Doctrine of the indwelling Christ part 6. The believer must use problem solving devices and not defense mechanisms.Title: Doctrine of the indwelling Christ part 6. 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.
Therefore, the battlefield always exists for control of the soul.
The potential for the unique resurrection life of the CA believer begins with the indwelling Christ. And the indwelling Christ does not occur until the indwelling Holy Spirit makes your body a temple of God at the moment of salvation.
/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.\
Rom 8:10 And if Christ is in you [and He is], though the body is dead because of sin [OSN – singular], yet the spirit [God the HS] is alive because of righteousness [imputed +R at the moment of salvation].
/The Spirit alive in you is current positional truth. This is the unique spiritual life, the resurrection life, which is always a potential for every CA believer because JC and G/HS will always indwell you. \
Rom 8:11 But if the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you [and He does], He who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through His Spirit who indwells you.
/Once again we glean from the indwelling Spirit and the indwelling Christ motivation to execute the PPOG.\
1 John 3:23 And this is His commandment, that we believe in the name of His Son Jesus Christ, and love one another, just as He commanded us.
1 John 3:24 And the one who keeps [guards as precious] His commandments abides in Him [life in the PPOG], and He in him [presented by Paul as a fact of status quo]. And we know by this that He abides in us [cognition of the fact that Christ dwells in us through doctrine], by the Spirit whom He has given us.
We are cognizant of the doctrine of the indwelling Christ through the teaching ministry of God the Holy Spirit who was given to us by request of Christ when He sat down at the right hand of the Father.
Therefore, recognition of the residing Christ within us is motivation to guard His mandates for the Church. He is there to be glorified by the faith of the believer in His ability, as He was as the Shekinah glory in the temple of Israel.
/Motivation and positive volition provide momentum in the spiritual life that cannot be halted by any outside forces.\
/The outside forces that attempt to halt and reverse our spiritual growth are problems. Adversity is inevitable, but stress is optional.\
Prosperity can also become a major problem when there is no capacity from which the believer becomes occupied with the gift and not the Gover.
Stress occurs when the problem cannot be solved and so the adversity enters the soul, causing stress, anxiety, worry, guilt, fear, and a few other emotional sins. This is not the function of the temple of God.
The Holy Spirit is the teacher of the doctrine of the indwelling of Jesus Christ. This can only occur if we keep residing in the plan of God through rebound and learning doctrine. By living in the plan of God for our lives, and continuing to expose ourselves to the teaching of doctrine, we come to know that Christ resides in us and for what purpose He does so.
/Jesus Christ indwelling our bodies is our status quo since salvation, but Jesus Christ being glorified in our bodies is the ultimate experience of spiritual adulthood. \
/Gal 4:19 My children, with whom I am again in labor until Christ is formed in you [SSE]\
/ “formed” refers to an accumulation of foundational doctrines to the point where the believer has personal love for God.\
/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, [SA] \
/ “be at home” refers to the accumulation of more doctrines that conquer introductory undeserved suffering by sole dependence on the mind of Christ. This is autonomy and independence from human viewpoint, the world system, and people.\
This is an important definition. People must cease to be a crutch. Human defense mechanisms must cease to be a crutch. So called solutions or band aids from the world system must cease to be a crutch. Spiritually we have to come to a point where we stand upon doctrine and the filling of the Spirit alone as power.
/Phil 1:20 according to my earnest expectation and hope, that I shall not be put to shame in anything, but that with all boldness, Christ shall even now, as always, be exalted [glorified] in my body, whether by life or by death. [SM]\
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.
It is important to note, by way of specific application of the spiritual life, a list of common defense mechanisms that are the products of human viewpoint as well as the problem solving devices that God has countered with.
This will enrich our study of the indwelling Christ.
/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.
And there are several common defense mechanisms that have been used by people in every race and culture and from every background. These are classified as evils of the human race as a collective.
/(1) Acting-out is a defense mechanism in which a person acts without regard for negative consequences.\
They're going to do what they want and they don't care what the consequences are.
They feel totally justified in doing what they're doing.
And if they happen to hurt innocent people along the way....well that's too bad.....it's not their fault.....they think!
This is a manifestation of overt bitterness due to a problem in the soul from the existence of accumulated garbage in the soul.
Eph 4:18 being darkened in their understanding, excluded from the life of God, because of the ignorance that is in them, because of the hardness of their heart;
Eph 4:19 and they, having become callous, have given themselves over to sensuality, for the practice of every kind of impurity with greediness.
/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.\
In fact, soap operas, and what I like to call “movie plunge” (where a person feels what Hollywood puts out is reality), as well as internet and cell phone addiction really feed this need in people!
Social interaction through day dreaming is much easier than direct and effective social intercourse and the use of the problem solving devices.
The Lord was available to anyone who needed truth and as such, face to face. There is a reason why face to face teaching is richer and more effective than non-face to face. For the same reason, face to face encounters are richer and more effective than emails, texts, and phone calls. Every one of us carries a full time pulpit.
Yes there are people that we wish to comfort and support that we can only write to and I very appreciative of that, but there are many people that we face each day that are devoid of the truth.
We have all been called to full time Christian service. As called ambassadors for Christ we are to be available. The Lord’s appeal to Zacchues is a great example.
Luke 19:1 And He entered and was passing through Jericho.
Luke 19:2 And behold, there was a man called by the name of Zaccheus; and he was a chief tax-gatherer, and he was rich.
Luke 19:3 And he was trying to see who Jesus was, and he was unable because of the crowd, for he was small in stature.
Luke 19:4 And he ran on ahead and climbed up into a sycamore tree in order to see Him, for He was about to pass through that way.
Luke 19:5 And when Jesus came to the place, He looked up and said to him, "Zaccheus, hurry and come down, for today I must stay at your house."
Luke 19:6And he hurried and came down, and received Him gladly.
Luke 19:7And when they saw it, they all began to grumble, saying, "He has gone to be the guest of a man who is a sinner."
Luke 19:8And Zaccheus stopped and said to the Lord [after hearing doctrine from the Lord during supper], "Behold, Lord, half of my possessions I will give to the poor, and if I have defrauded anyone of anything, I will give back four times as much."
Luke 19:9And Jesus said to him, "Today salvation has come to this house, because he, too, is a son of Abraham.
Luke 19:10"For the Son of Man has come to seek and to save that which was lost."
The gospel changed the heart of Zaccheus from that of greed to grace orientation. If the Lord was giving His life for others and Zaccheus would benefit eternal life through this gift, the natural conclusion to him was that hoarding and greed were inappropriate.
/Rather than day dreaming about success, tap into PSD #6, “a personal sense of destiny” and make any fantasy a greater reality. God has far more for you than you can think or imagine, and it trumps imagination with reality.\
/Jude 1:8 describes them, Yet in the same manner these men [unbelieving Israel, fallen angels, Sodom and Gomorrah, carnal believers], also by dreaming, defile the flesh,\
With Jude in context, the flesh mentioned here is the body that is the temple of God. The KOD has pushed and promoted every dream and every fantasy that the creature might have in a system that is void of God’s truth.
Is there a dream? Yes. Is there a fantasy? Yes. Do they last? No.
They are so temporary. As one dream is done another must come. When that dream is done, another must come on top of that.
You’ve heard the phrase, “I’m living the dream.” God has a life for you that goes even beyond this. For this reason He has made your body the temple of God.
/Eph 3:20 Now to Him who is able to do exceeding abundantly beyond all that we ask or think, according to the power that works within us,\
/(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.
/Pro 30:12 There is a kind who is pure in his own eyes, Yet is not washed from his filthiness.\
1 Cor 15:9 For I am the least of the apostles [no denial here], who am not fit to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God.
1 Cor 15:10But by the grace of God I am what I am, and His grace toward me did not prove vain; but I labored even more than all of them, yet not I, but the grace of God with me.
1 Cor 15:11Whether then it was I or they, so we preach and so you believed.
/PSD #1, the Rebound technique would handle this along with PSD #4, Grace orientation.\ |