Lam 3:21 -25; I recall this (doctrine) to my mind, and it gives me confidence. Because The Lord's mercy never fails; His grace provisions never cease, they are renewed every morning; Great is Your faithfulness... Therefore I have hope in Him. The Lord is good to those who wait silently on Him.
In our study of the doctrine of the winner believer. Heb 12:2; Rev 2:7; Winner believers are the unknown, unsung heroes of history. 2Cor 6:9; who are the targets of God's grace imputations and the reason that God continues to support the human race.
We have been discussing the doctrine of church age spirituality that is based on the indwelling and filling ministries of God the Holy Spirit.
We noted that since God's plan of grace and human works are mutually exclusive when human power and divine power are mixed the result is legalism that becomes the basis of some system of fake spirituality.
The major reason for the decline in the client nation is that too many pastors are failing to teach the principles of true spirituality which leaves believers with nothing but fake spirituality as the basis for their spiritual life.
When we stopped last time were noting fake spirituality by respectability that is the false belief that believers are spiritual because they think that their sins are more respectable than the sins of others.
This is actually nothing more than the arrogance skills of self-righteousness, self-justification and self-deception that are deployed by approbation and power lust patterns of the strong side of the OSN.
We noted that self-righteous believers have a tendency to bully, judge, and meddle in other believer's business. Self-righteous believers are often tenacious in demanding others comply with their self-righteous arrogance because they demand approval from others so they can maintain their fake self-esteem.
The spiritual believer is grace oriented and as a result is validated by Bible Doctrine and their approval comes from God. 2Cor 10:18; 1Cor 4:5;
Self-righteous arrogance is the basis for the belief that respectability makes one spiritual but respectability is not spirituality any more than morality is spirituality.
Under God's grace policy a right thing must be done in a right way for the right reason so spirituality makes you respectable, but being respectable does not necessarily indicate spirituality in the same way that spirituality makes you moral but morality does not indicate spirituality.
The only thing that creates spirituality is being filled with the spirit. Gal 5:22-26; and both morality and respectability are products of spirituality.
The sin pattern of self-righteous arrogance is often the worst because in the self justification of Christian moral degeneracy personal sins are not recognized by the self-righteous human do-gooder and if they are the self deception makes them think they are "ok" since their sins are more respectable than others sins. Matt 7:1-5;
Another system of fake spirituality by works is ritual spirituality. Ritual spirituality is the belief that one is spiritual because of the observance of certain rituals including the observing "holy days," or other rituals of a church, such as Lent, Sabbath keeping, or water baptism for salvation or spirituality.
Water baptism was a ritual during the pre-canon period of the Church Age that was used to teach the retroactive and current positional truth that are products of the Holy Spirit's real baptism that establishes the believer's irrevocable union with Christ in His death, burial, and resurrection. 1Cor 12:13; 1Cor 1:13-17;
The only ritual that applies to the post-canon period of the Church Age is the Eucharist or the Lord's Supper. God's Word commands that believers who participate in this ritual be filled with the spirit. 1Cor 11: 23-32;
The ritual communion service is designed for the believer to remember Jesus Christ through the recall of the appropriate doctrine that can only be done properly when the believer is functioning under the filling and mentorship ministries of God the Holy Spirit.
False application of these rituals has resulted in fake spirituality by ritual and the false belief that a person is spiritual because they have complied with some ritual.
In the Old Testament the purpose for ritual was to teach doctrine. There never was any benefit from the rote performance the ritual. The benefit came from learning the doctrine that the ritual portrayed and believing the doctrine.
Jesus condemned the Pharisees for their rote performance of ritual while they were simultaneously rejecting and violating God's mandates. Matt 15:1-9;