Doctrine of the indwelling Christ part 7. The believer must use problem solving devices and not defense mechanisms.

Title: Doctrine of the indwelling Christ part 7. The believer must use problem solving devices and not defense mechanisms.

 

/5.  The Relationship between the Indwelling of Christ and the Indwelling of the Holy Spirit.

 

/a. The indwelling of the Holy Spirit provides a temple for the indwelling of Christ as the Shekinah Glory.

 

/b. The combination of the indwelling of Christ and the indwelling of the Holy Spirit is the basis for the unique life, ROM 8:10.\

 

The body is made a temple that it may think, speak, and act as the Shekinah Glory. This production of the temple finds its origin in the word of God, which is the mind of Christ.

 

As we have noted. For the Shekinah Glory to shine forth through you, the temple of God, fully, undeserved suffering must be encountered and conquered through the mind of Christ, and specifically the problem solving devices of the Scripture.

 

Often, the mind of man, even believers, continue to use human defense mechanisms to attempt to solve their problems. Defense mechanism will give short term, temporary relief, which when expired, only leaves a more intense problem that the mind must deal with.

 

/Defense mechanisms are systems of evil since they are based on a foundation of human viewpoint, to dissuade the unpleasant effects of stresses in the soul.\

 

Defense mechanisms are manufactured in the mind to hide or to relieve the conflicts and stresses that cause anxiety, hysteria, fear, worry, guilt, or other categories of emotional sins.

 

Defense mechanisms are designed to bury any reaction you might have, any lack of esteem, any explanation for impulsive behavior or failure on your part.

 

We have begun to study 20 common defense mechanisms.

 

/(1)  Acting-out is a defense mechanism in which a person acts without regard for negative consequences.\

 

By the way PSD 4, Grace orientation and #5, Doctrinal orientation would dissuade the desire to act out.

 

/(2)  Autistic fantasy is a defense mechanism in which a person substitutes excessive day dreaming for the pursuit of social relationships.\ 

 

Rather than day dreaming about success, tap into PSD #6, “a personal sense of destiny” and live in the reality of the life beyond dreams as a fellow heir of Christ.

 

/(3)  Denial is a defense mechanism in which a person fails to acknowledge some aspect of external reality that is obvious and apparent to others.\

 

Denial is a false perception of reality. 

 

This false perception of reality is necessary for some people because they must be good, they must be self-righteous, they can never be wrong......they must always be right. 

 

Therefore, they are very strong on self-justification and self righteousness.

 

/(4)  Dissociation or withdrawal is a mechanism which is employed when a person doesn't want to deal with a situation.\

 

So they run away and withdraw from those in the situation. One psychologist, Walter Cannon, called this the fight or flight syndrome. His theory states that animals react to threats with a general discharge of the sympathetic nervous system, priming the animal for fighting or fleeing. If walked around a corner and there was a rabid dog ready to pounce on you, you would feel this jolt of electrical impulse tightening all your muscles and releasing adrenaline so that you are ready to run or fight.

 

Itmay seem easier to run away rather than deal with a situation. The fight or flight response is a function of the sympathetic nervous system and it is necessary in threatening situations. However, it is well documented that response causes stress and it is also well documented that stress lowers the immune system. Instead of running from a rabid dog or a zombie, if you are running from life’s problems you will live under prolonged stress and make yourself sick. This is not the function of the temple of God.

 

God has given us a lifestyle of courage that stems from our position. You are the temple of God and you are the son of God. 

 

ROM 8:15 For you have not received a spirit of slavery leading to fear again, but you have received a spirit of adoption as sons by which we cry out, "Abba! Father!"

 

So why run from anything. I am the son of the Almighty. I am the temple of God. I have the Trinity inside of me. What is there to fear?

 

/Ps 23:4

Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,

I fear no evil; for Thou art with me; \

 

Valleys were used by the shepherds to get the sheep up into the mountains for grazing during the summer months on the elevated pastures. The valleys contained many dangers. Avalanche, hidden predators, flash floods. But the shepherd was with them.

 

Now we can change this verse to, “for Thou art in me.” The shepherd indwells my body.

 

Many people employ this defense mechanism when confronted with God’s truth. When truth confronts an unbeliever or a negative believer it works to unravel what the person thought was true. This produces fear as it strikes a blow to their arrogance. They have no desire to deal with it, or to answer the hard questions so they dissociate and withdraw.

 

You must realize that this is a defense mechanism that relieves the stress and that’s why people use it. Always remember as an ambassador for Christ:

 

/1 Sam 8:7

And the Lord said to Samuel, "Listen to the voice of the people in regard to all that they say to you, for they have not rejected you, but they have rejected Me from being king over them. \

 

This is strongly characterized in the last days as noted in 1TI 4:1 where there is a dissociation from "The faith".

 

/1TI 4:1  But the Spirit explicitly says that in later times some will fall away from the faith, paying attention to deceitful spirits and doctrines of demons,\

 

Luke 14:16 But He said to him, "A certain man was giving a big dinner, and he invited many;

 

Luke 14:17and at the dinner hour he sent his slave to say to those who had been invited,' Come; for everything is ready now.'

 

Luke 14:18"But they all alike began to make excuses. The first one said to him, 'I have bought a piece of land and I need to go out and look at it; please consider me excused.'

 

Luke 14:19"And another one said, 'I have bought five yoke of oxen, and I am going to try them out; please consider me excused.'

 

Luke 14:20"And another one said, 'I have married a wife, and for that reason I cannot come.'

 

Was it the slaves fault that they did not attend?

 

/PSD #1 Rebound technique, PSD #4, Grace orientation, PSD #5, Doctrinal orientation, PSD #8, Impersonal love for all mankind, would solve this problem.\

 

/(5) Idealization, a defense mechanism in which a person attributes exaggerated positive qualities to self or to others.\

 

When others are idealized, we call that role model arrogance. 

 

When self is idealized, we call that self-righteous arrogance or making a role model out of self.

 

This mechanism of idealization usually makes hypocrites of people.

 

ROM 12:3  For through the grace given to me I say to every man among you not to think more highly of himself than he ought to think; but to think so as to have sound judgment, as God has allotted to each a measure of faith [a standard of doctrine].

 

/ “measure of faith” = a standard of doctrine. The standard is the completed cannon of Scripture.\

 

The people who idealize enter into abstract thinking so that they do not deal with who they really are.

 

And when the role model shows his feet of clay, the idealizer who put them on a pedestal, proceeds to destroy the role model. If the delusion was to make yourself a role model then you enter into asceticism, guilt, and self condemnation in order to destroy yourself.

 

/PSD #3, The faith-rest drill, PSD #5, Doctrinal orientation, PSD #7, Personal love for God the Father, PSD #10, Occupation with Christ as the priority solution to life, would handle this problem.\

 

/(6)  Intellectualization is a defense mechanism in which a person engages in excessive abstract thinking to avoid reality or experiencing some very disturbing feelings about self.\

 

This mechanism only serves to complicate their problems.

 

In 1CO 3:18 Paul warns of this.

 

1CO 3:18  Let no man deceive himself. If any man among you thinks that he is wise in this age, let him become foolish that he may become wise.

 

1CO 3:19  For the wisdom of this world is foolishness before God. For it is written, "He is the one who catches the wise in their craftiness";

 

1CO 3:20  and again, "The Lord knows the reasonings of the wise, that they are useless."

 

1CO 3:21  So then let no one boast in men.

 

/PSD #4, Grace orientation, PSD #9, +H or sharing the happiness of God.\

 

/(7) Isolation is a defense mechanism in which a person is unable to deal with what is really happening around them or in their life.\

 

They feel isolated from others because they actually believe that they are the only ones with certain problems.

 

Isolation becomes self-pity which is the most subtle form of arrogance that exists.

 

Through isolation and self-pity they do not handle or deal with their problems so the thoughts that cause stress are dumped into the unconscious mind and there they sit waiting.

 

Waiting for what? To implode upon the person’s grip of reality and stream of conscious stability with the effect that they become unstable and mentally hindered. This affects their personality and robs them of any capacity for life, love, or happiness.

 

/Isaiah talked about this in ISA 44:20  when he said He feeds on ashes; a deceived heart has turned him aside. And he cannot deliver himself, nor say, "Is there not a lie in my right hand?"\

 

Isolation will lead to fantasy and often the use of chemical stimulants is used to enhance the fantasy. God never designed the temple of God to live in a fantasy world, nor in isolation from the world.

 

Luke 8:16 "Now no one after lighting a lamp covers it over with a container, or puts it under a bed; but he puts it on a lampstand, in order that those who come in may see the light.

 

There are hundreds of thousands of people out there that share your problems and you can bet at least one of them is applying doctrine to conquer those problems. Don’t get the Elijah syndrome thinking you’re the only one.

 

J. Vernon Magee used to say that people would talk about the church as a building filled with a bunch of weak, needy sinners. And he used to say, “Come on down, we could use another.”

 

/PSD #3, The faith-rest drill and PSD #7, Personal love for God the Father, would handle this problem.\

 

/(8) Projection is a defense mechanism by which a person takes their own flaws, sins and failures and assigns or projects them to others.\

 

Many times they are not even consciously aware of doing so because their arrogance has blinded them!

 

In assigning their flaws to someone else they believe that they actually rid themselves of their own failures and they elevate themselves by putting down others. This is a total failure of impersonal unconditional love.

 

And this creates a problem in the soul which keeps out metabolized doctrine on the one hand and destroys metabolized doctrine on the other hand.

 

/We see Joseph's brothers doing this in GEN 50:15  When Joseph's brothers saw that their father was dead, they said, "What if Joseph should bear a grudge against us and pay us back in full for all the wrong which we did to him!" \

 

That’s what they would do so they project that evil thinking to one of the most gracious men who ever lived. Joseph is one of the greatest types of JC in the OT.

 

So we have the evil involved in thinking you’re the only one with your problems and the evil involved in projecting your problems on to others.

 

Phil 2:12 So then, my beloved, just as you have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your salvation with fear and trembling;

 

A popular but misunderstood verse. My beloved means that he is addressing believers. Salvation doesn’t always mean being born again, but in context it often means deliverance. When you believed in Christ, one decision, you were delivered from the second death to the Lake of Fire, but here is refers to the many decisions to accomplish deliverance from all problems in life through humility under the word of God.

 

/ “work out” - present middle imperative of katergazomai[katergazomai] = to accomplish something in the midst of adversity. It is combat activity.\

 

Sophocles was the first to use this word and he used the word in the sense of overcoming all opposition or to subdue the opposition.

 

We have plenty of opposition in the CWL. We have our OSN who continues to attempt to be master of your soul, though crucified and buried. We have Satan and the KOD who are actively attempting to deceive and accuse, though defeated at the cross. And we have the cosmos diabolicus that has been designed to halt all things spiritual of God through the distraction of evil and human good, though destroyed by the wisdom of the cannon of scripture. These defence mechanisms falls under the category of evil in the cosmic system.

 

/ “fear” - foboj[phobos] = with reverence and respect which means occupation with Christ.\

 

Phobos means to revere Jesus Christ as the pre-eminent One, the celebrity of the universe, the King of kings and Lord of lords. He is sovereign over the temple of God and use of the word “fear” commands us to acknowledge Him as such.

 

The catchy phrase, “If Christ is not Lord of all then He’s not Lord at all,” is completely false. He is Lord whether we acknowledge it or not. The command is to acknowledge that fact.

 

/ “trembling” - tromoj[tromos] = quivering, shaking, or trembling which further emphasizes respect but with an added emphasis on humility.\

 

The point is that you handle your own dangers, problems, and adversities from your own reverence and occupation with Christ by applying the problem solving devices from your own source of doctrine and you do so in humility.

 

In acknowledgment of the person and work of Christ we realize how helpless and hopeless we are without Him and in reverence to Him we tremble in our souls in awe of His amazing grace.

 

The humility is that you acknowledge that you cannot truly solve your own problems without the mind of Christ. And if you do conquer your problems rather than project them on to others then you are functioning as the temple of God.

 

So instead of projection:

/PSD #4, Grace orientation, PSD #8, Impersonal love for all mankind, would solve this problem.\