Lesson for October 15, 2023
The Battle for Your Soul
Lesson 2
The Stream of Consciousness – Part 1
Who you are in your soul is who you are, not your body. You have some control over the genetic structure of your body, but you have great control over your soul. You have volition and freedom to make decisions. True happiness is not in what happens to your body; true happiness happens in your soul. God created your soul and imputed it to your body at the moment you were born, creating human life. The real you is who you are in your soul.
God has provided a system of learning Bible doctrine that is equal for all believers who want to know truth. This is why He provided the filling of the Holy Spirit at the moment of salvation. The filling of the Holy Spirit is God the Holy Spirit controlling our soul. The filling of the Spirit takes human I.Q. with all its inequalities and converts it into spiritual I.Q. Spiritual I.Q. gives everyone the same equal opportunity for learning and applying Bible doctrine for living our spiritual life.
The Holy Spirit teaches our human spirit, so that we have a system of perception that completely overcomes any handicaps, regardless of I.Q. The result is spiritual information being understood. It’s positive volition toward the teaching of Bible doctrine that causes a believer to want to understand God’s Word. Your positive volition and faith perception then allows God the Holy Spirit to transfer spiritual information to your soul as full spiritual knowledge. The right lobe of your soul is called “the heart” in Scripture. Just as the physical heart circulates blood in the body, the right lobe of the soul circulates Bible doctrine in the stream of consciousness. The spiritual life is a system of thinking. That system of thinking is Bible doctrine circulating in your stream of consciousness. The greatest thing that God ever gave us is the capability for thought and the capability of making decisions from that thought.
When you fail to maintain the Bible doctrine you have learned because of negative volition or neglect, Human Viewpoint Thinking begins to destroy Divine Viewpoint Thinking. Human viewpoint is a result of abandoning doctrine and divine viewpoint is developed through the accurate teaching of Bible doctrine.
We must know when to use defensive action and when to use offensive action in the Christian life. Offensive action is the execution of the Protocol Plan of God (living your spiritual life). Defensive action is standing your ground through the knowledge of accurate Bible doctrine you have stored in your soul.
Offensive action is related to divine production, which means using the Problem-Solving Devices, your Portfolio of Invisible Assets, and the Protocol Plan of God to win daily victories. I Peter 5:5-9, “You younger believers, likewise, be subordinate to the authority of your elders [pastors]; clothe yourselves with humility toward each other because God makes war against the arrogant [believer] but He gives grace to the humble [believer]. Therefore, humble yourselves under the powerful hand of God, in order that He may promote you in the proper time, casting all your anxiety [cares, worry, fear] on Him because He cares for you. Attain spiritual self-esteem, be alert. Your enemy, the devil, prowls about like a roaring lion, looking for someone to devour. Stand your ground against him, strong in doctrine, because you know that your fellow-believers throughout the world are experiencing the same category of suffering.”
Since a believer’s soul is the battleground, a defense system (FLOT line) needs to be formed through the storage of Bible doctrine in our soul. Believers should never attempt to take offensive action against Satan or demons by becoming involved in demon confrontation, so-called exorcism, or activities related to demonism. This is Christian activism and is the quintessence of legalistic arrogance, thinking that human power is greater than satanic power. The only way a demon-possessed person can be set free from demon possession is to believe in Jesus Christ as their Savior.
A believer has no human power that is comparable to demonic power. Therefore, believers must utilize divine power to combat satanic attacks. The two divine power options are the Word of God (Bible doctrine) and the filling of the Holy Spirit. It is this supernatural power that becomes the offensive system for doing battle with Satan and his world system.
Without the power and guidance of the Holy Spirit there is no spiritual life for Church Age believers. The mentorship of the Holy Spirit is necessary for the teaching and understanding of doctrine and the recall and application of that doctrine.
Ephesians 6:13, “Therefore, take up the full armor of God, so that you will be able to resist in the evil day, and having done everything, to stand firm.” The evil day for us is when Satan and his world system are attacking our minds. Taking up the full armor of God is the means of taking offensive action against Satan and his evil tactics. Satan is attempting to get us off track spiritually so that we cannot fulfill God’s plan for our lives. However, none of us have an excuse when it comes to fulfilling God’s plan for our lives. Bible doctrine creates a mirror in our soul. This is where we make objective, accurate self-evaluation. We were designed by God to counsel ourselves, using the doctrine stored in our souls. Counseling is depending on someone else for solutions to our problems, but we are supposed to be depending on the Word of God. Our stream of consciousness consists of seven areas related to the battle for control of our soul:
A Frame of Reference
A frame of reference is defined as the structure in the soul in which doctrine, principles, and categories of Scripture are like pieces of a puzzle and are placed in their proper places to form the spiritual life. I Corinthians 2:9-10 describes a frame of reference, “But just as it stands written, `Things which the eye has not seen, and the ear has not heard, and which have not entered the heart of mankind, all that God has prepared for those who love Him.’ But God has revealed them to us through the Spirit; for the Spirit searches all things, even the deep things from God.” The heart is a metaphor for a compartment of the soul. Just as the heart circulates blood in the body, the stream of consciousness circulates Bible doctrine in the soul. A frame of reference is the area for retention of accurate Bible doctrine. A frame of reference is information being put into its proper area and correlated with all other doctrines you have previously learned and stored in your soul.
The Memory Center
The memory center is the area in your soul for recall of the doctrine. A principle related to the memory center is that the rate of learning must always exceed the rate of forgetting. When the rate of learning is greater than the rate of forgetting, the total quantity of Bible doctrine increases. When the rate of forgetting is greater than the rate of learning, then the total quantity of Bible doctrine in your soul decreases. Very few of us hear doctrine once and recall it when we need it. Psalm 119:6, “I delight in doctrine; I will not forget Your word.”
Vocabulary Storage
You can never think beyond your vocabulary. The vocabulary of Bible doctrine is of utmost importance. Vocabulary is a system of memory. Only when Bible doctrine is circulating in our souls through the teaching ministry of God the Holy Spirit do we have the power of the Word of God for instant use in our life. If our soul is not filled with accurate Bible doctrine, it is filled with satanic doctrine.
Vocabulary storage is a dictionary in a believer’s soul. It is the location of all technical theological classifications, biblical metaphors, and teaching aids (like acronyms or terms) through which Bible doctrine is classified and categorized. You must learn such vocabulary as Rebound, Faith-Rest, Dispensations, Hypostatic Union, Protocol Plan of God, Portfolio of Invisible Assets, Substitutionary Spiritual Death, Common Grace, Efficacious Grace, Election, Predestination, the Baptism of the Holy Spirit, etc.
After salvation, we are spiritual babies and must learn a vocabulary with which to think, to express, and to use Bible doctrine. There is a direct analogy to how we learn vocabulary as a human child and as a spiritual child. You cannot think without vocabulary. The absolute truth of Bible doctrine becomes spiritual thinking composed of words. (Deuteronomy 8:3; Mattheew 4:4)
The Categorical Storage
Categorical storage is the classification of Bible doctrine according to its subject matter. By comparing Scripture to Scripture, biblical subjects are brought together into divisions of doctrine, formed for the purpose of classification and use.
A vocabulary of accurate Bible doctrine is absolutely essential for understanding and applying the mechanics of the spiritual life. Categorical storage is also absolutely essential for accurately handling the interpretation of the Word of God, as in doctrines such as salvation by faith alone in Christ alone, eternal life, eternal security, sanctification, logistical grace support, the Problem-Solving Devices, spirituality, the Christian life, Heaven, etc. (II Timothy 2:15; Proverbs 2:2,10; 18:15)
