The Word
Vol.
9 No. 9
Upper Room Discourse
John 15:2
Suffering For Blessing
In
The Doctrine of
Suffering for Blessing, Momentum Testing continued.
There are five categories of Momentum Testing, Disaster Testing, System
Testing, People Testing, Thought Testing and Prosperity Testing. We have noted
the first three and now will note Thought Testing.
5. Thought Testing.
a.
Thought Testing is the most challenging aspect of Suffering for Blessing. It
occurs at all stages of Christian experience including SSE with
to all situations in life.
b.
To pass Thought Testing at any stage of the Christian life, the believer must
have the following.
1)
Pertinent metabolized Bible doctrine to meet whatever comes in Thought Testing
at any given stage of Christian growth.
Rom 12:2, “And do not be
conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so
that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good (SSE) and acceptable (well
pleasing - SA) and perfect (complete - SM).”
2)
The Filling of the Spirit at the time of the Thought Testing to make the
correct application of metabolized Bible doctrine.
c.
Passing Thought Testing means you have the ability to not be distracted by
false issues or be misled by wrong priorities, which are a continual distraction
in the Christian life, which would otherwise build up a tremendous amount of
self-induced misery under the law of volitional responsibility.
d.
Before reaching spiritual adulthood, thought distraction is primarily a result
of cosmic involvement. But in spiritual adult-hood you’ve advance beyond cosmic
involvement. The testing now is to distract you from your faith rest and
relationship with God by means of various difficult situations or temptations
of life. They are designed to cause you to rely upon human solutions rather
than Biblical solutions.
e.
Mental attitude in the Christian life is the combination of the function of
your thinking in terms of God’s Word resident in your soul and the pressure of
thought conflict in your soul.
1)
As a result you will have questions regarding the situations or details of
life. Yet, when you calm your thoughts by cycling God’s Word in your soul and
apply patience, you will receive the answers.
2)
That, in and of itself, is Thought Testing; waiting on the timing of God to
provide real answers with real solutions to real problems of life, from His
Word by means of the filling of God the Holy Spirit.
3)
Therefore, impatience is a sign that you are failing Thought Testing.
f.
What you really are at any given time is what you think. All of us are
constantly changing in our thinking. This can mean instability in life. You are
not always what you appear to be on the surface, for mankind can hide his
thoughts and become adept at the practice of hypocrisy. Therefore, the real you
is the thought content of your soul.
g. A
thought can make or break you, depending on the nature of the thought. It's
either thinking derived from metabolized Bible doctrine in your heart (right
lobe) or thinking derived from the propaganda of Satan coupled with your Old
Sin Nature. One will improve you; one will break you apart.
h.
Mental attitude is the function of thought in your own soul, not what someone
else thinks. You can't borrow the thoughts of others; you have to do your own
thinking, make your own decisions, and handle your own problems. Many people
lose the ability to do their own thinking because they have succumbed to the
thinking of someone else rather than making their own decisions from a position
of strength with the Word of God in their soul.
i. The most subtle and difficult test is thought distraction in the form
of preoccupation with self to the exclusion of Bible Doctrine. Here you are so
occupied with what is or is not happening to you that you lose focus of your
relationship with God and others, and ultimately the reality of life and life’s
situations.
j.
Thought distraction is also the
result of one's prejudice, inflex-ibility, unteachability,
and inability to take objective criticism from others, especially from the
teaching of God’ Word,
k.
Too often, doubts in Thought Testing result from neglect of the systematic
teaching of Bible Doctrine, setting up wrong priorities in your life, and lack
of consistent living in God’s Plan.
l.
Too often, the believer tries to reconcile his favorite academic subject or
personal opinions with the content of doctrine, e.g., philosophy, psychology,
sociology, geology, anthropology, etc. If the Word doesn't line up with one's
favorite academic subject or opinions, he rejects the Doctrine.
m.
Therefore, thought distraction occurs when the believer is not interested in
the variety of subjects found in the Word as they are taught by his or her
Pastor-Teacher. They are only motivated to listen and concentrate when the
subject interests them, (usually eschatology / End Times lessons).
n.
The Bible is not your servant but your master. All portions and subjects from
the Bible are important to the believer. You need to abide in it constantly and
consistently, which is abiding in the mind of our Lord Jesus Christ. And
sometimes you must wait for the answers to be revealed, this is your Thought
Testing, testing your faith and your Relaxed Mental
Attitude,
o.
Your ability to cope with life, your happiness in life, and your attractiveness
in life is based upon what you think.
1)
Inner beauty is a mental attitude,
2)
Inner beauty is a mental attitude that increases with each stage of spiritual
growth. The real quality that makes a woman a lady is the inner beauty that
comes from perception, metabolization, and
application of God’s Word.
3)
Overt grooming does not mean that you have inner beauty. But it does complement
the inner beauty of the Christian woman who has attained spiritual
adulthood.
4)
It is never spiritual to neglect grooming. It's not a sign of sacrifice to God,
but merely sloppy thinking from legalism.
5)
So Christianity emphasizes the inner beauty of the woman, but does not neglect
her overt grooming. See also
7)
The one who attains inner beauty, Spiritual Self-Esteem, Spiritual Autonomy, or
Spiritual Maturity has the complete admiration and respect of all. She is the
jewel of society, great in every area of life.
p. The most important question
in life has to do with thinking: “What do you think about the Christ?”
As found in Mat
1)
To be able to think, you must not only develop a vocabulary for life, but you
must come to understand the technical vocabulary of the Word of God for the
“Renovation of your thought.” You can never “prove” to yourself what the “will
of God” for your life is without renovation of thought.
2) The phrase “to have sound judgment”, SOPHRONEO, is
translated by R.B Thieme Jr. as, “but think for the
purpose of being rational without illusion.”
3) Paul reiterated having sound judgment in
4) Therefore, God’s
Word resident within the soul causes the believer to think in terms of common
sense, rational and sane Divine Viewpoint, which inserts doctrine into the
daily life and avoids living influenced by Satan’s Cosmic System.
q. You cannot think in your soul with things
that are outside of your soul. You cannot use the information in a textbook
until it has been transferred into your soul where it is useable. You have to have
information in your soul in order to be able to use it. So “keep on having this
mental attitude”, (i.e., keep on thinking this), means that you cannot think
what is in the Bible, you can only think that portion of Bible doctrine which
has been transferred to your soul. If it isn’t transferred to your soul you
cannot think it,
1)
The exhortation has always been to have the mind of Christ resident within our
souls so that we think in term of Bible Doctrine, (Divine Viewpoint) and not be
overrun in the command post of our souls.
2)
The conflict of thought in the soul is brought out here. Isaiah's reference to
the evil believer refers to those in both moral and immoral degeneracy. To
forsake either evil way means you must learn Divine Viewpoint and doctrinal
thinking.
3)
We all develop a certain habit of thinking which makes the tracks of our life.
Yet you can not forsake your way until you change your thinking: “Let the
wicked forsake his way and the unrighteous man his thoughts.”
4)
The last half of verse 7 means not
only rebound (1
5) So the whole issue is
to learn the thoughts of God through Bible Doctrine, the thoughts that are
higher and greater, the thoughts that solve the problems of life.
r. Fear is a Thought
Test of emotions in the area of a mental attitude that has worry, anxiety,
apprehension, trepidation, and despondency. Fear is an emotion that comes from
a lack of thinking under pressure. If you don't think under normal
circumstances and in prosperity, you will be filled with fear
during abnormal circum-stances
too.
1) Inevitably, fear
leads to arrogance, the narcissistic syndrome, and even to psychosis.
2) Arrogance, fear,
worry, anxiety, anger, and other emotionalism are all irrational. Irrationality
is a total contradiction to the Plan of God which manufactures invisible
heroes. Fear manufactures losers.
3) Fear cannot coexist
with the function of the Plan of God in your life. Fear is being overcome by
the problem, or becoming enmeshed in the disaster. As a result the disaster
destroys the spiritual life rather than advancing you in the spiritual life as
designed by God under Momentum Testing.
4) Believers in all
stages of spiritual growth can find themselves suddenly in the fear-panic ploy
of the Cosmic System from some sudden disaster. Every believer must be prepared
for this.
5) The solution to fear
is found in the Faith-Rest Drill which includes having
a Personal Sense of Destiny, by which the believer claims a promise to
stabilize the mind. You cannot function under the Faith-Rest Drill unless you
have spiritual strength,
6) Faith always selects
something (a promise from God, a doctrine) that is stronger than the pressure
that comes from stress brought on by fear,
s.
There are pseudo‑solutions to life's problems based on human viewpoint.
Five are prominent today.
1) Rationalization
is a pseudo- system for problem solving in thinking. It's the function of the
mentality of the soul in self-justification. This false solution blames
everyone else for your failures and your sufferings.
2) Anger
solution is the direct attack to the problems and frustrations of life.
This is solving problems by temper tantrums and being in a total state of
irresponsibility by refusing to take the responsibility for your own bad
decisions. Anger direct attack has three objectives.
a)
The satisfaction of approbation lust by focusing attention on self.
b)
The satisfaction of power lust by controlling the people in your vicinity.
c)
The gratification of inferior feelings by getting even under revenge modus
operandi.
3) Defense
mechanism is a system of mental attitude designed to divorce the believer
from reality and protect the mind against pressures that are too great for him
to bear. This is the basis for sociopathic function, drug addiction,
lasciviousness, etc.
4) Denial,
it’s not just a river in
5) Sublimation
is the human viewpoint of finding a new outlet, a hobby, a new system of
entertainment, which ultimately is a new drive for frustration. This is for the
bored believer who seeks his happiness only in social life, sexual life, and
pleasure.
t. The
Biblical answer to pseudo‑solutions related to thinking is found in
If you would like more information on
this subject,
you may listen
to lessons 10-022 and 10-023.