Spir Dynamics 1742 5/23/00; Jam 15, 61 3/20/90; Eph 1317-18 11/14/90

DOCTRINE OF PROMOTION

A. Promotion Versus Our Spiritual Gift.

1. An important distinction must exist in our thinking between our spiritual gift and promotion by God.

2. Promotion by God comes from execution of the unique spiritual life of the Church Age.

3. The function of our spiritual gift functions under the filling and power of the Spirit in relationship to works. Works do not advance us in the spiritual life.

B. Our Lord’s Statement Concerning Promotion.

1. Jam 4:10, “Humble yourselves before the Lord and He will promote you.”

a. There is a system of promotion in the spiritual life. However, it is a system that is not related in any way to man promoting man.

b. All promotions in the Christian life are completely and totally fair, because all promotion is accomplished by God and God alone.

c. Promotion is always related to humility and making doctrine number one priority in your life. The basic foundation for promotion and success is humility. You cannot be promoted by God without humility.

d. God does not promote anyone without humility. Humility only comes from knowledge of Bible doctrine. You cannot make yourself humble; self-effacement is not humility. 2. Lk 14:11, “For everyone who exalts himself shall be humbled. And he who humbles himself shall be promoted.”

a. “Everyone who exalts himself” is the believer involved in self-promotion, Christian degeneracy, the lust pattern of the sin nature, the believer with garbage in the subconscious.

b. The believer “is humbled” through the law of volitional responsibility, in which the believer must take the responsibility for his own bad decisions from a position of weakness, and through the three categories of divine discipline.

c. Humbling oneself is the filling of the Holy Spirit, cognition and inculcation of doctrine, execution of the protocol plan, self- discipline, and the thousands of decisions to learn doctrine.

d. Those who are humbled by divine discipline often become extremely arrogant in their humility, e.g., the Exodus generation. There are two kinds of humility: the put-down humility and the spiritual humility. God only promotes on the basis of spiritual humility. You are not humble because you think you are humble or say you are humble.

3. 1 Pet 5:5-6, “God makes war against the arrogant [believer], but gives grace to the humble [believer]. Therefore, humble yourselves under the powerful hand of God that He may promote you at the proper time.”

a. Humility and grace orientation are always related to grace promotion. This is because with humility comes teachability, and from teachability comes doctrinal orientation, and from doctrinal orientation comes grace orientation and execution of the protocol plan of God.

b. Doctrinal orientation plus grace orientation equals promotion. Promotion implies the execution of the protocol plan of God.

c. Promotion occurs through the distribution of escrow blessings for both time and eternity by our Lord Jesus Christ. These blessings are irrevocable and remain on deposit in heaven forever for the believer who fails to execute the protocol plan of God in time.

d. Promotion implies that you have become an invisible hero. The invisible hero in time is humble or grace oriented, which means he has capacity for every divine blessing associated with promotion. The arrogant believer involved in Christian degeneracy can be classified as one who is in high visibility carnality, a cosmic Christian, one who is self-promoting.

e. The believer in the cosmic system always functions under principles of self-promotion. The arrogance of the self-promotion results in failure to execute God’s plan. This believer is classified as a loser. Although the believer loses his escrow blessings for time and eternity, he does not lose his salvation. His escrow blessings are a memorial to a lost opportunity.

f. The loser’s arrogance is described in the following passages.

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

(2) Prov 11:2, “When arrogance comes, then comes dishonor. But with the humble is wisdom.”

(3) Prov 29:23, “A person’s arrogance will bring him low, but with the humble is wisdom.”

g. Humility is something you have to acquire. No one is born humble, naturally humble, or humbled by their circumstances.

h. With humility, objectivity, and orientation to authority comes teachability. Teachability means doctrinal orientation. From doctrinal orientation comes grace orientation. Doctrinal orientation plus grace orientation equals promotion.

4. 2 Cor 10:18, “For not he who promotes himself is approved, but whom the Lord promotes.”

a. Humility is the function of and promotion is related to the spiritual skills: the filling of the Holy Spirit; cognition of doctrine; and execution of the protocol plan of God.

b. God only promotes the humble.

c. Humility is doctrine in the stream of consciousness. This is your spiritual strength.

C. Resulting principles.

1. Never covet what God has not provided in grace.

2. Arrogance becomes involved in the lust pattern of the sin nature and covets everything that God has not provided. But humility or grace orientation sets aside the lust pattern and through perception of doctrine develops a tremendous capacity for life, love, happiness, and grace blessing from God. As we develop capacity, God provides more blessing and greater promotion. 3. No Church Age believer can be promoted without at least five things.

a. Cognition of the protocol plan of God.

b. Cognition of our portfolio of invisible assets.

c. Cognition of the unique characteristics of the Church Age.

d. Understanding and using the problem solving devices of the protocol plan of God.

e. Cognition of suffering for blessing and being able to do it with spiritual growth.

4. Promotion in the protocol plan of God is based on momentum from metabolized doctrine and never from Christian service or good deeds. What is most important in any kind of works is the motivation for doing that action. Is the person doing good for self-promotion or to glorify God? Therefore, there must be proper motivation before doing any good works.

5. Christian service and Christian works is the result of momentum in the protocol plan of God, but never the means. Therefore, do not confuse means and result in the Christian way of life.

6. The overriding factor in all of these principles is that God will honor His Word and His spiritual gifts even if the believer is motivated by self-promotion.

7. You cannot be promoted as long as you have the slave mentality. The slave mentality is that security is more important than freedom. The slave mentality belongs to any person who thinks that socialism is the answer to the problems of life or who thinks that the world owes them a living.

D. If God does not promote you, you are not promoted.

1. God promotes the humble believer who is classified as a grace oriented Christian. Humility is not self-effacement—you putting yourself down.

2. Grace orientation comes through doctrinal inculcation, which can also be called cognition of Bible doctrine. Cognition is an act of process of learning or perception; hence, something known or perceived. We do not withdraw from this doctrine under stress, pressure, or adversity.

3. Doctrinal inculcation comes through consistent post-salvation epistemological rehabilitation, i.e., perception, metabolization, and application of doctrine.

4. Divine promotion in the protocol plan of God necessitates humility, authority orientation, objectivity, teachability, flexibility, and grace orientation. From this comes your grace orientation. All of your thoughtfulness, tenderness, kindness, and love in life have to be based on motivation.

5. Promotion from God begins in spiritual adulthood. No believer is promoted until he or she reaches spiritual self-esteem. Spiritual adulthood has three stages.

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

b. Spiritual autonomy, which is cognitive independence.

c. Spiritual maturity, which is cognitive invincibility.

6. When God can promote you, God is glorified. Promotion is always based upon the grace of God, and when God acts in grace, He is glorified. Divine promotion is always fair. 7. The promoted believer is the invisible hero with maximum historical impact in the Church Age toward people and angels. Your impact with angels is far greater than your impact with people.

E. Promotion has a relationship with production.

1. All promotion of believers is part of the grace policy of God. Therefore, God promotes the humble believer whose inventory of Bible doctrine relates to grace orientation. 2. Believers in line for divine promotion are humble believers. This is tantamount to grace orientation.

3. Promotion from God involves special categories: doctrinal inculcation and grace orientation. Promotion does not involve the doing of good deeds and the performance of Christian service. Both promotion and the doing of good deeds are a result of momentum in spiritual growth.

4. God promotes the prepared believer. The only preparation for life is learning and using the spiritual skills. Promotion is related to production by spiritual skills preceding production skills for the performance of divine good.

a. Jn 15:8, “By this My Father is glorified that you bear much fruit, and so prove to be My indoctrinated ones.” Indoctrination refers to perception, metabolization, and application of doctrine.

b. Divine good or fruit-bearing occurs in visible good, invisible divine good related to impact on human history, and invisible divine good related to impact on the angelic conflict.

c. Promotion is not based on production, but perception.

5. God does not promote on the basis on good deeds and Christian service, but on the basis of the inculcation of Bible doctrine. The sooner you are promoted, the sooner you are going to have a wonderful life.

a. Because spiritual skills must precede production skills in the modus operandi of the protocol plan, spiritual skills guarantee humility so that you never become arrogant about your production.

b. Perception of Bible doctrine results in the execution of God’s plan, which is the basis for the promotion of the believer.

6. As a result of divine promotion, the quality and quantity of the believer’s production and service improve. Doctrine motivates good deeds and Christian service; doctrine produces promotion.

7. All promotions from God are grace promotions. All promotions from God are fair promotions. Self-promotion is dead works and glorification of self, 2 Cor 10:18. Hence, self-promotion is no promotion.

8. The results of promotion are: great contentment; a personal sense of destiny; occupation with Christ; tranquility even under great pressure; the distribution of your escrow blessings.

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