Robert McLaughlin Bible Ministries
How to handle the unseen with our portfolio of invisible assets. Pastor Joe Sugrue.
Friday, November 24, 2006
Thought testing or thought conflict has been our subject.
The greatest battles in history are not overt battlefields where men die, the greatest battlefield is what takes place in your soul.
The life of every believer is determined experientially by two principles: What he thinks and what he decides.
Divine viewpoint mental attitude is part of the greatest delegation of divine power in human history.
Believers in TLJC have failed in the dynamic of the divine viewpoint of life.
MIC 4:12 “But they do not know the thoughts of the Lord, And they do not understand His purpose;”
ROM 12:2 “And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind,”
Satan has so many distractions today to deaden thinking so that born again believers become mindless imbeciles, struggling through life looking for some emotional experience to pull them through.
Whereas God has delegated to every church-age believer all of the power to handle any problems or difficulties in this life.
LUK 12:37 “Blessed are those slaves whom the master shall find on the alert when He comes;”
ACT 20:31 “Therefore be on the alert, remembering that night and day for a period of three years I did not cease to admonish each one with tears.”
1CO 16:13 “Be on the alert, stand firm in the faith, act like men, be strong.”
COL 4:2 “Devote yourselves to prayer, keeping alert in it with an attitude of thanksgiving;”
1TH 5:6 “So then let us not sleep as others do, but let us be alert and sober.”
1PE 5:8 “Be of sound mind, be on the alert. Your adversary, the devil, prowls about like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour.”
The average believer does not know anything about God’s superior power or how God has delegated it to us through thought.
This delegation of divine power depends on perception, metabolization and application of Bible doctrine.
The delegation of superior power comes in the form of thinking metabolized doctrine circulating in the right lobe of the heart called the kardia in the Greek.
People can hide their thoughts and become masterful at the practice of hypocrisy.
PRO 23:7 “For as a person thinks within himself [nephesh = soul], so he is.”
Concentration is matter of your priorities in life.
If Bible doctrine is your number priority then you will be motivated from your own soul.
Bible doctrine is the thinking or the mind of Christ,
1CO 2:16 “For who has known the thinking of the Lord that he should instruct Him, but we have the mind of Christ [the mystery doctrine of the Church Age].”
The delegation of divine power to every Church Age believer is Bible doctrine metabolized and deployed on the FLOT line of your soul.
(A) The content of thought–Bible doctrine with emphasis on the mystery doctrine of the Church Age.
(B) The communication of this thought through the spiritual gift of pastor-teacher.
(C) The delegation of divine power includes the concentration of the believer on doctrine as it is being taught.
You have your own spiritual life and must be motivated from your own spiritual life.
(a) It reflects the values in your life.
(b) It reflects your motivation in life.
(c) It reflects your mental attitude in life.
(d) It reflects your spiritual status quo in life.
Whether it’s concentration on doctrine, concentration during the communion service or concentration in prayer, it’s all a part of the same thing…..thinking, thinking, thinking!
Worship = proskuneo
to kiss, like a dog licking his master’s hand.
PSA 2:12 “Kiss the Son lest He be angry.” (NIV)
Proskuneo also means to prostrate oneself in homage or to do reverence to, to adore.
A thought (or lack of thought) can make or break you at any given moment, depending on whether your thought is human viewpoint or divine viewpoint.
1CO 10:12 “Therefore let him who thinks he stands take heed lest he fall.”
GAL 6:3 “For if anyone thinks he is something when he is nothing, he deceives himself.”
Thinking is either the application of doctrine to life or the application of arrogance and ignorance, which is human viewpoint.
Sloppy thinking gets worse over time.
For many believers to think too long about doing a thing, often becomes its undoing.
a. Divine viewpoint from the Bible doctrine in your soul.
b. Human viewpoint from living in the cosmic system and functioning under Satan’s policy of good and evil.
Once you get into the cosmic system and reversionism, the arrogance skills hinder the function of divine viewpoint.
JAM 4:6 But He gives a greater grace. Therefore it says, “God is opposed to the proud, but gives grace to the humble.”