Why God made us like He did. God's reasons for thought testing. Part 11

Why God made us like He did. God's reasons for thought testing. Part 11.

Sunday, September 13, 2009

We have been noting the will of God that most individuals choose to resist. (ROM 9:19)
Why God allows thought testing or our thoughts to be tested.

2CO 12:10  Therefore I am well content with weaknesses [preventative suffering], with insults [slander and people testing], with distresses [a reference to pressure and thought testing], with persecutions [a reference to system testing], with difficulties [a reference to stress and disaster testing], for Christ’s sake; for when I am weak, then I am strong.

PHI 2:5, Keep on having this mental attitude in you, which was also in Christ Jesus.

HEB 5:8, Although He was a Son, He learned obedience from the things which He suffered.

Humility, which is obedience to divine authority and orientation to God’s grace, should be the system of thinking of every member of the royal family of God.

1. Rationalization is self-justification while blaming others for one’s own failures and sufferings.

GEN 3:12-13, And the man said, “The woman whom Thou gavest to be with me, she gave me from the tree, and I ate.” Then the Lord God said to the woman, “What is this you have done?” And the woman said, “The serpent deceived me, and I ate.”

GAL 6:5, For each one shall bear his own load.

1SA 15:24, Then Saul said to Samuel, “I have sinned; I have indeed transgressed the command of the Lord and your words, because I feared the people and listened to their voice.”

2. There is anger as a pseudo-solution which genuine humility avoids which attacks a problem with temper and tantrums manifested by total irresponsibility.

3. Unjustified anger ignores the problem, diverting attention instead to self, and attempting to cower people and control them with threats or violence.

4. Power lust and approbation lust are often expressed through anger, which arises from feelings of inferiority that are temporarily relieved by revenge or by injuring those who challenge one’s inflated opinion of self.

5. Defense mechanisms attempt to insulate the believer’s mind from overpowering pressures.
6. Denial ignores the problem in the blind hope that it will go away.
7. Sublimation reacts to frustration by finding a new outlet for rebellious emotions.

Most sublimation is directed into activities that are moral and normal, but which have been given a false priority above Bible doctrine and the plan of God.

1CO 10:12, Therefore let him who thinks he stands take heed lest he fall.

ROM 12:2, Stop being conformed to this age, but be transformed by the renovation of your thought, that you may prove what the will of God is, [namely] the good, the well-pleasing, and the complete.

“The renovation of [one’s] thought” is accomplished over a period of time by giving Bible doctrine number one priority, by organizing one’s life around the daily perception of the Word of God.

“The good, the well-pleasing, and the complete” is the PPOG being executed.

God has powerfully armed and amply supplied the believer to win this inner warfare against erroneous thinking.

Although divine viewpoint thinking searches out and destroys false human viewpoint, the destruction of incorrect ideas and attitudes is not the ultimate victory in thought testing.

Victory lies in possessing the true perspective, thinking with true ideas, understanding and applying true doctrines.

JOH 4:24, God is a Spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in Spirit [filling of the Holy Spirit] and in truth [knowing and thinking Bible doctrine].

Even in the Eucharist, the celebration of the Lord’s supper, the believer concentrates on Christ, remembering the doctrines that reveal His person and saving work.

Music praises God with proper thoughts in doctrinal lyrics.

Giving is a mental attitude, and the privilege of contributing to the Lord’s service is extended to believers who understand God’s grace (2CO 9:7-8)

Take plenty of time to think it over, and make up your own mind what you will give.

PSA 138:2, “I will worship toward thy holy temple, and praise thy name for thy loving kindness and for thy truth: for thou hast magnified thy word above all thy name.”

PSA 138:2, “I kneel in worship facing your holy temple and say it again: ‘Thank you!’ Thank you for your love, thank you for your faithfulness; Most holy is your name, most holy is your Word.” (MB)
PSA 138:2, ”I will worship toward Your holy temple and praise Your name for Your loving-kindness and for Your truth and faithfulness; for You have exalted above all else Your name and Your word and You have magnified Your word above all Your name!” (AMP)

As a result of victories on the battlefield of thought testing, the believer deepens his personal love for God, shares the happiness of God, and acquires inner beauty.

This inner beauty, which Paul describes as “sanity of mind” or as “stability of mind,” characterizes the believer in spiritual adulthood, (1TI 2:9-15).

Your ability to cope with life, your happiness in life, and your attractiveness in life is based upon what you think.

This indicates that after failing to learn doctrine, there will come a time when you need that doctrine and won’t be able to get it.

Part of the punishment to a client nation is the withdrawal of Bible teaching.

PHI 2:2, Make my happiness complete, that you may be thinking the same having the same love.

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. You can’t forsake your way until you change your thinking: “the unrighteous his thoughts.”

Speaking during the forth cycle of discipline, Isaiah made it clear that the people did not have divine viewpoint.

PSA 26:2, “Examine me, O Lord, and try me; Test my mind and my heart.”

In DEU 8:2 the Lord led His people in the wilderness or desert for forty years (representing their generation) that He might humble them, testing them to know what was in their heart, whether they would keep His doctrines or not.

False doctrine is a means of testing our thoughts,
DEU 13:3, you shall not listen to the words of that prophet or that dreamer of dreams; for the Lord your God is testing you to find out if you love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul.

2CH 32:31, God left Hezekiah alone only to test him, that He might know all that was in his heart.