Spir Dynamics 250-251 8/18/93; Eph 192, 619 8/14/87
A. In the military axiom, the principle of offensive is the only action by which a decision is reached in military life. By analogy, offensive action is the only way to reach spiritual adulthood and spiritual maturity. This is a mental attitude.
B. Offensive action brings victory compatible with the objective, while defensive action can only avoid defeat. Rebound is defensive action. By using rebound you avoid defeat but you are not moving forward.
a. The principle of objective: the purpose of a military operation is to attain the objective assigned to a designated force. The objective always constitutes a guide for the interpretation of orders, the formulation of decisions, and the deployment of troops.
b. The objective for the believer is the execution of the protocol plan of God, which results in the glorification of God. The interpretation of orders is based on understanding the divine mandates and the constant utilization of the spiritual skills. The formulation of decisions requires that the believer have a scale of values, spiritual values, and that he is consistent in his function of the spiritual skills. The deployment of troops is the formation of the ten problem solving devices on the FLOT line of the soul.
C. The purpose of offensive action is to win. The only effective way to wage war is to act on the offensive, destroying the enemy’s forces.
D. Christian offensive action is the utilization of the divine initiative of grace to become a winner believer. This individual initiative demands consistent use of the spiritual skills for advance to the high ground of spiritual maturity and the greatest impact any one can have in history. The FLOT line of the soul, which is normally used for defensive action can also be a base for offensive action. Christian offensive action is Bible doctrine and more Bible doctrine.
E. Offensive action increases the effectiveness of the force adopting it, raises morale, permits concentration of effort, and allows freedom of action. That’s exactly what the spiritual offensive does. This has an analogy to Paul’s goal to “press on” in Phil 3:14. Going on the offensive increases the effectiveness of your spiritual life, raises your morale, permits concentration of effort so that you can make a maximum number of good decisions from a position of strength, and allows you the freedom of action to advance to spiritual maturity and realize the wonderful capacity to enjoy escrow blessings in time.
F. Offensive action in the protocol plan for the Church is tantamount to the consistent function of the three spiritual skills to take the high ground of spiritual maturity. The three spiritual skills are the filling of the Spirit, metabolized doctrine circulating in the seven compartments of your stream of consciousness, and ten problem solving devices stationed on the FLOT line of your soul.
G. Defensive action should be used to assist offensive action elsewhere, to gain time, to utilize good terrain, or to compensate for weakness. This has an analogy in our spiritual lives, because we can never get away from rebound and the faith-rest drill, a part of defensive action. Offensive action should be used when there’s any reasonable chance for success. There’s always a reasonable chance for success as long as you are alive!
a. The concept of “taking the offensive against Satan” is a distortion of Scripture. We are told in Jam 4:7; 1 Pet 5:9; and Eph 6:13 that the believer is on the defensive against Satan.
b. Once we have established our defense, we can kick off the offensive. Our offensive action is the execution of the protocol plan of God. It is not Christian service, a result of executing the protocol plan.
H. Grace orientation is the believer’s respond to the divine initiative of grace. The divine initiative of grace provides the momentum for spiritual offensive action, fulfilling the principles of objective, mass, economy of force, and unity of command.
a. Mass is the military nomenclature for combat power. Combat power for the spiritual life includes the two power options—the filling of the Spirit and metabolized doctrine circulating in the stream of consciousness as epignosis. Execution of the protocol plan of God for the Church is the basis for fulfilling God’s plan for your life, and becomes the individual initiative in the Christian life.
b. Mass means the concentration of combat power at the point of maximum effectiveness. The word of God determines what is maximum effectiveness in the spiritual life, not you or I. The point of maximum effectiveness is: the filling of the Holy Spirit plus human I.Q. equals spiritual I.Q. plus operation Z equals an invisible hero. This is what makes a winner instead of a loser. The spiritual power derived from the divine initiative of grace guarantees the greatest victories in human history (the impact of the invisible hero), and those victories belong to the dispensation of the Church. A perfect plan can only function with perfect power. The firepower of the royal family of God is greater than any firepower in history. Our firepower includes our fantastic spiritual skills, the uniqueness of the Church Age, the execution of the protocol plan of God and the glorification of the Lord Jesus Christ producing invisible heroes. This is the greatest impact ever designed for history.
c. God can take a worthless, helpless, sinful, hopeless life, and save it through faith alone in Christ alone; that is grace. God can take a helpless believer in lag time, provide him with three spiritual skills, and his faithfulness to the word will result in becoming an invisible hero. That is more grace, the grace initiative of the Church Age. This is the divine initiative of antecedent and eschatological grace.
d. The believer takes the offensive only with aggressive thinking of metabolized doctrine in his soul. He makes a consistent number of good decisions toward doctrine. The offensive begins from the base of spiritual self-esteem, and combined with providential preventative suffering, the believer advances through the valley of momentum testing and finally takes the high ground of spiritual maturity.
e. The principle of economy of force is the means by mass is employed in a main effort to achieve the objective. When the time and place of the main effort is determined, you conserve your men by reducing their deployment in one direction only. This concentrates combat power at the point of your objective. Combat power must not be distracted from the objective. Every time we get distracted in our thinking, it is because we have not concentrated on doctrine circulating in our stream of consciousness. Economy of force is consistent function of the spiritual skills.
f. The decisive application of full combat power requires unity of command. We have unity of command in spiritual warfare related to the volition and spiritual values of the believer; it relates to a uniform conformity to God’s plan, will, and purpose. Unity of command is the coordination of all the soul’s faculties under the filling of the Spirit and the function of metabolized Bible doctrine in the stream of consciousness. Unity of command is achieved through consistent function of the spiritual skills.
J. The fulfillment of the objective of the Christian way of life demands offensive action under individual action. Every believer is a unit to himself. Every believer takes the initiative individually from the universality of the royal priesthood in the Church Age. Fulfilling the objective of the Christian way of life demands offensive action through the divine initiative of grace.