1 Tim 62 (1976); Eph 721, 725, 729-730, 732ff, 866ff, 1414; Isr 199 3/15/92

DOCTRINE OF OCCUPATION WITH CHRIST

A. Definition of Occupation with Christ.

1. Occupation with Christ is personal love for our Lord Jesus Christ through maximum metabolized doctrine circulating in the stream of consciousness of the heart (pre-frontal right lobe of the soul) by means of the filling of the Holy Spirit. The result is maximum metabolized doctrine in the right lobe of the soul and freedom from garbage in the subconscious.

a. Occupation with Christ is personal love for God the Son caused by post-salvation epistemological rehabilitation, which manifests the fact that the mystery doctrine of the Church Age has been and continues to be the number one priority in your life.

b. 1 Pet 1:8, “And even though you have not seen Him, you love Him [occupation with Christ]; and though you do not see Him now but believe in Him, you greatly rejoice with inexpressible happiness [+H] and full of glory.”

(1) Capacity to love someone who is invisible requires a tremendous amount of information in the right lobe of the soul. The capacity to love Jesus Christ comes only from metabolized doctrine converted into problem solving devices stationed on the FLOT line of your soul.

(2) Those who love Christ have made a role model out of our Lord. These are the believers with true happiness, and are spiritually self-sustaining. This happiness is dependent upon the accumulation of Bible doctrine in the stream of consciousness of the right lobe of the soul and having zero garbage in the subconscious of the soul.

(3) The happiness from occupation with Christ and the problem solving devices on the FLOT line of the soul is an inexpressible happiness which you cannot communicate to others. It is something that belongs to the privacy of your own soul.

(4) This believer is full of glory, an invisible glory to man, but very visible to the angelic creatures. That same Skekinah glory that filled the Tabernacle and the Temple now fills the believer’s soul.

c. The mystery doctrine of the Church Age is described as the thinking or the mind of Christ in 1 Cor 2:16, “For who has known the thinking of the Lord that he should instruct Him? But we [Church Age believers under the function of post-salvation epistemological rehabilitation] have the thinking of Christ.”

(1) The “thinking of Christ” is a specific reference to the mystery doctrine of the Church Age.

(2) You cannot love Jesus Christ until you know how He thinks, for He is invisible. Perception and metabolization of the mystery doctrine of the Church Age is how we come to personally love Jesus Christ.

(3) Having the thinking of Christ results in occupation with Christ in contrast to preoccupation with people.

(4) When we reach the point of occupation with Christ, then we have the mental attitude and thinking of our Lord.

(5) Occupation with Christ fulfills the concept of 1 Cor 13:13, and is developed under the principle of 1 Cor 2:16, “the thinking of Christ.”

2. There are two divine mandates with regard to occupation with Christ.

a. Heb 12:2, “Be concentrating on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our doctrine, who because of the exhibited happiness, He endured the Cross and disregarded [use of the problem solving devices] the shame [imputation of our sins], and He sat down at the right hand of God.”

b. 1 Pet 3:15, “But sanctify [set apart as more important than anything else] the Lord Christ in your hearts.” God makes a direct positive demand on your will and volition to be occupied with Christ, which is a mandate to be consistent in the metabolization of doctrine. 3. Occupation with Christ is also defined as fellowship with the Son.

a. 1 Cor 1:9, “God is faithful, through Whom you were called into fellowship with His Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.” The call of God occurs between common and efficacious grace. It is God the Father inviting the unbeliever to change his mind about Jesus Christ and believe in His Son for salvation.

b. The fellowship with the Holy Spirit is necessary for the execution of these mandates, as per 2 Cor 13:14, “The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ and the love for God [the Father] and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with all of you.” The fellowship of the Holy Spirit is another way of describing the filling of the Holy Spirit, which is required for occupation with Christ.

c. Phil 2:1-2, 5, “Therefore, if there is any encouragement in Christ [and there is], if there is any comfort from love [and there is], if there is any fellowship with the Spirit [and there is], if there is any affections and mercies [and there is]; be filled with my happiness that you might be thinking the same things [divine viewpoint], having the same virtue, united in soul, intent on one objective....have this thinking in you which was also in Christ Jesus.”

(1) Phil 2:1 presents a protasis of a first class condition, meaning that everything in verse one is true. Verse two presents the result or the conclusion in the apodosis. People seek encouragement from many people for many reasons, but we are to seek encouragement from Christ. Your spiritual life depends upon encouragement in Christ. Encouragement in Christ comes from the doctrine given to the Church Age believer. At spiritual maturity, your dependence on people ceases to exist, your dependence is on God, and you have made a role model out of the person of Christ. Occupation with Christ is the key to encouragement in Christ. It doesn’t depend upon any emotionalism or any other human work. Occupation with Christ is structured entirely upon your perception of Bible doctrine. When you have suffering, disaster, shocks, pressures, it is the problem solving devices that handle the problems and become encouragement in Christ.

(2) Comfort for the believer must come from the personal love of God the Father for the believer and the believer’s personal love for God the Father. There is comfort from personal love for God the Father in times of adversity and in times of any success or prosperity. There is comfort from impersonal love for all mankind. But individual personal love in friendship, romance, or marriage is not included in this concept of comfort from love.

(3) Affections and mercies are based upon the function of impersonal love for all mankind and grace orientation as two of the problem solving devices. This doesn’t refer to personal love as the basis for affection or mercies.

(4) Once you attain occupation with Christ, simultaneously you attain +H or sharing the happiness of God, so that you are prepared to meet and face any and every circumstance. Occupation with Christ is often mentioned with sharing the happiness of God in Scripture. As long as God in His faithfulness keeps you on this earth, you will have a most fantastic life.

(5) You are to think the same things as God thinks; for thought is the basis for happiness, love, and virtue. Thinking the same things is thinking Bible doctrine, thinking the same things that the humanity of Christ thought during the Incarnation. But it must be accurate thought, i.e., metabolized doctrine. Having the thinking of Christ results in preoccupation with Christ rather than preoccupation with people.

(6) United in soul means you have reached the point of precedence—you think the same things in the operational divine dynasphere that our Lord thought in the prototype divine dynasphere. You have the same thinking that our Lord had in His soul.

(7) Summary principles from Phil 2:1-2.

(a) Occupation with Christ results in God emphasis taking precedence over people emphasis.

(b) Fellowship with God is infinitely more important than fellowship with people. God must come first in your life in order for you to execute God’s plan for your life. This is only done by learning doctrine on a daily basis.

© You cannot grow spiritually and execute the protocol plan of God unless you have epignosis circulating in your stream of consciousness.

4. The attainment of occupation with Christ is gradual.

a. Our Lord becomes our role model. It starts by the command in Eph 3:19, “And to come to know the love for Christ which goes beyond gnosis that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.” 1 Cor 2:16, “For who has known the thinking of the Lord that we should instruct Him; we have the thinking of Christ.”

(1) The fullness of God is epignosis doctrine circulating in the stream of consciousness. We have to get to the place where we understand that we need help. We have to come to the point of helplessness to learn. You have to know that you know nothing before you can know something. We often do not know how helpless we are until we get into a jam.

(2) Occupation with Christ is attained through perception, metabolization, and utilization of doctrine.

b. The Lord Jesus Christ becomes our best friend. Occupation with Christ is attained through post-salvation epistemological rehabilitation; i.e., learning doctrine on a daily basis so that you advance to spiritual adulthood. The life beyond gnosis is metabolized doctrine circulating in the stream of consciousness through the filling of the Spirit. This is the only way to execute God’s plan, God’s purpose, and God’s will for your life.

c. Occupation with Christ becomes the ultimate problem solving device of life.

5. Occupation with Christ is one of three problem solving devices related to virtue-love.

a. Problem solving device number six is personal love for God the Father, the motivational virtue in life.

b. Problem solving device number seven is impersonal love for all mankind, the functional virtue in the Christian life.

c. Problem solving device number ten is occupation with Christ, the priority solution, and ultimately the answer to any adversity in life as well as the basis for having capacity for happiness and prosperity when it comes.

d. All three of these problem solving devices function effectively with maximum efficiency in the three stages of spiritual adulthood. They begin in spiritual self-esteem, continue in spiritual autonomy, and reach their peak in spiritual maturity.

e. All three of these concepts of love are the subject of 1 Cor 13:13, “And now abides faith [faith-rest drill], hope [hope 2 and 3], and virtue-love, these three; but the greatest of these is virtue-love.”

B. Occupation with Christ is the greatest motivator in life.

1. Occupation with Christ, which begins in spiritual adulthood, means your motivation in life changes.

a. At first, your motivation is in the faith-rest drill, in learning the basic doctrines, and in understanding and using the basic problem solving devices.

b. As you begin to grow spiritually, you not only have a stronger motivation in relationship to the Lord, but you change very subtly from dependence on people to dependence on the Lord.

c. This principle does not refer to the necessary dependence we all have on other people in life, such as team members who must depend on each other in athletics or the military. Such dependence is only successful where there is discipline, authority, and leadership. Leadership is necessary for motivation; authority is necessary for discipline.

d. But in the spiritual life, we don’t need to depend on anyone else but God. God does the blocking, opens the holes, and provides the solutions to our problems.

e. Therefore, in your relationships in life, you must allow God to “run interference,” because you cannot change people. While we say you can only change yourself, in effect it is God who changes you when you are positive toward doctrine. God causes you to grow up.

f. You are never fully grown until you reach the point of maximum use of occupation with Christ. Then you handle life magnificently and glorify God.

2. Occupation with Christ is the true motivator in life. False motivation leads to false doctrine, wrong priorities, produces garbage in the subconscious which produces false experience. Occupation with Christ is structured completely from metabolized doctrine. 2 Cor 5:14-17, “For the love for Christ keeps on motivating us, and we have reached the conclusion that One [Jesus Christ] died as a substitute for all; therefore, all [members of the human race] have died [real spiritual death at birth]. Furthermore, He [Jesus Christ] died a substitute for all [unlimited atonement], in order that those who live [believer in protocol plan] should no longer live for themselves, but for Him who died and was resurrected. Therefore, in the future, we regard no one from the human viewpoint even though we have known Christ from the human viewpoint.”

a. Occupation with Christ eliminates the human viewpoint of life. Human viewpoint makes you miserable and makes you argue with others about everything in life. Human viewpoint holds an opinion about everything in life and is intolerant of anyone else’s opinion. You cannot hold opinions to the point of agitation and execute God’s plan for your life. The other side of the coin is to complain about everything. Occupation with Christ eliminates all human viewpoint.

b. Occupation with Christ is the ultimate motivator in life. Now we are motivated by the highest motivation we can have in this life. The higher the motivation in your life the greater your happiness and the greater your enthusiasm, your awareness, and your spiritual life. The greater your motivation the greater your perspective of reality and the greater your divine viewpoint. The greater your motivation in life the greater your capacity for life, love, and happiness, and therefore, the greater you are as a person.

c. Occupation with Christ results in God emphasis taking precedence over people emphasis. God emphasis must take priority over people emphasis in the function and execution of the protocol plan of God for the Church Age.

d. Fellowship with God is infinitely more important than fellowship with people. But you will never discover this until you learn some doctrine. Fellowship with God is part of God’s protocol plan, but fellowship with people at best is a mere result; at worst a disaster. True Christian fellowship is fellowship with God the Father, the filling of the Holy Spirit, and occupation with Christ. Therefore, the importance of our motivation from personal love for Jesus Christ. Christ was not loved the way He wanted to be loved or treated the way He wanted to be treated, yet He did not have any unrealistic expectations toward people around Him. You cannot grow up spiritually or execute the protocol plan of God through Christian fellowship or interaction with people; this is implied in the phrase “we regard no one from the human viewpoint.” Fellowship with God is mandated; fellowship with other Christians is optional. You do not have to have fellowship with other Christians.

e. You cannot grow spiritually or execute the protocol plan of God through social intercourse, the function of cliques, or any other thing that is construed as Christian fellowship.

f. God has rendered certain all events for the believer. Not the slightest uncertainty can exist regarding the smallest event without lending confusion to all events. Therefore, in God’s plan and knowledge, the future is as perspicuous to God as the past. Therefore, God provided for every believer in eternity past his very own portfolio of invisible assets. All believers have the same chance, the same equality to execute the same plan and have the conveyance of invisible assets in your portfolio.

g. The key to the protocol plan is that we no longer live for ourselves but for Christ; for God does all the work. The only way you can ever have a marvelous life is to no longer live for yourself. Once you have occupation with Christ, you are living for Christ and you are happier than you ever were when you lived for yourself. In providing eternal life, God also provided for us a way to change ourselves, but not to change others. If you try to change others, you will only become bitter and hardened.

h. Wrong experience with God (i.e., apathy, indifference, rejection, ignorance of the mystery doctrine of the Church Age) inevitably results in wrong experience with people. That means that wrong fellowship with God results in wrong relationship with people. Right fellowship with God results in right relationship with people. Note that God comes first.

i. By giving doctrine number one priority in your life, two things occur.

(1) You come to have personal love for God the Father, and therefore fellowship with the Father.

(2) You have occupation with Christ and therefore fellowship with God the Son.

j. What does the phrase, “even though we have known Christ from the human viewpoint,” mean?

(1) As unbelievers, we were ignorant of Jesus Christ and did not love Him. We used His name in profanity or blasphemy or in erroneous concepts. Therefore, we knew Him only from the human viewpoint.

(2) But now with cognitive self-confidence in spiritual self-esteem and cognitive independence in spiritual autonomy, we no longer regard Christ from the human viewpoint of ignorance and non-love.

3. 2 Cor 5:17 continues, “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new spiritual species. Old things have lost their power; behold, new things have come.”

a. A new spiritual species is qualified to have fellowship with God.

b. The new spiritual species must give priority to Bible doctrine so that personal love for God the Father and occupation with Christ results.

c. The new spiritual species is capable of using the omnipotence of God for the execution of His plan.

d. What are the old things that have lost their power once we reach spiritual self-esteem? People priority and cupidity (lust). In other words, the power of another individual to hurt and destroy you and turn you into a monster is gone.

e. The new things that have come are the ten unique features of the Church Age, the problem solving devices, the distribution of escrow blessings for time, and the anticipation of the distribution of escrow blessings for the eternal state.

4. You can’t be motivated by people and advance in the Christian life.

D. Occupation with Christ is fellowship with Christ. (See also the Doctrine of Fellowship.)

1. If you have fellowship with God, then you can have fellowship with man. But if you do not have fellowship with God, your interaction with other people is a disaster, and people will say you are flawed, or have an “unfortunate personality.”

a. Why do so many Christians have “unfortunate personalities?” Because of the sensitivity and intensification in the protocol plan of God.

b. But the protocol plan of God doesn’t call for a change of personality, because that is an overt, skin-deep form of hypocrisy. The Christian way of life calls for the inner changes produced by Bible doctrine and occupation with Christ.

2. Fellowship with God the Father is found in 1 Jn 1:6. “If we say we have fellowship with Him [God the Father], and yet we walk in darkness [cosmic involvement], we lie and we do not practice doctrine.” 2 Cor 13:14.

a. The “practice of doctrine” is fellowship with God the Father. If you have people emphasis over God emphasis, you are in a state of hypocrisy, and are not practicing the doctrine. You can never put people before God and get away with it. That is the problem with churches that emphasize Christian fellowship over fellowship with God.

b. Fellowship with God the Father inevitably leads to love of God the Father at the point of spiritual self-esteem and thereafter.

3. Fellowship with God the Son is found in 1 Cor 1:9, “God [Father] is faithful, through whom you have been called into fellowship with His Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.”

a. Our fellowship with Christ comes from learning doctrine and is infinitely more important than our fellowship with people. Fellowship with Christ is synonymous with occupation with Christ and is a part of God’s will, plan, and purpose for your life. Christian fellowship is no substitute for occupation Christ; hence, social intercourse with Christians is never a substitute for learning doctrine.

b. We were called in common grace when we heard the Gospel, followed by the divine call to believe. When the Gospel is real to us in our soul, then that is the call. When we believed, we received efficacious grace in which God the Holy Spirit made our faith effective for salvation. We were not called into fellowship with people, but into fellowship with God’s Son. Yet we know less about Jesus Christ than we do about people after salvation. Jesus Christ is invisible to us. Therefore, we must learn about Him.

c. Since you were called into fellowship with God’s Son, this should be your number one priority in life. But this priority cannot be fulfilled without making Bible doctrine the number one priority from the start of your spiritual life. 2 Cor 13:14.

d. Occupation with Christ is the ultimate in fellowship with Christ.

4. Fellowship with God the Holy Spirit.

a. Phil 2:1-2, “Therefore, if there is any encouragement in Christ, if there is any comfort in virtue-love, if there is any fellowship with the Spirit, if there is any affection and mercies [and there is], bring to completion my happiness that you might be thinking the same things.”

(1) How do we bring completion or share God’s happiness? Through having fellowship with the Father, Son, and Spirit; not with people.

(2) The result of having +H means we can now have fellowship with people without putting people emphasis before God emphasis.

b. 2 Cor 13:14, “The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ and the love for God [Father] and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with all of you.”

(1) “Grace” refers to grace orientation as a problem solving device.

(2) “Love of God” refers to personal love for God the Father as a problem solving device.

(3) “The fellowship of the Holy Spirit” refers to the filling of the Holy Spirit as a problem solving device.

E. Occupation with Christ is one of the problem solving devices in the Christian life.

1. The problem solving devices are:

a. The rebound technique.

b. The filling of the Spirit.

c. The faith-rest drill.

d. Grace orientation.

e. Doctrinal orientation.

f. Personal love for God. We will distinguish between this and occupation with Christ as a problem solving device.

g. Impersonal love for all mankind.

h. +H or sharing the happiness of God.

i. Personal sense of destiny.

j. The priority solution: occupation with Jesus Christ.

2. These problem solving devices are used in undeserved suffering for the attainment of spiritual maturity. Spiritual maturity is arrived at through combining the three stages of spiritual adulthood with suffering for blessing.

a. Spiritual self-esteem plus providential preventative suffering equals spiritual autonomy.

b. Spiritual autonomy plus momentum testing equals spiritual maturity.

c. Spiritual maturity plus evidence testing equals glorification of God to the maximum during life on this earth under the protocol plan of God.

d. Occupation with Christ is the ultimate problem solving device. It prevents the outside pressure of adversity from being converted into the inside pressure of stress in the soul.

3. There are three stages of spiritual adulthood.

a. Spiritual self-esteem is cognitive self-confidence.

b. Spiritual autonomy is cognitive independence.

c. Spiritual maturity is the status of invisible heroship and the maximum function of occupation with Christ.

4. Eph 3:17, “So that Christ may be at home in your right lobes through doctrine when you have been rooted and established in virtue-love [personal love for Christ].” Christ is at home in your hearts [thinking] through doctrine.

F. The Need for Occupation with Christ.

1. Very few people, including Christians, are loved the way they want to be loved, or treated the way they want to be treated. This comes from unrealistic expectations. Without Bible doctrine and the problem solving devices, it is inevitable that this will result in terrible frustration and great instability.

2. Because people are not treated or loved the way they want to be treated and loved by other people, they develop ingrained frustration. This frustration leads to a false move to another church based on false application. This frustration makes them emphasize fellowship with people over fellowship with God. Such people never stop searching; they’re always looking for that one individual or group or job or social life where they will be treated the way they want to be treated. As a result, their lives are very unstable.

3. The doctrine of occupation with Christ addresses this problem. It makes the necessary correction of priorities in the Christian way of life. Occupation with Christ is the only way a believer can handle the problems of marriage, romance, friendship, business, profession, or job, and the problems of constantly bumping into people in various situations.

4. Virtue-love comes into focus at this point. Virtue-love, i.e. personal love for God and occupation with Christ, takes up the slack for the frustrations and reactions of arrogance.

a. Such frustration becomes a major motivation in life. People select their local church on the basis of the frustration of not being treated or loved they way they want. They select their love life, social life, and job on the same basis. This results in a tremendous amount of instability.

b. Arrogant reactions include such things as jealousy, bitterness, vindictiveness, hatred, revenge motivation, and disappointment in all categories.

5. Impersonal love for all mankind provides capacity for relationships with people under such categories as Christian fellowship, friendship, romance, and marriage.

6. In human relationship and Christian fellowship, you must establish a principle related to the privacy of the priesthood: you cannot change another person. The only person you can change is yourself.

a. You cannot get from another person unrealistic or even realistic expectations. People will always have some flaw or failure that will disappoint you.

b. What wear and tear would be saved if you recognized that you cannot change another person. If a husband or wife or boss doesn’t treat you the way you want to be treated, you cannot change them. When you try, you only intensify the problem; you don’t solve anything.

c. In other words, you are making an issue out of yourself instead of out of doctrine. Therefore, there is no occupation with the person of Christ, the ultimate answer.

7. The only person you can change is yourself, and you can’t do it by cultivating psychological change activities. The only change that occurs for the better comes from your post-salvation epistemological rehabilitation and the function of the problem solving devices of the Christian life.

8. From +H and occupation with Christ, you learn to avoid the three great hazards in the Christian life caused by unrealistic expectations.

a. Eyes or focus on self. This is arrogance. This comes from unrealistic expectations, from arrogance, and from the overestimation of self. When you are not being treated the way you want to be treated, your eyes are on yourself. You are frustrated, bitter, vindictive, and you become implacable. You make bad decisions from a position of weakness.

b. Eyes or focus on people. This is frustration. This is the old sin nature solution to things. You go out and find people who will treat you right, and find people with whom you think you are compatible. But that only intensifies your problem. You will always be disappointed by people until you attain personal love for God, impersonal love for all mankind, occupation with Christ, +H, and a personal sense of destiny. You will never be treated the way you think you should be treated.

c. Eyes or focus on things. This is jealousy, envy. You finally decided you won’t be treated the way you want to be treated, and so therefore, you will get what you want to get! So you go off and sublimate in some way: ladies enjoy the temporary solution of a shopping spree, and men enjoy a day of golf.

9. Occupation with Christ provides a new focus in life away from eyes on self, on people, and on things. How you are treated and loved by people is no longer an issue once you have reached spiritual self-esteem and have cognitive self-confidence. It is your fellowship with God that counts.

a. God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit are perfect, and they only treat you within the framework of their perfection. Perfect God can only treat you perfectly, maybe not in the way you want to be treated, but in the way you should be treated, which means a combination of blessing and testing along the way.

b. So how you are treated and loved by people is no longer an issue. Instead, you have moved into the three categories of virtue-love. You have personal love for God the Father as a motivational solution in life. You have impersonal love for all mankind as the functional virtue. Therefore, you have the capacity to be friends with people who are flawed, although they are flawed differently from you. And you have occupation with Christ as the priority solution, the greatest of all three.

10. Occupation with Christ changes your mental attitude about yourself, so that you can change your mental attitude about other people who do not love you the way you want to be loved or treat you the way you want to be treated. You change your attitude about the way you think you should be loved. There is no way you can make an issue out of yourself and advance in your spiritual life!

11. Impersonal love for all mankind gives you the ability to conquer hurt, frustration, anger, hatred, or antagonism toward others who are not treating you and loving you the way you think you should be treated and loved.

12. Personal love for God and grace orientation combine with impersonal love and occupation with Christ to create a gracious attitude toward people with whom you are involved, whether friends or strangers, husband or wife, etc. Whatever the relationship, you have a completely new attitude in the midst of some of the greatest expressions of frustration.

a. In other words, you have changed yourself through Bible doctrine. You can’t change other people. They have the free will to be as rotten as they want to be.

b. In this way, you can pass system testing, people testing, and thought testing without even blinking an eye. You’ve put it all together before you even get into suffering for blessing.

13. Because believers expect too much from others, they get into unrealistic expectations. To avoid unrealistic expectations from others and to pass people, system, thought, and disaster testing, it is necessary to be occupied with the person of Christ.

14. The more you are preoccupied with yourself, the greater your expectations and demands from people. The greater your romantic notions, the more you anticipate from people. Therefore, very few people are loved the way they want to be loved, and very few people are treated the way they want to be treated. Such people never find out what they are looking for because they continue to make an issue out of self.

15. The cosmic reaction is inevitable: arrogance, jealousy, bitterness, guilt, vindictiveness, implacability, self-pity, hatred, anger, and revenge motivation. With these things in your soul as a believer, you are guaranteed to have an unhappy life. But don’t blame God! You can only blame yourself. Under the law of volitional responsibility, you are producing your own misery, a sucker’s function if there ever was one. You are making your own misery in your preoccupation with yourself.

16. The more you become preoccupied with yourself, the greater your expectation from people. But face it: you will not bend people to conform to your unrealistic expectations.

a. You cannot change people to conform to your standards of treatment and love. But you can solve the problems of frustration through the three categories of virtue-love as a problem solving device.

b. There’s nothing wrong with romantic notions provided you line them up with Scripture, and provided that you are occupied with the person of Jesus Christ.

17. Ps 118:9, “It is better to take refuge in the Lord than to trust in man.” If you take refuge in the Lord, you are not expecting anything from people. It is your fellowship with God that counts, not your fellowship with people. But your fellowship with people can be wonderful when you bring into your relationships all the problem solving devices.

G. Occupation with Christ versus Preoccupation with People.

1. The problem is stated in Jer 17:5, “Thus says the Lord, `Cursed is the man who puts his trust in mankind, who depends on people for his strength, and whose right lobe turns away from the Lord.’”

a. You may put your trust in man in many different relationships, whether social, professional, romantic, marriage, or Christian fellowship.

b. There’s nothing wrong with having relationships with people; that’s not the issue. The issue is whether they are your number one priority.

c. We were designed from creation to put our trust in God, not in people. People have old sin natures and varying moments of instability. People are always trying to change you instead of changing themselves so that you will conform to their unrealistic expectations.

d. To “depends on people for his strength” means that if you have to get your encouragement for the Christian life from fellowship with other Christians, from being told how wonderful you are and being pumped up, you’re in trouble. You are depending on people for strength instead of depending on the Lord for strength. There is a special curse on the person who depends on man.

e. The only way you will ever depend on God is through perception, metabolization, and application of the mystery doctrine of the Church Age; i.e., consistent post-salvation epistemological rehabilitation.

f. If your “right lobe turns away from the Lord,” you have negative volition toward doctrine. Inevitably, the more you depend on people, the more you turn away from Bible doctrine. People turn away from the Lord when they are trying to change everyone else to comply with their expectations, instead of changing themselves.

g. A man with a destiny will spend a lot of time working and occupied with his profession or job. But there are a lot of females today who are complaining, whining, mewing about how they never see their husband. Ladies must learn something: you cannot change a person without destroying that relationship. Therefore, you have to learn to walk around a man’s destiny. Ladies do not have the right under the plan of God to complain, whine, and mew. Your husband has a destiny; walk around it! This means you must learn to entertain yourself.

h. This is a part of unrealistic expectation, for ladies are not treated the way they want to be treated or loved the way they want to be loved. However, you can’t change people, ladies, though have you tried. A woman’s nagging can only make a man worse, for many men will bow their neck and go in the opposite direction.

i. A man (or boy, rather), who was never weaned from mamma’s care, expects the same treatment from his wife; he wants her to do things just like mamma did it. He wants her to conform in many ways, telling her to do this and do that. He wants to be built up, while the woman looks desperately for something about him she can praise. In the meantime, she has her own problems because he’s such a child.

j. The average man doesn’t have a clue as to what sex means. The average male is so self-centered, so completely and totally preoccupied with himself, so arrogant in his lust and desires, that he is a source of tremendous frustration to his wife. But he expects her to “oh” and “ah” and carry on like he’s the greatest person in the world; yet he’s a flop.

k. So the problem both ways is unrealistic expectations. The demand syndrome occurs in both the arrogant male and the arrogant female.

l. If you ever learn the lesson that you can’t change people, you will take a giant step in the Christian life. Because the Christian life doesn’t say to change people; it says “change yourself!” Grow up spiritually. The only way you will ever change yourself is when you get to occupation with Christ. But you start with rebound, the filling of the Spirit, the faith-rest drill, grace orientation, and doctrinal orientation. Then you arrive at the last five problem solving devices.

m. You have to change yourself; that is realism. Unrealistic expectation is a very subtle but very powerful form of arrogance. We have no right to expect things from people.

n. The bigger the slob, the more they expect. The greater the jerk, the more they want. The only way you can ever get along with a slob is to change yourself.

o. The only way you can change yourself is through the daily perception of Bible doctrine.

2. Jer 17:6, “`For he will be like a tumbleweed in the desert; he will not see prosperity when it comes, but he will live in parched places of the desert, a land of salt where no one lives [has no capacity for life].’”

a. A tumbleweed has no roots and blows wherever the wind carries it.

b. God gives prosperity even to losers under logistical grace, but they don’t see it. They don’t have any capacity for it. People with unrealistic expectations have no capacity. If prosperity came and knocked on their door and declared “I am prosperity,” they still wouldn’t recognize it. They cannot enjoy prosperity any more than adversity because they have made an issue out of self.

c. A dried-up person is a negative personality.

3. Jer 17:7, “`But happy is the man who trusts in the Lord, whose confidence is in Him.’”

a. +H or sharing the happiness of God is one of the problem solving devices.

b. God emphasis must precede people emphasis.

c. “Whose confidence is in Him” describes occupation with Christ.

d. So this verse teaches both occupation with the person of Christ and personal love for God the Father.

H. Description of Occupation with Christ.

1. Occupation with Christ is described as personal love for God the Son which results from perception, metabolization, and application of Bible doctrine.

2. Application of Bible doctrine is the lifestyle of wisdom. Many applications exist when the believer is in spiritual adulthood and applies to his experiences and his circumstances occupation with Christ or personal love for the Son of God.

3. Since our Lord Jesus Christ is now seated at the right hand of God the Father, He is invisible to us. He only becomes visible when we do or see Him at the Rapture.

4. So to love someone who is invisible requires a means and system of communication which is based on thought. Thought is based on words. Words are placed by God in the Scripture. Divine thought and divine words, called Bible doctrine, is guarded in the Scripture. There is no other accurate record of the mind of Christ, divine thinking, apart from what is contained in the canon of Scripture.

5. Therefore, we can only come to love Jesus Christ through coming to know Him through the function of post-salvation epistemological rehabilitation.

6. This love for Jesus Christ can only exist through epignosis doctrine. Eph 3:19, “and to come to know the love for Christ which goes beyond gnosis, that you might be filled will all the fullness from God.”

7. 1 Pet 1:8, “And though you have not seen Him, you love Him [occupation with Christ]; and though you do not see Him now but believe in Him [faith perception], you greatly rejoice with inexpressible happiness [+H], full of glory.”

a. +H and occupation with Christ always go together. You cannot have one without the other. They are two sides of the same coin.

b. The glory with which you are filled is the Bible doctrine you have learned. “Full of glory” emphasizes the fact that you come to know Jesus Christ through perception, metabolization, and application of doctrine.

I. Distinction between Fellowship with God and Christian Fellowship. (See the Doctrine of Fellowship.)

1. Christian fellowship is nothing more or less than social life with Christians. There’s nothing wrong with that in itself. But it cannot have number one priority in your life.

2. Christian fellowship is never a substitute for fellowship with God. When churches start putting Christian fellowship as their number one priority, then they have gone negative to Bible doctrine.

3. Christian fellowship is never a substitute for learning Bible doctrine from whomever is your right pastor-teacher.

4. Spiritual growth, execution of the protocol plan of God, and subsequent glorification of God only occurs through post-salvation epistemological rehabilitation, which is perception, metabolization, and application of Bible doctrine.

5. Spiritual growth, execution of the protocol plan of God, and subsequent glorification of God does not occur through Christian fellowship.

6. Assembling together for Bible study and other forms of worship must never be confused with Christian fellowship. Christian fellowship is social life with Christians, and often a sincere attempt to encourage you. Your encouragement must come from the teaching of doctrine, not from social life with other believers. Learning doctrine is worship; it is not fellowship with Christians. Just sitting next to other Christians is not Christian fellowship.

7. Heb 10:25, “Not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together as is the habit of some [believers], but for the purpose of encouragement.”

a. The present active participle of PARAKALEO in the verb form means to be encouraged. But this is a participle used as a noun in the Greek, and so should be translated “encouragement.” Furthermore, this is a telic participle which indicates the purpose of the action: not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together.

b. So we assemble for the purpose of encouragement. What is encouragement in assembly? Perception of Bible doctrine, not Christian fellowship! We do not assemble to encourage “one another,” as the King James version erroneously says. We assemble for the purpose of learning doctrine, which is the source of our encouragement.

c. Encouragement comes from Bible doctrine, not from Christian fellowship. Someone may inspire you to come to Bible class once, but that cannot keep you there. What keeps you coming to Bible class is your own motivation from your own understanding and perception of doctrine, making it number one in your life.

d. Your Christian fellowship with other believers is inconsequential! It is your fellowship with God that counts!

e. However, many believers cannot assemble for Bible doctrine and encouragement from the Word of God. They are isolated because of geographics, handicaps, illness, lack of transportation, lack of accurate teaching in a specific geographical area, or many other reasons. But they are not violating this verse. Bible doctrine is the purpose of assembly, and they do learn Bible doctrine, even though they are alone. So since they are getting doctrine, they are in effect “assembling themselves.”

f. God always supplies a right pastor with doctrine for those isolated with positive volition. God never denies doctrinal teaching to positive believers who cannot assemble for one reason or another.

g. A right pastor who communicates the mystery doctrine of the Church Age can be provided in two ways.

(1) In face-to-face teaching.

(2) In non-face-to-face teaching; e.g., tapes, audio, video, books, FX systems, radio, television.

h. Not everyone’s right pastor is located in the same geographical periphery. Christian fellowship with believers in the same geographical location is not necessary to fulfill God’s protocol plan.

8. Whatever the advantages of Christian fellowship may be, they do not include either spiritual growth, execution of the protocol plan, or glorification of God in the Church Age. 9. In fact, there are several disadvantages to Christian fellowship.

a. The establishment of wrong priorities through association with shallow, often silly, and very frequently confused Christians.

b. The distraction from Bible doctrine by becoming involved in a clique, so that people become more important to you than Bible doctrine. This also occurs through using Christian fellowship as a source of happiness, hence, preoccupation with friendship and romance in Christian fellowship. People use Christian fellowship as a dating bureau or a marriage pool. Don’t think that you can marry anyone as long as they’re a Christian.

c. Association with legalistic believers results in self- righteous arrogance, crusader arrogance, Christian activism, the performance of dead works, and entrance into Christian moral degeneracy. Legalism is contagious.

d. Association with antinomian believers results in various categories of Christian immoral degeneracy.

e. Dependence on counseling, counseling in a clique, manipulation, and control from other believers are also disadvantages to Christian fellowship, so that dependence on Bible doctrine is phased out, and you are walking on crutches in your spiritual life.

f. People who use Christian fellowship to assuage loneliness never solve their problems. They lean on people to solve the problem of loneliness.

(1) But for believers learning doctrine, loneliness is the easiest problem to solve. Those who cannot solve the problem of loneliness have no resources in their soul, no interests or hobbies.

(2) For the Christian, loneliness is lack of love for God the Father, God the Son, and lack of fellowship with God the Holy Spirit. Loneliness doesn’t have anything to do with people.

(3) Loneliness is a problem of giving precedence to people orientation over divine orientation. People emphasis over God emphasis is a guarantee of loneliness. Because when you emphasize people over God as a believer, you will inevitably be frustrated, bitter, vindictive, implacable, and lonely.

g. Christian fellowship often leads to the acquisition of erroneous views about Bible doctrine. 2 Tim 3:2-7. “For people will be lovers of self, lovers of money, boastful, revilers, disobedient to parents, ungrateful, unholy, unloving, implacable, malicious gossips, without self- control, brutal, reckless, treacherous, conceited, haters of good, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, holding to a form of godliness although they have denied its power; avoid such persons as these. For among them are those who creep into households and captivate silly women weighed down with sins [arrogance complex], led on by ever-changing caprice, always learning and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth.”

(1) If you have fellowship with Christians who have their eyes on self, you will quickly get your eyes on yourself. Arrogance cannot learn doctrine.

(2) If you love money, you are so preoccupied with things that you cannot learn doctrine.

(3) If you boast about yourself and your money and things, you are arrogant, and not occupied with Christ.

(4) If you are arrogant, you will malign other people; you are a reviler.

(5) It all starts with rejection of authority when you were disobedient to your parents.

(6) You have no capacity for anything because you are ungrateful, unholy and unloving.

(7) Brutality doesn’t always express itself in violence, but also in the vicious use of the tongue in slander, gossip, and maligning.

(8) There’s nothing wrong with pleasure. But when it takes precedence over your love for God, you’ll never reach spiritual adulthood and never have the pleasure of being occupied with Christ.

(9) A “silly woman” is arrogant, anti-authority, unteachable, impressed with herself and very vulnerable to anyone who alleges to share her high impressions of herself.

(10) “Caprice” is an unpredictable change of mind.

10. Obviously, fellowship with these categories of Christians would be detrimental to the spiritual life of the believer. On the other hand, Christian fellowship can be wonderful.

a. Whether fellowship is detrimental or wonderful does not depend upon the fellowship as such, but upon your ability to discern virtue wherever it is. Neither legalism nor lasciviousness are virtuous.

b. If you do not put God first, your relationship with people in any periphery will be a mess and will have no spiritual significance.

c. If you have fellowship with positive believers who have virtue, integrity, and who recognize the privacy of your priesthood and yet can have a wonderful relationship with you, you will make some of the greatest friendships in this life.

d. The advantage to such friendships is that you’re not depending on them; you’re depending on the Lord. When you are not depending on people and have relationships with them, then you are in spiritual self-esteem. As a result, you never feel threatened by them. Then you don’t get upset when they turn nasty and sarcastic and turn sour. Because you’re depending on the Lord, and your fellowship with the Lord takes care of that.

e. So if you enter into Christian fellowship with unrealistic expectation, you will never grow in grace.

f. Christian fellowship is nice to have if there is no legalism, antinomianism, or apostasy.

g. However, Christian fellowship cannot advance the believer in God’s plan, purpose, or will for his life, only Bible doctrine can do that. If you derive encouragement from people, it’s all wrong. Your encouragement must come from inside of you.

h. So if you get together with people in order to gain their approbation, to get something from them, or to be admired by them, you will be mixed-up for the rest of your life. But if you have a fantastic and wonderful relationship with God, you can have fantastic happiness and blessing either in the company of other people or without the company of other people.

i. Social life can be a very refreshing interlude, as it was designed to be under the right circumstances. Christian fellowship is social life with Christians.

j. However, Christian fellowship cannot replace reception of Bible doctrine, fulfill the protocol plan, or glorify God.

k. Christian fellowship can only provide unrealistic expectation and role model arrogance so that your life becomes one of intensive competition and no relaxation.

J. The Pattern and Mechanics for Occupation with Christ.

1. Formula for the priority solution: P1 = C1 + OL + OT + CC = OC.

2. Priority number one (P1) equals concentration on your number one priority, C1 plus organizing your life around your number one priority (OL) plus organizing your thinking around priority number one (OT) plus concentration on Christ (CC) equals OC, occupation with Christ.

3. Definition of terms in the formula.

a. P1 should be Bible doctrine with emphasis on the mystery doctrine of the Church Age. If it isn’t, you will never get to occupation with Christ.

b. C1, concentration on your number one priority, is post- salvation epistemological rehabilitation. It is inevitable that you will concentrate on whatever is your number one priority.

(1) To concentrate on Bible doctrine, not only do you have to be under the teaching of your right pastor-teacher, but you have to function consistently under post-salvation epistemological rehabilitation.

(2) This means you must listen to and learn many things that have no immediate interest. But they are all important parts of the great mosaic of God’s plan for your life. Eventually, all the pieces will fit together. As with a puzzle, it doesn’t look like much until most of the pieces are in place, and then there’s almost a rush to finish it at the end.

(3) If you stay with it, eventually it will all make sense.

c. OL, organizing your life around your number one priority, means consistent exposure to and reception of the mystery doctrine of the Church Age. Once you start concentrating on your number one priority, then your life changes almost without your realizing it. For you will inevitably begin to organize your life around that number one priority. If your number one priority is Bible doctrine, then of your own volition and from your own mental attitude, you will learn doctrine every day.

d. OT means you organize your thinking around priority number one, which requires the consistent metabolization and application of doctrine. This determines your mental attitude, which is one of the most important factors in life. As you begin to organize your thinking around Bible doctrine, you can begin to see problem solving devices that you can actually use.

e. CC is concentration on Christ as a result of your perception of doctrine, so that you have established two additions to priority number one: personal love for God the Father and occupation with Christ.

4. The mechanics for occupation with Christ can be diagrammed as follows. PRIORITIES Number One Priority: Bible Doctrine

CONCENTRATE — ORGANIZE

Concentrate on #1 priority. Organize your life around #1 priority.

ORGANIZE — CONCENTRATE Organize your thinking Concentrate on Jesus Christ. around #1 priority.

Ÿ OCCUPATION WITH CHRIST.

a. Everyone has priorities if they think at all. Everyone has some area in life where they manage to do some concentrating.

b. First you concentrate on your number one priority.

c. Then you organize your life around your number one priority.

d. As a result, you organize your thinking around that priority.

e. As a result, you concentrate on your number one priority (Jesus Christ), so that He becomes the focus and motivation of your life.

f. When Bible doctrine is the number one priority in your life, two things happen.

(1) First you come to the point of personal love for God the Father, the sixth problem solving device and the sign of entrance into spiritual adulthood, i.e., spiritual self-esteem. Once you begin to have a personal love for God and once you begin occupation with Christ, you no longer feel threatened by things in life that used to disturb you. You lose that inferiority complex which is a part of arrogance, and you replace it with a relaxed mental attitude.

(2) You arrive at occupation with Christ, the tenth problem solving device.

K. The Mandate for Occupation with Christ.

1. Occupation with Christ is mandated by God; it is not an option. If you are going to execute the protocol plan of God, you must come to the point of occupation with Christ.

2. Heb 12:2, “Be concentrating on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our doctrine, who because of the exhibited happiness, He endured the cross, having disregarded the shame, He sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.”

a. The present active participle from APHAROO means to concentrate. The Greek preposition EIS plus the adverbial accusative of respect from IESOUS gives the translation “be concentrating on Jesus.” This is a mandate because APHAROO is an imperative participle.

(1) The durative present means this is a mandate for every generation. It indicates that occupation with Christ continues throughout the Church Age as the ultimate problem solving device as well as the priority problem solving device.

(2) The active voice applies to believers only. The Church Age believer as royal family and new spiritual species is mandated to be occupied with Christ. The only divine mandates that apply to the unbeliever are related to the laws of divine establishment and human freedom.

b. As a result of making doctrine your number one priority, you learn about Jesus Christ, the living Word. Both the written Word and the living Word eventually become your number one priority. You cannot enter spiritual adulthood without this dual priority.

c. Jesus is the author and perfecter of our doctrine. Therefore, all precedence for the Church Age is taken from the dispensation of the Hypostatic Union. Furthermore, Bible doctrine is the thinking of Jesus Christ, 1 Cor 2:16. Therefore, it is very important to learn doctrine.

d. “Jesus” is used because that is the name of our Lord’s humanity in Hypostatic Union.

(1) It was the humanity of Christ that was judged for our sins on the cross.

(2) Jesus Christ had to become true humanity in order to be our high priest. For a priest is a man who represents himself before God.

(3) Jesus Christ had to be true humanity in order to be the mediator between both God and man, being equal with both parties.

e. CHARA is the eighth problem solving device, sharing the happiness of God. Living His entire life inside the prototype divine dynasphere, our Lord shared the happiness of God. Our Lord used +H inside the prototype divine dynasphere when He was being judged for our sins. One of the greatest exhibitions of happiness in history was when our Lord stayed on the cross for the three hours while being judged for the sins of the world. We don’t associate those three hours of excruciating pain with happiness, for we associate happiness with fun and pleasant circumstances.

e. The aorist active indicative of HUPOMENO means to endure, to hang in there under all adverse circumstances, to stay under the load no matter what happens. This is a reference to our Lord receiving the imputation of all the sins of human history and their judgment. Being judged for every sin in human history took tremendous endurance, 1 Pet 3:18.

f. So you also must endure and learn doctrine day after day after day. That’s the only way you will ever reach spiritual adulthood and occupation with Christ.

g. The other problem solving device that caused our Lord to endure the cross was the filling of the Spirit inside the prototype divine dynasphere.

3. 1 Pet 3:15, “But sanctify the Lord Christ in your right lobes.”

a. This is a command to be occupied with Christ. It is the ultimate problem solving device and the manifestation of spiritual adulthood.

b. The aorist active imperative of HAGIAZO means to set apart in your soul, actually in your right lobe, the place of EPIGNOSIS and SOPHIA. We are able to do this through the maximum perception of Bible doctrine.

c. The constative aorist contemplates the verb in its entirety, i.e., the function of occupation with the person of Jesus Christ in all three stages of spiritual adulthood.

d. The Church Age believer produces the action of the verb by consistent post-salvation epistemological rehabilitation, by consistent perception of Bible doctrine.

e. The imperative of command mandates that we use occupation with Jesus Christ.

f. How is this command obeyed? See the next three points.

L. Occupation with Christ begins at spiritual self-esteem.

1. Occupation with Christ begins in spiritual self-esteem, the status of cognitive self-confidence. Cognitive self-confidence cannot exist apart from occupation with Christ.

2. Spiritual self-esteem is the first time in your life when you stop competing with people, when you stop undermining people. You stop slandering, gossiping, maligning, and judging other people. When you start using impersonal love toward other people, that is when you have finally attained occupation with the person of Jesus Christ.

3. The Scripture which describes occupation with Christ in spiritual self-esteem is found in Gal 4:19. “My little children, I am sweating you out until Christ is formed in you.”

a. This means Christ will be formed in your thinking. He will have precedence at all times in your thinking.

b. This means that for the first time in your life, no one can do anything to hurt you. People can undermine you, turn against you, but you are no longer disappointed or hurt by people when you become occupied with Christ. Then you become impervious to all the things people do in this life that can hurt you.

c. Usually when people are hurt, they become subjective, arrogant, feeling sorry for themselves. That no longer happens when you reach spiritual self-esteem and start to use occupation with Christ.

d. This doesn’t mean you merely grit your teeth and carry on as if nothing happened. It means you really are totally relaxed, totally happy, and you have a personal sense of destiny in spite of any abuse you take from people, in spite of maltreatment.

e. Paul was rough with these Irish Galatians. Therefore, he said he would be sweating them out until they grew up, because they were too impulsive.

f. This means Christ becomes formed in your thinking when you become occupied with Christ by learning the pertinent doctrines related to Him, so that you come to love Him above everything else. Then you relate grace and grace functions to Him.

4. With Bible doctrine as the number one priority in your life, you finally come to the point of having personal love for God the Father and occupation with Christ.

5. The result is 2 Cor 5:14, “The love for Christ motivates.”

M. Occupation with Christ increases in spiritual autonomy.

1. Occupation with Christ is characterized by cognitive independence in this second stage of spiritual adulthood.

a. When you stop leaning on people for advice and counsel, you start using the problem solving devices in an independent way so that your problems remain your own.

b. Never build a friendship on counseling. Sooner or later you must throw away your crutches. You must eventually come to the point in your spiritual life when you’re resolving your own problems.

c. Don’t discuss your problems with other people. Don’t seek counsel. Learn to keep your problems to yourself and grow up. You will eventually find the answers in the Word of God.

2. Eph 3:17, “That Christ may be at home in your right lobes through doctrine when you have been rooted and established in virtue-love [personal love for Christ].” Once Christ is formed in you, you advance when Christ is at home in your right lobe.

3. Your number one priority is the mystery doctrine of the Church Age plus occupation with Christ. Bible doctrine as the written Word becomes the means of causing Jesus Christ, the living Word, to become number one priority in your life.

a. You can’t start out in ignorance of Jesus Christ and even give Him a priority status. First you must know Him, which requires perception of doctrine.

b. This number one priority is established through perception, metabolization, an application of doctrine (or wisdom) inside the divine dynasphere.

c. You concentrate on this number one priority through the application of doctrine. You also concentrate on the problem solving devices as you learn them and use them. It takes concentration to use a problem solving device. The key to life is concentration. You concentration expands from learning doctrine into the utilization of the problem solving devices.

d. You organize your life around your number one priority in the reception, retention, and recall of the mystery doctrine so that you continue under spiritual autonomy to learn doctrine from your right pastor and to actually use those problem solving devices in momentum testing. Once you have an organized life in spiritual autonomy, you will face the four parts of momentum testing.

e. You organize your thinking so that occupation with Christ is both a problem solving device as well as a basis for your worship. This is how you use those problem solving devices to pass momentum testing.

f. Therefore, you concentrate on occupation with Christ as per Heb 12:2 so that He is the focus of your life, the priority solution, the motivation, and the basis for worship, as in communion.

g. In spiritual autonomy, you have a very high area of focus and motivation. You concentrate on Jesus Christ through metabolized doctrine in your right lobe so that occupation with Christ continues as the motivation and focus of your life.

4. So occupation with Christ becomes a major problem solving device in passing momentum testing and advancing to spiritual maturity. Occupation with Christ causes all the other problem solving devices to function smoothly in your life.

5. Spiritual autonomy is a wonderful place to be. In spiritual autonomy, nothing in your life depends on outside influence. You depend entirely upon the fantastic accumulation of doctrine you have in your right lobe.

6. The result is stated in 1 Pet 3:15. “Sanctify the Lord Christ in your right lobes.”

N. Occupation with Christ reaches its peak in spiritual maturity.

1. Spiritual maturity, the status of the winner and the invisible hero, is characterized by cognitive invincibility.

2. Phil 1:20, “On the basis of my confident expectation and confidence, that I shall not be put to shame in anything, but with all confidence [courage, boldness, fearlessness], Christ shall even now as always be exalted in my body, whether by life or by death.”

3. The ultimate in occupation with Christ is when He is exalted in your body, whether you are in a state of living or in a state of dying.

4. Notice the advance. First, Christ is formed in your soul. Then He is at home in your right lobe. Now He moves from your soul to your life. Now He moves from thinking to application to life, from the right lobe to a fantastic modus operandi. Now Christ is exalted in your body, meaning in all your functions. For now the body is being controlled by the soul, not the soul by the body. No longer are you a slave to your body and its every lust. The soul controls your body through occupation with Christ.

5. Again, Bible doctrine as the written Word becomes the means of causing Jesus Christ, the living Word, to become number one priority in your life. At this point, you have a dual number one priority: Bible doctrine and Jesus Christ; i.e., the written Word and the living Word.

a. This dual number one priority is established through continual perception, metabolization, and application of doctrine (wisdom) inside your very own palace, the operational-type divine dynasphere.

b. Therefore, you concentrate on this dual number one priority of Bible doctrine and Jesus Christ. this concentration is stronger now than it was in spiritual autonomy and in spiritual self-esteem because you have passed testing. Therefore, you now have the ability to concentrate on what is important in the midst of the greatest pressures in life. You are now qualified to pass evidence testing, which requires the ultimate in concentration on doctrine in adverse experiences of life.

c. You organize your life around this dual priority so that you continue to learn doctrine from your right pastor. This is necessary to pass evidence testing. At this point, you may think you don’t need organization any longer. But evidence testing and even momentum testing provide a lot of confusion in the life. therefore, you have a stronger confusion pattern around you in the periphery of your life. All kinds of things are falling apart. Therefore, you must concentrate through that confusion. To do so, you not only have to organize your life, but your thinking as well.

d. Therefore, you organize your thinking so that occupation with Christ becomes the basis for passing evidence testing as the function of an invisible hero. Organizing your thinking is like loading up your weapon, in order that you can actually deal with the tremendous testings involved in evidence testing.

e. Therefore, you concentrate on Jesus Christ through metabolized doctrine so that occupation with the person of Christ in the midst of evidence testing becomes both the motivation and focus of your life.

6. This priority solution becomes the mechanics for glorifying God to the maximum in the Christian way of life. Furthermore, this is the only way the communion service will ever be meaningful to you. It is easy to concentrate on Christ then since He is already your number one priority, since you have organized your life, your time, and your thinking around Bible doctrine and the person of Christ. Therefore, you can fulfill the mandate to remember Him.

7. You concentrate on sanctifying the Lord Christ in your right lobe (1 Pet 3:15) so that there is maximum invisible impact in your life.

8. At this point, occupation with Christ equates living with dying, as per Phil 1:21: “For me, living is Christ and dying is profit.” With occupation with Christ, the experience of dying is the greatest experience in life. Dying isolates you from normal living. But with occupation with Christ, dying is profit.

O. Summary of Occupation with Christ in Spiritual Adulthood.

1. Occupation with Christ occurs in three stages of spiritual adulthood.

a. As a result of cognitive self-confidence or spiritual self- esteem, occupation with Christ is classified as “Christ being formed in you” in Gal 5:19. Jesus Christ becomes a role model.

b. As a result of cognitive independence of spiritual autonomy, occupation with Christ is classified as “Christ being at home in your right lobes through doctrine” in Eph 3:17. You come to realize that Jesus Christ is your best friend.

c. As a result of cognitive invincibility from becoming an invisible hero in spiritual maturity, occupation with Christ is classified as “Christ exalted in my body, whether by life or by death” in Phil 1:20. You finally become occupied with Christ.

2. There is a progression in the function of occupation with Christ in each stage of spiritual adulthood.

a. In spiritual self-esteem, the “love for Christ motivates us,” 2 Cor 5:14. Jesus Christ becomes your role model.

b. In spiritual autonomy, we “sanctify the Lord Christ in our right lobes,” 1 Pet 3:15. Jesus Christ becomes your best friend.

c. In spiritual maturity, “living is Christ and dying is profit,” Phil 1:21. You become occupied with Jesus Christ.

3. The priority solution formula is:

Priority number one = Concentration on priority number one + Organizing your life around priority number one + Organizing your thinking around priority number one + Concentrating on Christ as the priority solution = Occupation with Christ as the focus of your life.

P. Occupation with Christ interacts with other problem solving devices.

1. Occupation with Christ is related to doctrinal orientation in 1 Pet 1:7. “That the genuineness of your doctrine, being more precious than gold which perishes, even though tested by fire, may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ.” In other words, you begin to function under doctrinal orientation at the same time as you are occupied with Christ.

2. The next verse relates occupation with Christ to +H or sharing the happiness of God. 1 Pet 1:7b-8, “And though you have not seen Him [Jesus Christ] you love Him [occupation with Christ], and though you do not see Him now but believe in Him, you greatly rejoice with joy inexpressible.”

Q. Conclusion.

1. Occupation with Christ is the ultimate function and perspective of the Christian way of life.

2. Occupation with Christ is the only answer to unrealistic expectations in life, which include not being treated the way you think you should be treated, and not being loved the way you think you should be loved.

3. Out of the ten problem solving devices of the protocol plan, occupation with Christ is the ultimate experience. The ten problem solving devices are as follows.

a. The rebound technique.

b. The filling of the Spirit.

c. The faith-rest drill.

d. A divine viewpoint from grace orientation.

e. Doctrinal orientation from consistent perception, metabolization, and application of doctrine.

f. Personal love for God the Father is the motivational virtue.

g. Impersonal love for all mankind is the functional virtue.

h. +H or sharing the happiness of God.

i. A personal sense of destiny.

i. Occupation with Christ, the priority solution to life.

4. Occupation with Christ develops in the three stages of spiritual adulthood.

a. It begins in spiritual self-esteem where it is characterized by cognitive self-confidence.

b. It continues in spiritual autonomy where it is characterized by cognitive independence.

c. It reaches its peak in spiritual maturity where it is characterized by cognitive invincibility.

5. The characteristics and results of occupation with Christ in each stage of spiritual adulthood are as follows.

a. In spiritual self-esteem, the characteristic is “Christ formed in you,” Gal 4:19. The result is “the love for Christ motivates us,” 2 Cor 5:14.

b. In spiritual autonomy, the characteristic is “Christ as home in your right lobes,” Eph 3:17. The result is “sanctifying the Lord Christ in your right lobes,” 1 Pet 3:15.

c. In spiritual maturity, the characteristic is “Christ exalted in my body, whether by life or by death,” Phil 1:20. The result is “for me, living is Christ and dying is profit,” Phil 1:21.

R. Distinction between the Indwelling of Christ and Occupation with Christ.

1. Occupation with Christ is the Christian experience of spiritual adulthood, while the indwelling of Christ is not an experience.

2. Every believer, whether he is a winner or a loser, is indwelt by the person of Christ. That is the permanent status quo of the protocol plan. This is taught in Jn 14:20; Rom 8:10; 2 Cor 13:5; Gal 2:20; Col 1:27; and 1 Jn 2:24.

3. The experience of occupation with Christ is the priority solution to the problems of life, the focal point of worship, the quintessence of motivation, and the ultimate means of glorifying God.

4. Essentially, the distinction between Christ indwelling out bodies, the status quo of all believers, winners or losers, and the glorification of Christ as an experience in spiritual adulthood are two different things.

a. We will always have the indwelling of Christ whether we are winners or losers.

b. However, occupation with Christ is an experience that belongs only to the positive believer who advances to spiritual adulthood.

c. You cannot be occupied with Christ and at the same time be a loser, failing to execute the protocol plan of God.

5. Jesus Christ indwells the body of every believer for the following reasons.

a. As the badge or sign of the royal family of God.

b. As the Shekinah Glory that guarantees our portfolio of invisible assets, the riches of glory.

c. As a depositary and escrow officer, the guarantee of our escrow blessings for time and eternity, provided by God the Father in eternity past.

d. As a guarantee of eternal life plus life after death in the presence of God forever.

e. As motivation for momentum in spiritual adulthood. This is especially true when we experience suffering for blessing. Undeserved suffering is necessary for advance to spiritual maturity.

f. As the basis for assigning number one priority to relationship with God over relationship with mankind.

6. The experience related to Christ in spiritual adulthood is therefore not the same as Jesus Christ indwelling our bodies. The indwelling of Christ is a status quo, not an experience. Christ at home in our right lobes is an experience, related first to spiritual self-esteem, then spiritual autonomy, and finally spiritual maturity.

7. Each stage of spiritual adulthood has a corresponding experience related to Christ. a. The experience of spiritual self-esteem is found in Gal 4:19, “Christ being formed in you.”

b. The experience of spiritual autonomy is found in Eph 3:17, “Christ at home in your right lobes.”

c. The experience of spiritual maturity related to our Lord is found in Phil 1:20. “Christ shall even now, as always, be exalted in my body, whether by life or by death.”

8. In spiritual adulthood, such experience related to Christ is the means of handling many of the problems related to that category of life, i.e., the stages of suffering for blessing.

9. All believers, winners or losers, are indwelt by the person of Jesus Christ. Only those believers in spiritual adulthood have the above experiences.

10. You cannot be occupied with Christ and make an issue of yourself.

11. Occupation with Christ makes an issue out of Bible doctrine, right priorities, execution of the protocol plan, the manufacture of invisible heroes, and the glorification of God in this dispensation of the Church.

S. The Pattern for Losers.

1. Losers are defined as those believers in Jesus Christ who are negative toward Bible doctrine and fail to execute the protocol plan of God.

2. Losers do not lose their salvation, but they fail to become invisible heroes and thereby glorify God.

3. The loser has wrong priorities, and therefore he cannot fulfill the mechanics which produce occupation with the person of Christ.

a. The loser’s wrong priorities place Christian fellowship and Christian service above learning Bible doctrine.

b. Whether legalism or antinomianism, wrong priorities can include emphasis on Christian fellowship, romance, money, sex, pleasure, promotion, social life, friends, material things, or status symbols related to either Christian service or materialistic possessions. Not all these are wrong or necessarily sinful. But if you put something before Bible doctrine, it can never be a source of happiness for you; it will in fact be a source of misery to you.

c. Therefore, losers have unrealistic expectations. The loser is not loved the way he things he ought to be loved, and he is not treated the way he thinks he ought to be treated.

d. Therefore, the loser concentrates on his wrong priorities to the exclusion of Bible doctrine.

e. The loser organizes his life around wrong priorities so that he fails to fulfill God’s plan, purpose, and will for his life. Losers reject post-salvation epistemological rehabilitation. They become indifferent to or neglect Bible doctrine.

f. The loser organizes his thinking in the sphere of Satan’s cosmic system so that the arrogance complex becomes his modus vivendi.

g. Wrong priorities in life exclude Bible doctrine. Therefore, the loser fails to function under post-salvation epistemological rehabilitation. He organizes his thinking around wrong priorities so that he is no longer motivated to be consistent in his exposure to Bible doctrine.

h. Occupation with the wrong priorities in life results in preoccupation with self to the exclusion of metabolized doctrine in the right lobe. The loser concentrates on wrong priorities so that he becomes a loser in the protocol plan of God.

4. Therefore, the loser cannot use this wonderful problem solving device of occupation with Christ. You cannot be occupied with Christ and at the same time be involved in the arrogance complex. Occupation with Christ demands maximum perception of the mystery doctrine of the Church Age.

5. As a loser, he becomes a cosmic Christian involved in blackout of the soul, emotional revolt of the soul, scar tissue of the soul, cosmic involvement, and reverse-process reversionism. 6. The loser does not lose his salvation, but he does lose his escrow blessings for time and eternity.

7. The loser does not have a personal sense of destiny, personal love for God, impersonal love for all mankind, nor occupation with the person of Christ. The loser may have -H (minus happiness) but he does not have +H (God’s happiness).

8. Therefore, the loser does not glorify God, for he does not become an invisible hero. 9. Heb 10:35-36 gives the warning to losers. “Therefore, do not throw away as worthless your confidence which keeps on having rich distribution of blessing [escrow blessing]. But you keep on having need of perseverance, so that when you have done the will of God, you may receive the deposit [escrow blessings for time] which was promised.”

a. Confidence is what you have as a result of making doctrine your number one priority in life. It becomes the basis of your concentration so that you organize your life and your thinking around doctrine, so that your concentration on doctrine becomes the focus and motivation of your life. This is the priority solution to life.

b. But you can throw all that away by having the wrong priorities. Don’t throw away your confidence, which is the importance of Bible doctrine in your life.

c. When doctrine is number one priority, you are going to persevere through all kinds of Bible classes whether they are of interest to you ot not, whether you are tired or alert.

d. Perseverance means residence, function, and momentum inside the divine dynasphere. Perseverance means to keep on taking in doctrine on a consistent basis. The Romans said WINQIT QUI PATITUR, translated, “He is a winner who perseveres.”

e. To do the will of God means to persevere to the point of occupation with Christ, carrying you through the three stages of spiritual adulthood, resulting in the execution of the protocol plan.

f. So the warning to the loser is this: Do not make anything else but Bible doctrine the number one priority in your life.

T. Characteristics of Occupation with the Person of Christ.

1. Since Christ is the manifest person of the Godhead, maximum love toward the second person of the Trinity is called occupation with Christ.

2. Occupation with Christ is the maximum expression of category one love toward God, the objective of all believers in every dispensation. Deut 6:5, “Love the Lord your God with all your right lobe.” It is Bible doctrine in the right lobe of the soul that gives you the ability to love the Lord.

3. There are three areas for occupation with Christ.

a. Spiritual self-esteem.

b. Spiritual autonomy.

c. Spiritual maturity.

4. Occupation with Christ in maturity becomes the means of great decisions and great dynamics in history.

a. Heb 11:27, “Moses gave up the crown of Egypt. He became strong under pressure, for he kept on seeing the invisible One.” Occupation with Christ and +H sustained Moses as he moved through momentum testing and evidence testing.

b. In Heb 12:2, it was our Lord’s occupation with the Father that carried Him to the cross.

5. Occupation with Christ begins with the believer’s entrance into spiritual adulthood, Col 3:15-17.

6. Occupation with Christ glorifies Christ, Eph 3:19-21.

7. The means of occupation with Christ is the daily metabolization of doctrine inside the divine dynasphere, Jer 9:23-24; Eph 3:18-19.

8. Occupation with Christ eliminates the superficialities of human celebrityship, Phil 3:7-8.

9. Occupation with Christ motivates the pastor to communicate doctrine so that the royal priesthood reaches maturity, Heb 6:10.

10. Operation Z is the mechanics which produce occupation with Christ, James 1:19,21, 2:20-23.

11. A wonderful illustration of occupation with Christ is given in the New Testament under the principle of romantic love, Eph 5:25-33.

12. Occupation with Christ is related to the strategic victory of the angelic conflict, Col 3:1-2.

U. Occupation with Christ as a Foundation or Basis.

1. It is the basis by which the mature believer contributes to national blessing, Deut 30:15-16,20.

2. It produces combat courage and victory in battle, Jer 23:10-11.

3. It is the basis for preservation in testing, Ps 31:23-24.

4. It is the basis of stability and great happiness, Ps 16:8-9.

5. It results in supergrace escrow blessings, Ps 37:4-5.

6. It is the basis for strength under pressure, Heb 11:27.

7. It avoids soul fatigue, Heb 12:3.

8. It is both the basis for support and the motivation to pass suffering for blessing tests, and it even intensifies during evidence testing.

V. Conclusion: Phil 3:7-10.

1. Phil 3:7, “Whatever things were gain to me, I have concluded them loss for the sake of Christ.” Occupation with Christ straightens out your priorities. Many people have inordinate ambition and are looking for success.

2. Phil 3:8, “I conclude all things to be loss because of the surpassing greatness of the knowledge of Jesus Christ, my Lord, because I have suffered the loss of all things, and I now conclude them dung in order that I may gain Christ.”

a. This is love for Christ and occupation with Christ.

b. Paul as a visible hero had reached the peak of human success and achievement in Judaism.

c. You must have knowledge of Jesus Christ to love Him.

d. Gaining Christ is occupation with the person of Christ, maximum metabolized doctrine in the stream of consciousness.

3. Phil 3:9, “And that I may be demonstrated in Him, not having my own righteousness from the law, but that righteousness which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God at the point of faith in Christ.”

a. What is the demonstration of our positional sanctification? It is occupation with Christ. Most believers think morality is the Christian life. But because of their self-righteous arrogance and legalism, they fail completely.

b. What experience demonstrates that you are in Christ, since that is an unseen accomplishment since the day of your salvation? Your use of the problem solving devices. In view here is occupation with the person of Jesus Christ.

c. We depend upon the imputed righteousness of God at salvation to be good enough to live with God forever. We cannot improve on God’s righteousness. God intends for us to develop virtue, something much higher than the morality produced by keeping the law. Morality inevitably produces arrogance in the subject.

d. No one can be saved by keeping the Law; no one can be spiritual by keeping the Law.

4. Phil 3:10, “That I may know Him and the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to Christ with reference to His death.”

a. This verse is a complete statement of occupation with Christ. Note that the verse begins with “I may know Him.” This means you come to understand who and what Christ is by putting together all the doctrine you have ever learned.

b. The articular aorist active infinitive of GINOSKO is used rather than EPIGINOSKO, because it refers to the first three stages of learning doctrine that depend on your positive volition. Review operation Z. Once doctrine is academically understood in your left lobe, it demands a third positive volition, which is to believe the doctrine you understand. Then the Holy Spirit converts GNOSIS doctrine into EPIGNOSIS doctrine in your right lobe.

(1) The culminative aorist refers to something that happens over a period of time, gathered into one whole. In other words, the entire process of operation Z is gathered into a single concept. Then it is viewed from its result, which is inevitably occupation with Jesus Christ.

(2) The genitive of identity from the definite article refers to Jesus Christ, “Him.”

(3) The infinitive of purpose indicates the objective or purpose expressed in the action of the verb; i.e., to come to the point of occupation with the person of Jesus Christ.

c. The dynamics of occupation with Christ are given in the next phrase, “and the power of His resurrection.” Two categories of divine power were used in the resurrection of Christ.

(1) The omnipotence of the Father restored our Lord’s human spirit in heaven to His body in the grave and thereby became an agent in the resurrection, Acts 2:24; Rom 6:4; Eph 1:20; Col 2:12; 1 Thes 1:10; 1 Pet 1:21.

(2) The omnipotence of the Holy Spirit restored our Lord’s human soul in Hades to His body in the grave and thereby became an agent in the resurrection, Rom 1:4, 8:11; 1 Pet 3:18.

(3) Jesus Christ could have also restored His own soul and spirit, according to Jn 10:17-18. He could have raised Himself from the dead by His own divine power. But that would have violated the principle of kenosis, in which He was solely dependent upon the power of the Father and Holy Spirit during the Hypostatic Union on earth.

(4) During His death, burial, and resurrection, Jesus Christ did not use His omnipotence to benefit Himself, to provide for Himself, to raise Himself from the dead, nor to glorify Himself.

(5) Under the doctrine of kenosis, Jesus Christ did not use His divine attributes to function independently of the Father’s plan for the dispensation of the Hypostatic Union.

(6) However, during His First Advent, our Lord’s omnipotence did continue to hold the universe together and perpetuate human history, Col 1:16; Heb 1:3.

d. The same divine power that raised Jesus Christ from the dead is now available to every Church Age believer to execute the protocol plan.

(1) The omnipotence of God the Father is related to our portfolio of invisible assets.

(2) The omnipotence of God the Son is related to the preservation and perpetuation of human history.

(3) The omnipotence of God the Holy Spirit is related to residence, function, and momentum inside the divine dynasphere.

e. The utilization of divine omnipotence during the Church Age is the basis for the manufacture of invisible heroes, and is also the basis for coming to the point of occupation with the person of Christ.

f. Occupation with Christ is also related to suffering for blessing.

(1) Providential preventative suffering is the challenge for spiritual self-esteem as the warm-up for momentum testing. There are four categories of testing: people testing, system testing, thought testing, and disaster testing.

(2) Momentum testing is the challenge to spiritual autonomy and the means of attaining spiritual maturity. The same four categories of testing apply: people testing, system testing, thought testing, and disaster testing.

(3) Evidence testing is the challenge to spiritual maturity, and the means of becoming a witness for the Prosecution in the rebuttal phase of Satan’s appeal trial in the historic stage of the angelic conflict.

(a) Evidence testing is Satan’s attempt, through his cross-examination of suffering, to discredit those believers who attain spiritual maturity.

(b) Every time an invisible hero passes evidence testing, it is a demonstration to Satan and to all fallen angels that God is just in sentencing both Satan and all fallen angels to the Lake of Fire forever and ever.

© God never administers providential preventative suffering until the believer has attained spiritual self-esteem. God never administers momentum testing until the believer has reached spiritual autonomy. God never administers evidence testing until the believer has reached spiritual maturity.

(d) Spiritual maturity plus evidence testing glorifies God in the Christian way of life.

(e) There are two categories of evidence testing: relationship to God, and relationship to life.

(f) The pattern of the relationship to God test is found in Matt 4:1-11.

i. Relationship with the Holy Spirit, Matt 4:1-4.

ii. Relationship with the Word of God, Matt 4:5-7

iii. Relationship with the plan of God, Mt 4:8-10.

(g) The pattern of relationship with life test, Job.

i. Loss of loved ones and property, Job 1.

ii. Loss of health, Job 2:1-10.

iii. Loss of friends, Job 2:11ff.

(4) Suffering for blessing demands occupation with the person of Jesus Christ.

g. “Being conformed” is a present passive participle from SUMMORPHIZO which means to be conformed to.

(1) The durative present refers to an action which began in the past and continues to the present. On the cross, our Lord used two problem solving devices inside the prototype divine dynasphere. He used the filling of the Spirit, Heb 9:14. He used +H, Heb 12:2.

(2) Under the durative present, the action is commanded to be continued and perpetuated under suffering for blessing.

(3) The passive voice represents the subject, our Lord Jesus Christ, being acted upon by the problem solving devices. We enter into the subject at the same time; we are acted upon by the problem solving devices.

h. The dative singular indirect object refers to the death of our Lord. The objective of the ten problem solving devices is to “be conformed to His death.” This concept is taught in Heb 9:14 and Heb 12:2.

i. So “being conformed to His death” is tantamount to using the problem solving devices of the protocol plan under maximum pressure in life. The key to doing so is occupation with the person of Christ.

W. Occupation with Christ has its counterpart in the Eucharist.

1. 1 Cor 11:23, 26 “For I received from the Lord that which I also delivered to you, that the Lord Jesus, on the night in which He was betrayed, took bread, and when He had given thanks, He broke it and He said, `This represents My body which is given as a substitute for you. Keep on doing this in remembering Me.’” “Whenever you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until He comes.”

2. Communion is a test of your occupation with Christ. It is test to see how important the Lord really is to you. Do you remember who and what He is and all that He has done for you, or are you preoccupied with yourself, others, things in your life?

3. The significance of eating and drinking illustrates your faith alone in Christ alone. You demonstrate your faith in Christ.

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© 1989, by R. B. Thieme, Jr. All rights reserved.

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