Lesson for February 11, 2018
The Doctrine of Spirituality vs. Carnality
The Divine Dynasphere, Lesson #4
Gate 7: Momentum Testing
Momentum testing is designed to provide believers with the opportunity to apply doctrine they have learned. No believer attains maturity apart from momentum testing. Spiritual growth results from perception of Bible doctrine. But spiritual growth is accelerated from the application of Bible doctrine to the categories of testing. No believer can fulfill the plan of God and glorify Him apart from momentum testing. All categories of testing in the Divine Dynasphere are designed for blessing. Therefore, whether adversity or prosperity, the Divine Dynasphere is designed for your good. Human volition plays an important part in testing. A believer must make the right decision based on his application of Bible doctrine, and his residence in the Divine Dynasphere. There are general categories of testing which occur in all stages of spiritual growth. (I Corinthians 10:13; Ephesians 4:14-15; I Peter 4:16)
The Sin Nature Test
The sin nature originated from Adam’s human volition. Adam’s sin nature was the basis for perpetuating the sin nature because he was not deceived, but knew what he was doing when he sinned. So Adam’s original sin is credited to mankind at birth. This results in immediate spiritual death. This means that we are born physically alive but spiritually dead. (Romans 5:12-21)
Since condemnation must precede salvation, every human being has the potential of trusting Christ as Savior, if they reach the point of God-consciousness. For those who never reach the point of God-consciousness, God’s grace credits to them eternal life. God’s justice is still satisfied because Jesus Christ paid the penalty for the entire human race, past, present and future. And we know that God is not willing that any should perish and that the name of every member of the human race is written in the Book of Life when they are born. The only way to have your name blotted out of the Book of Life is to reject Jesus Christ as your Savior. A person who never reaches God-consciousness, and is unable to make a decision to believe in Christ or to reject Him, their name is still in the Book of Life. (Revelation 20:15)
The sin nature is the source of temptation. No one ever sins apart from human consent. Volition is the authority in your soul. Volition is the guardian of the soul from the temptations of the sin nature. If the volition says yes to the temptation, then the sin nature controls the soul rather than the Holy Spirit. Galatians 5 teaches this inner struggle. Human volition is the source of succumbing to all sin regardless of how the temptation came about. Ignorance is not an excuse for succumbing to sin. You still wanted to do it and you did it, so you are liable for consequence. (Romans 7:14-25; James 1:13-15)
There are two results of sinning: 1) the sin nature controls the soul 2) a believer enters Satan’s cosmic system. Therefore, the believer is either 100 % spiritual, living inside the Divine Dynasphere, or 100 % carnal, living inside the cosmic system of Satan. Most temptations come from within, from the sin nature, but some come from without, from someone else’s sin nature. Suffering from succumbing to temptation is designed to give a believer enough objectivity to Rebound. For the believer living in the cosmic system, all suffering is divine discipline. For a believer living in the Divine Dynasphere, all suffering is designed for blessing. Therefore, any suffering that is a momentum test is for a believer’s blessing. A believer uses the recovery drill of Rebound to get out of the cosmic system and he uses the application of doctrine to endure suffering for blessing. (I John 1:9, 3:4-10)
Cosmic System #1 Test
Cosmic #1 test is when a believer makes decisions to live in Satan’s cosmic system where he takes on the entire complex of arrogance and becomes preoccupied with self. He becomes preoccupied with the details of life such as inordinate ambition and inordinate competition, instead of occupation with Christ. Arrogance includes pride, jealousy, bitterness, hatred, anger, guilt, revenge, vindictiveness, implacability, self-pity, etc. Pride is a preoccupation with self which divorces the believer from the realities of life.
Arrogance is a real or imagined sense of superiority, which distorts life and the true perspective of human frailty, resulting in presumptuous self-righteousness and a false sense of destiny. Arrogance of achievement occurs in those who are promoted beyond their capacity to handle it. Achievement belongs to God; capacity and happiness belong to the believer with spiritual self-esteem. Arrogance motivates believers to strive for success inordinately, to compete with friends, to use people, and to control people. A believer’s arrogant lust for success destroys his true scale of values. He destroys his personal sense of destiny and spiritual self-esteem, if he had any. Success belongs to God; selfish ambition belongs to Satan’s cosmic system. (Proverbs 16:18; James 4:6: I Peter 5:5-6)
Achievement arrogance is the blasphemy of taking achievement away from God and placing it in your own hands. When you achieve without spiritual self-esteem, your achievement is empty. Achievement arrogance destroys happiness and replaces it with uncontrolled ambition. Arrogance motivates to strive for success, to play the game, to compete from inordinate ambition, so that the success that is achieved is false and characterized by great unhappiness. Doctrine is ignored as you climb the ladder of “success.”
However, God provides achievement with happiness inside the Divine Dynasphere because you have spiritual self-esteem. You don’t depend on anything or anyone else except Bible doctrine for your happiness. Blind arrogance comes from having no doctrine in your soul, so that you have nothing to apply to the problems of life. Therefore, you have soul blindness. Blind souls are always looking for alleviation from their own self-induced misery. They are pleasure seekers. Believers without Bible doctrine are walking in the dark. Satan himself was blinded by his own arrogance.
Arrogance leads to irrationality. Arrogance destroys personal capabilities and resents those same abilities in others. What you destroy in your own soul through arrogance, you will be jealous of in others, when you see those characteristics in them. A soul with no doctrine converts morality into arrogant self-righteousness. Arrogant self-righteousness leads to crusader arrogance, because you have to feed your soul something. Crusader arrogance is thinking you can change the devil’s world system by getting involved in acts of human good designed to fix all the problems of the human race. Only God can fix the problems of this world, which He will do at the Second Coming of Christ. So, you are going to feed your soul either accurate Bible doctrine or false satanic doctrine.
Cosmic #2 Test
Cosmic #2 test means a believer has entered into Satan’s interlocking system of antagonism toward Jesus Christ and toward the Christian Way of Life. One of Satan’s attacks on believers is to cause them to become antagonistic to the Word of God, and consequently, toward the plan of God. While cosmic #1 produces arrogant preoccupation with self as a distraction to the plan of God, cosmic #2 involves the means by which one becomes hostile toward God and spiritual things. (Romans 5:10; Philippians 3:18; James 4:4; I John 2:18-22)
Demon influence is a means of becoming antagonistic toward spiritual things and we are influenced by human viewpoint (cosmic) thinking. The idea of some kind of spiritual panacea about how we are going to change the world by our own effort without the plan of God and without the pivot of mature believers is a means of becoming antagonistic toward spiritual things. Religion, the satanic counterfeit of Christianity, can cause a believer to become antagonistic toward spiritual things. The inability to reconcile some academic subject such as evolution or intellectualism with Bible doctrine causes antagonism toward spiritual things. The cosmic system is a trap for the enslavement of the human race, including believers, to Satan and his satanic doctrine.
Disaster Testing
Before a believer reaches maturity, there will be disasters in his life. How the believer handles these determines whether he accelerates his spiritual growth or retreats into reversionism. Personal disaster testing is designed as suffering for blessing for acceleration of momentum or it can be a warning of cosmic involvement by divine discipline.
Historical disaster or national disaster testing is related to the bad decisions of others in which you are involved by association. Here are some characteristics of disaster testing: 1) physical or mental pain and anguish 2) crime, where you are the victim 3) persecution 4) hunger, thirst, exposure, fatigue 5) loss of loved ones, property, success, money, etc. 6) disease and handicaps 7) warfare 8) weather including heat, cold, storm, blizzards, hurricanes, tornadoes 9) national cycles of discipline.
People Testing
People testing comes in two categories: 1) personal love or admiration – the object of your love can control your life or provide for your unhappiness, unless you have attained spiritual self-esteem, spiritual autonomy, or spiritual maturity. In wanting to please the object of your personal love, you find yourself being a different person and not following your normal function 2) personal hatred or animosity – the object of your antagonism or irritation often takes control of your life or happiness, unless you have advanced to spiritual adulthood.
Under the Protocol Plan of God, God designed His plan so that your happiness will always reside in you, and you do not depend on people or things for your happiness. As a function of your Royal Priesthood, happiness comes from within. You are supposed to have personal control of your life, a personal sense of destiny, self-confidence from metabolized doctrine, and therefore, poise and command of self. Therefore, you bring your happiness to others, but do not lean on others or circumstances for your happiness.
People are easily led away from the Protocol Plan of God and doctrine by their friendships, love life, and even hatred. So unless you attain spiritual adulthood, when you fall in love or acquire a new friend, the object has the potential of controlling your life and your happiness. Without impersonal love from spiritual autonomy, you become a slave to people. When you fall in love, how you act, how you change, how you begin to think in different terms relating everything you do to that person becomes a distraction to your spiritual life. So when you make a friend or fall in love, when you become jealous, possessive, when you hate anyone you’ve immediately become a slave. You’ve manufactured for yourself many problems, and they’re not all the fault of the object.
The solution to people testing is found in the combination of personal love for God and impersonal love for all mankind. The function of spiritual autonomy is the use of virtue-love. Spiritual autonomy is the prerequisite for solving all problems of people testing. Virtue-love as a problem solving device belongs primarily to the spiritual adult. Without it, you are constantly surrendering the control of your life to others. When you become jealous, angry, bitter, vindictive, or implacable; when you are dissatisfied, antagonistic toward someone else, friend or stranger, lover or enemy; you surrender the control of your life to that person. You become a slave to the object of your antagonism or love. When someone else has control of your life through hatred or love, you enter into the Law of Volitional Responsibility with its self-induced misery. Virtue-love as a Problem Solving Device is the secret of your relationship with God and mankind. Therefore, to make a personal love relationship work, you must use a virtue based totally on Bible doctrine. Otherwise, people will make you miserable all your life.
Since happiness is the monopoly of God and His plan, you cannot depend upon people or circumstances for your happiness. So if you surrender your happiness to someone else, you will blame that person for everything that goes wrong in your life. In personal love or hatred, the object can control your life. When you become upset with someone, you surrender your happiness to that person. 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. And, you can no longer deal with your problems from the strength of your own Royal Priesthood.
People can become a distraction to the fulfillment of God’s plan for your life only when human relationships become more important to you than Bible doctrine. False priorities exist when the details of life take precedence over your residence, function, and momentum inside the Divine Dynasphere. When personal ambition is stronger than Bible doctrine, then the believer has lost his scale of values and his priorities. So whether it’s love or hatred, attraction or animosity, romance or disenchantment, friendship or disillusion, these can distract you from the fulfillment of the Protocol Plan of God and the glorification of the Lord Jesus Christ unless you have passed momentum testing. Momentum testing is a fantastic blessing from God if you pass the test by residence within God’s power system, the Divine Dynasphere. You make your own decisions regarding your choice of friends, loved ones, and your priorities in life. Choose wisely!
Matthew 6:24-34 says, “No one can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and wealth. “For this reason I say to you, do not be worried about your life, as to what you will eat or what you will drink; nor for your body, as to what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air, that they do not sow, nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not worth much more than they? And who of you by being worried can add a single hour to his life?And why are you worried about clothing? Observe how the lilies of the field grow; they do not toil nor do they spin, yet I say to you that not even Solomon in all his glory clothed himself like one of these. But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which is alive today and tomorrow is thrown into the furnace, will He not much more clothe you? You of little faith! Do not worry then, saying, ‘What will we eat?’ or ‘What will we drink?’ or ‘What will we wear for clothing?’ For the Gentiles eagerly seek all these things; for your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. But seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, and all these things will be added to you. “So do not worry about tomorrow; for tomorrow will care for itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.”