Spir Dynamics 278-9 10/14/93; 2/26/78; Eph 835 6/22/88, 856 7/14/88

DOCTRINE OF MENTAL ATTITUDE

A. Definition and Description.

1. Mental attitude is the function of human thought. Your mental attitude is what you think at any given time. Consequently, thinking is the battlefield of your soul.

2. The life of every believer is in his mental attitude. The life of every believer is determined experientially by two principles: what he thinks and what he decides.

a. Divine viewpoint mental attitude is part of the greatest delegation of divine power in human history.

b. What you think is more important than anything else. But so many believers are struggling through life as mindless losers full of emotion. What counts is the power of divine viewpoint in the stream of consciousness of the right lobe of the soul. Your life comes to be what you think, not what you feel. Most believers today want overt impact, yet know nothing about the protocol plan of God.

c. Eph 1:19-20, “And what is the surpassing greatness of God’s power to us who have believed for the delegation of His superior power which He has put into operation by means of Christ when He raised Him from the dead and seated Him at His right hand in heavenly places.”

(1) The average believer does not even know anything about God’s superior power or how God has delegated it to us through thought. We have a lot of mindless emotional activity rather than doctrinal thinking. There is very little doctrine being thought today. No one can do doctrinal thinking for you.

(2) This delegation of divine power depends on postsalvation epistemological rehabilitation. The delegation of superior power comes in the form of thinking metabolized doctrine circulating in the stream of consciousness.

(3) This system of thought called Bible doctrine produces mental attitude divine viewpoint and is from the content of the infallible word of God.

d. What you really are as a person is what you really think, not what you appear to be on the surface, not the way you are dressed or groomed, but what goes on inside the invisible you, which is your soul. You are not always what you appear to be on the surface. Some people can hide their thoughts and some cannot. People can hide their thoughts and become adept at the practice of hypocrisy.

e. The real you is the thought content of your soul. Prov 23:7, “For as a person thinks in his soul [NEPHESH], so he is.” The soul is the place where you think or do not think. Hence, what you really are is what you think. Personality is not the real person; thought is.

f. Bible doctrine is the thinking or the mind of Christ, 1 Cor 2:16, “For who has known the thinking of the Lord that he should instruct Him, but we have the mind of Christ [the mystery doctrine of the Church Age].”

g. The delegation of divine power to every Church Age believer is Bible doctrine metabolized and deployed on the FLOT line of your soul. The delegation of divine power includes:

(1) The content of thought—Bible doctrine with emphasis on the mystery doctrine of the Church Age.

(2) The communication of this thought through the spiritual gift of pastor-teacher.

(3) The concentration of the believer on doctrine as it is being taught. Concentration is a matter of your priorities in life. You have your own spiritual life and must be motivated from your own spiritual life. Living your spiritual life is thinking divine viewpoint. All forms of worship are a concentration test. Concentration on the teaching of doctrine reflects four things in your life:

(a) The values in your life.

(b) Your motivation in life.

(d) Your spiritual status quo in life.

h. The delegated power of God is thinking Bible doctrine, mental attitude divine viewpoint.

i. Jn 4:24 says, “God is spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in [the filling of the] Spirit and truth [metabolized doctrine].”

3. A thought (or lack of thought) can make or break you at any given moment, depending on whether your thought is human viewpoint or divine viewpoint. Furthermore, your thinking can make or break your client nation.

a. 1 Cor 10:12, “Therefore let him who thinks he stands take heed lest he fall.”

b. Gal 6:3, “For if anyone thinks he is something when he is nothing, he deceives himself.” Thinking is either the application of doctrine to life or the application of arrogance and ignorance, which is human viewpoint.

4. The difference between living in the cosmic system and advancing to maturity depends on the thought in your soul.

5. Thinking falls into two categories for the believer.

a. Divine viewpoint from the Bible doctrine in your soul.

b. Human viewpoint from living in the cosmic system and functioning under Satan’s policy of good and evil.

6. Human viewpoint is the thinking of the believer who has rejected Bible doctrine or neglected it. Therefore, it is the thinking of the carnal or reversionistic believer. The arrogance skills hinder the function of divine viewpoint. This is why Scripture emphasizes the fact that God makes war against the arrogant believer but He gives grace to the humble believer, Jam 4:6; 1 Pet 5:5.

7. Divine viewpoint is the thinking of the believer positive to Bible doctrine, the advancing believer, or the mature believer. Divine viewpoint of life requires three thinking functions:

a. Cognition—both the act and the process of inculcation of Bible doctrine.

b. Thinking—the application of metabolized doctrine.

c. Solving—understanding and using the problem solving devices by which we make accurate and correct application to experience.

8. The thinking of the mature believer is different from the generally accepted thought patterns of the world. Therefore, the believer is set apart as unique when he cracks the maturity barrier. Uniqueness is reflected in his thought, actions, and observation of the honor code of the royal family of God.

9. Mental attitude includes the principles of life on which you operate. These principles are your motivation for life.

a. Speech and action is an expression of your thinking. Therefore, what you say and do is what you think

b. Thinking and speaking is a reflection of your priorities in life. Everything we do, everything we say, even how we look reflects our thinking.

c. Thought, speech, and action is a reflection of your mental attitude and motivation in life.

10. The greatest battle we have in life is the battle in the soul. Therefore, the importance of the problem solving devices on the FLOT line of the soul. Good changes in history are made through what you think. The content of your thinking is the most important thing about you. Most believers today are confused in their thinking.

11. The spiritual skills require the fulfillment of the divine mandates regarding mental attitude viewpoint.

a. The divine mandates related to the first spiritual skill, the filling of the Spirit.

b. The divine mandates related to perception of Bible doctrine.

c. The divine mandates related to the ten problem solving devices.

B. Scriptural Documentation.

1. Mental attitude determines true human personality. Prov 23:6-7, “For as a man thinks in his soul, so he is. And he says to you, `Eat and drink,’ but his right lobe is against you.” a. What a person thinks in his soul is what he really is.

b. You’ll never be a well-rounded personality with a limited vocabulary. It takes words with which to think. The more limited your vocabulary the less developed your personality. You have to have a good vocabulary to have a good sense of humor.

c. You must think to have character and personality.

d. The real person here is the implacable person, not the hypocrite who invites you.

e. Any spiritual system which demands technical thought improves your mind, personality, character and eventuates in honor, integrity, and occupation with Christ. Therefore, doctrine is important.

f. A person is not a personality, but is what he thinks.

2. Gal 6:3, “If anyone thinks he is something when he is nothing, he deceives himself.” To think you are something is arrogance. Arrogance is the thinking that comes in the form of many mental attitude sins, such as jealousy, bitterness, vindictiveness, implacability, hatred, self-pity, inordinate ambition, and inordinate competition. To think of yourself in arrogant terms is self-deceit and disastrous.

3. Isa 55:8, “`My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways My ways,’ says the Lord.”

a. The thoughts of God are divine viewpoint. The thoughts of man are human viewpoint. However, the thoughts of God are recorded in the Word of God so that we can know what divine viewpoint is.

b. This verse teaches that what you think determines what you do. For note that “thoughts” precede “ways.” It is thinking that determines decision and action.

c. By processing God’s thoughts into our souls, we have the opportunity of living on earth with an entirely foreign attitude to the normal concepts of life.

d. Doctrine in the soul starts a conflict in the soul with human viewpoint which is not resolved until we reach maturity. Legalism has to be unlearned for many believers.

4. Rom 12:2-3, “Stop being conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renovation of your thought, that you may prove what the will of God is, namely, divine good production, the well-pleasing to God [the function of the spiritual skills], the mature status quo. For I say through the grace which has been given to me to everyone who is among you: stop thinking of self in terms of arrogance beyond what you ought to think, but think in terms of sanity for the purpose of being rational without illusion as God has assigned to each one of us a standard of thinking from doctrine.”

a. To be conformed to this world refers to thought conformation, i.e., thinking human viewpoint. It has nothing to do with how you conduct your social life.

b. Transformation starts with what you think and renovation of thought, changing from human viewpoint to divine viewpoint.

c. When we think of ourselves in terms of arrogance, we are out of bounds.

d. Everyone has some form of rationality, but it is usually related to illusion. Therefore, their rationality is not reality.

e. The standard of thinking comes from doctrine. You have to learn doctrine in order to think divine viewpoint. You have to learn doctrine and metabolize it before it becomes a standard of thinking.

f. Bible doctrine in the soul is designed to eliminate subjective thinking of arrogance, for all subjective thinking is arrogance or a manifestation of arrogance.

g. Bible doctrine in the soul causes the believer to think in terms of common sense, rational and sane divine viewpoint, which inserts Bible doctrine into daily life and therefore avoids living and thinking in the cosmic system. Neglect or rejection of doctrine puts the believer in the cosmic system, and only renovation of thought can get the believer out.

h. The thought pattern renovated by the daily function of GAP results in maximum Bible doctrine resident in the soul. This doctrine in the soul replaces human viewpoint with divine viewpoint. As this happens, a new mental attitude is formed in the mind.

i. Mental attitude is everything. It is the capacity for life. It is that which is pleasing to the Lord.

5. Phil 2:5, “Keep on having this mental attitude in you which was also in Christ Jesus.”

a. The mental attitude of Christ can be our mental attitude.

b. This verse indicates there is a transition of mental attitude from the previous dispensation of the Hypostatic Union into the Church Age.

6. Col 3:2, “Keep thinking objectively about the things above [metabolized doctrine in the stream of consciousness, the ten problem- solving devices], not on things on the earth.”

a. The problem solving devices are application skills of the spiritual life

b. The application of metabolized Bible doctrine is accomplished through the use of the ten problem solving devices. This application goes in three directions: toward God, toward people, and toward self.

(1) Fellowship with the Holy Spirit, Personal love toward God the Father, and occupation with Christ are the problem solving devices directed toward God.

(2) The problem solving devices directed toward people include: grace orientation, doctrinal orientation, impersonal love for all mankind.

(3) The problem solving devices directed toward self include: rebound, a personal sense of destiny, doctrinal orientation, the faith-rest drill, sharing the happiness of God.

7. Phil 4:7, “And the prosperity from God which transcends human comprehension shall garrison your right lobes and thinking by Christ Jesus.”

a. It is impossible for the unbeliever and the ignorant believer to understand prosperity from God; it’s beyond human comprehension! They simply cannot begin to appreciate what God has done for us through logistical grace, prospering both winners and losers, and what God has done in phenomenally blessing those winners who execute His plan and His will.

b. One of the great factors in the believer who is advancing spiritually is a phenomenal mental attitude. This mental attitude is reflected by using the problem-solving devices of the protocol plan of God.

c. Prosperity is thought as well as possession. It is a system of thought you carry regardless of circumstances. It is the same consistency of thinking that provides true capacity for life, so that you face undeserved suffering, you are just as happy as when you are in fantastic prosperity.

C. Other Quotes.

1. Rebecca West said, “The trouble with man is two-fold: he cannot learn truths that are too complicated, and he forgets truths that are too simple.” We paraphrase that to apply to us. “The trouble with Christians is two-fold: they cannot learn Bible doctrines that are too complicated, and they forget Bible doctrines that are too simple.”

2. Marcus Aurelius, though an unbeliever, understood this about life. For he said, “Our life is what our thoughts make it.” Most people think of their lives in terms of the pleasure or fun they can have, or something they associate with happiness. People today have gone absolutely pleasure mad. Everything is designed with that end goal in mind.

3. Carl Von Clausewitz, “Every special calling of life requires special qualities of intellect and temperament. And when these are of a high order and manifest themselves in extraordinary achievements, the mind to which they belong is classified as a genius, a superior mental capacity for certain activities. The essence of military genius is to bring under consideration all the tendencies of mind and soul in combination toward the business of war. We say “in combination;” for military genius is not just one single quality bearing on war as for instance courage, but it is the harmonious combination of powers, in which one or the other may predominate, but none is in opposition.” This is what the three spiritual skills do to make you more than a genius, but give you divine viewpoint.

D. The Importance of Thinking Bible Doctrine.

1. From our thinking comes our motivation. From our motivation comes our decisions. From our decisions comes our lifestyle.

2. What we think depends upon our attitude toward Bible doctrine. This is illustrated by the priority solution formula.

a. Priority number one in the Christian way of life must be Bible doctrine with emphasis on the mystery doctrine for the Church Age. We must be consistent in our perception of that doctrine.

b. You concentrate on your number one priority, which means effective, Spirit-filled, post-salvation epistemological rehabilitation.

c. You organize your life around your number one priority, doctrine. You never organize your thinking until you have organized your life.

d. Once you begin to organize your life around priority number one, then you come to organize your thinking around priority number one. “As a man thinks in his right lobe, so he is.”

e. When you begin to organize your thinking around Bible doctrine, then not only do you have cognition, but you begin to advance on the broad front using the ten problem-solving devices of the protocol plan, and you finally reach the objective of spiritual maturity. As an invisible hero, you have an impact as a part of the pivot. The distribution of your escrow blessings for time become the basis for your glorification of God.

3. Eph 4:23, “Become refreshed [reinvigorated] by means of the Spirit and by means of your thinking.”

a. Metabolized doctrine circulating in the seven compartments of the stream of consciousness through the filling of the Spirit is the basis for divine viewpoint thinking. You can have doctrine in your soul and be out of fellowship and be incapable of utilization of divine viewpoint.

b. Learning doctrine is tantamount to thinking doctrine. Thinking doctrine is tantamount to the application of doctrine. The vehicle for the application of divine viewpoint thinking is the ten problem solving devices. The problem solving devices are the source of divine viewpoint or doctrinal orientation.

c. You have to learn doctrine before you can think doctrine.

d. You have to think doctrine before you can apply doctrine.

e. Correct and accurate application of metabolized doctrine to postsalvation experience can only occur in the sequential function of the three spiritual skills: the filling of the Spirit, the metabolization of doctrine, and the use of the ten problem solving devices. This is why the mental attitude of the believer is constantly tested during postsalvation experience.

f. A thought can make or break you.

4. 2 Cor 10:4-5, “The weapons with which we fight are not the weapons of the world; on the contrary, they [divine viewpoint] have divine power to demolish fortresses. We demolish speculations and every pretension [lofty thing] that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, even when we bring every thought into captivity to make it obedient to Christ.”

5. Ps 56:5-6, “All day long they distort my words [doctrine, divine viewpoint]; All their thoughts are against me for evil. They attack, they lurk, They watch my steps, As they have waited {to take} my life.”

6. Prov 12:5, “The thoughts of the righteous are just, But the counseling of the wicked is deceitful.”

E. Rapport in the royal family is based on divine viewpoint in thought and the honor code in practice.

1. Rapport in the royal family is not based on having a pleasing personality.

2. The honor code means live and let live, giving each believer his privacy, and avoiding evil thoughts toward another believer.

3. Phil 2:2, “Fill up the deficiency [in your life] with my inner happiness, that you keep on thinking the same thing, having the same love.”

a. Happiness is a series of thoughts, not function or emotions. Perfect happiness is a thought, not an emotion. Emotion comes from thought, but thought is never derived from emotion.

b. We can’t love all believers with a personal love, so this refers to our impersonal love toward all, our relaxed mental attitude toward all as part of the royal family honor code.

c. All true friendship is based upon thinking. Thinking is the source of honor and integrity.

F. Giving is a mental attitude, 2 Cor 9:7-8. “Don’t give from mental pressure or compulsion of emotions, for God loves a grace-oriented giver.”

1. You are not to give because someone embarrasses you, or because you make a pledge or tithe. Everything you give always comes from God.

2. The person who gives with the proper mental attitude will always have more to give; his resources never dry up.

3. In giving, the believer supplies the mental attitude, and God provides the rest. The person who has the right mental attitude is well kept in funds to express his attitude in worship.

4. It is not what you give, but what you are thinking when you give that counts.

G. A confident mental attitude is the divine viewpoint from the perception of Bible doctrine, 2 Cor 5:1, 6-8. Arrogance is subjective thought. Confidence is objective thought.

H. Mental attitude receives its greatest test in evidence testing, Phil 3:15.

1. “Therefore, as many as are mature believers, let us continue objective thinking; in fact, if you have a different mental attitude in something, God will reveal even that to you.”

2. Subjective thinking reflects arrogance—self-absorption.

3. You must be objective as you face undeserved suffering, attacks by reversionists, and all the tests. What you think in normal circumstances you should continue thinking under great pressure or great emotional circumstances.

4. God reveals your wrong mental attitude to you through the teaching of the pastor.

I. Inner beauty is a mental attitude, 1 Tim 2:9-10, 15b.

1. A woman’s real beauty is her inner beauty from the Bible doctrine in her soul, “with stability of thinking.”

2. The more Bible doctrine in the soul, the more beautiful she becomes from the divine viewpoint. There is no such thing as true beauty in the woman apart from Bible doctrine in the soul.

3. The mature woman always possesses inner beauty, and that compensates for any lack of physical beauty.

4. Overt grooming only compliments the inner beauty. Overt beauty without Bible doctrine becomes a facade for good and evil. Therefore, overt beauty is meaningless without inner beauty.

5. The woman’s inner beauty demands respect.

6. When a woman has inner beauty from Bible doctrine, she is respected in the same way that the aristocratic code of gentlemen always respect womanhood: with impeccable manners. Therefore, this is a greater incentive for the lady to advance to spiritual maturity.

7. Respect for womanhood is automatic in a society where women have inner beauty. You instinctively develop good manners in a society of women with inner beauty. They are inspiring, a pleasure to be around, and stimulating when they have divine viewpoint. However, without that mental attitude, they are petty, implacable, vindictive, and vicious with their tongues.

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

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