Using the power of God to destroy the fortresses that stand between you and the super-grace life. Eph 1:6; Eph 3:14-19; 2Co 10:3-4

I know of a certain person who is a believer who is wonderful to be around when things are going well but not so much when things are bad. [and no, they are not here]

 

When a person like this faces obstacles they easily give up on their pursuits, get very emotional, fall into self-pity and pout and cry.

 

There are in fact quite a few people in my life who are like this, many of them students of mine. But one that I was thinking of is a believer and I thought to myself - when faced with adversity and obstacles in life, what is the worst thing that can happen to you?

 

Death. And if a believer were to die on that day they faced adversity what would happen next? They would be absent from the body and face to face with the Lord.

 

So if God has conquered death for us, then what do we have to fear? Nothing. And so when faced with that obstacle what are we to do? Press on without quitting and attacking life with the spiritual life rather than giving up and falling into empty emotions.

 

This is one of the main reasons that believers do not enter into the super-grace life. At some point along the way, whether early on or after years of doctrine, they quit on the plan of God, which is the only place that invisible heroes are manufactured, because gave up when that next adversity came around the corner.

 

Why quit? They are afraid. They fear losing something or someone, they fear the unknown future, they fear the death of that part of their world that God is now asking to take.

 

/Phil 3:7 But whatever things were gain to me, those things I have counted as loss for the sake of Christ.\

 

/If you don’t keep your eyes on Christ you will be either:

1. Engaged in self-pity and feeling sorry for yourself, 2: You have your eyes on people and are therefore disappointed, or 3: You have your eyes on things and therefore are frustrated.\

 

That obstacle that you refuse to conquer through God’s power does not go away just because you ignore it. It remains right there like a wall while you distract yourself with the cosmic system.

 

We all ignore these fortresses in our lives from time to time and eventually we may even forget that they were there in the first place, but inevitably God will make us return to that fortress and make us face it again. When will you say, enough is enough, and take up God’s power and destroy it?!

 

/2 Cor 10:3-4

For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war according to the flesh, 4 for the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh, but divinely powerful for the destruction of fortresses.\

 

If you don’t knock down the fortresses that are stopping your progress with the power of the filling of the HS and the metabolized doctrine in your soul, you will only keep retreating and returning and retreating and returning and never break the barrier of the super-grace life.  

 

/Point 2: God’s method for achieving super-grace status.\

 

/In order to achieve super-grace status the believer must emphasize the mystery doctrine of the Church-age.\

 

This is one of the four pillars of the super-grace life: dispensationalism.

 

The OT glory is no glory at all any more. Therefore, all believers who are pursuing the Mosaic Law including the 10 commandments as their basis for the spiritual life will never see the glory of God.

   

EPH 3:14 For this reason, I bow my knees before the Father,

 

EPH 3:15 from whom every family in heaven and on earth derives its name,

 

EPH 3:16 that He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory [super-grace life], to be strengthened with power through His Spirit in the inner man;

 

EPH 3:17 so that Christ may dwell [be at home] in your hearts through faith; and that you, being rooted and grounded in love,

 

EPH 3:18 may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth,

 

EPH 3:19 and to know the love of Christ [God’s motivation for providing you with the four pillars] which surpasses knowledge [application], that you may be filled up to all the fulness of God.

 

In order to comprehend the glory of God and therefore enter the super-grace life the believer must have solid foundations in four areas of doctrine.

 

/four pillars\

 

/breadth = the doctrines relating to God the Holy Spirit. There are 7 ministries of God the HS in the Church-age.\

 

These seven things done for the believer by the Spirit at salvation form the basis for unity among believers, and we have seen how each of them specifically applies to the super-grace life.

 

The second pillar of the super-grace life is:

 

/length - doctrines related to dispensations and God’s program for human history.\

 

There are six dispensations in human history. Age of the Gentiles, Age of Israel, Hypostatic Union, the Church-age, the Tribulation, and the Millennium.

 

The Church-age is absolutely unique in terms of policy and function. It is termed the dispensation of grace not because God isn’t gracious in other dispensations but because this is the dispensation of maximum grace.

 

The Church-age is completely unrelated to the dispensations before it and completely unrelated to the dispensations that follow it.

 

There are 10 unique factors to the Church-age that should be mentioned here.

 

/1. The baptism of the Holy Spirit.

2. The protocol plan of God.

3. The equality factor of the protocol plan in both election and predestination.

4. Our portfolio of invisible assets.\

 

/5. Two royal commissions: Every believer is a royal priest; every believer is a royal ambassador.

6. The mystery doctrine of the Church Age.

7. For the first and only time in history every member of the Trinity indwells the believer.\

 

/8. The divine power available to the believer: the omnipotence of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.\

 

The omnipotence of the Father is related to our portfolio of invisible assets, the omnipotence of the Son gives us a day at a time and seeing to it that history will continue until the end of the Millennium, the omnipotence of God the Holy Spirit is given so that we execute the unique predesigned plan of God.

 

/9. This is the only dispensation in which there is no prophecy.\

 

/10. This is the dispensation of invisible heroes. (We are designed for low profile and invisible impact. Our invisible impact comes through executing the predesigned plan of God.)\

 

To quote C.I. Scofield:

/I believe that the failure of the Church to see that she is a separated, a called-out Body in the purposes of God, charged with a definite mission limited in its purpose and scope, and the endeavour to take from Israel her promises of earthly glory, and appropriate them over into this Church dispensation, has done more to swerve the Church from the appointed course than all other influences put together. It is not so much wealth, luxury, power, pomp, and pride that have served to deflect the Church from her appointed course, as the notion, founded upon Israelitish Old Testament promises, that the Church is of the world, and that therefore, her mission is to improve the world. Promises which were given to Israel alone are quoted as justifying what we see all about us today.\

 

The third pillar of the super-grace life:

 

/height - doctrines related to the essence of the Trinity.\

 

/The members of the Trinity are co-equal and co-eternal and they possess identical essence.\

 

The essence of God is 10 fold:

 

/Slide: Righteousness

Love

Omniscience

Omnipresence

Omnipotence

Eternal Life

Sovereignty

Veracity

Immutability\

 

/Together these comprise the essence of God rationale which backs up any promise given by God so as to increase your faith.\

 

A promise is only as good as the character and virtue of the one making the promise.

 

The essence of God is His glory and that glory in communicated throughout the word of God. Over years of metabolizing BD the believer is constantly schooled on the meaning and impact of each factor of God’s essence.

 

/Over time God’s essences become instinctive facts in the soul and heart of the believer to which every promise finds its muscle for application. This is maximum function of the faith rest drill.\

 

For instance, in financial hardship the believer understands that he is under logistical grace support. That is a promise. However, doubt may arise if the believer is not convinced that God is veracity, therefore He cannot lie, and God is Just, therefore He cannot favor one over another, and God is omnipotent, therefore He can easily fulfill your need.   

 

And finally the fourth pillar:

 

/depth - doctrines related to the Angelic Conflict.\

 

For all believers in all dispensations this is a foundational doctrine, but for the Church-age believer it takes on a special significance because he is in union with Christ, the strategic victor in the Angelic Conflict.

 

/The Church-age believer has been left behind to achieve a tactical victory in the AC from the high ground of Christ’s strategic victory.\

 

In any battle if you have the high ground you have a distinct advantage, and our union with Christ gives us that advantage.

 

The barrage of artillery support through the power options, the problem solving devices, and the PPOG has overpowered and severely weakened our enemy. These same artillery barrages can be used by us to destroy the fortresses that stand in our way.

 

Satan is always trying to fool the believer into thinking that he is operating at full power when he is not. Greater is He that is in you than he that is in the world.

 

/Understanding our calling to be invisible heroes and witnesses for the prosecution gives the super-grace believer’s life the ultimate purpose.\

 

He understands that Christ will share the spoils of victory with him for all eternity.

 

He understands that he is not here to clean up the world, for his reward is not earthly but heavenly - it is seated with Christ in heavenly places.

 

He understands that he has a personal sense of destiny that will have an invisible impact that will echo for all eternity in the great halls of heaven’s history museum.

 

Therefore, the doctrine of the Angelic Conflict and most specifically the church’s part in that victory motivates the super-grace believer to keep walking in his calling despite persecution, pressures, disasters, and all adversities.

 

Together, these four pillars that within each contains dozens of doctrines continue to support the super-grace life, the life beyond dreams, God’s desire for each believer in election, and listen to me carefully - the beginning of the normal Christian life.

 

/Point 3: The motivation of the believer to keep pressing on to the super-grace life.\

 

God not only provides us with the proper assets but He also provides us with the proper motivation. Motivation provides the momentum in the spiritual life to keep moving forward despite the inevitable minor and major setbacks in the believer’s life.

 

In physics, momentum is mass times velocity.

 

/momentum = mass (BD) x velocity (volition)\

 

We never stand still in the spiritual life.

 

Mass, which is akin to how much doctrine is in your soul, is always positive, whether you have little mass as in the doctrine of salvation only or whether you have much more mass as in the doctrines of the four pillars.

 

But velocity can be negative or positive. In other words you can be moving backwards or forwards in the spiritual life.

 

Negative volition in the cosmic system without rebound produces negative velocity. Positive volition in the PPOG produces positive velocity.

 

Newton’s first law of inertia states that an object in motion will remain in motion unless acted upon by an outside force.

 

/Doctrine is that outside force that will change negative velocity into positive velocity. Cosmic living without rebound is the outside force that will change positive velocity into negative velocity.\

 

We are perpetually moving in one direction or the other because we are constantly making decisions - negative or positive. Every decision is an input of energy to the soul, and so unlike objects on earth that always come to a stop because of friction, we never come to a stop. [In heaven there is no friction and only PV]

 

Positive momentum provides motivation through further understanding of the four pillars of doctrine.

 

 

liv� f@� `� ty w:st="on">Damascus?"

 

 

Now go back to GEN 22:2

 

GEN 22:2 And He said, "Take now your son, your only son, whom you love, Isaac, and go to the land of Moriah; and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains of which I will tell you."

 

 

 

GEN 22:3 So Abraham rose early in the morning and saddled his donkey, and took two of his young men with him and Isaac his son; and he split wood for the burnt offering, and arose and went to the place of which God had told him.

 

Abraham wanted an heir more than anything when he was young and while he was still the center of his universe, but after growing up spiritually he realized that the only thing he wanted was to be a friend to God. You see, God became his center.

 

If Isaac has to go, he has to go, but one thing is constant, Jesus Christ is my best friend.

 

/ISA 41:8

"But you, Israel, My servant,

Jacob whom I have chosen,

Descendant of Abraham My friend,\

 

/James 2:23

and the Scripture was fulfilled which says, "And Abraham believed God, and it was reckoned to him as righteousness," and he was called the friend of God.\