The Word
Vol.
9 No. 7
Upper Room Discourse
John 15:2
Suffering For Blessing
In
The Doctrine of
Suffering for Blessing (continued)
There are three stages of
Suffering for Blessing that accompany the three stages of Spiritual Adulthood.
The first stage of adulthood is Spiritual Self-Esteem (SSE) accompanied by
Providential Preventative Suffering (
When SSE combines with
Momentum
Testing (MT) is the form of Suffering for Blessing that accompanies SA.
Rom
1. Principles of Momentum
Testing
a.
MT is designed with two things in mind:
1)
The opportunity for the application of Bible doctrine where you apply different
doctrines to different situations.
2)
To accelerate your momentum.
b.
No believer attains maturity apart from
c.
All categories of testing are designed for blessing. Therefore, whether
adversity or prosperity, it is designed for your good.
d.
Human volition plays an important part in testing. For the believer must make
the right decision based on his application of Bible doctrine, and his
residence inside God’s Power System,
e.
There are five general categories of testing; the four which are a part of
2. Disaster Testing.
a.
Before the believer reaches maturity there are one or two major disasters in
their life. How the believer handles these determines whether he accelerates
his spiritual growth or retreats and goes backward.
b.
There are two categories of Disaster Testing:
1)
Personal Disaster; which is designed as Suffering for Blessing for acceleration
of momentum or for warning of cosmic involvement, in which case divine
discipline becomes involved.
2)
Historical Disaster; collective disaster, or national disaster testing related
to the bad decisions of others in which you are involved by association.
c.
There are at least six characteristics of Disaster Testing:
1)
Physical pain or mental pain and anguish.
2)
Crime where you are the victim.
3)
Persecution, not paranoia.
4)
Privation, meaning hunger, thirst, exposure, fatigue, etc.
5)
Loss of loved ones, property, success, your job, money, etc.
6)
Disease and handicaps.
d.
There are four characteristics of national disaster: these historical
downtrends indicate that a maximum number of people in a given area are living
in the Cosmic System.
1)
Violence, crime, terror-ism, murder, rampant drug and alcohol addiction.
2)
Warfare.
3)
Weather, including heat, cold, storms, blizzards, hurricanes, tornadoes.
4)
Cycles of discipline,
e.
Disaster Testing always tests our emotions. For example, in emotionalism you
may seek to sue someone who is negligent. This is nothing but revenge
motivation when done because of emotionalism. In such cases, you become a
loser. The principle is that you can lose by gaining, and gain by losing.
1)
In this MT there is always the temptation to take the easy route of money,
security, fame, and lose forever the conveyance of escrow blessing. There is
always the disaster that will make you prosperous. This is a test. You could
lose the chance of receiving your escrow blessing.
2)
The only wealth worth having is the wealth that God provides in escrow
blessing,
f.
There must be maximum faith and maximum SSE and maximum SA if you are going to
have your escrow blessings and pass Disaster Testing.
3. People Testing
a.
SA is the prerequisite for solving all problems of human relationship, (i.e.,
of People Testing), which is also accompanied by System and Thought Testing.
This combination only exists in the three
stages of Spiritual Adulthood.
b. People Testing comes in two categories.
1) In
personal love or admiration, where the object of your love often controls
your life or provides for your unhappiness, unless you have attained SSE, SA,
or SM. In wanting to please the object of your personal love, you find yourself
being a different person and not following your normal function.
2) In
personal hatred or animosity, the object of your antagonism or irritation
has control of your life or happiness, unless you have advanced to spiritual
adulthood.
c.
God designed His Plan so that your happiness will always reside in you, so that
you do not depend on people or things for your happiness.
As a function of your Royal
Priesthood love and happiness comes from within.
2)
You are supposed to have control of your life through the application of God’s
Word, a Personal Sense of Destiny, and Self‑Confidence from metabolized
doctrine.
3)
Therefore, you have poise and command of self. As a result you bring your
happiness to others, but you do not lean on others or circumstances for your
happiness.
1 Thes 1:6, “You also became imitators of us and of the Lord,
having received the word in much tribulation with the joy of the Holy Spirit, 7so
that you became an example to all the believers... 8For the word of
the Lord has sounded forth from you, …, in every place
your faith toward God has gone forth...”
Why we should not pray for the
removal of Suffering for Blessing, 2 Cor 12:7‑10.
Verse 8, “Concerning this (thorn
in the flesh), I appealed (PARAKALEO)
to the Lord three times (three wrong petitionary prayers), that it (thorn demon) might depart from me.”
1.
Suffering for Blessing is not designed to be removed by prayer. It is administered
by God, and what God does not remove he intends for us to bear. You do not pray
for the removal of any suffering, whether for blessing or punitive. Such a
prayer is blasphemous, for without pruning / suffering the believer cannot
fulfill the Plan of God.
2.
Prayer is antithetical to the purpose for Suffering for Blessing.
a)
You do not pray for the removal of the very means of advancing you to Spiritual
Maturity.
b)
You do not pray for the removal of Suffering for Blessing by which the Plan of
God is fulfilled. What God does not remove by way of suffering He intends for
you to bear.
c)
You do not pray for the removal of the mechanics of power by which SSE is
parlayed into SA.
d)
Prayer is not a Problem Solving Device in your life. You can pray for others
under suffering, and you should. You don't judge why they are suffering, but
you do pray for those who suffer. This is a privilege of the Royal Priesthood.
Prayer is a weapon of power in the hands of the Royal Priest.
e)
But you never pray for the removal of suffering from yourself or from others.
All suffering is a decision from the sovereignty of God.
f)
Ignorant and negative believers use prayer for everything, having no doctrine
in their soul, no application of doctrine, and no spiritual growth.
g)
God never puts on you more than you can bear,
h)
Before God gives suffering for blessing, He always provides the means of
handling it. So strength in suffering comes from the application of metabolized
Bible doctrine.
i) Therefore believers should not even pray for strength in time of
suffering, because strength in suffering comes in other ways. Mechanically; it
comes through application of God’s Word through the filling of the Holy Spirit
as you endure suffering for blessing and advance.
j)
Yet you can ask for God’s guidance in the utilization of His strength to
overcome the situation you are facing under
Verse 9, “And He has said to me (God’s counsel by means of previously learned Bible Doctrine), “My
grace is sufficient for you, for power (three
stages of Spiritual Adulthood) is perfected in weakness (pruning /
Suffering for Blessing).” Most gladly, therefore, I will rather boast about
my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may
dwell in me.”
3.
Everything necessary to fulfill the Plan of God was provided in eternity past
by way of assets in the Portfolio of Invisible Assets. Then God provides Bible
doctrine and suffering in time. What a marvelous combination!
4.
Suffering does not bear its meaning in itself, but becomes a spotlight focusing
on God's power and our concurrent weakness, weakness brought about by Suffering
for Blessing. Suffering for Blessing focuses on God's grace, and turns boasting
away from self‑glorification into worship, love, and appreciation for
God.
5.
Paul is boasting because this is not Punitive Preventative Suffering, but
Suffering for Blessing through which God is glorified. Therefore, this is
boasting in a good sense, which looks away from self and looks toward the grace
provision of God. It is not boasting to glorify self, but the dynamic mental
attitude of SSE facing
6. Whenever we face Suffering for Blessing,
human solutions cannot solve or help; only divine solutions can. Therefore,
suffering for blessing causes the believer to be weak so that he has to depend
on Divine provisions for problem solving. Consequently, each stage of Spiritual
Adulthood is designed to be faced and passed as a Suffering for Blessing test.
As a result you achieve further spiritual growth.
If you would
like more information on this subject,
you may listen
to lessons 10-013 and 10-015.
A PERSONAL NOTE
FOR YOU
If
you have never accepted Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior, I am here to tell
you that Jesus loves you. He loves you
so much that He gave His life for you. God the Father also loves you. He loves you so much that He gave His only
Son for you by sending Him to the Cross.
At the Cross Jesus died in your place.
Taking upon Himself all of your sins and all of
my sins. He was judged for our sins and
paid the price for our sins. Therefore
our sins will never be held against us.
Right where you are, you now have the opportunity to make the greatest
decision in your life. To accept the free gift of eternal life by truly
believing that Jesus Christ died for
you. So wherever you are, pause to reflect on what Christ has done for you
and say to the Father:
"Father, I believe that Your Son,
Jesus Christ, died on the cross for the forgiveness of my sins."
If you have done that, I welcome you to the Eternal
Family of God!