Lesson for April 28, 2024
The Power of Thought
Lesson 7
II Peter 3:17-18, “Therefore, [let me warn you] beloved, knowing these things beforehand, be on your guard so that you are not carried away by the error of unprincipled men [who distort doctrine] and fall from your own steadfastness [of mind, knowledge, truth, and faith], but grow [spiritually mature] in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. To Him be glory (honor, majesty, splendor), both now and to the day of eternity. Amen.”
Knowing the final chapter of human history before it occurs should cause a person to evaluate the path they are currently on spiritually. Guard is a military word for protecting something or having custody of something. Peter was saying to guard the accurate doctrine in your soul against false doctrine. You must take control of your own spiritual life.
Unprincipled men refers to false teachers who lead the unsuspecting astray. The result of following false teaching is instability leading to reversionism. Some believers start growing spiritually but quickly move away from it. They hurt themselves spiritually by not continuing their spiritual advance by residing in God’s power system. Whatever doctrine they have accumulated in their souls will eventually be destroyed.
The solution to this problem is continual spiritual growth. Spiritual growth is always based on God’s grace. It is God the Holy Spirit Who teaches us. What He teaches, as stated by Jesus in the Gospels, is truth. Therefore, we grow by means of God’s grace as we increase our knowledge of Jesus Christ. A believer increases their knowledge of Jesus Christ by having the thinking (mind) of Christ. Bible doctrine is the thinking (mind) of Christ. Problem-solving device number ten is occupation with the Person of Jesus Christ. And Peter said it is Jesus Christ alone Who deserves all the glory both now and for all eternity.
Occupation with the Person of Christ means that we are fully aware of Christ in every area of our lives and that we are staying in fellowship with Him a maximum amount of time. It means that we are thinking divine viewpoint based on our knowledge of His Word.
We should have no higher goal in life than to bring honor and glory to Jesus Christ in our thoughts, in our attitudes, in our words, and in our actions. (II Corinthians 10:5) It means that our minds are saturated with the Word of God. (I Corinthians 2:16)
You become occupied with Christ when you obey the same mandates that He obeyed, concentrate on what He concentrated on (Divine Viewpoint Thinking), make positive decisions from a position of strength as He did, and use the Problem-Solving Devices constantly, as He did. Christ is our perfect role model for the execution of the Christian Way of Life.
Peter tells us that there is no such thing as a failure for which grace has not provided a solution. One of the great things that we see in II Peter is the fact that grace has been provided for every failure of life, and that no matter what it is, and no matter what the consequences may have been in divine discipline, there is no such thing as a failure for which grace has not made provision. So, there is no such thing as a believer who cannot recover. The reason that some believers do not recover is the fact that they fail to add the intake and application of Bible doctrine after Rebound. Taking in Bible doctrine daily is going to “take up the slack” for anything in life, when properly applied. There is no problem in life for which the knowledge of doctrine will not bring you to the solution.
Peter concluded his letter with a look at future events, setting up the potential for believers to be equipped with a personal sense of destiny. What greater way to head off discouragement than to understand your place in God’s eternal plan and what He has planned for your eternal happiness? A personal sense of destiny is one of the greatest changes in the Christian life. It is the advance from spiritual childhood to spiritual adulthood where believers become fully able to take control of their spiritual life.
With a personal sense of destiny comes a phenomenal mental attitude, reflected in a number of passages in the Word of God. Ephesians 4:22-24, “With reference to your former lifestyle [as a loser believer] you yourself lay aside the old man which is being corrupted on the basis of the lusts of deceit and become renewed [refreshed] by means of the [Holy] Spirit by means of your thinking, and clothe yourselves with the new man which on the basis of the will of God has been created by means of righteousness and holiness toward God from doctrine.”
The greatest change in the viewpoint of life of any believer comes when that believer has finally attained a personal sense of destiny. A personal sense of destiny is a new way of objective thinking. The life of every believer has to do with how they think. Divine viewpoint is a grace provision from the omnipotence of God for fulfilling His plan. God’s power resides within us, but we must tap into it by means of application of Bible doctrine. Ephesians 1:19-20, “And what is the surpassing greatness of the power given to us who have believed for the delegation of His superior power which He put into operation by means of Christ, when He raised Him from the dead, and seated Him at His right hand in the heavenly places.”
Your spiritual life is what you are thinking, not what you are doing. The Bible doctrine circulating in your stream of consciousness is the delegated power from God to you. The delegated power of God is the mental attitude of divine viewpoint through the proper application of accurate Bible doctrine. II Timothy 1:7, “For God has not given us a spirit of timidity, but of power and love and discipline.”
Romans 12:2-3, “Stop being conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renovation of your thought, that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is divine production, the well pleasing to God, and the mature status quo. For I say through the grace which has been given to me to everyone who is among you stop thinking of self in terms of arrogance beyond what point you ought to think; but think in terms of sanity for the purpose of being rational without illusion, as God has assigned to each one of us a standard of thinking from doctrine.”
Being conformed to this world means no usable doctrine in the soul, no Problem- Solving Devices to call upon, no Divine Viewpoint Thinking, and no spiritual life. A personal sense of destiny is key to the change from human viewpoint to divine viewpoint. A personal sense of destiny is the problem-solving device that advances us from spiritual childhood to spiritual adulthood. Your spiritual life is not your interaction with people but your interaction with God based on what and how you think. Your viewpoint of life is based on your emphasis in life, and you have a choice of whose viewpoint you will think – Satan’s world system or God’s.
Philippians 2:5, “Keep on having this mental attitude in you which was also in Christ Jesus.” The nature of Christ’s spiritual life was His mental attitude, His thinking. Your spiritual life is your thinking (your mental attitude); it is made up of words. Speech and action are expressions of your thinking. Therefore, what you say and do is what you think. Thinking and speaking are reflections of your priorities in life.
Colossians 3:2, “Set your minds on the things that are above (divine viewpoint), not on the things that are on earth (human viewpoint).” The more Bible doctrine you learn, the more you will think about God and His Word. A personal sense of destiny and occupation with Christ combine to form a most fantastic life, because you are now having fellowship with God on a consistent basis. Part of your spiritual life is personal love for God, impersonal love for all mankind, and the ability to evaluate your own life using the Bible doctrine in your soul and making corrections as needed along the way.