In our study of Esther and the providence of God, last time we saw that the king had deposed his queen setting the stage for the promotion of Esther in advance of the threat on her people.
We then started a brief study on the doctrine of promotion and the principle that God promotes those who have capacity for promotion because of their humility that is the synergy of grace, doctrine and authority orientation.
This means that promotion by God comes from execution of the spiritual life. This principle is brought out in James 4:10; "Humble yourselves before the Lord and He will promote you."
We see here that all promotions in the Christian life are completely and totally fair, because God and God alone accomplishes all true promotion.
We also see here that promotion is always related to humility that comes from making the Word of God the highest priority in life. The basic foundation for promotion and success is humility. Because of the integrity of his holiness God cannot and will not promote you without humility because it would violate his perfect righteousness.
Humility only comes from the application of Bible doctrine. You cannot make yourself humble and self-effacement is not humility it is a subtle form of arrogance.
Luke 14:11, "For everyone who exalts himself shall be humbled. And he who humbles himself shall be promoted."
"Everyone who exalts himself" is the believer involved in self-promotion; this is the function of Christian degeneracy, the lust pattern of the sin nature, and the believer with garbage in the subconscious from persistent negative volition to doctrine.
The believer "is humbled" through the law of volitional responsibility, where the believer must take the responsibility for his own bad decisions that have been made from a position of weakness that are often revealed through the categories of divine discipline.
Humbling oneself is the filling of the Holy Spirit, cognition and inculcation of doctrine, execution of the protocol plan, self- discipline, and the thousands of decisions to learn and apply doctrine in every situation on a daily basis.
Those who are humbled by divine discipline often become extremely arrogant in their humiliation but again, that is really not humility. The Exodus generation of Israel is an example of this arrogance.
There are two kinds of humility; Humiliation or "put-down humility" and "spiritual humility". God only promotes on the basis of spiritual humility. You are not humble because you think you are humble or say you are humble or because you have been humiliated because of your arrogance.
1Pet 5:5-6; "God makes war against the arrogant, but gives grace to the humble. Therefore allow yourself to be humbled under the powerful hand of God that He may promote you at the proper time."
Humility and grace orientation are always related to grace promotion. This is because with humility comes teachability, and from teachability comes doctrinal orientation, and from doctrinal orientation comes grace orientation and execution of the protocol plan of God.
Doctrinal orientation plus grace orientation equals capacity for promotion. Capacity for promotion therefore implies the execution of the protocol plan of God.
Promotion occurs through the distribution of escrow blessings by our Lord Jesus Christ. These blessings are irrevocable and remain on deposit in heaven forever for believers who do not receive them because of failure to execute the protocol plan of God in time. Rom 11:29;
Promotion implies that you have become an invisible hero. The invisible hero in time is humble or grace oriented, which means he has capacity for every divine blessing associated with the promotion.
The arrogant believer involved in Christian degeneracy can be classified as one who is in high visibility in the strength of the power of the OSN, a cosmic Christian, and one who is self-promoting. The arrogance of the self-promotion results in failure to execute God's plan. This believer is classified as a loser.
Even though the loser believer loses his escrow blessings for time and eternity, he does not lose his salvation and his escrow blessings that are not conveyed are left on deposit as a memorial to forfeited equal privilege and opportunity.
The loser's arrogance is described in Prov 16:18; "Arrogance precedes destruction, and before a fall there is a lifestyle of destruction."
Prov 11:2; "When arrogance comes, then comes dishonor. But with the humble is wisdom."
Prov 29:23; "A person's arrogance will bring him low, but the humble spirit will be promoted."
True humility is acquired from advance in the spiritual life. No one is born humble, naturally humble, or is really humbled by their circumstances apart from cognition from the PMA of Bible doctrine.
With humility, objectivity, and orientation to authority comes teachability. Teachability means doctrinal orientation. From doctrinal orientation comes grace orientation.
Doctrinal orientation plus grace orientation leads to authority orientation that results in true humility and capacity for promotion. When a believer has capacity for promotion God will promote them in the proper time. 1Pet 5:6;
All true promotion comes from the Lord. 2Cor 10:18; "For it is not he who promotes himself who is approved, but he whom the Lord promotes."
Humility is the function the spiritual skills: the filling of the Holy Spirit; cognition of doctrine; and execution of the protocol plan of God. Humility is doctrine in the stream of consciousness. This is spiritual capacity for promotion.
We must come to the point where we never covet what God has not provided for us in grace. Arrogance becomes involved in the lust pattern of the sin nature and covets things that God has not provided.
This is the commandment that extends into the mental attitude. Rom 7:7;