never touch it without straightening out your values and functioning on a consistent basis with the spiritual skills. You do not need a miracle from God; you have far superior power to miracles. God does not need to perform miracles, when He has given us assets that were pioneered and tested by Christ in the dispensation of the hypostatic union. You have more power available to you than all of the Old Testament miracles put together.

c. Offering this prayer three times was an abuse of prayer by Paul. Paul prayed intensely and urgently for this suffering to be removed. Paul was wrong to use prayer because this called for the use of the problem solving devices. If God had answered Paul’s pray, Paul would have missed out on one of the greatest blessings of life—spiritual maturity—and it would have set Paul back in his spiritual life. The Lord did not even answer Paul until after he had prayed the wrong prayer three times.

d. What the Lord does not remove by way of intense suffering, He intends for us to resolve through the ten problem solving devices on the FLOT line of your soul. You do not pray about adversity, you use your problem solving devices. Four problems hit Paul at the same time and he lost control of the FLOT line of his soul. Stress had temporarily gotten into his soul.

e. Prayer is a vehicle for use of certain problem solving devices. Prayer is not a problem solving device.

(1) “If I regard iniquity in my heart, the Lord will not hear me,” relates the problem solving device of rebound to prayer.

(2) Prayer is a vehicle whereby grace orientation makes application to our experience.

“Coming boldly to the throne of grace” means that it is the problem solving device that makes prayer effective, not prayer solving a problem. The solution comes through grace orientation, not through prayer.

(3) The faith-rest drill uses prayer, Matt 21:22, “Everything you ask in prayer, believing, you shall receive.”

(4) Jude 20, “Praying by means of the Holy Spirit,” indicates that the filling of the Spirit as a problem solving device is related to prayer.

f. Prayer is a function of our royal priesthood whereby we fulfill petition for our own needs and make intercession for others.

g. Thorn in the flesh suffering is designed for development and utilization of grace orientation on the defense line of the soul. Paul’s suffering in 2 Cor 12:7-10 is designed to be part of the principle of Rom 8:28, “For we know that to those who love God, He causes all things to work together for good, even to those who are called on the basis of a predetermined plan.”

(1) Paul’s thorn in the flesh suffering is the divine initiative of grace. It is a grace gift from God designed for the function of the problem solving devices, specifically grace orientation. You must face a thorn in the flesh experience prior to reaching maturity.

(2) Thorn in the flesh suffering is a case of God working all things together for good. Therefore, the deployment of grace orientation and personal love for God the Father are the two things which go together in this concept. God will cause the thorn suffering in Paul’s life to work together for good, not through prayer, but through the function of the problem solving devices.

(3) God’s plan calls for suffering for blessing in order to execute His protocol plan for the Church. It is inevitable that we will have spiritual combat experience, and we will be either winners or losers at that point.

(4) It is the combination of thorn suffering and the deployment of the problem solving devices on the FLOT line which executes the protocol plan of God. We are mandated to take the defensive against Satan and take the offensive in the spiritual life by growing up spiritually. If you are going to grow up, you are going to do so through grace orientation on the FLOT line of your soul. The spiritual life is offensive; it is designed for advancing. However, you maintain the defensive against Satan. Spiritual combat is not a matter of prayer, but a matter of using the problem solving devices. People misuse prayer by asking for things they already have or asking for things they should not have.

(5) Execution of the protocol plan of God not only glorifies God but also creates the invisible hero, the unique product of God’s grace.

(6) If God answered Paul’s prayer and removed the suffering, it would destroy the only offensive action that Paul had to take the high ground of spiritual maturity. The offensive is the day-by-day function of the spiritual skills, not against Satan but toward God.

(7) Spiritual momentum from the spiritual skills glorifies God through the execution of His plan, will, and purpose.

h. It is part of God’s plan for Paul at this time to combine his suffering with grace orientation and personal love for God the Father, in order to make the final advance to the high ground of spiritual maturity. Out of this will come the greatest blessing of Paul’s life. When you have finally been trained for combat, God sends you the most difficult suffering of your life so you can use the problem solving devices, not prayer. Paul asks God to make it go away. If God had done what Paul had ask, God would have had to remove the blessing. To answer Paul’s fervent prayers would have set back Paul in his spiritual life.

i. The function of the problem solving devices on the FLOT line of the soul take precedence over any system of prayer or begging God for the removal of the suffering and adversity involved. Suffering is your friend, not your enemy. You do not want suffering for blessing to be removed. Use your problem solving devices. Certain categories of suffering for blessing are absolutely necessary for spiritual momentum for the execution of the protocol plan of God for glorifying God. When you pass this kind of a test, the elect angels are standing and cheering you.

(1) There is far greater power in the problem solving devices deployed for action against suffering than the power of suffering to destroy the spiritual skills with the arrogance skills.

(2) Therefore, what suffering God does not remove, He intends for us to bear; not through prayer, which is not a problem solving device, but through problem solving devices, especially grace orientation.

(3) The problem solving devices are designed to deal with every category of suffering in life. Therefore, in many cases, the suffering is designed for blessing. Every category of suffering is designed through the problem solving devices to add momentum and blessing to your spiritual life.

(4) Remove the suffering and you remove the blessing. Take suffering out of your life and you have destroyed your momentum. When you pray “Oh, God take the suffering away,” you are a loser in the spiritual life because you have rejected the grace of God by not using the problem solving devices.

(5) Suffering is designed by God as a field training exercise, preparing us for every crises in life. The removal of suffering is not a solution, but the means of using the ten problem solving devices for application to the suffering. The solution is in using the problem solving devices. God intends for us to go through suffering with flying colors. Paul’s three prayers were asking God to make him stop advancing to maturity—to take the suffering away so he would not have to use the problem solving devices. God was not about to answer this prayer.

(6) David won the battle before the battle began through the use of problem solving devices, not because he prayed. The battle is always won before the battle begins when you have ten problem solving devices on the FLOT line of your soul.

(7) In suffering, the solution is not prayer, but the function of the ten problem solving devices deployed on the FLOT line of your soul. The divine initiative of grace delivers in suffering, not from suffering.

(a) You never pray to God, where you have failed to use your own volition.

(b) Prayer has many wonderful and fantastic uses, but is not a problem solving device. Effective prayer is a result, but never the means of spiritual momentum. Like all forms of Christian service, prayer is a result of the spiritual skills and spiritual life.

© Prayer is a vehicle for the function of the basic problem solving devices: rebound, filling of the Spirit, faith-rest drill, grace orientation, doctrinal orientation. Prayer is effective because of the function of the problem solving devices. Prayer has no effect without them.

(d) Believers who pray for a miracle never understand the power and grace of God. Miracles are performed by the sovereignty of God without the help of believer’s prayers. The believer who prays for a miracle does not understand the grace of God. Most people praying for miracles are recycling the arrogance skills and are losers full of self- absorption.

j. Paul made the wrong application of prayer. He used prayer as the wrong solution for suffering. Paul is doing a right thing in a wrong way. Prayer is not a problem solving device. The answer is not prayer but the function of grace orientation on the FLOT line of his soul. Paul’s prayer is tantamount to a retreat from the FLOT line of his soul. The solution to suffering is the divine initiative of grace—the provision of the three spiritual skills.

k. Concluding Principles.

(1) Suffering is not your enemy. Suffering is your friend, when it is designed by God for your blessing. You want your friend to stay so you can use the problem solving devices.

(2) The divine initiative of grace includes the principle of suffering for blessing. The greatest advances in the spiritual life are made through the barrage of suffering. No one is ever strong by avoiding the barrage of suffering.

(3) The divine initiative of grace includes spiritual momentum through suffering, not spiritual momentum avoiding suffering.

(4) When the believer is functioning through the spiritual skills, suffering is designed for his blessing and for his advance.

(5) When suffering is designed for blessing, suffering is your friend, not your enemy.

(6) The spiritual skills plus suffering for blessing equal momentum in the spiritual life, which results in the execution of the protocol plan of God for the Church. This is where you take the offensive in the spiritual life.

(7) Execution of the protocol plan of God for the Church results in: glorification of God, invisible impact for Christ, conveyance of your escrow blessings for time and eternity, and going through your very own death-shadowed valley in the most magnificent way.

3. 2 Cor 12:9, “Then He assured me for my benefit, `My grace has been and still is sufficient for you; for My power is put into effect [made operational, accomplished, carried out, fulfilled] in the status of weakness [grace orientation]. Most gladly, therefore, I will rather boast about my weaknesses, that the power of Christ may reside in me.’”

a. “My grace has been and still is sufficient for you” is an idiom, meaning, “You need nothing more than My grace.” God assured Paul that he was on the right track in his spiritual life. He only needed to go back to grace orientation to handle the problem. It is not prayer that handles the problem of suffering, but the problem solving devices. There is no effective prayer without the problem solving devices in your soul first.

b. Grace orientation is the believer’s response to the divine initiative of grace. Grace is all that God is free to do for mankind without compromising His essence or nullifying His attributes.

Grace is undeserved suffering, undeserved support, which God freely gives to all mankind. Grace is the divine system that permeates biblical theology and all human experience. Grace does not start with mankind, but originates with God. Therefore, grace is not earned, deserved, or merited by human works, human resources, or human ability. God’s grace precedes human life on earth, and is, in fact, part of His divine essence. Motivated by divine love, God’s grace takes the initiative in eternity past and, combined with divine omnipotence, provides the most fantastic things for you as a believer. “My grace has been” is the divine initiative of antecedent grace in eternity past, “and still is” is the divine initiative of antecedent grace in time.

c. Grace orientation responds to the divine initiative of antecedent grace in eternity past as well as in time. Grace orientation is the response of metabolized doctrine to the divine initiative of antecedent and eschatological grace. In the grace policy of God, the divine initiative of grace always precedes the grace response. This is true in common grace, efficacious grace, logistical, living grace or postsalvation, dying grace, and eschatological grace.

d. Which comes first, the problem solving device or prayer? Rebound, the filling of the Spirit, the faith-rest drill, grace orientation, and doctrinal orientation must all be operational in the soul before God will even listen to your prayers. A personal sense of destiny means you are using prayer effectively. Personal love for God the Father is the motivation for prayer. Your prayers are never answered where you do not have impersonal love. Sharing the happiness of God is self-motivation for effective prayer. Occupation with Christ is the only way you can ever understand certain areas of prayers.

e. The divine initiative of grace related to the power of Christ is the issue in 2 Cor 12:7-10 and in Phil 4:13, “I have the power [portfolio of invisible assets] to attain all things [execution of protocol plan of God] through Him [Jesus Christ] who keeps on pouring the power [filling of the Spirit and metabolized doctrine] into me.” The filling of the Spirit is a grace gift from the Lord Jesus Christ to the royal family as the first power option of the protocol plan of God. The second power option is the infallible word of God, which is called “the mind of Christ” in 1 Cor 2:16. These two power options are the power which our Lord keeps on pouring into us and were given to us as a matter of grace. This is why when we are weak (not depending on our own human ability, talent, power, personality), we are strong.

(1) As a result of the heritage of our Lord Jesus Christ from the dispensation of the hypostatic union, we have two power options and one great precedence. Whether you ever use these three or not is optional; it depends on whether you learn, understand, or are interested in learning these things.

(2) You are the only one who can live your spiritual life. No one else can live it for you. But you cannot live it without divine power and precedence, the divine power of the divine initiative of antecedent grace in eternity past and in time.

f. The Lord’s power is made operational or put into effect in the status of weakness. This is not the weakness of the loser, but weak in the sense of grace orientation. Grace orientation looks at your suffering the way it looks at your blessings—from the standpoint of the FLOT line with the problem solving devices. You have the capacity for both blessing or suffering.

(1) Weakness emphasizes the status of the believer with grace orientation on the FLOT line of his soul. When you have grace orientation on the FLOT line of your soul, you recognize your own inability to solve your problems, and, above all, any one else’s .Grace orientation is the total absence of human merit, human ability to solve problems. Once you have grace orientation on the FLOT line of your soul, then you use the power and precedence of Christ. Grace orientation is self-motivation of the believer to use the power of God through the spiritual skills.

(2) The grace of God excludes all human power, all human dynamics, all good works leverage. When you use good works leverage, you use it in two directions: toward people and toward God. They use their life as leverage to manipulate other people and God.

(3) Grace depends on who and what God is, not your attempt to redecorate God to suit yourself. You have not been called to redecorate people to suit your taste. Human solutions are no solutions.

(4) Grace is the total absence of human merit or ability to solve problems.

(5) The divine initiative of grace provides for the deployment of problem solving devices on the FLOT line of the soul.

(6) Therefore, grace orientation is the self-motivation of the believer to use the power of God through the three spiritual skills. The power is located in the first two spiritual skills; the precedence is located in the third spiritual skill. You can have power and precedence or you can have pride and prejudice, and no one can make that decision for you.

g. The final statement in this verse is an elative conclusion. It is one of the greatest statements on the grace of God that has ever existed. The word “elative” describes a grammatical construction and a very rare classical Greek idiom. The elative conclusion puts grace in its proper perspective. An elative is a combination of a superlative and a comparative adjectival or adverbial form denoting inclusion and exclusion. The superlative always takes the position of what is included and the comparative always takes the position of what is excluded. The superlative always tells you what is God’s solution and the comparative tells you what is not God’s solution. In this passage, grace orientation is included as God’s solution and prayer is excluded as not God’s solution.

(a) Elative is grammatical nomenclature for a combination of a superlative and comparative to denote superiority, inclusion, and exclusion. What is excluded (human solutions) is never a part of God’s plan. What is included is grace. Human solutions and divine solutions are mutually exclusive.

(b) The elative emphasizes solution to suffering rather than reaction to suffering. Paul’s prayer for the removal of suffering is reaction to suffering, the dominance of self-absorption plus the arrogance complex of sins. All wrong solutions intensify suffering. Illustration: adversity converted into stress.

© The power of the elative is dramatically portrayed in the fact Paul says boasting in weaknesses (grace orientation) is better than prayer. This is not true when you are using prayer properly and the divine solution of the problem solving devices on the FLOT line of the soul. Boasting in weakness is a testimony to the deployment of grace orientation on the FLOT line of the soul. Boasting is grace orientation, recognition of helplessness. Prayer for the removal of thorn suffering is the wrong approach; it is a human solution. Suffering for blessing is something for which you cannot pray. You can pray for illness, sickness, all kinds of problems and difficulties, but not for a thorn in the flesh.

i. Paul was using prayer as leverage to try to get God to do Paul’s will, not God’s will. He used prayer as leverage to try and superimpose his own will over the sovereignty of God.

ii. Paul’s three intensive prayers converted a legitimate spiritual function into an instrument of legalism and blasphemy.

iii. This is why God the Holy Spirit must often make intercession for us in prayer. Rom 8:26-28, “And in the same way the Spirit also helps our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we should, but the Spirit Himself intercedes with groaning too deep for words; and He who searches the hearts knows what is the thinking of the Spirit, because He makes intercession as a substitute for the saints on the basis of the will of God. Now we know that to those who love God He causes all things to work together for good, to those who are called according to His predetermined plan.”

iv. There is no effective prayer apart from the problem solving devices deployed on the FLOT line of the soul. The problem solving devices are the only accurate and legitimate means of the application of doctrine to experience.

v. Prayer is not a problem solving device; for prayer depends on the problem solving devices for its effectiveness. Prayer is not designed to manipulate other people or to use leverage to manipulate the sovereignty of God.

vi. Under the sponsorship of the problem solving devices on the FLOT line of the soul, prayer becomes a very powerful instrument for Christian service and for your own petitions to God.

(d) Better to boast about weaknesses than to pray for the removal of suffering for blessing.

(e) Paul cannot boast in the divine solution, because the divine initiative of grace is designed for weakness. Therefore, Paul would much rather boast in that which lines up with grace. By boasting in his weaknesses, Paul is using grace orientation. He recognizes that only God can do anything about his thorn suffering.

(f) The elative emphasis provides shock emphasis, i.e., boasting is better than prayer in this case, because the thorn suffering is suffering for blessing.

(g) Boasting in weakness emphasizes the doctrine of power and precedence. Grace orientation says in effect that the divine solution is based on the function of divine power and precedence. The divine power is located in the first two spiritual skills and the precedence is located in the function of the humanity of Christ in hypostatic union.

(h) Paul is boasting in the helplessness brought on by the thorn in the flesh suffering. Paul is now boasting in the fact there is no human solution, no prayer solution, no manipulation of God through leverage.

(i) The function of grace orientation on the FLOT line of the soul is the divine solution which glorifies God.

(j) The divine initiative of grace is designed to glorify God, never mankind. Any time you can boast, it is not glorifying God.

(k) The prepositional phrase “about my weaknesses” the dative plural of reference is like the accusative; for it extends the action of the verb “boasting” to human weakness. The elative emphasis combines the superlative with the comparative to emphasize a very important point of doctrine: God has a monopoly on solutions that work. Human solutions are no solutions. The elative emphasis presents the fact that prayer for deliverance and miracles often becomes legalism and arrogance. How dare you ask God for a miracle when He has provided for you the greatest portfolio of invisible assets in history. That’s arrogance. God has provided for Paul the solution, and it is not prayer. The prayer for the removal of the thorn is the blasphemy of ordering God to follow Paul’s desire and judgment in the matter rather than God’s sovereign wisdom and judgment in the matter. By boasting about his weaknesses, Paul acknowledges his understanding of the grace solution of God and is saluting the grace solution of God. What is relevant is not the fact that Paul is hurting. What is relevant is the fact that God has provided the solution.

h. The word “weakness” emphasizes the total helplessness of the believer to solve the problems of life through human ability, human viewpoint, human works, or human merit, therefore, no human leverage to manipulate God through prayer, morality, legalism, or the emotional complex of sins. Paul used prayer as instrument of legalism. “Weakness” emphasizes the status of the believer in the deployment of grace orientation on the FLOT line of the soul. “Weaknesses” means no illusions

about human solutions to the problems of life. Grace always depends on who and what God is, never on who and what mankind is. Human solutions are no solutions.

i. In boasting about his weaknesses, Paul is giving testimony to the doctrine of power and precedence, because the doctrine of power and precedence says

that only the divine initiative of grace can solve problems. “Boasting” is preceded in the Greek by the elative emphasis—by a superlative adverb and a comparative adverb. It denotes the superiority of the divine solution and the exclusion of the human solution. The elative emphasis is greater and more than, greatest and more than, best and more than. Boasting about weaknesses, therefore, is a testimony to the exclusion of human ability to solve problems and the inclusion of divine solutions to solve problems. Boasting in weaknesses is a testimony to power and precedence, the doctrine of the word of God, which is the very backbone of your spiritual life. Both the power and the precedence came from the humanity of Jesus Christ during His first advent. He gave the filling of the Holy Spirit and Bible doctrine to Church Age believers.

j. Principles.

(1) Weakness in suffering demands the application of grace orientation to the situation for that suffering to be converted into blessing.

(2) Suffering does not transmit or bear its meaning in itself, but suffering becomes a spotlight for focusing attention on the divine initiative of grace.

(3) The issue in adversity is not the suffering but the divine solution, the grace solution, the deployment of the problem solving devices on the FLOT line of your soul.

(4) Remove the suffering and you remove the solution. You become strong through divine solutions.

(5) Remove the suffering and you remove the blessing. Asking God to take away the suffering is trying to make your will God’s will.

(6) Remove the suffering and you fail to advance in the spiritual life.

(7) Blessing is in the solution, not in the suffering. You cannot have blessing apart from divine solutions to life. You cannot have blessing and solution apart from deploying the ten problem solving devices on the FLOT line of the soul. The existence of suffering is the challenge to apply the divine solutions, therefore, if you remove the suffering, you remove the blessing. No one takes the high ground of spiritual maturity without advancing through the barrage of suffering for blessing. There is no way you can have blessings without divine solutions. There is no way you can have solutions without suffering.

k. The divine initiative of grace permits the suffering, provides the grace solution, which creates blessing and glorifies God. All divine solutions are grace solutions, which exclude human solutions. God is definitely going to give you suffering for blessing, so that, through your daily perception of doctrine, you will deploy the problem solving devices on the FLOT line of your soul, and not try to use prayer as leverage to coerce God to make the suffering go away. You do not solve your problems by praying for them, but by using the problem solving devices. The Lord said suffering is not a matter of prayer, but a matter of grace orientation.

(1) The elative conclusion emphasizes the fact that divine solutions are grace solutions which exclude human solutions, including the misuse of prayer. The elative emphasizes the absolute doctrine that the divine solution is infinitely superior to both human problems and the human attempt to solve those problems apart from the use of God’s problem solving devices—the divine solution.

(2) Grace solutions exclude all human solutions, including legalism, psychology, defense mechanisms, arrogance skills, the arrogance complex of sins, leverage, and manipulation. When you use leverage and manipulation toward other believers, it is called legalism. When you do so toward God, it is called blasphemy.

(3) The elative conclusion emphasizes the fact that the deployment of the problem solving devices on the FLOT line of the soul turn the protocol plan of God into offensive action, taking the high ground of spiritual maturity, provides the believer with the divine solutions and momentum in the spiritual life, blessing in the spiritual life, glorification of God, and the dynamics of invisible heroship through the function of the spiritual skills. The elative conclusion emphasizes the solution to suffering rather than reaction to suffering.

(4) The elative conclusion emphasizes inclusion and exclusion—what the divine solution is and what the divine solution is not. The divine initiative of grace permits thorn suffering and provides the divine solution. The divine initiative of grace excludes blasphemy of trying to manipulate God through prayer, which turns prayer into an instrument of legalism.

(5) Principles of Application.

(a) Believers place great emphasis on quick solutions. For example, people are no better in marriage than they are as people. Therefore, the solution to marital problems is exactly the same as the solution to thorn problems—the elative emphasis.

(b) The elative emphasis is the way of explaining what is the answer and what is not the answer. The elative emphasis says divine solutions are the only solutions, and divine solutions are activated through the consistent function of the three spiritual skills.

© Divine blessings come from divine solutions. Divine solutions include grace orientation on the FLOT line of the soul. Therefore, “My grace has been and still is sufficient for you. My power is put into effect in the status of weakness. Most gladly, therefore, I will rather boast about my weaknesses.” God’s initiative of grace permits thorn suffering and provides the perfect, unique, grace solution.

l. “Boasting about weakness” is recognition of helplessness to solve the problem through human ability. “Weakness” emphasizes the total helplessness of the believer to solve the problems of life through human ability, human works, and human merit. “Weakness” also emphasizes the fact that good works and evil are never problem solving devices. Weakness means no illusions about human solutions to the problems of life. Neither prayer nor Christian service are ever effective without the function of the three spiritual skills. “Boasting in weaknesses” is Paul’s recognition that power and precedence removes prayer as a problem solving device. “Boasting in weakness” is grace orientation. Better to boast in weakness than to pray for the removal of suffering for blessing. The elative conclusion: the divine solution is the only solution.

(1) Weakness is always searching for solutions, but always comes up with human solutions (which include the misuse of prayer and Christian service).

(2) Grace orientation motivates weakness to search for strength. Therefore, out of weakness comes strength. Human strength is incompatible with divine power, but human weakness is compatible with the power of God, when problem solving devices are making a reconnaissance to come to the divine solution for weakness.

(3) Grace orientation is the strength of human weakness.

4. 2 Cor 12:10, “Therefore, on behalf of Christ I am content with my weaknesses, with vilifications, with adversities, with persecutions, with troublemakers; for when I am weak, then I am strong.”

a. There is great power and strength in weakness. “Weaknesses” here indicates the thorns, and is used here in the sense of helplessness, incapacity, and being powerless. Weaknesses are the basis for the function of grace orientation. Weaknesses is used here to present four categories of thorn suffering.

(1) Vilification means being the victim of someone else who is functioning the arrogance skills, resulting in the arrogance complex of sins and eventuating in the emotional complex of sins. This is being the victim of the antagonism of someone else.

(a) There is a Christian bureaucracy which administers the first thorn through vilification, vituperation, or the function of malice. It does this through hard core legalist believers recycling the arrogance skills. They are totally immature believers.

(b) There is a problem of arrested development of human maturity as unbelievers which overflows into postsalvation experience and becomes a great hindrance to that believer. There are two basic failures in life which result in the arrested development of human maturity: the function of negative volition toward authority and the function of childhood defense mechanisms used in adulthood. Defense mechanisms combine with the three arrogance skills to arrest your human advance to maturity. As a believer, you become a member of a hard core legalistic bureaucracy, which administers vilification and vituperation to growing believers. This can be called the postsalvation immaturity hangover.

© The arrogance bureaucracy spends all of its time trying to straighten out everyone else. They try to make others over into what they think people should be. They are horribly critical of anyone who is not like them. This bureaucracy exists in every church. They are troublemakers.

(d) What is the pattern of this immaturity hangover from childhood? The function of the arrogance skills continue to follow the pattern of recycling with devastating results: perpetual sin nature control of the soul, the arrogance skills are parlayed into the arrogance complex of sins and the arrogance complex of sins result in the irrationality of the emotional complex of sins, the trends of the sin nature result in self- righteous arrogance and the stubbornness of legalism or escape into antinomianism, the stages of reversionism, and Christian moral or immoral degeneracy.

i. The imbibing stage of the hangover is analogous to the problems of childhood, adolescence, and youth. The drunkenness status is the use of defense mechanisms to deal with the problems of childhood and youth.

ii. The defense mechanism which helped you as a child destroys you as an adult. The defense mechanisms are part of the childhood inebriation, childhood factor. Arrogance skills are part of the hangover in adulthood. Being rejected and ridiculed by your peers, you build a wall of denial around yourself that keeps out reality. Confrontation with other children leads to projection. In denial, there is either no perception of reality or rejection of reality. Because you are in denial, you never see themselves as wrong in anything. Projection is the sin nature adjustment to human relationships involving all of the arrogance skills. In self-deception, you fail to recognize that you have caused some of the problem between yourself and others.

iii. Self-deception is closely related to rationalization. Rationalization is a defense mechanism in which a person devises self-serving or reassuring but incorrect explanations of his or her own behavior or that of another person. In this self-serving, you always explain your behavior as right and proper and justified, and that of someone else as wrong. Whatever doctrine you have learned is damaged by continued use of the defense mechanisms as an adult. Problems in adulthood bring you right back to childhood defense mechanisms rather than the use of the problem solving devices of the protocol plan of God. This leads to dissociation.

iv. There is a definite relationship developed between the defense mechanisms and the arrogance skills. The arrogance skills become an almost automatic function for you to survive. You solve all of your problems in day-dreaming. This is self-absorption, autism, isolation, resulting in delusion. You belong to a bureaucracy which will always function to same way—the administrating of thorn suffering through vilification of others. Your motivation will be jealousy, bitterness, malice, implacability, revenge motivation, etc. The result of autistic fantasy (day-dreaming) is unrealistic expectation. This is how you get beyond your capabilities. v. As an adult, the false panaceas of life come into function. The false panaceas of life result from failure to understand and utilize the problem solving devices as the only legitimate system for the application of doctrine to experience. Delusion creates false panaceas such as prayer as a panacea to the problems of life. You cannot recover in a day what you lost over a long period of time. There is no permanent solution to the problems of life apart from the spiritual skills, especially the use of the problem solving devices.

(e) The sin nature control of the life creates this arrogance bureaucracy. This bureaucracy is made up of Christian moral degeneracy. One of the functions of the pastor is to protect you from these Christians by teaching you the doctrine to see these people for what they are and how to use the problem solving devices to deal with them. You cannot persuade the hard core legalist that he is ever wrong. They are dogmatic, stubborn, and never wrong. Self-righteous arrogance justifies everything they are doing. Their self-deception develops false panaceas (e.g., that marriage and prayer can solve all the problems of life) and advocates utopian socialism as the solution to human suffering. Self- absorption adopts human morality as the substitute for the dynamics of the spiritual skills and subsequent virtue.

(f) The Christian bureaucracy rejects the doctrines of the infallible word of God as taught by the pastor-teacher. Believers become agents for the administration of the first category of thorn suffering. This bureaucracy also has an unbeliever part, as illustrated by Judaism. God uses the wrath of the bureaucracy to praise Himself. God uses the bureaucracy by letting them run amuck. Because no one reaches maturity until he passes the thorn in the flesh suffering, which lasts over a period of time. Believers out of fellowship with no interest in doctrine are the worst monsters in the human race.

(2) The second thorn in the flesh is the outside pressures of adversity found in eight categories. The second thorn suffering definitely requires that you have the ten problem solving devices on the FLOT line of the soul to prevent the outside pressures of adversity from becoming the inside pressure of stress in the soul.

(a) The eight categories of adversity are:

i. Historical disaster or national trauma— economic depression, tyranny from crime, malfunction of law enforcement in the courts, vigilante distortion of law, riots, anarchy, anti-semitism, defeat in warfare, government encroachment upon the freedom of its citizens.

ii. Criminal disasters—murder, rape, robbery, burglary, victim of violence, terrorism, child abuse, kidnapping, incest.

iii. To be a victim of malice, revenge, vituperation, vilification, rejection, injustices of various categories.

iv. Loss of health—disease, pain, suffering and terminal illness. It is very legitimate to pray for the illness and suffering of others.

v. The death of friends or loved ones.

vi. Sufferings related to deprivation—economic disaster, warfare, revolution.

vii. Weather disasters.

viii. Rejection—a victim of discrimination, violence, abuse, oppression, passed over for promotion, loss of employment, a victim of unfairness, a victim of irrational and antagonistic government bureaucracy, a victim of the meanness of some group in general.

(b) Adversity is what others and circumstances do to you; stress is what you do to yourself. Adversity is inevitable; stress is optional. Stress is the temporary destruction of your spiritual life. Stress in the soul is tantamount to the sin nature control of the soul. Stress in the soul overruns the command post of your soul (your right lobe that circulates metabolized doctrine in the stream of consciousness). Stress in the soul contradicts the protocol plan of God for the Church.

© The problem solving devices counterattack and drive stress out of the soul, so that the FLOT line is restored for accurate and legitimate application of Bible doctrine. The FLOT line is restored by the rebound technique.

(3) The third thorn in the flesh is persecution, which includes all manner of unjust treatment—husbands persecuting wives, wives persecuting husbands, bosses persecuting workers. All of these categories had combined at the same time to test Paul.

(4) The forth thorn in the flesh is continued mental pain, perpetuated anguish in the soul, troubles brought on by a troublemaker. Troublemakers are the products of the recycling of the arrogance skills. They are totally preoccupied with self. Do-gooders are great troublemakers. All troublemakers demand attention, and if they do not get it, they react and make trouble. All they care about is how they feel and the fact you are not giving them any attention.

(a) Troublemakers are always trying to make up to you, be nice to you, and get your affection back. They never understand the problem.

(b) The believer has to bear the same anguish, the same mental pain, the same pressure again and again and again. 2 Cor 4:8, “We are afflicted, but not crushed.”

© The worst troublemaker always works through other people to get to you, to hurt you. They bring down on you all the people you love and admire. When approbation lust is not satisfied with sufficient attention, the arrogant believer begins to manufacture trouble through good deeds or vilification.

(d) The troublemaker eventually gets worse unless they use the problem solving devices, because they get farther from reality from emotional sins. The recycling of the arrogance skills and subsequent function of the arrogance complex of sins produces both the neurotic and psychotic tendencies, coupled with the emotional complex of sins, which is a state of complete irrationality.

b. “For when I am weak [helpless, powerless, incapacity], then I am strong.” When we are weak, then we are candidates for divine help; for the function of the problem solving devices. Weakness does not imply failure, but helplessness, being in a powerless state. Weakness means inability to solve the problem through human resources, human ability, human works. Weakness means total dependence on grace and power from God for the solution. Weakness emphasizes the divine initiative of grace. All human solutions are relative, and the relative solutions contradict the protocol plan of God. Anything outside of the divine solution only intensifies the suffering and results in stress in the soul.

(1) Strength in weakness comes from solutions, divine solutions to suffering for blessing.

(2) Blessing in suffering comes from the solution, not from the suffering.

(3) The elative conclusion—the divine solution is the only solution.

(4) The divine solution is grace delegated through the three spiritual skills which emphasize the deployment of the problem solving devices on the FLOT line of the soul.

(5) Anything outside the divine solution intensifies the suffering and complicates the life with more stress. Stress begets stress in the soul, when you use human solutions instead of divine solutions.

(6) Stress in the soul perpetuates sin nature control of the life, overruns the command post of the soul, and puts your spiritual life out of action. When you use prayer over problem solving devices, you intensify the suffering and receive no answer to prayer.

(7) Strength in weakness is the monopoly of the divine initiative of grace, which begins in eternity past with your very own portfolio of invisible assets and extends into time with consistent function of the spiritual skills, resulting in the invisible hero. All invisible heroes have strength in weakness.

5. Summary.

a. Once the believer is oriented to grace and has made Bible doctrine number one priority in the life, that believer is qualified to move on to the other problem solving devices.

b. The thorn in the flesh is designed to prevent arrogance and to accelerate your spiritual growth. What the Lord does not remove, He intends for us to bear through the function of the ten problem solving devices deployed on the FLOT line of the soul. The thorn suffering is designed for the deployment and offensive action of these problem solving devices to take the believer to spiritual maturity. There is far greater power in the problem solving devices deployed against suffering than the power of suffering to destroy the spiritual skills with the arrogance skills.

(1) The problem solving devices deployed on the FLOT line of your soul through the function of the power options are designed to deal with every category of suffering in life, converting suffering into spiritual momentum and blessing, the glorification of God.

(2) Remove the suffering and you remove the blessing. Take suffering out of your life and you destroy spiritual momentum.

(3) Suffering is designed by God as a field training exercise to prepare you for the real great crises in your life.

(4) David faced crisis and won battles before the battle began through the deployment of problem solving devices on the FLOT line of his soul. “The battle is the Lord’s.” David did not use prayer in the crisis but the problem solving devices deployed through the consistent use of spiritual skills. Prayer is not a problem solving device. The problem solving devices do not depend on prayer. Effective prayer is the result of the function of the problem solving devices and the spiritual skills. Effective prayer is the result not a means of spiritual momentum.

c. Suffering is not your enemy. Suffering is your friend, when it is designed by God for your blessing. God has made the wrath of man to praise Him. The divine initiative of grace includes spiritual advance and momentum through suffering, not by taking the suffering away. Suffering designed for blessing, combined with problem solving devices is designed to move you to the high ground of spiritual maturity. Blessing is not in the removal of suffering but in solving the suffering, and the suffering is solved through the problem solving devices.

d. The believer who begins with divine grace ends up with divine power. Grace orientation is the believer’s response to the divine initiative of grace. Grace excludes all human ability and power to provide equality for the execution of the protocol plan of God. Grace excludes arrogance and legalism, to include using prayer as leverage to impose your will over God’s will. Grace orientation responds to the four divine initiatives of grace for time and eternity through the consistent function of the three spiritual skills. Since grace is the divine policy which originates from God, it cannot and it must not be compromised with human merit, human works, human ability, or legitimate human function like prayer. The grace policy of God precedes grace response from mankind. The divine initiative of grace provides equal opportunity for grace response from mankind; this includes equal opportunity for salvation by grace through faith and for the believer equal privilege and equal opportunity to fulfill God’s plan in time.

e. Without the ten problem solving devices on the FLOT line of the soul, Paul has nothing left but helplessness and powerless incapacity, which he calls weakness. Weakness does not mean failure, but helplessness. No human ability, no function of prayer can resolve the problem. Problems are resolved by what God has given to us—the ten problem solving devices. Weakness emphasizes the believer’s helplessness to solve the problems of life through human ability, human works, and human merit. Weakness means no illusions about human solutions, such as psychology, prayer manipulation, guilt manipulation, or the leverage of legalism.

f. The elative conclusion denotes the inclusion of the divine solution as the absolute and only solution, while also denoting what is excluded as a solution to problems—prayer. The divine solution is the only solution, and is related to the three spiritual skills. Prayer is excluded as a problem solving device. The elative establishes spiritual priorities in life. Boasting in weakness is Paul’s recognition that the doctrine of power and precedence removes prayer as a problem solving device. (1) Paul cannot boast in his prayer life, his three ineffective prayers, which were an attempt to superimpose his own will over the sovereignty of God. This is the blasphemy of leverage in prayer. Believers who use leverage in prayer are involved in the arrogance skills and try to manipulate others.

(2) Suffering minus problem solving devices results in irrationality and emotional sinning.

(3) God would be totally unfair and not God, if He catered to Paul’s emotional blasphemy in this particular prayer.

(4) The thorn suffering is God’s grace provision for Paul’s blessing. The solution, therefore, is not in prayer for the removal of the suffering, but the function of the problem solving devices. Under such conditions, suffering is your friend.

(5) The emphasis on the elative is problem solving, grace orientation or boasting in helplessness. Better to boast in helplessness than to pray for the removal of suffering.

(6) The elative conclusion recognizes that the divine solution is the only solution; for the divine solution glorifies God. Where grace is involved, God is glorified. The elative conclusion emphasizes the absolute of Bible doctrine related to your spiritual life. Human solutions are infinitely inferior.

(7) The function of grace orientation on the FLOT line of the soul glorifies God, never mankind. The believer minus the problem solving devices is bankrupt for solutions to the problems and adversities of life.

(8) Blessing is in the solution, not in the suffering. Take away the solution and the suffering will put you down every time. Divine power is only available through grace orientation. Divine blessing is in the divine solution, not in the suffering. Take away the suffering and you take away the divine solution. Take away the divine solution and you take away the blessing. Take away the blessing and you take away your spiritual skills by which you and you alone live your spiritual life.

(9) No one advances to the high ground of spiritual maturity apart from moving forward through this barrage of suffering. The divine solution is an option that must be recognized daily.

(10) Grace solutions always glorify the source of grace, which is God, whose grace policy permits the suffering and provides the solution.

(11) Divine power is only available on a grace basis. Each spiritual skill (filling of the Holy Spirit, metabolization of doctrine, function of the problem solving devices) indicates how the power of God resides in us. When the believer begins with grace, he ends up with divine power.

g. The thorn in the flesh is defined under four categories of weakness or helplessness: being a victim of vilification from others, having outside pressures of adversity, being the victim of unjust treatment in life, and having continual mental pain from being the victim of a troublemaker. If you are positive to doctrine and deploy the problem solving devices on the FLOT line of your soul, you cannot blame the past for any present failure. You cannot blame your parents, a former spouse, or anyone else for your current failures. When the positive believer begins with grace, he ends up with divine power. Strength in helplessness comes from divine solutions. Divine solutions are delegated to us through the problem solving devices. Anything outside the divine solution intensifies suffering in your life and results in more stress in the soul. Strength in weakness is strictly the divine initiative of antecedent grace, beginning in eternity past with our portfolio of invisible assets and extending into time with the consistent function of the three spiritual skills.

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R. B. Thieme, Jr., Bible Ministries 5139 West Alabama, Houston, Texas 77056 (713) 621-3740

© 1997, by R. B. Thieme, Jr. All rights reserved.