Spir Dynamics 434-510, 11/1/94

DOCTRINE OF A PERSONAL SENSE OF DESTINY (Part III)

N. True and False Destiny, Phil 3 (continued).

8. A personal sense of destiny motivates self-momentum in the spiritual life. Phil 3:14, “I keep advancing to the objective for the winner’s prize of that upward call from God in Christ Jesus.”

a. This advance is based on the mentorship of God the Holy Spirit. “I keep advancing to the objective” is a change of metaphor from the athletic to the military. The mentorship of God the Holy Spirit is described by:

(1) Eph 4:23, “Then become reinvigorated [renewed, refreshed] by the agency of the Holy Spirit by means of your way of thinking.”

(2) Eph 3:16, “That He may give to you on the basis of the riches of His glory to become strong by means of the power through His Spirit in your inner being.”

(3) 1 Cor 2:9-16, “but as it stands written, `What the eye has not seen and ear has not heard, in fact it has not entered into the heart of mankind, what God has prepared for those who love Him.’ But to us for our benefit God has revealed them through the agency of the Spirit; for the Spirit investigates all things, even the deep things [our portfolio of invisible assets] from God. For who among homo sapiens understands the thoughts of mankind except the soul [PNEUMA] that is in him? Even so the message from God no one has known except the Holy Spirit from God. But we have not received the human I.Q. of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might know the things which have been graciously given to us by God, which things we also do communicate in words taught by human wisdom, but in doctrines taught by the agency of the Spirit, interpreting spiritual doctrines to spiritual persons. But the soulish person does not receive the things from the Spirit of God; because to him it is senseless, furthermore he is not able to understand it [Bible doctrine and the spirit filled life], because it is investigated in a manner caused by [filling of the] Spirit. But the spirit filled believer investigates all things [pertaining to doctrine], but he himself is investigated by no one [privacy of the priesthood]. For who knows the thinking of the Lord, that he should instruct Him? But we keep on having the thinking of Christ.”

b. Spiritual momentum can only occur through the mentorship of God the Holy Spirit. Unless God the Holy Spirit is your mentor there is no spiritual advance. There is no happiness for the believer who is not living under the mentorship of God the Holy Spirit. If you reject the Holy Spirit as your mentor, you cannot execute the protocol plan of God through the spiritual mechanics. You sow to the wind and you reap the whirlwind. Spiritual life mechanics can only be fulfilled by God the Holy Spirit. The key to spiritual life mechanics is in the mentorship of God the Holy Spirit. You cannot advance under your Mentor and ever be distracted by past failures or past successes.

c. The upward call of God is the invitation by God to believe in Christ. Efficacious grace never works on the will or volition but makes the decision of the spiritually dead person effective for salvation. God does not coerce volition through efficacious grace to cause a person to believe in Christ. That is a heresy of hyper Calvinism. The sealing ministry of the Holy Spirit is the divine confirmation of efficacious grace, the guarantee of eternal life, the guarantee of eternal security, the guarantee of your portfolio of invisible assets, and the availability of the Holy Spirit as your mentor.

d. The Lordship of Christ Issue.

(1) The Principle.

(a) Being in Christ, that is, union with Christ, means that Jesus as KURIOS is the Lord of every believer whether that believer ever knows it or not.

(b) While there is no such thing as lordship salvation, as a result of salvation through faith alone in Christ alone and the subsequent baptism of the Holy Spirit Jesus Christ is the Lord of every believer whether or not he ever knows it or not.

© The spiritually dead unbeliever simply believes in Christ for eternal salvation. When he believes in Christ, then God the Holy Spirit makes Christ Lord. This is a prementorship function of God the Holy Spirit called efficacious grace. A spiritually dead person cannot invite Christ into his heart or into his life. No one is saved that way.

(d) The spiritually dead person can only believe in Christ. It is the ministry of God the Holy Spirit in efficacious grace that makes the faith of the spiritually dead person effective for salvation.

(e) Efficacious grace is one of seven things the Holy Spirit does at salvation. Our Mentor makes Christ Lord through positional sanctification.

(f) Christ is Lord of all believers at the moment of salvation through faith alone in Christ alone. Positional sanctification makes Christ our Lord, not faith. There are three concepts related to positional sanctification all stated in one verse, Eph 4:5, “One Lord, one faith, one baptism.” Jesus Christ is our Lord as a result of the baptism of the Holy Spirit. One faith means the only way to be saved is through faith alone in Christ alone. One baptism is the baptism of the Holy Spirit. Positional sanctification means Christ is the Lord of all believers.

(2) The Experiential Concept of Lordship.

(a) No believer recognizes Jesus as Lord except through the mentorship of the Holy Spirit (primarily the filling of the Spirit). 1 Cor 12:3, “Therefore I make known to you, that no one speaking by the agency of the Spirit of God says, `Jesus is accursed’; furthermore no one is able to say, `Jesus is Lord,’ except through the agency of the Holy Spirit. Therefore to try to make Jesus Lord at the moment of salvation by anything you can do is blasphemy, heresy, and counter-productive.

(b) The mentorship of God the Holy Spirit results in learning about the lordship of Christ—that Jesus Christ is our Lord and that He became our Lord at the moment of salvation.

(d) Experientially no Church Age believer can recognize Jesus as Lord apart from the mentorship of the Holy Spirit.

(e) Experientially the mentorship of God the Holy Spirit is based on the fulfillment of two divine mandates: be filled with the Spirit (Eph 5:18) and walk by means of the Spirit (Gal 5:16).

(f) This emphasizes the mentorship of God the Holy Spirit through the first power option—the filling of the Holy Spirit.

(g) The mentorship of God the Holy Spirit results in the function of the three spiritual skills.

(h) This means that the mentorship of God the Holy Spirit provides the only power to fulfill the sophisticated spiritual life.

(i) This means the loser believer does not utilize the mentorship of God the Holy Spirit. The loser believer has no cognition of the doctrine of the lordship of Christ either positionally or experientially.

(3) Failure to Understand the Lordship Doctrine.

(a) Failure to distinguish between positional and experiential sanctification results in the heresy of lordship salvation.

(b) The unbeliever, being spiritually dead from birth (Rom 5:12; 1 Cor 15:22), cannot make Christ Lord. He can only believe in Christ, so that God the Holy Spirit can take faith and make it effective for salvation. Lordship salvation is works.

(d) Failure to understand the lordship of Christ is a doctrine that is hurting witnessing, evangelism in all forms, and is a complete and total distraction to the mentorship ministry of God the Holy Spirit in your spiritual life.

(e) Only at the Rapture of the Church will all Church Age believers acknowledge the lordship of Christ. The doctrine of the lordship of Christ will not be universally accepted until the Rapture of the Church. The loser believers will join the winner believers in public acknowledgement of the lordship of Christ.

i. Phil 2:9-11, “Therefore also God [the Father] has exalted Him to the maximum, and gave Him the name [rank, royalty] which is above every name, that in the presence of the name [rank] of Jesus every knee of heaven will bow, both on the earth [believer alive at the Rapture], and under the earth [the dead in Christ at the Rapture], and every tongue will openly acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.” Who acknowledges the lordship of Christ? Every Church Age believer at the Rapture.

ii. Rom 14:10-11, “But you there, why do you judge your brother? Or you again, why do you regard your brother with contempt? For we shall all stand before the judgment seat of God. For it is written, `As I live, says the Lord, every knee shall bow to Me, and every tongue shall openly acknowledge to God.’” The context indicates this statement refers to the Rapture and the same verb [EXOMOLOGEO] is used as in Phil 2:11.

(f) Only under the mentorship of God the Holy Spirit does the believer in time recognize the lordship of Christ. Only a few believers in every generation who execute the protocol plan of God through the spiritual skills recognize the lordship of Christ.

(4) In positional sanctification God the Holy Spirit makes Christ the Lord of every believer. Through the mentorship of God the Holy Spirit believers filled with the Spirit in experiential sanctification become cognizant of the lordship of Christ. In ultimate sanctification every believer will openly acknowledge the lordship of Christ.

(5) Gal 3:26-28, “For all of you are the sons of God by faith in Christ Jesus. For all of you who have been baptized into Christ put on Christ.

There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free man, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus.”

e. The Winner’s Prize.

(1) Every believer has equal privilege and equal opportunity to receive the winner’s prize. But only a few believers are qualified for the winner’s prize. The average believer is so distracted by his own self- importance and lust for pleasure that he or she disqualify themselves from the winner’s prize.

(a) To qualify for the winner’s prize, you must be under the mentorship of the Holy Spirit. Most believers are not under the mentorship of the Holy Spirit.

(b) 1 Cor 3:1-3, “And I, brethren, could not speak to you as to spiritual persons, but as to fleshly, as to infants in Christ. I gave you milk to drink, not solid food; for you were not yet able to receive it. Indeed, even now you are still not able, for you are still fleshly. For since there is jealousy and strife among you, are you not fleshly [under the control of the sin nature], in fact are you not walking like unbelievers?”

© If you do not use rebound, God the Holy Spirit will never be your mentor and you will follow the trends of your sin nature. You will live your entire spiritual life with the Holy Spirit still indwelling your body but having no control over your soul. You will spend your life squelching, stifling, extinguishing, restraining, and suppressing the Holy Spirit. You will be a loser all your life and have shame at the judgment seat of Christ.

(2) What God has provided in the future is beyond our comprehension, and so can only be stated in terms of metaphors related to our frame of reference. The winner’s prize for the mature believer is so fantastic it cannot be described by human language.

(a) In the metaphor the winner’s prize refers to the rewards given to the athlete who won a contest in one of the Roman games.

(b) The prize given at the games was a rather insignificant crown or wreath made out of certain kinds of leaves. However, that simple crown of leaves represented a new life for that person. Upon returning home he was given a great procession, money for the rest of his life, a poem commemorating the victory, a public statue, his children fed and educated at public expense, a lifetime pass to the games, a new home, and exemption from taxes for the rest of his life.

© The crown is analogous to the conveyance of our escrow blessings for time. The rewards which followed are analogous to the eternal rewards of the eternal state in a resurrection body. The emphasis in the Christian life is always on receiving our eternal rewards and blessings.

(3) We associate great blessing with many things here on earth like wealth, success, sex, approbation, etc. But the great blessings we will receive will come after we go home after the judgment seat of Christ. A lot of believers expect to be rich and successful in time because they have been “good” Christians. They have forgotten the importance of the invisible hero. Your happiness is not dependent on circumstances or the gratification of your lust pattern. Your motivation to advance in the spiritual life is not the motivation of arrogance, inordinate ambition, inordinate competition, or having the approbation of others. Arrogance thinks, “I’ve been good, God, now do something for me.”

(4) The winner’s prize is open and available to every believer in every generation of the Church Age. The winner’s prize is given at the judgment seat of Christ. The issue is not sin, but what you accomplish under the mentorship of the Holy Spirit versus worthless human works. If you are not responding to Bible doctrine, what you do in the form of Christian works is worthless. God the Holy Spirit must control your soul for your works to be worth anything in God’s eyes. The only heroes in this world are those who will receive the winner’s prize.

(5) The confidence of the winner believer at the judgment seat of Christ is mentioned in:

(a) 1 Jn 2:28, “And now, my children, stay in fellowship with Him, that if He should appear, we may have confidence and not be put to shame at His coming.” (b) Gal 5:5, “For we through the Spirit, by faith, are waiting for the confident expectation of righteousness [capacity righteousness from God for rewards in the eternal state].”

(d) 2 Tim 2:15, “Be motivated to present yourself approved by God, a person evaluated as a hero who does not need to be ashamed, handling accurately the word of truth.”

(e) Phil 1:20, “on the basis of my earnest expectation and confidence, that I shall not be put to shame in anything, but with all confidence, Christ shall even now, as always, be glorified in my body, whether by life or by death.”

(6) The warning to the Church Age believer is given in:

(a) 1 Cor 15:34, “Come to your senses righteously [spiritual capacity righteousness provided through the spiritual mechanics of the protocol plan with emphasis on the filling of the Spirit], and stop sinning; for some have no knowledge of God. I speak this to your shame.”

(b) Phil 3:19, “[the loser believer] whose end is destruction [the sin unto death], whose god is their emotion, and whose glory is in their shame, who set their minds on earthly things.” The shame of the loser believer in time becomes the shame of the loser believer in a resurrection body.

(7) The winner’s prize is illustrated by metaphors and analogies in Scripture. The winner’s prize is called the “fullness of God” in the New Testament.

(a) The crown of righteousness, 2 Tim 4:7-8, which is awarded to those who execute the protocol plan of God and go through the three stages of the sophisticated spiritual life. Winner’s believers have a crown of righteousness, which is capacity for the eternal state. The loser believer will have the imputed righteousness of God, which gives him capacity for what he has, but not for what the winner believer has. There will be great distinctions between the winner and loser believer in heaven.

(b) The crown of life is awarded for the utilization of the problem solving devices to overcome all the categories of testing, especially in the sophisticated spiritual life. Spiritual self-esteem with cognitive self-confidence adds personal love for God the Father and impersonal love for all mankind to pass providential preventative suffering, designed to destroy the power of the three arrogance skills (self- justification, self-deception, self-absorption), and reach spiritual autonomy. Spiritual autonomy with cognitive independence adds the problem solving device of sharing the happiness of God to pass momentum testing and reach spiritual maturity. Spiritual maturity with cognitive invincibility plus occupation with Christ faces and passes evidence testing to glorify God to the maximum. The crown of life is given for passing three categories of suffering for blessing. Rev 2:10, “Do not fear what you are about to suffer. Note that the devil is about to cast some of you into prison, that you may be tested, and you will have special persecution ten times. Keep on being faithful until death, and I will give you the crown of life.” Jam 1:12, “Happy is the person who perseveres under trial; for once he has passed the test, he will receive the crown of life, which God has promised to those who love Him.”

© Eph 1:3, “Worthy of praise and glorification is the God even the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in heavenly places in [or by the agency of] Christ.” God knows what would be the greatest blessing in each of our lives. The farther you advance in the spiritual life, the stronger your faith. The stronger your faith, the more you trust in the Lord for whatever the blessings are. You are not positive to doctrine for what you think blessing is, but for what God thinks blessing is.

(d) 2 Pet 1:2-4, “May grace and prosperity be multiplied to you by means of epignosis about God and Jesus our Lord; because His divine power has given to us all things with reference to [spiritual] life even your spiritual life, through epignosis knowledge of Him who called us to His own glory and virtue. Through which things He has given to us His most valuable and very great promises, that by them you may become partners in the divine endowment, when you have escaped from the degeneracy [the sin nature] in the world by lust.”

i. Grace and prosperity is multiplied to you in your soul by means of doctrine circulating in your stream of consciousness.

ii. The result of the mentorship of the Holy Spirit is glorification of God and virtue.

iii. Degeneracy in the world is lust. When the sin nature is in control, the lust drive takes over. This is why the believer cannot be distinguished from an unbeliever. The believer under the control of the lust pattern of sin nature is prone to moral and immoral degeneracy.

(e) Heb 10:35-36, “Therefore, do not throw away as worthless your confidence, which keeps on having distribution of blessing. For you keep on having need for perseverance, so that when you have done the will of God, you may carry off the deposit which was promised.”

i. Confidence here is a personal sense of destiny, cognizant of the mentorship of God the Holy Spirit as the only means of fulfilling the protocol plan of God, which results in maximum glorification of God. You will throw it away, if there is no doctrine metabolized in your stream of consciousness. Scar tissue of the soul will wipe it out.

ii. A personal sense of destiny is when God opens up certain kinds of blessings. Because under the confidence of a personal sense of destiny you have the capacity for those blessings.

iii. The deposit which was promised is the conveyance of escrow blessings for time. So great are certain blessings in time and eternity that they can only be described as “the fullness from God.”

9. Phil 3:15, “Therefore, as many as [have become] mature believers, let us keep on thinking objectively this way; and if you think differently on some point, God will reveal even this to you for your benefit;”

a. Introduction.

(1) Spirituality is not what you do; spirituality is what you think. The spiritual life is objective thinking. Thinking in the human soul is the most important function of the spiritual life.

(2) There are three categories of divine knowledge: self- knowledge, omniscience, and foreknowledge. God’s knowledge is in control at all times. His knowledge is never irrational. It is never theoretical or speculative. God’s knowledge is absolute and simultaneous from eternity past. His knowledge cannot be changed or inaccurate.

(3) The spiritual life of the Church Age believer does not originate through genetics, but from God. No sin is the result of genetics. The weaknesses come from the sin nature, not from genetics.

(4) This means that the spiritual life is in the soul, not in the body. This means that the real you is not what others see, but the private you—what goes on in your soul. Your soul is immortal; your body is subject to death. At the point of faith in Christ your soul is saved, not your body. Your soul has eternal life, not your body. Your soul is made up of your mentality, your self-consciousness, your emotions, and your volition. You cannot have a relationship with God or people on the basis of emotion. God deals in thought and absolutes.

(5) The only doctrine that gets into your soul is epignosis doctrine. If you do not believe Bible doctrine at the point of teaching, then there is no epignosis in your soul, and you cannot be distinguished from an unbeliever.

(6) The spiritual life is a system of thinking: thinking divine viewpoint of life, understanding the absolutes of life, learning to know God, solving problems from the resources of doctrine circulating in the stream of consciousness through the filling of the Spirit.

(7) Prov 23:7, “As a person thinks in his soul, so he is.” If the Holy Spirit controls your soul, then you have the capability of thinking divine viewpoint. If the sin nature controls your soul, then you cannot be distinguished from the unbeliever under the same conditions. Spirituality is a system of thought related to maximum metabolized doctrine circulating in the seven compartments of the stream of consciousness, resulting in a mirror being formed in your soul and a FLOT line on your soul made up of the ten problem solving devices.

(8) Divine integrity is not cancelled because some members of the human race reject Jesus Christ as savior or because some believers fail to execute the protocol plan of God. The integrity of God is not maintained by the self-righteousness of mankind.

b. How God Solves Problems.

(1) Introductory Principles.

(a) God isolates our problems in eternity past. He can do this because of His omniscience. We never face a problem that was not known to God in eternity past and a solution was provided.

(b) God provided the solution to our problems in time. The solution includes metabolized doctrine circulating in our stream of consciousness. Metabolized doctrine creates two systems for the isolation of our problems—the mirror of metabolized doctrine in the soul and the ten problem solving devices on the FLOT line of the soul which solve the problems. The mechanics of the spiritual life not only overcome our problems but accomplish two additional functions—living by principle rather than instincts and emotion and spiritual momentum by which we fulfill the very purpose of the spiritual life to glorify God to the maximum through the four objectives of the spiritual life.

(2) There are two categories of divine solutions—direct solutions and indirect solutions.

(a) A direct solution involves the sovereignty of God only.

i. Our portfolio of invisible assets provided by the divine initiative of antecedent grace in eternity past is strictly the function of the sovereignty of God.

ii. A second function of the sovereignty of God is the divine provision of equality for all believers to execute the protocol plan. Only God can create equality. Equality is related to the mentorship of God the Holy Spirit as our Paraclete-Helper.

iii. In election we have the expression of the sovereignty of God to every Church Age believer. This results in equal privilege (our royal priesthood) and equal opportunity (logistical grace). Equality is also related to predestination. Equal privilege in predestination comes in the form of the baptism of the Holy Spirit, which provides equality for all believers. Equal opportunity in predestination comes in the mechanics of the spiritual life related to two power options, three spiritual skills, ten problem solving devices, and the three stages of the sophisticated spiritual life.

(b) Indirect solutions involve the human response to divine solutions. Eternal salvation is the perfect example. Indirect solutions occur in time when we express our options. In presalvation experience our response to the gospel is faith alone in Christ alone. In postsalvation response we have cognition of divine solutions in time, utilization of divine solutions in time, and perpetuation of divine solutions in time. You have to understand divine solutions before you can use them. After you understand the divine solutions, you have to perpetuate their use.

(3) Divine solutions are always related to the soul, never to the body. The body is related to genetic function; the soul came from God. Since God is the author of all true solutions, all true solutions are related to the function of your soul.

(4) Solutions must start with self-motivation. All self- motivation comes from self-evaluation. If you do not know yourself, you do not know what you need. You have no values. Self-motivation comes from the mirror of doctrine in your soul. If you do not have maximum metabolized doctrine circulating in your stream of consciousness, you do have a mirror in the soul. You do not even know what you look like from God’s viewpoint. Therefore you do not even know the problem. If you do not know the problem, you do not know the solution. One of the greatest problems is mental laziness.

(5) Problem solving devices deployed on the FLOT line of the soul result in objective and accurate application of metabolized doctrine. That is the only system for problem solving. Anything else is just lust for attention. You were designed at salvation to solve your own problems in the privacy of your priesthood without anyone else being involved. We all have victims of our sin nature.

(6) Solutions are always in the soul, where God the Holy Spirit must have control. When the sin nature has control, you have problems. The issue is: who controls your soul, God the Holy Spirit or the old sin nature? Once the sin nature controls the soul of the believer, he goes through the trends of the sin nature and the lust pattern of the sin nature.

(7) Spirituality is an absolute; the spiritual life is relative. All problem solving devices are designed to function under the filling of the Spirit except the rebound technique. All problem solving devices are designed to function in the privacy of your priesthood.

(8) How does the Church Age believer solve problems?

(a) We isolate the problem through metabolized doctrine circulating in the stream of consciousness. Metabolized doctrine creates a mirror in the soul. Self-evaluation from the mirror of the soul demands that you go to the FLOT line for your solutions. When you go to the FLOT line for your solution, you do so from self-motivation.

(b) Through metabolized doctrine in the stream of consciousness you have deployed the problem solving devices on the FLOT line of the soul. Metabolized doctrine in the stream of consciousness creates that FLOT line of the soul. Deployment of the problem solving devices means utilization. Utilization of the problem solving devices means solving your own problems totally apart from any human help, advice, or any human system.

c. “Therefore as many as [have become] mature believers” is a hiatus (a break or interruption into the continuity of the sentence or thought) to indicate that Paul is rising to a crescendo in his presentation. God the Holy Spirit has used the style of Paul to place an emphasis on thinking as the spiritual life. The spiritual life from the standpoint of your experience is thinking under the filling of the Holy Spirit.

(1) A personal sense of destiny demands a powerful mental attitude dynamics, especially as you advance toward the high ground of maximum glorification of God. “As many as” indicates a small, powerful group of believers reaching toward maximum glorification of God. When a personal sense of destiny enters into the sophisticated spiritual life, the invisible hero emerges to glorify God both in time and in the eternal state.

(2) A personal sense of destiny is the dividing line between our spiritual childhood and spiritual adulthood. The greatest tests in the spiritual life occur when the believer has attained a personal sense of destiny. A personal sense of destiny is the undergirding stability for spiritual adulthood. Most of your suffering is suffering for blessing and you have capacity to handle these problems.

(3) The sophisticated spiritual life occurs in three graduated stages (spiritual self-esteem, spiritual autonomy, and spiritual maturity) and eventuates in following the colors to take the high ground of spiritual maturity.

(4) How do you get to spiritual maturity?

(a) God the Holy Spirit provides the basis for thinking in the soul. All divine solutions are found in the thinking of the soul. Human solutions are related to the body (getting more sleep, eating right, etc.). The spiritual life is a system of thinking.

(b) The sophisticated spiritual life cannot be divorced from thinking in terms of principles of metabolized doctrine. This is the major issue in your spiritual life.

(5) A personal sense of destiny thinks in terms of principle, that is, in terms of Bible doctrine.

d. “Let us keep on thinking objectively this way.”

(1) It does not take any thought to trigger emotion. God designed emotion to respond to good things. Emotional sins are irrational.

(2) Thought requires energy. Spiritual energy is metabolized doctrine circulating in your stream of consciousness.

(3) What you really are is what your soul is, what you think. What you really are is not what others see on the outside. The real you—your soul—was created by God at physical birth and has nothing to do with genetics. God created your soul at physical birth so that you became a human being.

(4) The spiritual life of the Church Age involves two basic functions: the filling of the Holy Spirit and thinking in the sphere of metabolized doctrine circulating in the stream of consciousness.

(5) The divine mandate to thinking is stated in Eph 4:23, “then become refreshed through the agency of the Spirit by means of your thinking.” The spiritual life is a system of thinking. Emotion is not a part of the advance of the spiritual life.

(6) God provided in eternity past solutions to every problem. Those solutions are given to every believer and function in the soul. There is no solution to the problems of life directly related to the body. Spiritual life requires thinking in three spheres: the two power options, the three spiritual skills, and the ten problem solving devices.

(7) Scripture.

(a) Precedence for thinking in your spiritual life is mentioned in Phil 2:5, “Keep on thinking this in you which was also in Christ Jesus.”

(b) 1 Cor 2:16, “For who has known the thinking of the Lord, that he should instruct Him? But we have the thinking of Christ.”

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

i. Your spiritual life is the will of God. The greatest production you will ever have is invisible, becoming an invisible hero. The Christian way of life functions inside your soul, not on outward production.

ii. When you react to others, you have failed completely in the spiritual life. Reacting to others is thinking of self in terms of arrogance. If you have capacity for love and capacity for happiness, then you will avoid all the dangers of reaction.

(8) The spiritual life is a system of thinking under the tutelage of your mentor—God the Holy Spirit. If you cannot think beyond the limits of your body, then you have no capacity for life, love, and happiness. Therefore you have no capacity for problem solving devices. If you have no capacity for problem solving, you have no way to advance spiritually.

(a) When you reach a certain point, God provides some kind of a pressure situation so you can advance and build up spiritual strength in your soul. You cannot pass people testing without capacity for love in your soul. People testing is always connected with thought testing. Personal love for God, impersonal love for mankind, and occupation with Christ are the basis for capacity for love. Sharing the happiness of God is the basis for capacity for happiness.

(b) All four advanced problem solving devices are necessary to pass providential preventative suffering, momentum testing, and evidence testing. © The spiritual life demands that you live by principle to produce capacity in the soul. Capacity is the stabilizer and strength in the soul. Capacity comes from Bible doctrine. The ten problem solving devices all provide capacity. Thought has a capacity.

(9) A personal sense of destiny thinks in terms of the absolutes of doctrine. Spiritual wealth is measured in terms of Bible doctrine circulating in the stream of consciousness. A personal sense of destiny crystallizes this objective thinking in the stream of consciousness.

e. See the Doctrine of the Evil Obsession. Evil obsession is the dominance of one’s thoughts and feelings with malice or the lust to inflict injury in the function of iconoclastic arrogance.

f. “And if you keep on thinking differently on some point, God will reveal even this to you for your benefit.”

(1) Certain believers throughout the Church Age will flunk both people and thought testing and be vulnerable to the abberations which destroy the spiritual life. Thinking differently on just one point will distract you from the spiritual life. The major problem is thinking in the sphere of the three arrogance skills.

(2) Why would any believer think differently on some point?

(a) Lack of volition and values related to the importance of Bible doctrine inevitably causes the thinking of the believer to go in the opposite direction from Bible doctrine.

(b) The function of the arrogance skills cause the believer to think differently from Bible doctrine.

© Inconsistency in the cognition and the modus operandi of the spiritual mechanics cause the believer to think differently from Bible doctrine. Ignorance, rejection or failure to rebound when you sin is how believers begin to think differently. This failure means the sin nature continues to control the soul.

(d) Believers think differently on some point of doctrine because the thinking of doctrine is replaced by something else. Emotional revolt of the soul reacts to the teaching of doctrine and causes the believer to think differently. The passive role of emotion in the soul can respond to normal things, but when the emotion takes an active role, it reacts to doctrine and you set aside the function of your spiritual life, which is thinking.

(e) When you begin to think differently, then your experience begins to attack the FLOT line of the soul and creates a system of thinking compatible with the ruler of this world. Your thinking is sponsored by emotion. Emotional reaction blinds the mind to the truth of Bible doctrine. Experience creating thought which is contrary to doctrine is how we begin to get scar tissue of the soul.

(f) How does Satan destroy the testimony of millions of Church Age believers? The easiest way is to reverse emotion from its passive role in the soul to an active role in the soul. Once you reverse emotion, so that you have emotional revolt of the soul, it leads to a brand of thinking that is irrational and contrary to the doctrine of the word of God.

(3) Exposure to doctrine can correct the situation, but there has to be the rebound technique for the filling of the Holy Spirit to make doctrine understandable.

(4) The advantage (“for your benefit”) comes from the function of the rebound technique. The advantage is preceded by motivation of self-evaluation from looking into the mirror of Bible doctrine in your soul.

(5) The spiritual life is a system of two power options which result in thinking metabolized doctrine and applying that thought. Metabolized doctrine deploys problem solving devices. Then the doctrine circulating in the stream of consciousness is applied to your experience through those problem solving devices. The spiritual life is a system of thinking. For example, both salvation and rebound demand a thinking solution, never an emotional solution. The divine solution is the only solution; human solution is no solution.

(6) When the believer adds emotion and carnality to the plan of God, he is said in this passage to be “thinking differently.” Eventually he becomes a loser believer. The only recovery from being a loser believer is the rebound technique, which does not include any emotion. There is neither good or bad emotion in the divine solution. Divine solutions are minus emotions. There is good emotional response after the divine solution is adopted. Bad emotion complicates the spiritual life with confusion and compromise of the spiritual mechanics and results in wrong or different thinking which ruins the believer.

g. When the believer enters the sophisticated spiritual life and attains a personal sense of destiny, this is the greatest danger area for being distracted from your spiritual life by the arrogance skills and becoming a loser believer.

(1) As the believer advances to spiritual maturity the vulnerability factor should normally decrease. However, the advancing believer is not free from the danger of entering perpetual carnality and becoming a loser believer.

(2) The tragedy is the fact that the adult believer distorts truth and error into a system from which the strongest loser believers cannot extract themselves. All too often the adult believer adopts emotion both as the criterion and the modus operandi of the spiritual life. The strong believer begins his decline by applying experience and emotion to doctrine. This is the reverse of using the problem solving devices. The greater sign that the adult believer is about to fail and become a loser believer is when emotion becomes the criterion for the spiritual life. Emotion becomes a pseudo problem solving device. God has never given us any solution to any problem related to emotion.

(3) Rebound by emotion or false rebound creates the loser believer. Vulnerability to distraction, failure, and arrogance continues as long as we live on planet earth. Once the believer starts using the arrogance skills, God makes war against the arrogant believer. The only recovery is humility and the proper use of rebound.

(4) There are two major distractions to the spiritual life of the believer. Both have a high risk rate as the believer enters spiritual adulthood. The first is emotion as the criterion for the spiritual life, when it is obvious that the spiritual life is a system of thinking. The second is trying to solve a problem by adding to it another problem instead of the true function of your problem solving devices. For example, using emotion to solve the problem of sin and adding it to rebound.

(5) How does an adult believer become a loser believer?

(a) He enters into some sin, like jealousy.

(b) Instead of solving the problem by rebound, he adds another sin to it, like bitterness, and intensifies the problem.

(d) Instead of solving the problem, he adds the three arrogance skills, further intensifying the problem. Perpetuated carnality guarantees the loss of everything you have gained in the spiritual life.

(e) Adult believers peel off from thinking doctrine. They think differently on some point of doctrine through negative volition or mental attitude sins or the arrogance skills and lack of function of the rebound technique. God reveals this to the adult believer through divine discipline.

h. “To think differently” is the intrusion of no Bible doctrine or the infiltration of false doctrine into the soul. What you do is eventually always a result of what you think. 10. Phil 3:16, “however, as a result of what we have attained, let us keep advancing in ranks by the same system.”

a. This is a continuation of the sentence begun in verse 15. “What we have attained” refers to adult believers who have attained a personal sense of destiny and now enter into the adult stage of the spiritual life.

(1) At the same time, we have entered into the greatest sphere of vulnerability to failure we will ever face. There is more failure among believers who attain spiritual adulthood than any other sphere of the spiritual life. You cannot afford to ignore rebound or add emotion to it.

(2) The entrance into spiritual adulthood is the most dangerous status quo because of the tendency to become arrogant about knowledge of doctrine. The great danger is the infiltration of the arrogant skills. You overthink and add emotion as a criterion to the spiritual life. Arrogance plus emotion results in the irrational dilemma of trying to solve problems with problems.

(3) There are three dangers to the spiritually adult believer: arrogance, emotion, and incompetent problem solving.

(a) You cannot solve a problem with another problem. You can only solve a problem with a divine solution.

(b) When you attempt to solve a problem with a problem, you simply intensify the original problem to the point of irrationality and impossibility.

(d) Sometimes the intensification of problems results in emotional irrationality and despair, which even denies the existence of a problem.

(e) Without the deployment of the problem solving devices on the FLOT line of the soul there is no divine solution. Instead there is the intensification of stress in your soul. Until rebound is used, there is no removal of the stress in the soul.

(4) In eternity past, God isolated every problem you would ever have and provided the solution in the ten problem solving devices. Only metabolized doctrine deploying problem solving devices on the FLOT line of the soul resulting in clarity of thought, tranquility of soul, and wisdom of application.

b. Sometimes there is great danger in advancing too far too fast. When you advance to the first stage of the adult spiritual life, you are vulnerable to arrogance, emotion, and incompetent problem solving because of cognitive self-confidence from all the doctrine in your stream of consciousness.

(1) “Advancing in ranks by the same system” means perseverance in the function of the spiritual mechanics plus rebound when necessary. It means the utilization of two power options, the function of three spiritual skills, the deployment of ten problem solving devices on the FLOT line of the soul, and the execution of the three stages of the adult spiritual life. It means doctrinal orientation creating a mirror in the soul. The advance in application of metabolized doctrine to oneself in self-evaluation. It also means perseverance in doctrinal orientation through the establishment of a FLOT line in the soul from which problem solving devices originate. This is the advance in application of metabolized doctrine to postsalvation circumstances.

(2) You must consolidate your advance into spiritual adulthood by bringing the basic problem solving devices up to date. You have to be careful to rebound faithfully and accurately. You have to be careful to use the faith-rest drill and grace orientation. The highest casualty list among believers is among former spiritually adult believers.

(3) The three ranks in which we are commanded to advance are spiritual self-esteem, spiritual autonomy, and spiritual maturity.

(a) The whole objective of spiritual self-esteem is to use the necessary metabolized doctrine so that you realize that you do not need arrogance to live. Most people think they need arrogance to live. They use arrogance to lie, to impress others, and to impress themselves.

(b) In spiritual adulthood, you cannot make it without humility. Lack of humility is the reason why spiritual self-esteem is the most vulnerable stage of the spiritual life. Cognitive self-confidence is a system of humility based on doctrine. You have confidence in doctrine rather than your arrogance skills. You stop deceiving yourself and excusing yourself.

(d) If you cannot level with yourself and see yourself as you really are, you never get beyond spiritual self-esteem because arrogance will cause you to fail every time.

(e) If you do not have spiritual self-esteem in your stream of consciousness, you are never going to love God. Emotional response is not love; integrity and virtue is love. The sin nature is the enemy of capacity for love, because the sin nature has lust and temptation. The sin nature has no capacity for love. Capacity for life, love, and happiness in the unbeliever is virtue. Never think that love is an emotion.

(f) You are never an adult believer through time in grade. You are not an adult believer just because you have been a believer for a long time.

c. Principles.

(1) The entrance into the adult spiritual life is the greatest sphere of vulnerability to that state of retrogression classified as the loser believer.

(2) Arrogance plus emotion results in the irrational dilemma of trying to solve a problem with a problem, which results in becoming a casualty to perpetual carnality, the modus operandi of the ineptazoid believer.

(3) Rebound is distorted into legalism through arrogance and emotional, so that the believer who is a casualty becomes an ineptazoid believer.

(4) In the context of this verse, the believer has attained spiritual adulthood and has entered into the first stage of the adult spiritual life.

(5) This is the most vulnerable status quo of the spiritual life because of the tendency to become arrogant about knowledge of doctrine, so that you overthink, and overthinking adds emotion as a criterion for the spiritual life.

(6) You cannot solve a problem with a problem. You can only solve a problem with a divine solution. When you attempt to solve a problem with a problem, you simply intensify the original problem to the point of irrationality and confusion. Irrationality plus confusion is emotional frustration.

d. A majority of these believers had attained spiritual adulthood. A personal sense of destiny is entrance into the adult spiritual life. A personal sense of destiny is tantamount to spiritual self-esteem.

e. Advancing in ranks by the same system means persistence in the function of the spiritual mechanics with emphasis on rebound when necessary.

f. Advancing in ranks is a military metaphor that emphasizes staying within the boundaries of the spiritual life as mandated by the word of God. The danger is having some great spiritual experience that results in arrogance, emotional control of the soul, or applying experience to doctrine. Emotion becomes the criterion for the spiritual life, so that the believer becomes incompetent in the function of rebound. The believer minus rebound has persistent carnality. Persistent carnality means the believer becomes a loser.

g. The Road From Victory to Vulnerability.

(1) Arrogance plus emotion results in the irrational dilemma of trying to solve a problem with a problem. This causes the adult believer to become a loser believer. Incompetent problem solving inserts both arrogance and emotion into problem solving, which halts the advance of the believer. The three arrogance skills manifest themselves in all sorts of mental attitude and verbal sins.

(2) Problems must be faced in virtue. The base for dealing with your problems is never to enter into another sin.

(3) The spiritual life is a system of thinking metabolized doctrine through the mentorship of God the Holy Spirit. The adult believer who develops emotional dependency withdraws into a system of pseudo- spirituality which includes: making emotion the criterion for the spiritual life, making emotion a part of problem solving devices including rebound, hence, problem solving incompetency which adds problems to problems to solve problems.

(4) The irrationality of false criterion results in the function of arrogance skills and arrogance sins interacting with emotional sins, bringing ruin to the spiritual life.

(5) The believer who attains spiritual adulthood cannot advance beyond the first stage of sophisticated spiritual life until he passes the test of providential preventative suffering. Providential preventative suffering is designed to eliminate the function of the three arrogance skills, the arrogance complex of sins, and the emotional complex of sins (the three loser believer functions) which hinder any further advance into the adult spiritual life.

(a) A person who feels threatened by someone else will never recognize his own limitations.

(b) A person who knows his limitations never feels threatened by others.

(d) Contentment is problem solving device number nine (sharing the happiness of God) deployed on the FLOT line of the soul.

(e) Sharing the happiness of God belongs to every believer who fulfills the second stage of the adult spiritual life. The believer who fails to recognize the danger of vulnerability to failure in the first stage of the spiritual skills enters into thinking privation. Thinking privation is characterized by adding philosophy, psychology, human viewpoints of life to the spiritual life, so that the adult believer begins to think only in terms of earthly things.

(f) Not knowing your limitations also leads to inordinate ambition and inordinate competition, which means it is impossible to pass providential preventative suffering. The person who feels threatened by others will never know his limitations or understand his rapid decline from the adult to the loser believer. This is because the believer who feels threatened by people or circumstances lives in the status of the arrogance of unhappiness through perpetual carnality and never knows his own limitations. Therefore, he never relates his limitations to problem solving devices.

(g) Knowing your limitations transfers your dependency on self to dependence on the grace of God. Not knowing your limitations breeds arrogance, inordinate ambition related to the devil’s world and inordinate competition related to legalism and self-absorption. Not knowing your limitations leads to emotional dependency, distraction from the protocol plan of God which becomes the tragic flaw of the adult believer.

(6) The believer who feels threatened by someone else will never know his own limitations or understand his rapid decline from adult spiritual life to loser believer. The adult believer is vulnerable to the most subtle and powerful temptations to become distracted from God’s will, plan, and purpose. The distraction failure of the adult believer becomes the rapid decline to the loser believer.

h. An advancing believer is most threatened when he enters the salient of spiritual advance to the first stage of spiritual adulthood. The road from an adult believer to a loser believer is traveled very rapidly. So great is the danger of becoming a loser believer that Paul trumpets a strong warning to keep advancing in ranks.

i. He is a winner who perseveres in the function of the two power options, perseveres in the modus operandi of the three spiritual skills, perseveres in the deployment of the problem solving devices, perseveres in moving through the three stages of the adult spiritual life. He who does not go forward goes backward.

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

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