ADVERSITY VS. STRESS
Before you begin your Bible study, as a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ, be
sure you have named your sins privately to God the Father. If we confess
our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us
from all unrighteousness. (Known, Unknown and Forgotten sins)
(1Jn 1:9 )
You will then be in fellowship with God, Filled with the Holy Spirit and ready to
learn Truth from the Word of God.
"God is spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in Spirit and Truth,"
(Jn 4:24 )
Adversity is what we all will have in life, in one form or another. This
adversity is inevitable. Adversity results from the freewill of man in this world. It
is inevitable that the sin of man will hurt each other. So many bad decisions
made from the sin nature creates havoc in nations, families, and individuals.
Adversity also comes from God himself, for example natural disasters. But,
God has given us the tools we need to overcome adversities and prevent them
from becoming stress within our soul. Psychology is actually a very precise
science when it comes to the analysis of human instability within the soul.
Schizophrenia, manic depression, disassociation, hysteria, psychosis, are
results of adversity becoming stress in the soul. And contrary to popular belief,
these psychological problems are not just the problems of unbelievers, but also
believers in Jesus Christ. Now psychology says neurosis is lack of psychic
energy in the stream of consciousness. Neurosis can be feelings of anxiety,
obsessional thoughts, or compulsive acts. Neurosis can lead to what
psychologists call a splitting of the mind resulting in split personalities. This
condition is far more common than even most experts will admit. Some people
are able to keep their irrationality within the soul, and thus appear to be
perfectly normal. Of course, no one fools God. He knows our every thought,
our every motive, and he has always known these things. Neurosis can result
in a believer when he lacks Bible Doctrine in his stream of consciousness. The
only defenses against any form of neurosis are the 2 power options, the filling
of the Holy Spirit, and the daily intake of the Word of God. The same goes for
the unbeliever, however, without belief in Jesus Christ, he can only rely on the
divine laws of establishment given to every member of the human race in the
Mosaic law. The unbeliever must rely on honor, integrity, honesty, and
upholding rights of life, liberty, privacy, and property given to men, they are
true divine laws of establishment. Unbelievers that fail to live by the divine laws
of establishment, and believers that fail to intake Bible Doctrine in their soul will
result in some form of neurosis. Now psychology has a vast amount of
information on how they can fix a soul. And, medication is a good thing if it can
bring a person to a point so that he can concentrate on the Word of God.
However, the Bible emphatically says that human solutions are NO solutions,
1Sa 10:19 divine solutions (Bible Doctrine and the divine laws of
establishment) are the only solutions!
Pr 22:17-21Click to view Pr 22:17-21 (NASB) The problem with psychology is
focusing on the problem, instead of offering real solutions.
As a child, we all form defense mechanisms within our souls to cope
with the outside world. The worse the childhood, the more defense
mechanisms we develop. Defense mechanisms are the only means of surviving
childhood for many who struggle through it. But, when the child becomes an
adult, these same defense mechanisms will destroy the soul. Reaction and
blame will only create more problems within the soul. The woman who wrote
the letter realized that the solution was not to continue being the victim, to feel
sorry for herself, but to realize that what she thinks now, will determine her
future. The same principle applies when the apostle Paul says to forget what
lies behind, and move toward the goal which is in Christ Jesus, Phil 3:14 . If
we continue to let past or present adversities penetrate our souls, we are the
ones choosing to live in misery and stress, instead of God’s plan and purpose
for our lives. We are all imperfect, and we have all done things we regret, or
have had things done to us by others that cause us grief, but we have the
option as to whether these problems destroy us. If we choose to focus on the
problem, we are in essence saying to God that we can handle our own
problems, we don’t need His solutions. Or we can forget the past and move
on. 1Pe 5:5 and Jas 4:6 say basically the same thing. God makes war against
the arrogant believer, but he gives grace to the humble believer. This means
that if we continue to focus on the problems and adversities of life, past or
present, then God will allow the pain and misery to continue and we will only
have ourselves to blame. Most believers do not even realize this, but even
unhappiness is arrogance.
Yes, I will say it again, it is arrogant to be an unhappy believer. We
choose our state of mind, Pr 23:7 Click to view Pr 23:7 (NASB). YOU ARE A
SLAVE TO WHATEVER RUINS YOUR PIECE OF MIND, Ro 6:16-18 . God
never coerces our decisions. He allows us to choose for or against his plan. It
is impossible to be unhappy in God’s plan. But wait, hold that thought. We don’
t just suddenly become incredibly happy at the moment of salvation. God
wants His creatures to be happy. This requires spending your lifetime learning
about who He is, and what it is all about, Pr 23:26. Click to view Pr 23:26
(NASB). We either continue to strive toward the goal of occupation with the
person of Jesus Christ by renewing our mind with the Word of God, Ro 12:2;
2 cor 3:18 even giving thanks in the difficulties of life, 1Th 5:18 or we choose
to focus on the problems and continue to live in misery. We sow to the wind,
and we reap the whirlwind, Ga 6:7 . We make our own choices in life, and in
the end we only have ourselves to blame. Do we make the Word of God our
#1 priority in life? This is the question we must ask ourselves within our own
soul. God already knows the answer. He already knew the outcome of your
life billions of years before you were born. So, the solutions He provides will
work! Jesus Christ our Lord made this life possible and perfected those
solutions. Heb 12:1-2 When I start thinking about how infinity superior and
stable our God is, it brings me to incredible joy inside my soul. What comfort!!!
What security!!!
The sad fact is that most believers in Jesus Christ will not achieve the
ultra-supergrace life. They would rather hear what they want to hear, and so
they never advance farther than what they want to hear. The following are 8
stages of reversionism which Paul was inspired to communicate to the
Galatians and Corinthians, many of those who had fallen out of fellowship.
Reversionism simply means that a believer in Jesus Christ, even a spiritually
mature believer, can revert back to his old unbelieving ways. This is proof that
until the day we die, we will constantly need to fill our minds with Biblical Truths
to avoid reversionism.
--------Most believers trap themselves somewhere in the 8 stages of
Reversionism.
1) Reaction and Distraction Jas 3:14-15
As a believer, you can either respond to circumstances and people in
your life (using Bible Doctrine in your soul) or you can react to them. This can
be as simple as frustration, the easy way to tell if we are under demon influnce
is are we thinking about ourselves, Phil 2:3-4 or are we reacting to other’s
sins? Are you distracted from daily intake of the Word of God? Are you
hypersensitive to other’s sins, because they are different from your own? This
is when you start drifting from concentrating on your own spiritual life, and
become more concerned with what else is going on. Remember this basic
Biblical principle: Only you can live your spiritual life, no one else can live it for
you. Loss of fellowship through sin, and failure to apply 1Jn 1:9 results in
advanced stages of reversionism.
You see here, if you allow the outside pressure of adversity to
become the inside pressure of stress in the soul, you are in the 1st stage of
reversionism. (under demon control) 2Ti 2:25-26 The sin nature is not the fault
of sin. The sin nature is genetic and resides in every cell of the human body.
The soul, which was created by God, is perfect. Volition, mentality, and self
consciousness all reside in the soul. When we sin, we choose to sin. The sin
nature simply tempts us, and then we use the volition in our soul to choose to
sin. Only the 2 power options of the filling of the Holy Spirit and the
accumulated Epignosis knowledge of Bible Doctrine can defend us from this
temptation. Jn 4:23 Lack of these is lack of real strength. When we sin, it is
inevitable that stress will be present inside the soul, and if we fail to rebound,
we move to stage 2 Reversionism.
2) Frantic search for happiness
Because you are out of fellowship, you seek happiness in the world
(Satan’s System) to compensate from frustration, boredom, loneliness, etc…
And you must have more than just simple fellowship with the Holy Spirit to
avoid this stage of reversionism. You must have acquired epignosis knowledge
in your stream of consciousness—the right lobe of the soul, or heart. For
without epignosis knowledge, (The Thinking of Christ) 1Co 2:16 you will not
have any spiritual strength to keep you inside the divine dynasphere (Spiritual
life), or within fellowship with God. There are 2 types of Christians who
develop in this stage of reversionism. The ascetic or legalistic Christian has a
trend toward morality. He can have self righteous arrogance, and produce
mental attitude sins by judging and looking down upon others who do not fit his
moralistic image of a Christian. He does not have the Truth within him, because
he is out of fellowship, and hence, without epignosis knowledge. His frantic
search for happiness is trying to show others how good he is, and deceiving
himself into thinking God actually favors him over others, when God’s love
doesn’t fluctuate. Heb 13:8 God loves all believers the same, he doesn’t love
one over another because of how good they are. It never depends on how
they are, Isa 64:6 . It all depends on who and what God is! And God loves his
own righteousness, the righteousness that we receive when we believe in
Jesus Christ, perfect righteousness. So, he joins the church, and tithes, and
says God bless you, and smiles all the time, and tries to do the right thing, and
therefore he never gets it. It never depends on what he does or how he does
it, it depends on following the strict rules laid out to him in the Bible. He is not
better than others, but yet he depends on this belief that he is. He joins others
who fit his trend of the “human good” syndrome. I like to call these mutual
admiration societies. They think they are so great, and they frown on the rest
of the world. The problem here is the tendency to focus on oneself for such
high morality, completely loosing track of what is truly in the Word of God. The
frantic search for happiness is the result of seeking happiness through people
and society, like churches, when only the Word of God in your soul can do this.
The second trend is fairly obvious. For the lascivious Christian, this could mean
drunkenness, sexual promiscuity, drug abuse or crime. This frantic search for
happiness leads a Christian to escape reality through overt sins.
3) Operation Boomerang
Just that, the more you react, and are distracted, and search for
happiness outside your inner soul, the more these reactions are intensified.
Frustration becomes greater frustration. Discouragement becomes
depression. Loneliness become desolation. Here is where you loose your
common sense and you let emotion run your soul instead of thinking Truth.
Here is where your soul becomes fragmented, and begins to literally split. This
fragmentation is prolonged stress inside the soul. The only defense is to use
1Jn 1:9 !! When I reach this stage, it is usually from deep self pity or anxiety I
have accumulated over the years from garbage in my subconsciousness. As
the years pass by under daily perseverance of Bible Doctrine, I am able to
fight this battle more and more head on, and so I do not see this stage as
much as I use to. Epignosis knowledge inside the soul will become more and
more a line of defense in the battle that wages inside the soul. I can recall The
Word of God more quickly, and faith becomes more of a reality from inner
proof of contentment. However, without daily intake of Bible Doctrine, the
believer is weakened more and more as the stress takes over his soul. The
stress will fornicate with the old sin nature and when cognition of the mind is
overrun, then stage 4 will inevitably result.
4) Emotional revolt of the soul
Emotion is no longer the responder or appreciator of the soul, it now
becomes the dictator. Emotion in itself is empty. It is entirely dependent on
knowledge resident in the heart. When emotion takes control of the soul, the
believer becomes irrational. This irrationality can be subtle, such as sincere
and soft spoken pastors who misinterpret the Bible. Here is where irrationality
begins. Instead of using Bible Doctrine in your heart to respond to
circumstances, your emotion dictates your behavior.
2Co 6:11-12
O you Corinthians, our mouth is open to you (Bible teaching); our heart
(right lobe of the soul) is enlarged (with doctrine). You are not hindered (from
learning doctrine) by us, but you are hindered by your own emotions!
Christians distort Bible teaching when they are under emotional revolt of the
soul, Rom 16:17-18 . Now I urge you, brethren, keep your eye on those
who cause dissensions and offenses in opposition to the doctrine which you
have learned, and avoid them. For they are such who serve not our Lord Jesus
Christ but their own emotions, (The thinking of the sin nature) and by smooth
and flattering speech they deceive the right lobes of the stupid. These
are apostate believers who are without Bible Doctrine in their souls. They
interpret the scriptures with their emotions, without discernment. Bible Doctrine
is not about sweet, sentimental emotional deception, it is about principles of
Truth and integrity that God recognizes inside the soul and rewards
accordingly. (Rev 2:23 ) God can only reward His Own Thoughts! Isa 55:6-9 .
Emotion was given to human life as an appreciator of the things the Creator so
graciously gives us. Emotion, however, can be very destructive if given full
control of the mind. You do not have to be a believer to understand this point.
Emotion breeds irrational behavior and instability. The Christian way of life is
all about thinking, thinking, thinking,(Promises, Doctrines, Principles, Prophesy,
2Co 5:15 ; Jn 7:16-18 ; Deut 18:18 .We are to understand Bible Doctrine by
cognition, by knowledge of God. In order to live and operate in The Kingdom
of God, we must learn the thoughts and language, Emotion has NO room in
the Christian way of life accept as an appreciator of what we know about the
Lord. Emotion is a wonderful gift from God, and I think you know how
wonderful it can be when you think about salvation and what Christ did for you
at the cross. I myself get quite ecstatic at times when I think about all that God
has provided for us. It can also be bad when you loose your train of thought,
and you let anger or bitterness rule your thoughts. This stage of
reversionism is very destructive. You cannot recall Bible Doctrine that you
previously had knowledge of, because cognition in the right lobe is where Bible
Doctrine resides. Your emotion is running your soul. Simple use of 1Jn 1:9
must be used. You must be able to recognize your irrationality and confess the
sin. Arrogance becomes so blatant here!! Those that are in emotional revolt of
the soul do not want to hear the Truth, and they despise it when you try and
explain it to them. To them, they want to continue telling you about their
distorted views about the Bible, such as loving your neighbor as you love your
self means personally loving everyone else!! This is impossible. I will explain
this further below. Another example would be that you have to feel sorry for
your sins (emotion). Wrong! How you feel about your sins is inconsequential.
There is nowhere in the Bible that it say you must feel sorry for your sins. If
this was a prerequisite, then you would have an influence in God’s plan, and
this would mean God’s plan is not perfect because it relies on you. It does not
rely on you. The sins were already judged at the cross. How you feel about
them is not the issue. The issue is to cite them, HOMOLOGEO, as per 1Jn 1:9
. This word actually comes from 5th century Attic Greek, used by Socretes,
and Plato, and meant to cite a court room case. It did not require how the
lawyer felt about the case, he was simply required to state the facts. We are
to only state the facts to God and move on. We are not punished for our sins
anyhow, again these were judged at the cross. We are disciplined for being
out of fellowship. Believe me, it begins to make since over time, because we
actually learn from thought (citing our sins to God), not from emotion (feeling
sorry for sin). Lastly, Godly sorrow is an incorrect translation in, 2Co 7:10-11.
If you break down the Greek exegetically, you find that it actually says,
“distressed as God would have it.” What this means when you analyze the
passages leading up to the verse, is that when we fail to regain fellowship,
then we are distressed as God would have it. In other words, we are
disciplined for being out of fellowship. Failure to follow these rules will
inevitably result in emotional revolt of the soul. Prolonged periods in this stage
will result in neurosis and other psychological dysfunctions. This can explain
why perfectly normal believers suddenly become mad. They overwhelm
themselves with guilt and other emotional sins that drive them to this madness.
We are helpless to do anything apart from the filling of the Holy Spirit, Zec 4:6
. And we cannot fight large battles without a large battalion lined up to defend
our soul. This is Bible Doctrine, accurate Bible teaching!! Yet, so many of us
refuse to use the tools of God, and rely on our emotions!
5) Negative Volition Toward Bible Doctrine
At this point believers are apathetic to the Word of God, and actually
shrug it off as needless repetition. A person now may find a church that suits
their emotional needs, ignoring doctrinal messages and content. They sit in
Bible class, but they are performing rituals without reality. You are so caught
up in the adversities of your life that you cannot apply Bible Doctrine to
circumstances. You in essence say, Bible Doctrine doesn’t work, but it is you
who are negative to the Word of God. Here is where Christians feel so full of
self pity and emptiness inside and just cling to the salvation message. They
were given such an extraordinary spiritual life, yet they waller in their self pity,
because they do not understand why. Ignorance is no excuse in the Word of
God. God will always provide actual Bible teaching, we must seek it, hear it,
and live it. Hearing the Word (academic knowledge) is not good enough, we
must be doers of the word (epignosis knowledge believed, understood and
applied), Pr 9:10. Click to view Pr 9:10 (NASB).
6) Blackout of the Soul
We are still talking about a believer in Jesus Christ. He never looses
his salvation, what grace!!!!! Here is where a vacuum opens in the left lobe
(the staging area or the mind) of the soul called MATAIOTES in the Greek.
Literally, this means vanity as in Eph 4:17 . Satan understands more Bible
Doctrine than you think he does. So, he feeds on believers blackout of the
soul. You see, Satan knows his fate, he realizes it is only a matter of time.
But, he will continue to try and break the link in God’s plan. He has already
tried several times, from extermination of the Jews to avoid the covenants with
racial Israel from being fulfilled, from attempting to destroy the line of David in
the Old Testament to prevent the birth of Christ, to setting up his own utopia
millennium to prove Christ a liar in saying there will be wars and rumor of wars
until my return, Mat 24:6 . All he needs is to prove one Biblical promise wrong.
Even in his genius, he is no match for the perfection of God. One of his best
attacks on the plan of God is distortion of the Truth. Anything to lead the
Christian from the path of righteousness. Christians want to teach about love,
love, love, and yet they have no idea just what love is!!! True love is a virtue. It
is acquired through God’s word, not through emotion. The true power of love is
not personal love directed toward others, but impersonal love. Love directed
toward everyone, because it does not depend on the attractiveness or
repulsiveness of the object. but it is dependent upon the integrity virtue inside
the soul, built up by the daily learning and use of "Truth thinking" towards
others, Rom 14:13 . Obedience to Truth not our feelings! Psa 138:2 ;
Luke 22:42 . Yet, most Christians talk sincere and smile and teach about
loving the neighbor. I’ll tell you what true love is!!! True virtue love is when God
the Father judged His only Son, the uniquely born one, with all the sins of
mankind. He had personal love for Jesus Christ. Yet, he judged him. Why?
Because integrity always comes before love. The righteousness and justice of
God the Father judged Christ on the cross for us, so that His plan would make
it possible for us to have an eternal relationship with us. That is impersonal
love!!! HE loves us not for who and what we are, but for who and what he is!!!
Perfect righteousness and fairness will always find a way to give his creatures
a chance.
1Ti 4:1 The Spirit clearly says that in later times some will
abandon the faith and follow deceiving spirits and things taught by demons.
Satan wants us to feed on distortions such as love and peace for all.
Because he knows that if we focus on the emotional love we feel, then we rely
on our own weak and pathetic strength. Even in love, we must rely on the
Word of God, never on emotion. These believers in Jesus Christ have
neglected Bible Doctrine and are now influenced by the knowledge of the
world such as Darwinism, New Age Philosophy, Atheism, Conversion to
another religion, etc.… The result is subjectivity, confusion, instability, and
frustration. They buy into liberalism, world peace and disarmament programs,
socialism, universal brotherhood of man, and rights for the criminal. Can you
imagine, rights for the criminal? In our system today we make the criminal the
victim, and the victim the criminal!! Since the believer in Jesus Christ is
permanently indwelled by the Holy Spirit (the mentor promised by Christ), he
can never be demon possessed, but his thinking (Satan’s)brings about
darkness of the soul, O Timothy, guard what has been entrusted to you,
avoiding worldly and empty chatter and the opposing arguments of what is
falsely called "knowledge"-- which some have professed and thus gone astray
from the faith. (God’s Thinking) Grace be with you. 1Ti 6:20; Eph 5:11,
Eph 6:12, Col 1:13) At this point, the believer can possess 2 personalities.
When things go his way, everything is wonderful, and he is nice to be around.
But, when adversity hits, he falls apart. Even simple adversities such as sitting
in traffic that is gridlocked. Happiness and stress in the soul are mutually
exclusive. Happiness is a state of mind. If we are influenced by any
circumstances in life that result in unhappiness, then we have a long way to go
in the spiritual life. (Rebound and Daily reception, retention, recall, and
resisting of temptations!)
1Co 10:13
7) Scar Tissue of the Soul
“Hardness of the heart” .Evil influence enters into the right lobe of the
soul where epignosis knowledge is stored and actually begins to remove the
Truth of Bible Doctrine.
Jn 12:40-50
He has blinded their eyes (perception), and He has hardened their heart:
lest (result of scar tissue) they should see with their eyes, and perceive by
means of their heart (right lobe), and be turned around (receive conversion),
and I restore them.
This hardening of heart can happen for believers and unbelievers. An
example was Amenhotep II, the Pharoah of the Exodus, hardened his own
heart through constant resistance to the salvation message. (Exo 7:22 ;
Exo 8:15 ; Exo 9:34 ). Believers in Jesus Christ have reached this point as
well. The Meribah incident by the Exodus generation (Exo 17:1-7 ) Here is
where a breakdown of norms and standards taught by the Word of God are
substituted for human thinking, resulting in an unruly and unstable generation.
Christians determine the fate of a client nation to God, and when they loose
the principles of Bible Doctrine in the soul, human viewpoint takes precedence.
The rate of forgetting exceeds the rate of learning, and they lose any epignosis
that they may have gained in the past,
1Co 2:11-16 .
8) Reverse process reversionism
They revert back to their unbelieving ways. At this point, they are still
saved whether they know it or not. There is no overt sign to the fact that they
have ever believed in Christ, that they are born again, and are sons of God.
Christians are shocked at what other Christians do, so they don’t believe they
are really Christians but merely professing Christians. The sad thing about it, is
so few can ever recover from this point. It is not from the failure of the Word of
God. It is because these same Christians who judge these people are in
reversionism themselves, and the false doctrine they create destroys any
possibility of recovery for these people.
God’s justice is his grace policy. He condemns those who do not
believe in Jesus Christ. He blesses those that believe in His name. Faith alone
in Christ alone is the power of grace. He provides it all A wonderful grace life
is provided to every believer, but we must understand what the Bible teaches.
At salvation, God the Holy Spirit gives us 7 ministries, one is to teach us God’s
Thoughts on every subject, and brings them to our remembrance, Jn 16:13 ;
Jn 14:23 . So that we may study, every day and night Psa 1:1-3 ; Ec 11:6
Click to view Ec 11:6 (NASB) so He can give us the accurate message,
coherently, orderly and understandable. The Scriptures are to be understood
in their original languages and in the time they were written. We must
understand the language syntax (exegesis), the historical interpretations to
understand things such as metaphors, idioms, etc… and must be able to
categorize these interpretations for us to understand. So we must learn the
system so adversity will not become stress in the soul. That will allow us grow
to maturity, Heb 5:13 ; Eph 4:13 and to be free from the sin nature’s control in
our lives! But thanks be to God that though you were slaves of sin, you
became obedient from the heart to that form of teaching to which you were
committed, and having been freed from sin, you became slaves of
righteousness, Rom 6:17-18 ; So Jesus was saying to those Jews who had
believed Him, "If you continue in My word, then you are truly disciples of Mine;
and you will know the Truth, and the Truth will make you free." Jn 8:32
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