Class Notes: 2/23/2011

The believer with a personal sense of destiny understands and uses doctrinal rationales

In our study of the Personal Sense of Destiny when we left off last time we were discussing the principle that believers who make the decision to make Bible doctrine the number one priority in their lives and establish spiritual values through the application of metabolized doctrine to their experience.

The FLOT line of their soul becomes the staging area for offensive action of the spiritual skills and becomes the basis for the most fantastic life God has ever made available to mankind.

The values include the unique precedence of the spiritual life for the Church Age, the unique protocol plan of God, the equality and spiritual freedom that exists for all believers, the unique power availability under two power options, and the three spiritual skills that comprise the spiritual life.

Also included are the unique problem solving devices, the unique commissions of royal priesthood and ambassadorship, the baptism of the Holy Spirit, the indwelling of every member of the Trinity, the dispensation of invisible heroes, full time Christian service, and the fact that the church age is a dispensation of no prophecy.

Believers must also understand that the deployment of the spiritual life is their only offensive action. They "put on" the spiritual skills and then stand in defensive action. Eph 6:11;

Believers are always on the defensive with regard to demons and Satan in the invisible war, James 4:7; 1Pet 5:8-9; The defense depends entirely on the function of the power of God as it is deployed through the three spiritual skills and the 10 PSD's.

Paul uses the principle of " A fortiori" to explain this availability of God's power for the personal sense of destiny.

Rom 8:31-32; "Therefore, with reference to these things to what conclusion are we forced? If God is for us, who shall be against us? He (God the Father) who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him over to judgment as a substitute for all of us without exception, how shall He not with Him also graciously give to us the all things?"

The A Fortiori of the Personal Sense of Destiny is based on the fact that the humanity of Christ died spiritually as a substitute for us, Rom 5:8; 1Cor 11:24; 2Cor 5:21; Gal 3:13;

"A fortiori" is a prepositional phrase (meaning "with stronger reason" that uses a system of logic where a greater is compared with a lesser and from the comparison an inference is formed.

A fortiori was used as a system of debate, that takes an accepted fact as a premise and by comparison produces another inescapable fact that is inferred by that premise.

Paul's use of "a fortiori" is a comparison of greater and lesser difficulty. In this case, the greater difficulty is Christ being judged on the Cross for our sins. The lesser difficulty is what Christ has provided for the church age believer in the context of his work on the cross.

The accepted fact of the "a fortiori" is that God the Father imputed our sins to Christ on the Cross and judged every one of them. The inescapable fact that is inferred is that God graciously gives to the believer the all things.

This begins at the moment of salvation with the forty things, continues at the point of spiritual maturity with escrow blessings for time, and concludes at the evaluation seat of Christ with escrow blessings for eternity.

If the most difficult was accomplished at the Cross, it follows "a fortiori" that the less difficult can be accomplished in the postsalvation experience of every Church Age believer.

This "a fortiori" takes the greater difficulty of providing eternal salvation at the Cross and compares it to the lesser difficulty of divine provision for the spiritual life resulting in an inescapable conclusion that if God accomplished the greater at the Cross, it is obvious that He can accomplish the lesser in divine provision of the spiritual life after our salvation. This idea is also presented in Eph 2:10;

In 2Cor 12:9; Paul uses an elative conclusion to describe his personal sense of destiny. He had prayed three times for the "thorn in the flesh" to be taken away. But the "thorn in the flesh" problem demanded a divine solution not a human solution.

The "Elative" is a grammatical nomenclature for a grammatical system that comes from the fifth century B.C Greek. It is a combination of a superlative adverb that is used in combination with a comparative adverb to denote superiority through inclusion and exclusion.

The superlative adverb is used in an absolute sense to denote the superiority of the absolute and the inferiority of the relative concept found in the comparative adverb.

The superlative adverb is the divine solution that is the absolute and the only solution. The comparative adverb says the superlative is true thereby eliminating human solutions.

The divine solution is "My grace has been and still is sufficient for you." When the three spiritual skills and the ten problem solving devices are deployed there is no need for any human solution because God's provision completely resolves the problem.


With the statement "Most gladly therefore I would rather boast about my weakness that the power of Christ may reside in me." Paul indicates that a part of developing a personal sense of destiny is learning that the divine solution is the only solution and that the human solution is no solution to certain problems in life.

The principle being explained is that, the divine initiative of grace permits the thorn in the flesh as suffering for blessing and provides the divine solution of grace from God through the problem solving devices so that the power used to deal with the problem is from Christ.

We see from this that the elative conclusion emphasizes the absolutes of the spiritual life and excludes relative manmade solutions. This means that the divine solution is the only solution.

God is glorified by the grace solution and therefore the elative conclusion perceives the absolutes of the divine solution as the grace solution related to the problem solving devices deployed in the soul.

Since grace solutions are divine solutions, they exclude human solutions and human viewpoint including the misuse of prayer, human psychology, philosophy, the arrogance skills and defense mechanisms, legalism instead of grace, ignorance instead of cognition of Bible doctrine, and gimmicks or programs instead of metabolized doctrine in the soul.

The elative conclusion emphasizes the fact that the deployment of problem solving devices on the FLOT line of the soul provides the only accurate application of Bible doctrine to the believer's postsalvation experience. This application of Bible doctrine to experience through problem solving devices results in a personal sense of destiny.

A personal sense of destiny as a problem solving device is founded on the absolutes of metabolized doctrine circulating in the stream of consciousness. When believers begin with God's grace, they end up with God's power through the power options of the spiritual life that establish fellowship with God.

This means that the personal sense of destiny is based on fellowship with God.

This principle is stated in Psa 84:1-3; "How lovely are Your dwelling places, O Lord of the armies! My soul longs and even yearns for the courts of the Lord; My heart and my flesh sing for joy to the living God. The bird also has found a house, And the swallow a nest for herself, where she may lay her young, Even Your altars, O Lord of the armies, My King and my God."

We see here that fellowship with God is based on one's attitude towards the word of God and that since God has a destiny for the birds, it follows "a fortiori" that God has a destiny for the believer. If God provides for birds, it follows "a fortiori" that God will provide for the believer.

Our Lord discusses this in Matt 6:26-27; "Look at the birds of the air, that they do not sow, neither do they reap, nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not worth much more than they? And which of you by worrying can add an hour to his life?"

Because of the grace of God, even birds have a destiny, Matt 10:29-31; "Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? And yet not one of them will fall to the ground apart from your Father. As a matter of fact all of the hairs of your head are numbered. Therefore stop being afraid; you are of more value than many sparrows."

A personal sense of destiny eliminates fear from the believer's soul. Fear results from the failure of the believer to use the spiritual skills that are necessary for a personal sense of destiny.

The personal sense of destiny plus the faith-rest drill is the function of the application of metabolized doctrine under the mentorship of God the Holy Spirit that drives fear out of the soul. Fear adds stress to your life and leads to disaster if left unchecked because, left unchecked, fear compounds.

This compounding is expressed as: The more things you surrender to fear, the more things you fear. The extent to which you surrender to fear, the greater your capacity for fear. The greater your capacity for fear, the more you increase the power of fear in your life. The more you increase the power of fear in your life, the greater your failure to use the spiritual skills.

Therefore fear replaces the spiritual skills and manufactures the believer who fails to advance in God's plan.

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