Lesson for July 30, 2023
The Doctrine of a Personal Sense of Destiny
Lesson 5
What your spiritual life consists of is totally up to you. Every believer must take the responsibility for all their decisions, good or bad. You are responsible for the values you establish after salvation. The spiritual life functions with divine power only, which comes from staying in fellowship with God and being filled with the Holy Spirit, as a result. This means you must allow the Holy Spirit to develop within you a personal sense of destiny.
Human power is often erroneously thought to be the same as divine power, which it is not. Human success is great when a believer is living their spiritual life because they recognize the source of that success and are thankful for it. Not living the spiritual life has a tendency to produce a false sense of destiny based on the idea that a person will continue to succeed from their own ability and talent without the help of God. Human success for an advancing believer is a matter of God’s grace.
Human solutions are no solutions. (II Corinthians 12:10; Philippians 3:18-19) Many believers, through the function of the arrogant skills, through inordinate ambition and competition, distract themselves from the spiritual life through their lust for power, success, fame, etc. There is nothing wrong with being famous or successful as an extension of the spiritual life. But when you desire, you lust, or you are driven to become famous or successful, it keeps you from the teaching of the Word of God.
There is no substitute for using the two power options: the filling of the Spirit and accurate Bible doctrine to develop a personal sense of destiny. The filling of the Spirit is the teacher of the Word of God and the power of the spiritual life. Without the filling of the Spirit everything is false, hypocritical, pseudo-spirituality, legalism, and/or failure. Paul understood his personal sense of destiny as a motivational factor in his life. Philippians 3:7-8, “But whatever things were gain to me, these things I have counted as loss because of Christ.More than that, I count all things to be loss in view of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them mere rubbish, so that I may gain Christ.”
Paul came into Christianity recognizing the fact that he was the worst sinner who ever lived and had a great deal to overcome. In Arabia, Paul had received the doctrine that gave him a personal sense of destiny. He knew that to live your life as a believer without any regard for the eternal state was a great disaster. Paul’s personal sense of destiny is described in Philippians 1:21, “For to me, to live is Christ, and to die is gain!”
I count all things to be loss. Here’s what was lost to Paul, as a result of believing in Jesus Christ. Based on human standards, Paul was very successful as a Pharisee. He was a young, up and coming star. He proved his commitment to the Jewish religion by persecuting and killing Christians. Philippians 3:4-6, “Although I myself could boast as having confidence even in the flesh. If anyone else thinks he is confident in the flesh, I have more reason:circumcised the eighth day, of the nation of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews; as to the Law, a Pharisee;as to zeal, a persecutor of the church; as to the righteousness which is in the Law, found blameless.”
Once Paul became a believer, He realized the magnitude of his blindness and understood the consequences of his actions of rejecting Jesus Christ as the Savior.
The Jewish religion offered no personal sense of destiny for Paul, since eternal life was based on good works, and no one could be certain they would go to Heaven until God weighed the good deeds against the bad deeds. I Timothy 1:15, “It is a trustworthy statement, deserving full acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, among whom I am foremost (the worst).”
The ultimate objective of a personal sense of destiny is the fulfillment of Philippians 3:9-11,“And may be found in Him, not having a righteousness of my own derived from the Law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which comes from God on the basis of faith,that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death;if somehow I may attain to the resurrection from the dead.”
There is no greater demonstration of grace than positional sanctification at salvation (found in Him)through the ministry of God the Holy Spirit. Sanctification is the Greek word “hagiasmos” and means “separation unto God” or “to be set apart to God.” It is the same word used for “saint” and “holy.”
Positional sanctification is our standing before God. God the Holy Spirit places us into union with Jesus Christ at salvation and we receive His righteousness as a result. (II Corinthians 5:21) This was accomplished by the baptism of the Holy Spirit. (I Corinthians 12:13) We have been separated unto God by our faith in Jesus Christ. Our position in Christ sets up the potential for us to fulfill the Christian Way of Life (experiential sanctification). This cannot be accomplished through self-righteousness. Mankind’s righteousness falls well short of God’s righteousness, both positionally for salvation and experientially after salvation.
Man’s concept of righteousness is relative. For example, one person may think that his sin is not as bad as the next person’s sin. The Bible declares that “there is none righteous” and that “mankind’s righteousness is as filthy rags.” (Romans 3:23; Isaiah 64:6) Because of the lack of absolute righteousness, mankind cannot enter Heaven (a holy place) based on their own righteousness. Therefore, we need God’s righteousness in order to live forever with Him.
Jesus Christ suffered in His humanity. He fully understood God’s plan involved intense suffering, physically, mentally, and spiritually. Knowing this, He was still willing to die for our sins. I Peter 4:1 says, “Therefore, since Christ has suffered in the flesh, arm yourselves also with the same purpose.”
In order that I may attain to the resurrection from the dead means that Paul wanted to advance as far as he could into maximum spiritual maturity (attain to) before he died or before the Rapture of the Church occurred. The Greek word for attain is “exanastasis,” which means to reach or to arrive at.
Arm yourselves also with the same purpose means to arm ourselves with the same mental attitude as Christ had when He was suffering. The Word of God is the mind of Christ and there can be no orientation to suffering apart from Divine Viewpoint Thinking. When you are armed with the mind of Christ, then the suffering that comes your way will not be due to sin in your life. When we are under the power and guidance of the Holy Spirit, and thinking divine viewpoint, any suffering that comes our way is undeserved and is for our benefit and blessing. Undeserved suffering also glorifies God when we handle it properly.
As believers, we have the potential of being conformed to the death of Christ and conformed to the resurrection of Christ. Romans 6:4,10-13 in corrected translation, “We are placed in union with Jesus Christ by means of the baptism of God the Holy Spirit, identifying us with His death. And just like Christ was raised from the dead by God the Father, even so we should live our Christian lives as new creations in Christ. For Christ died for sin once, but now He is alive and seated at the right hand of God. In the same manner, we are to consider ourselves to be dead unto sin and alive unto God by means of our faith in Jesus Christ. Therefore, because we are in union with Jesus Christ, we are not to let the lust pattern of our sin nature control us. Neither should we allow our sin nature to use our body as an instrument of “unrighteous acts,” but rather allow God the Holy Spirit to fully influence our thoughts, which will produce “righteous acts.” Make your life align with who you really are as Royal Family of God, which will be in keeping with the fact that you have been made spiritually alive by faith in Jesus Christ.”
Being conformed to His death is positional truth based on our union with Jesus Christ. No human being has ever suffered or will ever suffer the way Christ did on the Cross. The spiritual and physical suffering of the Cross were above and beyond anything we will ever experience. So, the only way we could possibly be conformed to His death is based on the baptism of the Holy Spirt placing us into union with Christ at salvation.
Spiritual growth should never cease in the life of a believer. No one (including Paul) has reached the maximum in spiritual maturity, except Jesus Christ in His humanity. Philippians 3:13-16, “Brothers and sisters, I do not regard myself as having taken hold of it yet (maximum spiritual maturity); but one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and reaching forward to what lies ahead,I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus (rewards at the Judgment Seat f Christ).Therefore, all who are (spiritually) mature, let’s have this attitude (continuing to grow spiritually); and if in anything you have a different attitude, God will reveal that to you as well;however, let’s keep living by that same standard to which we have attained.”