In our study of Mark we are in Mark 13:37; where Jesus commands believers to be alert so we have taken up a study on the doctrine of awareness.
This has taken us to Eph 3:18 where Paul describes capacity for doctrine with the dimensions of width, length, height, and depth.
We are presently looking at the dimension of depth that refers to God's provision in the portfolio of invisible assets that God gives to every believer at salvation for to be used fulfill the objectives of the spiritual life.
Last time we were noting the categories of assets within the portfolio and when we stopped we were looking at category two of your portfolio has to do with all of the necessary provision for establishing the believer's spiritual I.Q.
This category includes the preservation and provision of the Scripture, the inspiration of Scripture, the mystery doctrine of the Church Age, your royal priesthood, and the skills of the spiritual life including spiritual skills, thinking skills, and production skills.
In God's protocol plan thinking skills always precede production skills because production without thought is rote and ritual without reality and God demands reality from those who worship Him. John 4:24; Matt 15:8;
There are four spiritual skills: the filling of the Holy Spirit, metabolized Bible doctrine circulating in the stream of consciousness, the ten problem solving devices, the execution of God's protocol plan for the church.
The six thinking skills are comprehension, memory, problem solving, decision-making, creativity, and awareness.
Spiritual skills are developed as a result of being born again, the thinking skills are related to human birth. Spiritual skills plus thinking skills result in the believer producing divine good.
Thinking skills are transferred to into spiritual I.Q. and at that moment you start to store Bible doctrine in your stream of consciousness. When the spiritual skills are in place, the thinking skills are brought into the spiritual I.Q.
Spiritual skills must precede thinking skills for the metabolization of Bible doctrine. God the Holy Spirit teaches the human spirit under God's policy of grace.
Spiritual skills plus thinking skills are the precursors of the ten problem solving devices and enable the believer to use their portfolio of invisible assets that are the basis for spiritual growth that result in the production of divine good in the Christian life.
When spiritual skills are combined with the thinking skills divine good production occurs automatically.
At the moment of salvation, every believer is in full time Christian service but the believer can get involved with the production of human good or divine good.
Divine good is motivated from God's Word under the recall ministry of God the Holy Spirit or human good is motivated from human viewpoint that people think is good but is actually dead works and evil. Isa 55:8-9; 1Cor 2:14;
Execution of the protocol plan of God through metabolized doctrine in the stream of consciousness is the only basis for the production of divine good.
The production of divine good results in faith, hope and love that correspond to the believer's spiritual self-esteem or cognitive self-confidence, spiritual autonomy or cognitive independence and spiritual maturity or cognitive invincibility where the production of divine good is maximized.
All production is based on spiritual and thinking skills so spiritual skills plus thinking skills equal the production of divine good.
Whenever the spiritual skills are not functioning, the proper function of thinking skills in the soul is destroyed, so human good is produced. Production skills minus spiritual and thinking skills equal the production of human good and evil.
There is no legitimate production unless metabolized doctrine is in place first. Knowledge must come before action. There is no need for action until you know what you are doing. Otherwise, you will only produce human good that is dead works and evil.
Believers who function in this manner are saved and going to heaven but they are working for satan during their life on this earth in the devil's world.
There are far too many believers functioning in this manner in our country today. I refer to them as "do gooders." They are "do gooders" because they have so little of God's Word in their thinking that they actually think that they can fix the devil's world.
It is their evil human good activity that is destroying our nation because they are working to fundamentally transform the fabric of the nation away from the foundational principles of divine viewpoint of God's Word of truth that establishes freedom by replacing them with principles of human viewpoint from satan's lies that destroy freedom and establish tyranny.
God save us from the do gooders. There are five categories of Christian service. There is production related to your spiritual gift (pastor, evangelism, administrative leadership, ministry, helps, showing mercy).
There is production related to your royal priesthood (prayer, giving, execution of the protocol plan of God).
There is production related to your royal ambassadorship that would include witnessing, and missionary or administrative function in Christian organizations.
There is production related to invisible impact of the invisible hero that results in blessing by association, and there is production related to the laws of divine establishment for the preservation of the nation.
This preplanned production is described in Eph 2:10; "We are His creation, having been created in union with Christ Jesus, for the production of (divine) good, which God has prepared in advance, that we should walk (execute, fulfill) by means of them."
Salvation through faith in Christ is the foundation that the believer builds divine good production on.
1Cor 3:11-15; "For no person can lay a foundation other than the one which has been laid, which is Jesus Christ.
v12 Now if any believer builds upon the foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, straw,
v13 each person's work will become evident; for the day (of Christ) will show it, because it will be revealed by fire; in fact, the fire itself will test the quality of each person's production.
v14 If any person's work which he has built upon it remains, he shall receive a reward (escrow blessings for eternity).
v15 If any believer's work which he has built on it is burned up, he shall suffer loss (of escrow blessings for eternity); but he himself shall be saved, yet so as through fire."
The third category of your portfolio is your escrow blessings for time and eternity. Escrow blessings are infinitely superior to all other categories of divine blessings for both time and eternity.
There is no set of adverse circumstances that can hinder the conveyance of your escrow blessings in time.
The term "escrow blessings" is a metaphor that is designed to explain the ultimate blessings that God makes available under His policy of grace to every Christian in time and eternity. James 4:6; 1Pet 5:5,10;
This concludes our study of the doctrine of awareness and brings us back to our verse-by-verse study in Mark.