Satan traffics in a thinking
process/pattern whereby the Believer walks under a performance system, relying
on his own energy, his own flesh, his own ideas on how to accomplish his goals.
“It’s in direct opposition to being
spiritually minded; that is, someone who fully understands his own bankruptcy
and is trusting and walking in the grace and love of God to us in Christ, and
that’s where his confidence is,” explains Jordan.
“That’s the man who’s just relaxed
and goes, ‘Ahhhh.’ He took a deep breath and just relaxed in the love and grace
of God to him in Christ. In spite of his failures, in spite of his inabilities,
in spite of his performances and his good works. Just, ‘Man!’ and settled down.
It’s a thinking process.”
“I’ve said to you many times, when
you get saved and put into Christ, you’re complete in Christ; there’s no more
God’s ever going to give you. At that moment, God gave you everything you’re
ever going to have.
“The issue from that moment onward
is not to get more complete; the issue is GROWTH and edification. That’s the
ONLY issue. You’re not getting more of God’s righteousness; it’s just
understanding how to use what God gave you. It’s an education process; a
renewing-of-your-mind process.
“Can I say to you, the WHOLE issue
in the Christian life is growth. You’re not trying to gain any more. You’ve already arrived. You start
at the top. You’re not at the bottom of the ladder trying to climb higher to
God by doing various works and activities, or by stopping doing some things.
“You start out blessed with all
spiritual blessings and the whole issue is to learn all that God has given you
already and to let those things be what fills up your life. Focus on those
things so those things live in and through your life.
*****
“In that process toward manhood,
there is a problem along the way when a person who doesn’t grow and doesn’t
follow the edification process the Holy Spirit uses, that’s called
carnality. We call that, based on Ephesians 4, ‘reversionism.’ That is,
reverting back to acting like you’ve never been saved.
“What happens in the functioning of
that individual is that they literally function as though they weren’t saved.
I’m not talking so much about the activities that they carry on, or what you
look and see; I’m talking about the way their inner man operates.
*****
“Your soul has a storage chamber, a
place where information is stored, and what happened when you were unsaved is
human viewpoint was taken in and you decided some of it would be what you
wanted to live by and you stored it in your soul. When you get saved,
those files are still there. What you’re to do is jettison these ideas by
taking in sound doctrine.
“Now, if you don’t get the Word of
God rightly divided in, you see what kind of problem you’re going to have to
start with? Garbage in, garbage out. ‘To be scriptural but not
dispensational,’ to quote verses for what you’re doing but those verses not be
rightly divided, is MORE dangerous than just to have your own idea.
"Because having your own idea is only your idea. To take God’s Word and pervert it, look at Proverbs 13:13 (and you’ve always got to watch out for 13 and two 13s means it’s going to be a real ‘good’ verse!): [13] Whoso despiseth the word shall be destroyed: but he that feareth the commandment shall be rewarded.
“You need to remember that verse.
We’re going to see that verse again in a minute in Ephesians 4 about those
people giving themselves over to lasciviousness to work all uncleanness with
greediness. Just destroying themselves. Why? Because they despised the Book.
“You take
that Book and mishandle it like that and you’re just bringing death into the
pot. That’s the most dangerous thing—where you think you’re right, you think
you’re doing God’s service, but you’re messing the thing up.
“The
edification of most Believers never gets started because they never get here. What they
take in is denominational doctrine. We know that because we’ve all been there,
or most of us have.
*****
“When your will says, ‘I’ll believe
that,’ it transfers that information down into your soul and you’re designed to
build up that doctrine. There is a specifically established FORM of sound
w-o-r-d-s. It’s a design, a particular edifice of doctrine, so that you become
oriented to grace. Not the ‘law system,’ but God’s grace system.
“As you do that, you grow to the
place where you function on the basis of grace. That’s when the doctrine works
its way out of you, through your body, and the life of Jesus Christ that is
manifest through the Word of Christ dwelling in you is manifested in you and He
lives out through you on a daily basis.
“The problem is when it doesn’t
work that way, there’s a process in Ephesians 4 where the guy’s got this big
blockage up here (in his mind) and he doesn’t want the Word of God down there
(in his soul). All he wants is human viewpoint and religious tradition and the
ways of men. ‘[12] There is a way which seemeth right
unto a man, but the end thereof are the ways of death.
“The fact is the Believer can walk
in the vanity of their mind, becoming vain in their imaginations, and Paul’s
saying, ‘Don’t do this!’ He wouldn’t tell you not to if you couldn’t do it. He
warns, ‘Don’t walk with this worthless, vain, empty mind because an empty mind
is like an open garbage can; somebody’s going to throw something into it.”
No comments:
Post a Comment