Robert McLaughlin Bible Ministries
The secret of the mystery, part 163. How to handle people testing with your portfolio of invisible assets, part 2.
Friday, November 17, 2006
1. The old sin nature test.
2. Cosmic #1 test.
3. Cosmic #2 test.
4. Disaster testing.
5. People testing.
6. System testing.
7. Thought testing.
8. Prosperity testing.
1) In personal love or admiration, the object of your love often controls your life or provides for you unhappiness, unless you have attained spiritual self-esteem, spiritual autonomy, or spiritual maturity.
2) In personal hatred or animosity, the object of your antagonism or irritation often has control of your life or happiness, unless you have advanced to spiritual adulthood.
In these verses, love is described as something that is not so much theoretical as it is practical.
It is not touchy, with a temper barely hidden beneath the surface of a respectable facade, just waiting for an offense, real or imagined, in which to take resentment.
Provoked - paroxuno = to arouse and provoke to wrath, to irritate, to make angry.
Anger is not only a sin but it is emotion out of control.
Its stance in the presence of genuine evil precludes such accounting; for at a very deep level, love cannot bear to be critical, faultfinding, or hypocritical.
This type of love will cause you to give up resentment, excuse a guilty party, release others from payment, forget an offense, never bringing it up again, not even to discuss it.
Like the fake self-righteousness that affects moral indignation in the face of lasciviousness but secretly enjoys it when others are not looking.
Love will join with others in rejoicing over the truth.
Bears all things - stegei = to cover with silence, to put a roof over something or someone; it keeps all things confidential.
If things that you “hear” and things that you “see” shock you, don’t blame the things that you hear or the things that you see - blame yourself.
“Believes all things” - not that it is gullible, but it prefers to be generous in its openmindedness and acceptance rather than suspicious or cynical.
LUK 7:47 “For this reason I say to you, her sins, which are many, have been forgiven, for she loved much; but he who is forgiven little, loves little.”
As believers, we must have an unlimited attitude of forgiveness, not an “I’ll give you one more chance” attitude, but an unlimited attitude.
Some of life’s most significant lessons are learned in a schoolroom of pain and suffering.
For the believer in training, pain is a continued teacher.
True servants of God are givers, forgivers, and forgetters.
His question is a simple one: what are the limits to forgiveness?
Throughout life, you will have an infinite number of occasions to apply forgiveness.
Since it’s an infinite number of times, you need to have an infinite capacity to forgive.
Because to forgive someone up to 7 times means that you must keep count.
Aphiemi = to completely cancel, to send something away without even discussing it, never bringing it up again.
What Peter did in suggesting a limit to our forgiveness was to imply the notion that a man in forgiving gave up a right which he might under certain circumstances exercise.
When God calls on a member of his kingdom to forgive, He is not calling on him to renounce or give up a right, but in reality he has no right in the matter at all.
Fails -pres-act-ind - ekpipto = it never quits; it never becomes inefficient; it never loses.
Virtue-love endures or perseveres.
When the evidence is adverse, love hopes for the best.
When hopes are repeatedly disappointed, virtue-love still courageously waits.
The presence of such love is an infallible test of the Spirit’s presence.
JOH 13:35 “By this all men will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another.”
Since happiness is the monopoly of God and His plan, you cannot depend upon people or circumstances for your happiness.
If you surrender your happiness to someone else, you will blame that person for everything that goes wrong in your life.
When you blame them for your unhappiness, which is produced by your own volition, you have intensified the suffering in your life under the law of volitional responsibility.
As the believer grows spiritually in the PPOG, he becomes aware of this pattern, rebounds quickly, and any suffering left over he can scoop up for blessing, and he moves on!
Believers in spiritual childhood do not have personal love for God or impersonal love for all mankind.
With the attainment of spiritual autonomy through spiritual self-esteem plus providential preventative suffering, you begin to peak out in the use of virtue-love as a problem-solving device.
The influence of those whom you love can be detrimental and distracting unless you advance to spiritual self-esteem and spiritual autonomy.
You make your own decisions in your choice of friends and loved ones. But thereafter, they begin to make all the decisions for you unless you have the function of impersonal love.
1CO 15:33 “Be not deceived, evil companions corrupt good morals” - We create evil companions, by being intimate with those who distract us from Bible doctrine, by allowing them to control our life and happiness.
2TH 3:14 “If anyone does not obey our doctrine through this letter, take special note of that person and do not associate with them.”
JER 17:5-8 “Cursed is the man who puts his trust in mankind; and makes flesh his strength; and whose heart turns away from the Lord.”
PRO 9:7-12 - in spiritual self-esteem you mind your own business and yet are friendly and intimate with others.
PRO 10:12 - “Virtue-love covers all wrongs”
No one really becomes spiritually mature until his relationships are all handled by impersonal love from spiritual autonomy.
Impersonal love is the sum total of the believer’s honor, integrity, and objectivity first acquired in attainment of spiritual self-esteem, but becomes strong in spiritual autonomy.
Cosmic evangelistic appeal is generally based on some form of arrogance, which may be disguised in the form of flattery, intellectuality, affection, or even passion.
The moral cosmic evangelist is affectionate without being passionate, and with affection lures you into the cosmic system.
The immoral cosmic believer is passionate without being affectionate, and with passion lures you into the cosmic system.
6. System Testing. A system is an organization composed of people under the command of other people functioning under a policy which is designed to fulfill a specific objective.
Because no one is perfect and because everyone has an old sin nature, personality, policy, and purpose conflicts will inevitably exist.
(1) The authority may give unfair and unjust treatment, as from management, the boss, supervisor, senior officer, coach, professor, government bureaucrat, husband, parents, etc.
(2) The policy may be unreasonable, or may conflict with normal living or with your own personal norms and standards, or it may be a stupid though still enforceable policy.
(3) The objectives may be unreasonable or even impossible because of lack of ability in the personnel trying to fulfill them.
The motivation for the believer in spiritual autonomy is always his personal love for God, occupation with Christ.
A person who uses spiritual autonomy and occupation with Christ as a problem-solving device, with the attitude of doing his job as unto the Lord, will do a good job regardless of any unfair treatment or injustice in the system.
The first leadership principle in life: Leadership can never afford bitterness.
One of the ways to flunk system testing is to butter up the boss, so that you receive special treatment.
“Virtue of right lobe” = motivational virtue of personal love for God and functional virtue of impersonal love for all mankind.
“Respecting the Lord” is how you will pass system testing.
You must understand how the law of volitional responsibility not only applies to you, but to others, so that you do not interfere in others’ lives.
When you are the victim of system testing, you must use spiritual autonomy and occupation with Christ to meet and pass the test.
How you handle unfair situations determines whether you are ever going to get to maturity or not.
Flunking system testing often results in you becoming a part of motivational evil and mental attitude sins.
As soon as you react and go over your boss’ head, you lose your case in the supreme court of heaven.
Example: Joseph did a good job until he reacted and told the Egyptian aristocrat to remember him when he got out of prison.
There is no such thing as an injustice that will not be rectified for your benefit provided you do not react.
1. Spiritual autonomy has the power to accept authority in a system without becoming arrogant, bitter, disturbed, or upset.
2. Spiritual autonomy has the power to handle unjust or unfair treatment or any authority problems.
3. Spiritual autonomy carries out the policy of management without becoming discouraged, conspiratorial, or antagonistic.
4. Spiritual autonomy fulfills the objectives of the organization, no matter how incompetent, insufficient, or unreasonable others in the organization may be.
5. Spiritual autonomy and occupation with Christ always does the best possible job regardless of unfair treatment, unjust criticism, or even any form of job discrimination.
When the believer in spiritual autonomy and occupation with Christ is the victim of unfair leadership or unjust management or a rotten system, he deals with all the personality conflicts from his impersonal love.
Spiritual self-esteem plus providential preventative suffering equals spiritual autonomy, the second stage of spiritual adulthood.
Your persistence in positive volition is tested again by momentum testing.
Spiritual autonomy can pass all four of the momentum tests: people, system, thought, and disaster testing.
In spiritual maturity, your perseverance in positive volition toward doctrine is tested by evidence testing, the highest honor God can bestow on a believer in this life.
Spiritual maturity plus evidence testing results in maximum glorification of God in the historical extension of the angelic conflict.
This first and most important of secondary assets is “how” your volition functions - not occasionally, but daily.
Because you have made positive volitional decisions and God knew that you would, then there are certain benefits which God has ordained to take place in your life.
PRO 2:10-13 - good decisions always result from metabolized doctrine, called chakmah or wisdom (Greek - epignosis).
Because you have made positive volitional decisions, and God knew that you would, then there are certain benefits which God has ordained to take place in your life.
They are "volitional assets" related to your positive volition toward doctrine and your volition related to your priorities in life.