Election is God's desire for you and predestination is His provision for you. Eph 1:5

So far we have studied the effects of bad thinking and divine good thinking in terms of wheel tracks.

 

We studied that doctrine which is alive and powerful can change the living soul of the believer. A changed soul can change the brain it is united with until death.

 

/Real changes occur when a believer applies doctrine to his life and circumstances.\

 

Then we returned to Ephesians 1 to again recall that God alone is worthy of praise and glorification and that He has blessed us beyond what we could ever think or imagine in eternity past. He did this alone without influence therefore all blessing depends upon Him.

 

/God expressed His blessing for you with the term election in which God expressed His desire for you to have His highest and best.\

 

That expression was given in two ways: position and experience.

 

We saw that God desires both and last week we touched on the impersonal unconditional love that God possesses. That love was the motivation that created your position and in turn, that love is required of us in experience.

 

EPH 1:5 In love, He predestined us to adoption as sons through Jesus Christ to Himself [that’s the environment of royalty], according to the kind intention of His will,

 

/“In love” is the preposition en plus the locative of agape. Agape is a mental love, a love which has no emotional connotation. It is the absence of mental attitude sins and is the concept and the dynamics of love from the standpoint of thinking.\

 

God is love and His love allowed Satan’s challenge in the courtroom as well as the provision for the fallen human race. When we understand that through grace orientation then we have the very real ability to love.

 

/ “By means of impersonal, unconditional love”\

 

Again, when we understand that God provided all things for us being self-motivated through His own love that is grace orientation, with grace orientation we will have the very real ability to love.

 

/1 John 4:19 We love, because He first loved us.\

 

This verse becomes so clear after understanding how God not only expressed His desire for us in election, but provided the fulfillment of that desire through the cross, which becomes predestination.

 

/Election and predestination were simultaneous in the mind of God in eternity past. It was His decision, made without the influence of anyone.\

 

Grace therefore, motivated by impersonal love, becomes the blanket policy of God towards the human race.  

 

You see, I might desire something very good for you, but when the time comes for me to deliver on that desire, if it takes a ton of work on my part… ehhhh, I might not… But God is not like that. When He desires for His creatures and especially for His sons He provides the way simultaneously and is more than willing to do all the work.

 

Now, God has asked you and me to take into our hearts His thinking on this matter. And that’s a hell of a task to ask a fallen creature to take. The perfect, almighty one asks you to love like He does.

 

He would never ask you to love like Him without providing you the power. And that power comes from Bible doctrine and the filling of the Holy Spirit both of which fall under predestination.

 

At the moment of salvation you were given your very own personal plan that is operational to your volition. This plan is an extension of Christ’s plan for the First Advent.

 

The Lord personified the love of the Father through His obedience to the plan of the Father.

 

/1 John 4:20 If someone says, "I love God," and hates his brother, he is a liar; for the one who does not love his brother whom he has seen, cannot love God whom he has not seen.\

 

Our love of God is not isolated to ourselves; it is a love of relationship. If He loves the sinner and you don’t, then there is a different system of thinking and then you don’t have a relationship.

 

/A love of God is a love of all that He loves.\

 

In this conflict, God has given you a system by which you can love the unlovely. The Lord picked up His cross and kept going despite being treated unfairly by the most unlovely people in history and He did so through the same power system that has been extended to us.

 

Since all of us have been imputed with this plan or predestination at the moment of salvation the difference between the winner believer who can love and the loser believer who cannot is the function of volition in conceptualizing God’s will for your life in predestination.

 

/So then the plan of God for your life becomes a life of conceptualism. Does God’s will for your life become a clear concept in your soul?\

 

Conceptualism becomes one word that sums up the Christian way of life.

 

We so often think of the CWL as doing something. Conceptualism says No. What you do is the result of what you think or fail to think.

 

/Conceptualism is you specifically understanding God’s predestination of you in eternity past.\

 

We have already seen a few of the implications of being in union with Christ when we were baptized by the Holy Spirit. These things must be conceptualized in our hearts.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                           

 

/By means of the baptism of the HS, every Church Age believer is positionally higher than angels. This is the remarkable doctrinal principle taught in Heb 1-2.\

 

HEB 1:1

God, after He spoke long ago to the fathers in the prophets in many portions and in many ways,

 

HEB 1:2 in these last days has spoken to us in His Son, whom He appointed heir of all things [you are joint heirs with Christ], through whom also He made the world.

 

HEB 1:3 And He is the radiance of His glory and the exact representation of His nature [you possess a double portion of God’s +R], and upholds all things by the word of His power [you were given the completed cannon]. When He had made purification of sins [you are purified of sin: propitiation], He sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high [you are seated with Him; EPH 2:6];

 

HEB 1:4 having become as much better than the angels [so are you in union with Christ], as He has inherited a more excellent name than they [so have you; REV 2:17].

 

HEB 1:5 For to which of the angels did He ever say,

"Thou art My Son,

Today I have begotten Thee"?

And again,

"I will be a Father to Him

And He shall be a Son to Me"? [you were adopted as an adult son of God.]

 

HEB 1:6 And when He again brings the first-born into the world, He says,

" And let all the angels of God worship Him.[that’s for him not for you]"

 

HEB 1:7 And of the angels He says,

"Who makes His angels winds,

And His ministers a flame of fire."

 

HEB 1:8 But of the Son He says,

"Thy throne, O God, is forever and ever,

And the righteous scepter is the scepter of His kingdom.

 

HEB 1:9"Thou hast loved righteousness and hated lawlessness;

Therefore God, Thy God, hath anointed Thee

With the oil of gladness above Thy companions."

 

HEB 1:10 And,

"Thou, Lord, in the beginning didst lay the foundation of the earth,

And the heavens are the works of Thy hands;

 

HEB 1:11 They will perish, but Thou remainest;

And they all will become old as a garment,

 

HEB 1:12 And as a mantle Thou wilt roll them up;

As a garment they will also be changed [ultimate sanctification - in ressurection body].

 

REV 21:1-4

And I saw a new heaven and a new earth; for the first heaven and the first earth passed away, and there is no longer any sea. 2 And I saw the holy city, New Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, made ready as a bride adorned for her husband. 3 And I heard a loud voice from the throne, saying, "Behold, the tabernacle of God is among men, and He shall dwell among them, and they shall be His people, and God Himself shall be among them, 4 and He shall wipe away every tear from their eyes; and there shall no longer be any death; there shall no longer be any mourning, or crying, or pain; the first things have passed away."

 

But Thou art the same,

And Thy years will not come to an end."

 

HEB 1:13 But to which of the angels has He ever said,

"Sit at My right hand,

Until I make Thine enemies

A footstool for Thy feet" [again, in union with Christ you are seated with Christ at the right hand of God.]?

 

HEB 1:14 Are they not all ministering spirits, sent out to render service for the sake of those who will inherit salvation?

 

Being in union with Christ makes us higher than angels.

 

Jesus Christ came into the world through the virgin birth as a member of the human race and therefore lower than angels. But because of His strategic victory in the great power experiment of the Hypostatic Union, He became higher than angels.

 

Therefore, being in union with Him, we are now positionally higher than angels. In a resurrection body, we will be physically higher than angels as well.

          

Being “in Christ” we share everything that He is and has.

 

/We share His: eternal life, righteousness, election, predestination, destiny, sonship, heirship, and priesthood.\

 

Every Church Age believer is an heir of God and a joint-heir with the Son of God.

 

/You have an eternal heirship. God has infinite wealth, and we share it all with Jesus Christ.\

          

/Being in union with Christ gives you an equality that cannot exist in any other way. No believer has more assets than you or less assets than you. We all possess Christ’s assets.\  

 

The only “equality” that exists anywhere is that among believers in Jesus Christ. For all believers in Jesus Christ were entered into union with Him at the moment of salvation. Therefore, all Church Age believers have equal privileges and equal opportunities.

          

/In predestination, every Church Age believer has equal privilege because he is in union with Christ (positional sanctification). Equal opportunity in predestination is residence inside your very own PPOG (experiential sanctification).\          

 

The baptism of the Holy Spirit provides the basis for unity in the body of Christ, EPH 4:3. When we all understand what we have been equally given there is no division due to arrogant competition.

 

EPH 4:1 I, therefore, the prisoner of the Lord, entreat you to walk in a manner worthy [volition to conceptualize your election] of the calling with which you have been called [election],

 

EPH 4:2 with all humility and gentleness, with patience, showing forbearance to one another in love,

 

EPH 4:3 being diligent [volition] to preserve the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.

 

EPH 4:4 There is one body and one Spirit, just as also you were called in one hope of your calling;

 

EPH 4:5 one Lord, one faith, one baptism,

 

EPH 4:6 one God and Father of all who is over all and through all and in all.

 

EPH 4:7 But to each one of us grace was given according to the measure of Christ's gift (the same measure that Christ received is received by all of us).

 

/In other words we share the greatest destiny ever conceptualized - Christ’s destiny.\

 

That was just one part of the unique factors of the CA that are the barrage of God’s artillery support.

 

That all comes from being “in Him.”