The following are the notes for the 2011 OM – NM Conference in Little Rock Arkansas. The meeting took place on 3/19/11 and was hosted by Dr. Jim Brettell, pastor of the Little Rock Net Church. These notes can be copied, pasted or printed for your use. They cannot be used to write a book for sale, that is the only limitation.

 

The Little Rock Internet Church

Rev. Dr. Jim Brettell

 

 

 

 

2011

 

Old Man – New Man

 

Conference

 

 

The theological basis of the Old Man – New Man concept and the mechanics of taking off the Old Man and putting on the New Man so that the believer can be fully transformed into the image of Christ, fulfill God’s plan and glorify Him in this life.

 

Rev. F. Al Rosenblum M.A.

 

 

Eph 4:22-24 that, in reference to your former manner of life, you lay aside the old self, which is being corrupted in accordance with the lusts of deceit, 23 and that you be renewed in the spirit of your mind, 24 and put on the new self, which in the likeness of God has been created in righteousness and holiness of the truth.

 

 

 

 

03/19/2011

 

 

Contents

 

 

Subject Page

 

Biography of F. Al Rosenblum                                                     3

 

Introduction                                                                                          3

 

Lesson 1 Man’s Problem                                                                    5

 

Lesson 2 Old Sin Nature                                                                     8

 

Lesson 3 Status at Birth                                                                      9

 

Lesson 4 Human Soul                                                                          10

 

Lesson 5 Human Growth – Development                                     10

 

Lesson 6 Belief Systems                                                                       12

 

Lesson 7 Bonding – Worship Instinct                                             13

 

Lesson 8 Egocentrism                                                                           13

 

Lesson 9 Man’s Needs                                                                           14

 

Lesson 10 Faith, Hope, Love                                                              15

 

Lesson 11 Building OM Belief System 17

 

Lesson 12 Transformation Process                                                                 19

 

Lesson 13 Changing Interpretations of a Memory                      26

 

Analogies                                                                                                      29

 

 

 

 

 

 

Biography Of Rev. F. Al Rosenblum

 

Rev. Al Rosenblum is an ordained Christian pastor, a bible expositor and professional pastoral counselor. He is also presently serving as the Associate Pastor of Doctrinal Studies Bible Church in Birmingham Al. Al has graduate degrees and certifications in both theology and counseling. He has been trained to translate the original Hebrew and Greek languages of the bible and has worked with the original texts daily for over 25 years. He translates the original texts of the bible in order to rightly divide the word by developing complete categorical studies of specific biblical subjects. These topic studies  give us great insights into the application of the word to life in today’s environment. Al’s latest accomplishment was to earn a M.A. in counseling, graduating summa cum laude from UAB in Birmingham Al.  He considers his marriage and the raising of their children to be his greatest ministry.

As a bible student and a Christian counselor, Al has been given unique insight about how God uses biblical principles to transform the believer’s heart . “I wanted to understand how God had designed the human soul and how the Holy Spirit used our human faculties to reveal and apply divine principles to life.” Al has developed advanced but simple to understand mechanics of the spiritual life that enable believers to apply the word not only to present life experiences but also to the fortresses and roadblocks in their own hearts. “After salvation, the most important question is: how does God change our hearts so that His will becomes what we ourselves want, so that the character of Christ flows naturally from us and how do we eliminate the constant inner struggle to do God’s will?”
Al has devoted his life to the communication of these concepts to Christians who are hungry not only to know but to live out God’s will from a pure heart.

This biography has been included so that if you share these notes with someone else, they can know who wrote them and who stands behind them. Credentials mean a lot to the world at large. Most people require that those who teach them be educated with advanced degrees in the world’s universities.

 

Introduction

 

The Church Age is the most unique time in human history because of all of the spiritual assets God has made available to the average Christian on a daily basis. Never before has every believer been permanently united with God the Son and been made into the temple of God the Holy Spirit. Never before was any believer permanently indwelt by the Spirit or had the Spirit be the divine Mentor to guide him into all the truth God has made available. Never before did God allow every believer to actually lay aside all of his old beliefs and replace them with the very beliefs used by Jesus during the incarnation. This is a unique time and allows for an incredible ministry for the church.

Yet, during our day, generally speaking, the church is failing to make the most of what God has given us. The church is lazy and shallow in their understanding of spiritual truth. The church is occupied with human good works intended to glorify man and impress the people of the world. The churches that do study the word in a serious manner have a tendency to become gnostics who are proud of what they know not humbled because of how they have been loved. We could go on but the point is this:

Because the church has failed to understand and teach the mechanics of transformation and spiritual growth:

1.     The average believer never grows spiritually, is not being transformed into the image of Christ in their hearts, therefore we never really live out the Christian life.

2.     The individual believer and the church universal has no credibility in the eyes of the unbelieving world.

3.     The church with no credibility looks fake and false and has no effective witness to all of the hurting people in our world.

4.     The church has no historical impact on our own generation and we are losing our freedoms to do so right before our very eyes.

This study is the answer to the dilemma of the believer who says, “I truly want to be all that God designed and intends me to become, yet I find myself unable to live out the truth that I know and believe.”

This study is the answer to the questions:

1. How do I use all of this doctrine that I have learned
2. Why does it seem impossible to be consistent with the application of truth?
3. Why do I struggle to believe for living what I know and believe to be true?
4. How do I change the negative feelings and mind-sets stuck in my heart?

Once we understand the Old Man belief and behavior system, it allows us to put all the pieces related to spiritual growth in place. We understand why we are unable to live what we know and believe. We know how to take off old beliefs and replace them with the beliefs of Jesus. Once we enter into the journey of taking off the Old Man, we begin to experience spiritual freedom. Freedom from the dominance of wrong beliefs and the sin patterns they create. Freedom makes room in the heart for truth to function and causes the character of Christ to be expressed though our lives.

We can’t fully live the Christian life with Old Man beliefs dominating our soul. As we replace them with New Man beliefs, the New Man in Christ becomes the dominant, habitual influence of our life and we build the credibility we need for effective witness.

 

Lesson 1 – Man’s Dilemma

The purpose of this section of study is to develop the theological basis for the premise of the Old Man concept. The biblical facts, when assembled correctly will show how it was inevitable that every human being since the fall, except for Jesus, would form a false belief system the bible calls the Old Man. There are no exceptions; every person is born into this life in a state that renders us incapable of relating to God, the only Person able to meet the core needs of the soul. Because of this, man attaches to man to meet his needs and fulfill his soul, creating the foundation of a false system of ideas that is built into the Old Man Belief & Behavior System. Needing God but being unable to relate to God creates man’s dilemma, irresolvable w/out God.

 

Position – Perfection – Prohibition – Problem

Position

1. Life in the Garden

a. Position – state of being fully acceptable to God and enjoying full access to all the             blessings associated with God enabling them to have all of their divinely designed needs to be met through their personal relationship with God.

b. Perfection– state of total completeness in all aspects of man’s person

§        Personhood – perfect in every way; minds, hearts and bodies; righteousness

§        Relationships – perfect relationship with God (Gen 3:8); perfect marriage

§        Environment – nature in harmony; food readily available.

c. Prohibition – A test for their neutral souls to determine if they would be obedient

§        Tree of the knowledge of good and evil (Gen 2:9,17)

d. Problem – sin – disobedient to God’s command

§        Persuaded to sin by Satan (Gen 3:1-5)

§        S/C chose to sin using volition (Gen 3:6)

§        Sin caused them to die spiritually and begin to die physically (Gen 2:17)

§        Sin corrupted their bodies and they acquired a sin nature.

Sin caused Adam and Eve to lose their righteous status in God’s eyes, causing them to be condemned by God’s Justice. As a result, they lost all of the blessings associated with their original state.

2. Loss of Position

a. Created righteous (+R) and became unrighteous (-R) through sin

b. God’s Justice must condemn all who are –R and must punish them forever

c. They became excluded from God’s blessing and under His wrath (Jn 3:36)

d. Their condemnation has been imputed to the whole human race 1Cor 15:21

3. Loss of Perfection

a. Sin corrupted their minds, hearts and bodies – afraid/hid from God (Gen 3:8-10)

b. Sin caused their bodies to decay and begin to die (Gen 2:17)

c. Sin caused spiritual death, separating them from God – enmity (Eph 2:1, 15-16)

1Cor 2:14 – unable to understand spiritual phenomena; 2Cor 4:4 spiritual blindness;

Rom 8:7 – mind dominated by OM belief system is unable to submit to God

d. Separation from God caused them to be unable to have their needs met.

e. Sin compromised their marital relationship (Gen 3:16) – fig leaves to cover self – self protective barriers between them

f. Corruption of sin passed down genetically (Rom 5:12)

g. Sin caused God to curse childbirth (pain) and the earth (sweat/brow)

Sin caused them to lose their +R position before God and suffer the consequences of death, both spiritual and physical. Their eternal and temporal relationship with God was cut off and their marital relationship was compromised. They were separated from God and at odds with each other. Their position and temporal status after the fall has been passed down and we are born into this situation.

The fall of Adam and it’s consequences have passed down to the whole human race. These consequences have caused severe psychological distortions to all of us as we go through stages of development and build our life ideas and belief system. We live from birth until salvation without our core needs being met. Misunderstanding how our needs are supposed to be met, we misdirect every aspect of our personhood.

4. Driven by Desire

a. Need/desire/lust (epithumia) is the driving force within the heart of man

Eph 5:22 – desire deceives and drives old man thinking

2Pt 1:4 – corruption in the world because of lust

1Pt 2:2 – desire is a choice – epipotheo AAImp – command to redirect desire

Jms 1:14 – lust entices and draws us into sin

1Jn 2:16 – world driven by lust/flesh, lust eyes & pride of life

b. We experience our needs as desires, legit desire for normal things of life.

c. Lust is normal need and desire corrupted by sin – extreme desire attached to wrong objects and practiced in wrong ways.

d. Desire can be +R (Jesus Lk 22:15) or –R (frustrated desire Jam 4:2)

Implications

§        God designed man to need, want and desire – desire is not the problem

§        Desire is corrupt when it is attached to wrong beliefs and wrong objects of fulfillment, believing that the false object can meet our needs

§        Man w/out God is deceived by desire – concludes that lust fulfillment (get what you want) will bring happiness – lie Eph 4:22 corrupted by deceitful desires

§        We all develop beliefs based on the lie that wanting + getting = +H

§        Old man belief system contains many ideas about what will bring us +H and none of them are true.

§        Lust fulfillment as a means of happiness opens the door to many other sins: Jam 4:1-3 frustration, anger, hatred, fighting, envy, depression

§        Bel’s are able to redirect their desires to +R objects and eliminate beliefs that deceive us into pursuing wrong objects.

Driven by Need: God designed the human soul with needs. Some of man’s needs only He can supply. Our spiritual needs and deepest love needs. Other needs only man can supply. Marriage and earthly companionship supplied by other human beings. Because of separation from God and our inability to comprehend spiritual concepts, we all misdirect our efforts to find the supply for our needs.

5. Misdirection Strategies – Without the capacity to know and relate to God, we attach all of our needs to mankind. We misdirect our search to meet our needs.

a. We attach our God needs to man not knowing God as our source.

b. We attach our faith to man as the true source for all of our needs.

c. We attach our love to mankind to have it returned as a means of need fulfillment

d. We attach our expectations to mankind, believing that some person has what we need to fulfill our souls and give us temporal happiness.

e. We develop relational strategies based on conditional love whereby we intend to convince others to return our love.

f. We misdirect our faith, love, expectations and relational strategies toward mankind instead of God to meet our needs and achieve fulfillment.

6. Faith Misdirected

a. One of the first developments we make is to attach our faith for meeting our needs.

b. Our deepest needs can only be met by God but born sp. dead & separated from God

c. Absent God, we attach our faith to mankind as the source for meeting our needs.

d. Believing man can meet our needs, we develop all of our beliefs on that foundation.

e. We build our beliefs, expectations & strategies to persuade man to meet our needs.

f. Our attempt to meet needs through man always fails > disappointed, defensive.

7. Love Misdirected

b. Man was designed for intimacy with God – true and only source of happiness

c. Man’s greatest need is to be in an intimate relationship with God

d. Man hungers and thirsts for love (Jn 7:37-39)

e. Man is born spiritually dead and separated from God – can’t relate to God

f. Man substitutes other men/women as a source for love – replaces God

g. Man builds his belief system based on a dependence on man for unconditional love

h. Misdirected love and dependence on man builds a belief system on a lie.

Implications:

§        The core of man’s pursuit of need fulfillment is based on a lie –trust in man

§        Pursuing needs from man violates the design and will never work

§        Pursuing mankind for fulfillment always results in disappointment

§        No man/woman can fulfill the soul of another – doomed from the start

§        Frustrated love opens the door to more false conclusions and sins

§        Blaming others and self, low self esteem, switching partners, depression (losing hope); demandingness (insisting that your plan work)

§        Man w/out God is only capable of conditional love – work to win love

§        Working for love, approval, acceptance, recognition – works system

8. Dominated by Fear

a. The unsaved and even bel’s live in fear of death and judgment.

Heb 2:15 – live in bondage to the fear of death

Rom 1:17-20 – +R of God and wrath of God have been revealed – no excuses

2Cor 4:4 – spiritually blind – can’t see the light of Christ who defeated death

b. The blind cannot see beyond death into eternity – terrified of what awaits them

c. The –R know they are sinners and live in fear of what God will do with them

Implications

§        Born lost, we all build beliefs based on fear of dying and judgment

§        When fear is not faced, other methods must be used to deal with fear

§        Defense tactics: pretense (Eph 4:25); denial, self deception, blame (1Jn 1:6-10); projection/judging (Mat 7:1-5); self protection (walls)

§        Build OM beliefs based on avoiding truth rather than facing/believing truth

§        Fear enslaves us to a life of defense hindering us from claiming victory

§        Fear is the result of believing that God’s provision is not sufficient

9. Living under the Curses

a. As part of man’s judgment, God caused both man/woman to live under a curse

b. Woman’s curse (Gen 3:16) curse of the womb – preoccupation with children and rulership of her husband

c. Man’s curse (Gen 3:17-19) sweat/brow cultivating thorns and thistles – preoccupation with work and provision

d. Roles as God designed them that are distorted into our identity

 

Implications

§        Man is born and develops in a hostile environment – hardship

§        Man must now work to eat and avoid the elements – survival

§        Authority in its delegated forms must be obeyed – sin nature

§        Parental training with love to accept authority is necessary

§        Rejection of parental training – disoriented to life

 

Summary: The fall has had far-reaching effects on the psychological development of man. Sin has corrupted God’s original design, the devil has corrupted the environment and therefore man’s developed belief system is corrupted.

False beliefs, hopes and relational strategies only prepare man to fail, not only in time, but in eternity.

 

Lesson 2 The Old Sin Nature

Source

1. Sin corrupts whatever it touches and whoever chooses it for any reason.
2. Their sin caused deaths, both spiritual and ultimately physical.
3. Their sin caused their very nature to become selfish and sin based
4. Adam & Eve acquired a nature to put self first ahead of all others
5. They were created with a nature to love and worship God, which they lost.
6. Their sin nature has been passed down genetically from parents to children.
7. Every human being inherits their own sin nature.

Function

1. OSN has been reported to be the source of temptation & sin in the believer’s life.
2. The common view is that the OSN spontaneously generates desire and temptation that is chosen to become sin.
3. The OSN has a much more foundational role in the life of a human being.
4. The OSN causes us to view our life as the central and most important issue in the universe – I, me is the most important person in my life.
5. The OSN corrupts all of the ideas we develop and believe, causing us to build a system of beliefs that are egocentric and me centered.
6. The OSN causes us to develop beliefs that produce logic that makes sin a reasonable course of action.

§        Suffering seems like a good reason for self indulgence in pleasure

§        Relational conflicts justify sinful anger as a means of relating.

 

Trends

1.     The OSN has an ascetic trend and a lascivious trend in all people.

2.     One or the other will be the dominant trend in each person.

3.     The lascivious dominant person will self indulge in pleasure activities

4.     The ascetic dominant person will indulge in self discipline activities.

5.     The sins of the lascivious person are obvious

6.     The sins of the ascetic person are not obvious and are discerned by motives

Summary: Your OSN is not some mysterious force in your life spontaneously causing you to sin. The OSN is not the immediate source of temptation. The OSN is a corrupting influence that causes our beliefs and therefore our logic to be twisted to justify sin. Our beliefs and the thinking that comes from our beliefs produce logic that makes sin a reasonable course of action when faced with the circumstances of life.

 

Lesson 3  Man’s Status at Birth

1. Every human being inherits Adam’s status after he sinned.
2. Condemned, spiritually dead and with a sin nature
3. Every human is born with no knowledge of anything – basic instinct
4. Every human is born to sinful parents who have their own Old Man belief system and sin patterns that influence and harm their children.
5. Every human is born into the devil’s world that promotes his ideas.
6. Every human is born with divinely designed needs that drive us to fulfill them
7. Every human is born unable to understand God’s word or obey it

Summary: Man’s status at birth renders him unable to relate to God, understand God, obey God or build a belief system based on the word of God. Any beliefs we build before we are saved are devoid of God’s direct influence.  The only exception is our ability to learn and use the Divine Institutions and concepts related to freedom, marriage and government as an unbeliever. These truths are assimilated into the OM belief system and used to benefit self, not God.

 

Lesson 4 – Divine Design of the Human Soul

Faculties

1. God designed the human soul with faculties that process information into beliefs, thoughts, feelings and behaviors.
2. These faculties are: self-consciousness, volition, mentality and emotion.

a. Self Consciousness – the capacity to be aware of self – leader of the soul

b. Volition – the ability to choose

c. Mentality – the ability to process information, turning it into thoughts and motives.

§        Mind – nous – evaluate life experience to reach understanding and conclusions.

§        Heart – kardia – control center containing the belief system that evaluates life experiences based on what we have already believed.

§        Conscience – suneidesis - evaluate our own behaviors based on existing norms to determine the validity of the values we hold

d. Emotion – appreciator of the mentality and life experiences.

1. All of these faculties are present at birth in the normal human soul.
2. These abilities of our faculties are developed through use
3. Just as bodily functions are built and developed by practice (walking) so are the mental organs and faculties developed by use and practice.
4. The soul uses the physical brain to manifest the mental faculties

Function

1. The faculties of the soul are designed to work together in harmony to process information and human experience into thought in the soul.
2. The mind evaluates human experience for the purpose of understanding and reaching conclusions that enable us to meet our needs in life.
3. When we reach a conclusion based on our evaluations, we choose to believe it or reject our conclusion.
4. If we believe our conclusion, it is transferred into the heart where it becomes part of the belief system, the values system and our norm and standards.
5. If we reject our conclusion, it remains in memory as a theory, but is not embraced as a personal viewpoint.
6. Faith, the choice to believe is the key issue in the function of the soul.
7. Faith is part of perception – internalization; and also part of application – actualization. We apply whatever we believe at any given moment.

Visual and Verbal Thinking

Visual – Inner images – Eph 1:18 – eyes of the heart enlightened

Verbal – Inner dialogue – “he said in his heart”  Gen 8:21; 17:17; 27:41; 1Sam 27:1; 1King 12:26; Psm 10:6,11,13; 14:1; 53:1

1.     The faculties of the soul function both visually and verbally to produce thought.

2.     Visual – we create images of concepts, situations and memories as thoughts

3.     Verbal – we talk to self in our soul, discussing concepts, situations and memories

4.     Every thought is produced by either a visual or verbal function or both

5.     Discerning our own beliefs and thoughts is accomplished by observing our inner visual and verbal functions.

6.     Observing and manipulating our faculties or inner functions is neither New Age nor inappropriate behavior for a believer.

7.     Our imagination uses both visual and verbal functions to manipulate data to create new combinations and therefore new viewpoints.

Jam 1:2 hegeomai – to lead, guide imagination – imagine adversity as a reason for joy

8.     Creating the OM belief system requires that we imagine an interpretation for the events of our life – we conjure our interpretations from the influences around us.

9.     Taking off OM beliefs requires that we use our faculties to re-imagine different interpretations of the events of our life.

Memory – information storage

1.     Memories are stored categorically and that they are stored as images and words.

2.     The mind and heart are designed to store information using numerous categories as a filing system.

3.     Just like any organized filing system, the mind breaks different objects and experiences into categories. We determine that an object is soft/hard, new/old, mine/yours, good/bad, etc. We categorize events as similar/different, meaningful/meaningless, pleasant/miserable, etc.

4.     The application for those in leadership roles such as teachers, husbands and parents is that information is best assembled as a system if it is communicated in some organized and categorical manner.

5.     The mind processes all thought using images and words.

6.     The mind creates and stores images of our life that are both real and representative. We can easily call up images of people, places and events. We can retrieve an image of a person we once knew or a home in which we lived. In memory we also create images that are not totally accurate but represent real events and experiences. The mind is designed with the ability to envision the invisible and to mentally see principles and intangibles. The mind also uses words and phrases to think and access memory. This process is called inner dialogue or self talk. When we plan, think or remember we talk to ourselves using words and phrases stored in our vocabulary.

7.     An understanding of these methods of mental processing is essential for those who would learn to manage their own souls. We categorically store beliefs in our belief system using images and phrases. As we grow through the stages of human development, we store images and phrases that represent our false beliefs.

8.     When we enter God’s transformation process that changes our beliefs, it is necessary to lay aside many of these early beliefs. In order to recognize false beliefs and eliminate them from our belief system, we have to look for the images and listen for the phrases that represent our beliefs.

 

Lesson 5 Human Growth and Development

1. We are born with our personality, temperament and aptitudes, they are not acquired through knowledge and experience; yet we do grow in these areas.
2. We acquire knowledge and wisdom through training and experience
3. God designed man to grow and develop in stages that correspond to ages.
4. The initial stages of human development form the most fundamental aspects of our beliefs and viewpoints.

Biblical Age Developmental Tasks

Brephos-Nepios 0-2 yrs      Develop senses & motor skills – sucking, grasping, looking, listening, crawling, walking, comprehension, talking, self awareness, attachment, trust. Infants uses their senses and motor skills to relate to their world. They begin to develop basic categories of concrete objects in memory (hard, soft, color). Totally egocentric; None or little discipline advised

Pais 2-6 yrs               Develop symbols & language to understand & relate to the world. All thinking is concrete and the child is not yet capable to conceive in the abstract. Imagination flourishes and language becomes the primary means of influencing their world. Total to mildly egocentric which moderates about age 6; Light and immediate discipline is effective.

Teknon 7-11 yrs             Development of logic and examples (parables). Learning about classification of categories & numbers. Mildly egocentric so sharing & sympathy can be taught; Age where planned training & discipline based on rules is effective. Choices & consequences

Huios -                   12-Adult             Development of abstract thought and hypothetical concepts. Understanding of ethics, law, morality, social issues, theoretical concepts. Focus on adaptations to society and how the person fits into the world. Able to understand concepts without concrete examples. Egocentrism fades up to mid 20’s; Focus on choices & consequences as the person interacts in relationships. Puberty, sexuality & preparation for marriage

Adult – Death – Man continues to experience different stages of development and change all the way through life until death, the final stage of growth. When we understand that natural boundaries and experiences influence our thinking, it helps us adapt to the different pressures we face.

1.     Each stage of human development opens new challenges that motivate a child to grow and develop new skills.

2.     Each stage requires new beliefs to build the an overall life view

3.     A child’s environment in each stage influences what the child believes

4.     Beliefs are adopted in response to environmental pressures and based on how adequately or inadequately the child’s needs are supplied.

5.     Parental care influences a child’s beliefs about security, self-esteem, love, belonging, trust and personal ability.

6.     The security of early attachment & bonding is necessary for a child to build positive beliefs about himself and his worth in relation to others.

 

Lesson 6   Belief Systems

Belief Systems – Cohesive body of principles that harmoniously fit together, are in agreement with one another and form a life view.

Belief systems are formed as we evaluate our experiences, draw conclusions and believe these conclusions programming them into our heart.

1.     The heart uses whatever is believed to combine the principles into a system.

2.     Each principle that enters the system must agree with all other principles

3.     When something is believed that disagrees it creates an inner conflict

4.     Conflicts must be resolved – causes discomfort – cognitive dissonance

5.     Either the new principle must be rejected or something in the system must be rejected or adjusted to make the new principle fit – learning theory

6.     Belief systems generate our viewpoints, attitudes, emotions & behaviors

7.     All behavior is controlled by our belief system – we think, feel, speak & do according to what is programmed into our belief system.

8.     Our belief system controls our view of self, others, God & life

9.     Our existing belief system is used to evaluate present day experiences

10. Our belief system is formed by everything we have ever believed.

 

Subconscious Beliefs

1.     God designed the soul with both conscious & unconscious faculties

2.     Unconscious beliefs operate automatically freeing us to focus on our present situation with our conscious faculties.

3.     Once a belief is accepted into the heart and used for a period of time we lose awareness of its function – operates automatically

4.     Beliefs become unconscious habits that operate without conscious choice

5.     Every belief that remains in the heart continues to function until removed.

6.     We are still influenced & controlled by our earliest beliefs – the core

7.     These beliefs are stored as real or representative images and phrases

From birth until death we all consistently change the way we think and look at life. The conclusions we reach and believe are naturally formed into a system of beliefs that controls every category of our behaviors. As we add new information

to the system, these ideas are integrated to agree with the rest of the system. When new ideas conflict, the system makes adjustments by modifying or eliminating differing ideas. This is how learning takes place. From birth until our mid 20’s we exist in an egocentric state that severely limits our objectivity. We interpret our life events based only on our own needs and perspective without the benefit of understanding the views of others. The system we build is inevitably self centered and self-serving.

 

Lesson 7 – Bonding – Trust Attachments – the Worship Instinct

God made man as a worshipper. He made us to have deep longings, to have a sense that we are helpless to control our lives and the drive to find and attach ourselves to someone we think will love us and take care of us. The emptiness He created in us causes us to yearn for love. The immensity of life and our failure to control life conveys our need for help. The instinct to bond ourselves by attaching our hearts with total trust to some provider of love and protection is the instinct to worship i.e. the “Worship Instinct”.

1.     God designed the human soul to be able to attach to others with trust.

2.     Babies instinctively form a trust bond with those who care for them

3.     A trust bond is an attachment that opens the trusting soul to total influence.

4.     This instinct to trust & attach is the instinct to worship someone or thing

5.     Children sense they are helpless and look for someone to fully trust.

6.     Children attach to parents, peers, mates, children and hopefully God.

7.     We grant the objects of our attachments the power to influence us

8.     We naturally love and emulate those people to whom we bond.

9.     The consistent goodness & giving of parents with bonded children has a major influence on what ideas children adopt to form their belief systems.

10. The failure to be consistent, to be present, to be loving, to have an open soul, to train/teach, to provide, to communicate, to be affectionate and to set an example of integrity has a major influence of a bonded child’s belief system.

 

Lesson 8 Egocentrism

Egocentrism – inability to distinguish one’s own view of from the view of others; inability to see that any other view exists; child only sees his own needs and is not unconcerned, but unaware that anyone else has needs – stage of growth

1.     Egocentric means that I am the center; ego = I + centric = center/only

2.     Egocentrism causes us to perceive exclusively from our own perspective

3.     Children are born egocentric which fluctuates at least until the mid 20’s

4.     Egocentrism is not a choice, it is a natural state; changes only with growth

5.     Egocentrism causes children to interpret/conclude about events w/out the ability to consider or factor in the issue or problems of anyone else.

6.     Before age 6 all beliefs are totally egocentric causing the core belief system to develop w/out any chance of being aligned with God’s word.

7.     Egocentrism is a major developmental hurdle only overcome by growth

Egocentrism has at least two causes. The first is the old sin nature (OSN) passed down to the whole human race and inherited from Adam. The OSN produces selfishness and corrupts our beliefs and justifies self-centeredness as wisdom. The second cause of egocentrism is our neediness coupled with our survival instinct. Children have an instinctive fear of abandonment and use every means available to them to insure their own survival. Egocentrism wanes as we grow through the stages of human development and as maturity awards us the capacity to see others in the light of objectivity.

Lesson 9 Man’s Divinely Designed Needs

God designed man to have needs. He did not make man with inherent strength but in fact He made us weak, helpless and dependent on the help of others (Gen 2:18). He illustrates our helplessness by causing us to be born as babies, the most needy creatures on earth. We experience our needs as deep desire and longing in our innermost being. God explains that His provision to meet our deepest needs is found in a relationship with Him (John 7:37-39).

1.     Unconditional love/desire from God, man and self – Rom 5:5

2.     To fully know and be know by another – 1Cor 13:12

3.     Acceptance, inclusion and belonging – family – Eph 2:19

4.     Recognition, praise and appreciation for our contributions – Mt 25:21,23

5.     Ability to edify and impact others – make a difference – 1Thes 5:11

 

Just as God designed us with needs, so He has made provision for those needs

John 7:37-39 On the last and greatest day of the Feast, Jesus stood and said in a loud voice, “If anyone is thirsty, let him come to me and drink. 38 Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, rivers of living water will flow from his innermost being 39 By this he meant the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were later to receive. Up to that time the Spirit had not been given, since Jesus had not yet been glorified.

 

Thirsty– needs experienced as desires of the heart

Mt 5:6 – hunger & thirst for righteousness – desire for rightness with God

Jn 6:35 –Jesus-Bread/Life – come/Him never hunger; believe on Him never thirst

Jn 4:6-26 – woman at the well – living water & you will never thirst again

1.     Jesus wants to identify those who were aware of their need for spiritual life

2.     We experience our God given needs as deep desires and longins

 

Innermost Being – koilos Grk– empty, cavity, hole, womb, stomach, appetites

1.     God designed an empty place in the heart of mankind

2.     koilos is the source of desire and the place of fulfillment

Rom 16:18; Phil 3:19 – koilos generates our appetites filled with worldly things

3.     Without God, man chooses to fill the emptiness with false objects

4.     Bonding & attachment to false objects of pleasure causes addictions

 

Spirit– GHS indwelling the body of a believer and ministry to his mind

1.     GHS is described as living water filling the emptiness of man’s heart

2.     Relationship with God is the divine means of fulfillment of the human soul

God created us with an empty place in our hearts that yearns to be filled. The filling of this emptiness is a God given need, which is experienced as a desire to be known and loved. We are driven by this desire to meet our needs and to fill this emptiness. We try to fill it with many things but God has designed us in such a way that only when we are filled by Him do we feel complete.

Lesson 10 Faith – Hope – Love

Faith, hope and love form a system of thinking that produces strategies for relating others. The Apostle Paul joins these different aspects of our thinking together often in his writings.

Faith – Beliefs

1. God designed the human soul to use faith as a system of influence.
2. Whatever we choose to believe forms the content of our belief system that controls our views, our attitudes, our feelings and our behaviors.
3. The belief system is the control center of the soul and is programmed by those concepts we choose to believe.

Hope – Expectations

1. Whatever we believe also determines what we hope for or what we expect
2. Our hopes are our expectations – what we are expecting to happen
3. Whatever we believe is true is what we expect will eventually occur in our life
4. Man believes that love from man brings happiness

Ex: Believe in Return of Christ – expect that we will be united with Him forever

Love – Relational Strategies

1. Our beliefs and expectations determine the way we relate to others
2. We believe intimacy with man = happiness > we expect that a real love relationship will one day happen in our life and give us happiness > we develop relationship strategies designed to make this happen.
3. Man relates conditionally, giving to induce others to give back.
4. Both Old Man and New Man belief systems operate using faith, hope and love as its structure of thinking.

Comparison of Old & New Man Systems

New Man                                                                                                         Old Man

Desire/God; things/God;                (Hunger/Thirst)                          DESIRES Desire/man; love/man

Approval/God; hunger/truth                                                                  Approval/man

Belief/God; Belief/truth                                                                        Belief System Belief/man; belief/lies

Belief/bible                                                              (Faith)                   Belief/own conclusions

Hope/God; Hope/truth                                                                    EXPECTATIONS Hope/man; hope/lies

Realistic expectations                (Hope)                                           Unrealistic expectations

Fulfilled expectations                                                                          Disappointed expectations

Unconditional Love                                                                       STRATEGIES Conditional love

Give/no strings                               (Love)                                        Give to get; manipulation

Environment/freedom                                                                         Environment/demand

The basic systems with their core beliefs, motives, values, priorities, expectations, and methods of achieving relational goals.

Free emotion; pos/neg                                                              EMOTION Controlled emotion; pos/neg

Joy; content; grateful                                                                               numb; frustrated; anxious

Full expression; open                                                                          Hindered expression; closed

Words/edify/heal/help                                                                         VERBAL Words/self-promotion

Speak FHS; avoid ST                                                                                 Speak Carnal; ST

Good works; Fruit                                                                             OVERT Human works; man power

Divine production                                                                             Dead works; overt sins

These last areas are results of the systems and the program of the systems. Change the results by changing the focus of the desires, beliefs, expectations and strategies.

 

Lesson 11 – the Old Man Belief System

Summary

We begin life driven by our need to connect and be intimate with others. Born separated from God, who alone is able to meet our deepest needs, we attach our souls to the only “others” available to us, other people. We bond with our parents, then our peers and then a mate. As we gain the capacity to think we form beliefs about what we think will meet our needs. We attach our faith to man as the source of meeting our needs. Based on our conviction that man can and will meet our needs, we form expectations that at some point, the image we have of intimacy with another person will come to be. In order to make this happen, we develop strategies to relate to others that we hope will cause them to think highly of us. All OM relational strategies are conditional, giving to get back and even when our love is returned it never satisfies and we always end up disappointed.

Constructing the OM Belief System

1. The foundation of the OM system: “man bonds to man to meet man’s needs.”
2. Man believes that intimacy with mankind is the answer to the empty place.
3. Using faith, hope and love we form mental images and inner dialogue that reflect our core beliefs and relational strategies.
4. As we grow up we build layers of beliefs, expectations and strategies as our core ideas encounter the experience of real life.
5. We adjust our beliefs and ideas as we relate to others through the stages of growth
6. Ultimately our relationship strategies end up in failure and disappointment.
7. Relationship failure creates soul pain that evokes defense mechanisms intended to enable us to live with pain without resolving the reasons for our pain.
8. We repress and suppress our pain creating fragments in the soul.
9. Fragments are splits in the soul that allow us to repress a piece of the heart.

Characteristics of the OM Belief and Behavior System

1. Built on an egocentric emphasis of self
2. Anthropocentric instead of Theocentric
3. Needs attached to mankind for fulfillment

§        Trust in man causes fear of trusting man in appropriate way

1. Beliefs and expectations attached to mankind

§        Believe man can meet needs and expect that it will happen

1. Relational strategy of conditional love – no unconditional love

§        Man required to make it happen – works system

§        Manipulates others to gain their regard

1. Defensive and self protective mechanism are dominant

§        Disappointment dominates causing us to self protect

1. Self Deception and self justification
2. Logical basis that makes sin an appropriate and even necessary act
3. OM is compelled, addicted, enslaved, dominated
4. Dominated by fear and anger because of loss – fear of not getting what we want or losing what we have; anger at not getting what we want or losing what we have
5. Dominated by fear of death and loss

Commands to Take Off the OM Belief System

Ephesians 4:22-24 You were taught, with regard to your former way of life, to take off your old man, which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires; 23 to be made new in the attitude of your minds; 24 and to put on the new man, created to be like God in righteousness and holiness from the truth.

Ephesians 4:31 Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you, along with all malice. 32 And be kind to one another, tender-hearted, forgiving each other, just as God in Christ also has forgiven you.

 

Colossians 3:9-10 Do not lie to each other, since you have taken off your old man with its practices 10 and have put on the new man, which is being renewed unto full knowledge in the image of its Creator.

Romans 12:2 Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is– his good, pleasing and perfect will.

Hebrews 12:1 Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us take off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with perseverance the race set before us.

Romans 13:12 The night is nearly over; the day is almost here. So let us take off the deeds of darkness and put on the armor of light.

James 1:21 Therefore, take off all moral filth and the evil that is so prevalent and humbly accept the word planted in you, which can save you.

1 Peter 2:1 Therefore, take off all malice and all deceit, hypocrisy, envy, and slander of every kind. 2 Like newborn babies, crave pure spiritual milk, so that by it you may grow up in your salvation,

1.     Notice that each passage has a taking off function and a putting on function.

2.     Notice that the taking off comes before the putting on phase of the process

3.     The taking off aspect is described by the Greek apotithemi – to take off clothes

4.     The analogy of stripping off clothing is used to describe the taking off of beliefs in the soul and actions motivated by those beliefs.

5.     The believer will not be effective in renewing his mind if he misses the taking off phase of the transformation process.

6.     When we miss the taking off phase, we put new clothing on over old clothing.

§       New actions but same motives, beliefs and strategies to serve self

7.     Notice that everything we are commanded to take off are things we developed while unbelievers or while in a time of reversionism.

8.     Taking off the OM belief frees us from its habitual dominance and makes room for the NM belief in the soul of the believer to become habitual and dominant.

Lesson 12 Transformation – Renewing the Mind

Introductory Principles

1. All of these verses above were written to believers and therefore they are exhortations to live the Christian life. They are not about salvation.
2. Notice that in all these verses there is some behavior the believer must stop doing and some behavior the believer must begin or resume doing.
3. Each verse commands believers to stop some kind of sinful behavior.
4. Each verse commands believers to adopt or resume spiritual life.
5. The study will use Eph 4:22-24 to discuss transformation mechanics

Eph 4:22-24 You were taught, with regard to your former way of life, to take off your old man, the one being corrupted and dominated by its deceitful desires; 23 to be made new in the attitude of your minds; 24 and to put on the new man, created to be like God in righteousness and holiness from the truth.

Context: This passage is the conclusion of a discussion that includes vs 17-24. In vs 17-19 Paul describes the journey into depravity of a reversionistic believer and exhorts those involved to return to their spiritual life. In vs 20-21 he reminds them that they were not taught to live like unbelievers but had been taught to live according to the truth. In vs 22-24 he describes what they had been taught. They had been taught to continually confront and eliminate existing corrupted beliefs and behaviors that they had adopted in connection with sinful desires. In addition they were to renew their mental attitudes by replacing their old beliefs and behaviors with those taught in the word of God. Vs. 22-24 gives a detailed explanation of the mechanics of transformation.

Vs. 21 You were taught: In Vs. 22-24, Paul uses 3 infinitives to explain the mechanics of transformation (take off – be renewed – put on). These infinitives express the purpose for his teaching. His hope for them is that they will turn away from their old ways and pursue the spiritual assets given to us in Christ.

Vs. 22 take off Grk apotithemi – aorist middle infinitive – Lit. to take off clothing Act 7:58 take off coats; Fig. To stop using a particular idea as a belief and as a basis for behavior Heb 12:1 hindrances to spiritual life and sins, Rom 13:12 deeds of darkness, Jam 1:21 moral filth and evil, 1Per 2:1 mental and verbal relationship sins. The aorist infinitive expresses purpose indicating the intended purpose of Paul’s teaching is that we eliminate sinful beliefs and behaviors. The middle voice is reflexive indicating that the believer acts upon himself.

• Paul uses an analogy that creates the image of taking off and putting on layers of clothing.
• Clothing is put on and taken off in layers just as beliefs are put on and taken off in layers – peeled off in layers like an onion down to the core.
• We take off a belief by first recognizing it, then by refusing to act on it, then by repenting of it as being true, then by consistently rejecting it when it reemerges as habitual behavior which will eventually remove it and finally by renewing the mind through replacing it with the divine view of the issue.

Vs 22. former conduct – previous way of believing and behaving adopted as part of normal human development prior to salvation and before the total rejection of any influence other than God.

Belief and behavior system corrupted by the sin nature and misdirected by the dilemma of being separated from God.

Self centered and self-serving system built from our own conclusions, the influence of the world and without the benefit of God’s truth.

Vs 22. the old man – Grk palaios – ancient, outdated, obsolete, previous time

• Biblical title for the belief and behavior system of the unbeliever or the believer prior to successful transformation.
• It is ancient in that it goes all the way back to Adam, it is obsolete in that it is no longer useful for the believer and it is old in that it was developed before we had access to divine truth.

2 Corinthians 5:17 Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has lost its power and become invalid, the new has come!

Vs 22. the one being corrupted – Grk phtheiro – ruined, destroyed, deceived, mislead, seduced – the deceived status of the old man belief system built on lies

• The old system is corrupt because it built on false conclusions – devil’s lies
• False beliefs cause false applications and destroy our relationships

Vs 22. by – Grk kata – Lit. down; Fig. according to, dominated by, standards

• Kata indicates a system of standards used to evaluate some endeavor
• The standards in context are any ideas that facilitate fulfilling our desires.
• We build relational strategies we hope will meet our needs and desires

Vs 22. deceitful lusts – Grk epithumia – lust, desire, longing, yearning; primary biblical word used for desires attached to wrong objects or attached to legitimate objects but pursued outside of biblical boundaries.

• Our God given needs are experienced as desires and longings.
• Without God we build our own ideas about how to fulfill our desires
• Without truth we deceive ourselves that fulfilling desire causes happiness
• Without God to give us meaning and purpose in life, we are limited to using pleasure as a substitute for happiness and we confuse the two.
• The old belief system is dominated, driven and deceived by desire.

 

Vs 22. Summary – As believers, we are taught to evaluate our belief system and its behaviors for the purpose of eliminating those beliefs and behaviors that are not compatible with God’s word. Our old system called the old man, is corrupted and deceived by false conclusions adopted before salvation. It is preoccupied with and dominated by what we desire, how we feel and has confused pleasure with true happiness. A false belief is taken off by choice through first recognizing that it is not true, then by refusing to act upon it having seen the deception, then by repenting or changing our mind about believing it, then by committing to reject it every time it reasserts itself which will eventually remove it and finally by renewing the mind which means to replace it with the truth for application to the situation.

Vs 23. be renewed – Grk ananeoo – present passive infinitive – to make new or different, renovate, make better, replace old attitudes with new attitudes; The present infinitive is the 2^nd infinitive expressing God’s purpose of the believer. The present tense means that renewing the mind is a continual process. The passive voice indicates that renewal is the work of GHS as the believer learns new concepts from the word of God.

• When any idea is removed from our belief system it leaves a void.
• A void will naturally find something to fill itself – new idea
• Paul says to remove the corrupted beliefs and replace them with the truth

Vs 23. by the spirit – Grk pneuma – breath, Holy Spirit, human spirit, attitude, disposition, message, angelic being, ghost in this context the meaning is attitude.

• The Greek word pneuma had a wide range of diverse meanings.
• The translation of attitude is comparable to the idea of a person having a pleasant or unpleasant “spirit” about them.
• Attitudes are the results of thinking which result from what we believe.
• When we change what we believe, our attitudes will automatically change

Vs 23. in your mind – Grk nous – faculty of mind, content of the mind’s thoughts, understanding, judgment, reasoning, logic, intellect.

• Attitudes come from the content of the reasoning used in the mind.
• Paul calls on believers to renew the ideas being used to guide their lives.

Vs 23. Summary – as we remove false beliefs and behaviors from the belief system, a void is left in the soul. This void is to be filled with divine reasoning and principles. Renewing the content of the mind produces the potential to live with Christ like character within us.

Vs. 24 and Grk kai – in addition to – the use of the word “and” in Vs. 24,  indicates a sequence of steps that make up the mechanics of transformation. In Vs. 22 Paul says to do this first, and then take the step in Vs. 23 and finally in Vs. 24 he lays out the third step of transformation.

Vs. 24 put on – Grk enduo – aorist middle infinitive – Lit. to put on clothing, Fig. To embrace an idea as the basis of your beliefs and behaviors. As in Vs. 22 the aorist infinitive expresses the purpose of Paul’s teaching which is for believers to be transformed by renewing their minds. Having taken off old beliefs and added truth to our knowledge base, we are then able to embrace and live by the truth.

• The analogy and image is that of taking off and putting on layers of clothing.
• Beliefs are built over time and in stages causing them to form layers.
• Our beliefs were built in layers so they come off and are renewed in layers.
• Having rejected the lies and having learned the truth, we must choose to use the truth as our operating system for every area of our lives.

Vs. 24 the new man – Grk kainos – new and better in character to correspond to our new position in Christ.

• Believers experience a new birth (Jn 3:3,7), are made a new creation (2Cor 5:17), are made partakers of the divine nature (2Pet 1:4) and are able to build a new belief and behavior system – new man.
• The new man is a biblical title for the belief and behavior system that is aligned with the heart of Christ and made available to believers.

Vs. 24 created – Grk ktisis – aorist passive participle – to create, call into being; corresponds to the heb bara – create something out of nothing; Psm 51:10 “Create in me a clean heart O God”; The action of the aorist participle precedes the action of the main verb which is the aorist infinitive of enduo (put on) in Vs. 24. The passive voice indicates that the new man is the work of GHS and is not created by man’s mental efforts.

• The new man was created by GHS and offered as a free gift to believers.
• The new man system is already created and available to believers.
• The new man is not the result of man’s mental effort to reform himself.
• The new man is the miraculous creation of God who loves us.

 

Vs. 24 in the likeness of God – Grk kata theos – according to God; designed according to God’s image of Heb tselem demuth (Gen 1:26).

• Kata indicates a system of standards used to evaluate some endeavor
• The standards in context are God’s image ie His beliefs and behaviors
• Putting on the new man is adopting the thinking of God as revealed in His word as our own way of believing and behaving.

 

Vs. 24 in righteousness and holiness – God’s perfect rightness and purity

• The new man’s beliefs and behaviors are righteous and holy like God.
• At salvation the believer is made positionally righteous and holy
• The new man operating within the believer produces righteous and holy Christ like character.

 

Vs. 24 from the truth – Grk aletheia ablative of separation indicating the source of new man thinking for the believer.

• New man thinking is built from every word that proceeds from God.
• Renewal comes from learning the principles of God’s word categorically.
• God’s word is the only source of absolute truth about the spiritual life.

 

Vs. 24 Summary – The new man is built from assembling the principles of God’s word into a life view that speaks to every area of the believer’s life. Having learned these principles, we must choose to believe them and then put them into practice. GHS enlightens our understanding and empowers us to use these principles by which He produces the character of Christ within us.

 

Summary of Transformation Mechanics – 3 Stages

God has designed Christian transformation to occur as the result of a three-stage process. These stages, while clearly separated in the scriptures to communicate them, do not live out so neatly.  In real life, one may not be able to determine their exact stage or status at any given moment and the ability to do so is not necessary to be successful.

Transformation is a grace process meaning it is dependent on the power of GHS, the truth of God’s word and is a pre-prepared gift that is utilized by faith. As with every aspect of our relationship with God, He has already prepared everything we need to fully orient ourselves to Him. God’s provisions are all based on the Person and work of Jesus Christ that He earned for us in His death burial and resurrection. He offers these provisions to all mankind as a free gift that can only be accepted by faith.

As discussed in Eph 4:22-24, the three stages are to take off the old belief and behavior system, renew the content of our thinking and put on the new belief system built after the pattern of Christ.

Take Off the Old Man

1. Taking off the old man is the rejecting of old beliefs in the heart by refusing to believe them any longer.
2. One of the major difficulties of taking them off is being able to recognize as false our unconscious habits of thought that we have held for a long time. Our false beliefs, if long held, don’t feel false and they operate below the level of conscious awareness.
3. We must evaluate our beliefs by comparing them with God’s word to determine their validity. Many of our beliefs require a deep inner scouring of the heart to be able to see them operating as the source of present day activity.
4. Recognizing and rejecting false beliefs requires a commitment to total honesty about everything in our souls – our thoughts, feelings, verbals and overts. In addition, we must stop using defense mechanism like denial and emotional repression (Col 3:21). The purpose of denial is to hide the truth from ourselves and deceive our minds about painful feelings. Our instinct is to block out painful feelings from awareness through repressing our painful emotions.
5. We must adopt a new way of dealing with pain that allows us to resolve the issue with truth. The new method is: Feel what you Feel, which means to allow your soul to experience whatever feelings are stored in your memory. These feelings and the beliefs that cause them can be sorted out later.

1.     Recognition – The first necessary step is to recognize our lies. We can see false beliefs through what they produce in our lives especially in our relationships. When our relationships are dominated by mental and verbal sins, there is a clue that what we are believing and expecting from the relationship is false. Our emotions are also clues to what we have believed. False beliefs cause negative emotions such as feelings of sadness, hopelessness, depression, guilt, shame and anger. Monitoring our emotions and then looking for the images and inner dialogue connected to these emotions is a method for weeding out false beliefs.

2.     Refusing – when we recognize that our heart holds a false belief that is causing destructive behaviors, in the moment, we can refuse to act upon it anymore. We can sense it as a habitual response to life experiences and we can choose to not use it to operate.

3.     Repent - Having recognized a false belief we can change our mind about the truthfulness of that particular idea. We can realize what we believed and why we adopted it the idea. Then we can rethink the situation that initiated the idea originally.

4.     Reject – beliefs operate habitually and underneath the level of awareness. An idea that has been held and used for a long time will be resistant to change. The mind will try to resurrect it and use it again. At every point the idea can be rejected again and again until it no longer comes back. When the idea no longer comes back it has been removed form the belief system.

Renewal

In our original development with a sin nature and separated from God, we believe many ideas that do not align with God’s word. After salvation, GHS enables us to learn the truth from God’s word about every area of life. We are enabled to renew the content of our beliefs and this gives us the potential to believe and behave like Christ.

1. God provides the church as the classroom for Christianity.
2. The church provides the environment for God’s children to grow up.
3. Spiritual gifts, especially communication gifts are the supernatural means of conveying the word of God.
4. Learning and believing God’s word is the supernatural means of renewal.

Put On the New Man

Having rejected individual false beliefs and having learned the truth about the issue, GHS then enlightens our hearts, enabling us to choose the truth to replace the false. Enlightened, we are able to choose individual pieces of truth to apply to life as the situation demands. Choosing to believe and operate on the truth causes it to become our natural way of believing and behaving.

1. We put the truth in our souls be learning it and believing it under the enlightening ministry of GHS.
2. With truth available in our hearts, we can choose to make it our permanent operating system by using it in life situations.
3. Whatever ideas we consistently use to deal with life situations become habits of thought that operate automatically.
4. Over time, those who endure in this process begin to be transformed into the image of Christ.
5. In time, the process is partial and in eternity the process will be completed.

 

 Lesson 13 Changing the Meaning of a Memory

The Situation

1. A person under the influence of their OM system enters into relationships for the purpose of having needs met.

2. Under OM influence, he attaches his heart to the love object, making the person an essential part of life.

• The love object turns into an addiction.

• The object’s affection is desired and needed for him to believe his needs are being met and will be met in the future.

3. When the relationship fails or fails to provide our needs, there is pain caused by the loss of what the object was supplying.

§        The addiction continues but the supply is broken.

§        The person might believe that only the lost object is able to supply what is needed to meet his needs.

4. The pain of losing the relationship overwhelms his OM resources.

§        Unable to continue experiencing the pain without using defense mechanisms to bear it.

§        He then involuntarily represses the feelings of pain into his subconscious mind where he begins to lose even the memory of the details of the relationship.

 

LLW – Looking & Listening Within  – Alert and Aware

1.    The divinely inspired process by which we inventory the content of the soul, specifically our memories that we formed while operating under the influence of our OM belief and behavior system.

2.    We are seeking OM beliefs either formed while believers or carried into the Christian life from our time as unbelievers.

3.    The goal is to uncover hidden OM beliefs that are hindering our ability to apply the truth we have learned.

4.    We uncover hidden beliefs by uncovering the repressed, painful events of life that occurred while we were dominated by the OM.

5.    Once uncovered, we can recover:

§        the event(s) with all of its details

§        the conclusions we reached because of the event

§        the beliefs we formed based on the event.

§        the memory of the event from a new perspective

6.    Once we recover awareness of the beliefs we formed, we can change the belief from a lie to the truth we have learned.

7.    Changing the lie to the truth enables us to habitually practice the truth instead of the lie, enabling us to habitually function from the NM instead of the OM.

The Mechanics of Repression

1.     Repression of a memory is accomplished by dissociation.

2.     Dissociation is a partial or complete disruption of the normal integration of a person’s conscious or psychological functioning.

3.     Dissociation is a “splitting off” of a piece of the mind or heart in order to repress it into the subconscious.

• We split the pain and the memory off from our conscious awareness and place it into a “hole” and “cover it over”.
• We remove the memory & the pain from conscious mental view
• It is possible that this splitting might even happen in a physical sense, separating neurons from the normal pathways.

4.     Dissociation in its more extreme forms can become a double personality and/or multiple personalities.

5.     Dissociation in the mild form of repression poses no danger of becoming a split or multiple personalities.

Recovering a Memory

1.     When we uncover the event and the pain associated with it, we find that the memory has been stored as an image or even a film clip where we can see the event scenario.

2.     The image will contain a fragmented version of self at the age and as we were then, the other(s) involved as they were then.

3.     Initially, the memory will usually be unclear but will become more clear as we uncover it, bring it into view and examine it.

4.     You will discover that the image is open to interaction. This means that we can interact with the image and the parties involved in it, including our self in fragmented form, at the earlier age but also provide input to our previous self from the person you are now.

Changing the Meaning of the Memory

1.     Memories are stored using images and verbal dialogue

2.     The images and dialogue record not only the event but the meaning we originally assigned to the event or relationship.

3.     The meaning or significance we assign to the memory is based on the conclusions and beliefs we take away from the event.

4.     The meaning and significance we assign will be related to the depth of the attachment we made with the people involved.

5.     It is these conclusions we believed that programmed the OM beliefs that interfere with application of the truth.

6.     It is the conclusions and beliefs that must change for us to remove the OM beliefs that hinder our Christian life.

7.     God’s plan intends to use every event of our life to make divine good out of it, giving us peace, confidence and a satisfied soul.

8.     When we reach conclusions that any event means something bad or undesirable, we have chosen to believe contrary to God’s will.

 

Mechanics of Changing the Meaning of a Memory

Note: What we are about to describe is a method of working with memories. Any resemblance to any New Age method used in the world today is by accident only. This discussion in no way validates any New Age approach to interpreting scriptures. The method of using images and manipulating images is simply using the divinely designed system of visual and verbal storage to communicate with our memories. Our goal is to change what actually is within our soul to be in line with the truth of scripture.

1.     Bring your image of the event into your mind so that you can see it as your remember it.

2.     Find yourself as you remember your part of the event.

3.     Approach yourself in the image as the older adult you are now.

4.     Gain the attention of your younger self as you were in the image

5.     Continue speaking to self until you have the younger self’s full attention & he/she is no longer focused on the others in the image

6.     Ask the younger self to explain the conclusions he reached and believed that became part of the belief system. (goal is to get self to verbalize what you believed then and are still believing now).

7.     Confront your young self about the validity of his conclusions

8.     Express Christian virtues (love, grace, kindness, patience, etc) toward self during the whole interaction (commit to only ever using Christian virtues to relate to self and others from now on)

9.     Encourage self to stop holding onto the old beliefs as if true.

10.  Tell self to stop believing the old lies and that you now have better information on which to form a conclusion.

11.  Teach self the truth that you have learned since this event happened and continue offering it as the right way to think.

12.  Expect your younger self to resist changing his mind about his conclusions and beliefs. Don’t be dissuaded from insisting that your old self accept the new truth and use it as the new viewpoint

13.  Continue telling self the truth until the young self accepts it as the truth and replaces his old perspective with the new one.

14.  When the old view has been discarded and the new one embraced, the memory will be changed and now exist in the belief system as if it had always held the right conclusion & belief.

15.  Any negative feelings associated with holding the wrong view will be gone and replaced by the appropriate positive emotion.

16.  The new view based on the truth in Christ will form a new habitual way of thinking, feeling, speaking and acting.

Conclusion:

A.     We cannot change the past or anything about the past.

B.     We cannot change other people

C.     We cannot change what other people choose to believe about the past or what they remember about the past.

D.     We can change what we believe about the events of our past.

E.     We can change the significance we assign to events of the past.

F.      We can change how we feel about what happened in the past.

G.     God has allowed us to change our beliefs and therefore how we feel about everything in our past, enabling us to renew our thoughts and feelings about everything He allows.

 

Analogies – enable us to envision the process

Eph 6 – Spiritual armor

Having been issued your spiritual armor and taught how to use it, you are able to fight in the Angelic Conflict. It is at this point that the Lord begins to work on the character of the person inside the armor. The issue goes beyond just the mechanics of the spiritual life, it becomes our personal relationship with God. He makes things personal between you and Him. The only way to fully resolve the OM problem is to reject people as our source and redirect our needs and heart to God, building a whole new system with God as our source.

Numb 13

Having been freed from the slavery to Egypt, the Exodus generation are commanded to go and take the promised land away from the enemies of God who are inhabiting His land. When they get to the Jordan River they send spies who bring a hopeless report that discourages the people. They look at the difficulties of defeating the giants and reject the mission.

The land belonging to God is your heart bought with a price. The enemies in the land are the false beliefs and ideas that we have allowed in our heart. Taking the land is removing the lies from our heart by facing the giants that we fear and rejecting them forever. The first move Israel had to make was to cross the river.

Josh 3 – when the priest carrying the Ark touched the water of the Jordan River, the water dammed itself up and stopped flowing so that the people could cross on dry land. To enter the journey of taking off the OM, you have to cross the river in your soul and enter the fight for the land, your heart.

These are the analogies I use to motivate me and reassure me in the process of removing OM beliefs. Use these from the bible or make up your own.