Promotion versus Spiritual Gifts
It is important that we first distinguish between the fact and function of our spiritual gift. God imputes at least one spiritual gift to every believer at salvation. This is the fact. This is one of many things God gives us when we believe in Jesus Christ. These gifts include gifts of communication, of helps, of administration, of giving, and so on. A detailed study of spiritual gifts and their function is beyond the scope of this particular study, However we do need to understand that there is a relationship between the area of His promotion and what spiritual gift He has given. Though God bestows spiritual gifts, you, as a believer in Jesus Christ, determine whether or not He uses your spiritual gift. Your spiritual gift only functions if you continually growing up spiritually. If God uses your spiritual gift or gifts, then He will promote you.
As you grow spiritually and develop capacity for the function of your spiritual gift, God will provide the opportunity for its function. Your spiritual gift may function without your knowledge when you are an immature believer. Though it does function when you are immature, it will not function to its fullest until you mature. Some spiritual gifts also require preparation for their fullest function. This factor includes gifts of communication, which require formal theological and linguistic training. Further education may also enhance the function of other spiritual gifts. Often believers with spiritual gifts of helps find themselves in certain professions, such as nursing or other medical services. These professions often require many years of higher God always promotes believers who execute and fulfill the unique spiritual life of the Church Age.
This promotion comes in the form of blessing to that maturing believer. As you grow up, you develop capacity for those promotion blessings. Your spiritual growth also frees up God’s justice to bless you. You need to understand that you Christian works do not advance you in the spiritual life. God never promotes and blesses you for your works but for the faith you build as you grow up spiritually. Christian service results from your spiritual growth just as your increase in spiritual capacity for blessings.
Promotion Scriptures
Humble yourselves before the Lord and He will promote you. James 4:10This system of spiritual life promotion is not related in any way to human promotion, though one manifestation of divine promotion may be promotion within your profession. All promotions in the Christian life are completely and totally fair, because God, and only God, accomplishes all promotion. Promotion is always related to your humility and placing your cognition of God’s Word the highest priority in your scale of values. The basic foundation for promotion and success is humility. God will not promote you unless you posses humility. You only become humble if you choose to learn Bible doctrine. You cannot promote yourself, beyond your choice to grow up spiritually. Humility only comes from knowledge and application of God’s Word.
For everyone who exalts himself shall be humbled. And he who humbles himself shall be promoted. Luke 14:11“Everyone who exalts himself” refers to the believer who promotes himself. This self-promotion involves Christian degeneracy, the expression of your old sin nature’s lust pattern. This lust pattern usually swings between self-righteousness and lasciviousness.
“Being humble” refers to your exploitation of God’s grace provision including taking responsibility for your bad decisions, enabling your continual spiritual growth. You humble yourself when you are filled with the Holy Spirit, being inculcated with Bible doctrine, executing the protocol plan, being self-disciplined enough to make the decisions to keep learning doctrine. If you do not make the decision to humble yourself, then you will be humbled through the law of volitional responsibility, in which you proceed through up to three categories of divine discipline or punishment from God’s justice to bring you around. You see, God knows that you need Bible doctrine and He will pressure you until you either see that light or He prematurely takes you home!
For not he who promotes himself is approved, but whom the Lord promotes. 2 Corinthians 10:18Humility is the process of growing up spiritually. It includes the filling of the Holy Spirit; learning and applying doctrine that leads to executing or fulfilling the plan of God for your life. God only promotes the humble believer. Humility is doctrine in the stream of consciousness, that doctrine which you think. This doctrine in your thinking is your spiritual strength.
God makes war against the arrogant, but gives grace to the humble. Therefore, humble yourselves under the powerful hand of God that He may promote you at the proper time. 1 Peter 5:5-6Humility and grace orientation are always related to grace promotion. If you possess humility you will readily accept and learn accurate Bible teaching. Furthermore, humility is something you have to learn. No one is born humble, naturally humble, or humbled by their circumstances. Because you continually learn and apply Biblical truths you orient to all categories of His provision. This doctrinal orientation provides the foundation of grace orientation and your execution of the protocol plan of God. Doctrinal orientation leads to grace orientation which leads to fulfilling the plan of God for your life. God promotes you as you fulfill His plan for your life. As He promotes you, Jesus Christ distributes “escrow blessings” to you, now in time. The blessings He gives or imputes to you now form a down payment of what you will receive in eternity. Promotion implies that you are in the process of fulfilling God’s plan for your life, having become humble or grace oriented. This orientation develops within you capacity for every divine blessing associated with promotion.
If you fail, having involved yourself in arrogance and in Christian degeneracy, classify yourself as one who is visibly carnal, a cosmic Christian, and one who is self-promoting. The self promoting believer is arrogant and fails to execute God’s plan. This believer is classified as a spiritual loser. Although this believer loses his escrow blessings for time and eternity, he does not lose his salvation. His escrow blessings are a memorial to a lost opportunity.
The loser’s arrogance is described in the following passages:.
Arrogance precedes destruction, and before a fall [there is] a lifestyle of destruction. Proverbs 16:18Promotion Principles
When arrogance comes, then comes dishonor. But with the humble is wisdom. Proverbs 11:2
A person’s arrogance will bring him low, but with the humble is wisdom. Proverbs 29:23
Never covet what God has not provided in grace. If you covet what God has not provided, then you are arrogant, having become involved in the lust pattern of your old sin nature. If you follow your old sin nature lusts, you do not have capacity for anything but divine discipline. However by becoming humble or grace oriented, you learn to set aside your lust pattern. Through perception of doctrine you develop a tremendous capacity for life, love, happiness, and grace blessing from God. As you develop capacity, God provides more blessing and greater promotion.
God will not promote Church Age believers without mastering at least five areas of doctrine:
1. The Protocol Plan, God’s Plan for the Church Age Believer: You must thoroughly understand that there is a right way and wrong way to do something. You must do everything in God’s plan His way.Promotion in the Plan of God is always based on momentum from spiritual growth and never from Christian service or doing good deeds. Your motivation is the most important factor in any kind of works. Do you involve yourself in “good things” for self-promotion or to glorify God? If you are motivated properly, then you will follow the necessary protocol in doing so. Proper motivation and spirituality must precede any good works. The most important protocol factor is spirituality. God only recognizes and rewards those works accomplished while being in fellowship with God the Holy Spirit. Christian service and Christian works must result from momentum in the protocol plan of God. Works never becomes the means of spiritual growth. Therefore, do not confuse means and result in the Christian way of life.
2. Your Portfolio of Invisible Assets: How can you fulfill God’s plan for you if you don’t know what tools He has given to you to fulfill it?
3. The Dispensation of the Church: You need to understand the unique characteristics of the Church Age. This is a unique era of human history with new assets and new responsibilities.
4. The Ten Problem Solving Devices: You need to understand and use the problem solving devices of the protocol plan of God.
5. Suffering: You must understand and be able to apply the principles of suffering for blessing and how these relate to spiritual growth.
There is, however, an overriding factor in all of these principles: That is this: God always honors His Word and His spiritual gifts even if you do things for self-promotion. However, you will lose the eternal reward for that work if you do it while carnal. If you witness while out of fellowship, and your presentation accurate, people can still be saved but you will not be rewarded for that Christian service. Nor will God ever promote if you have the slave mentality. The slave mentality declares that security is more important than freedom. If you think that socialism is the answer to the problems of life or that the world owes you a living, you are not growing up spiritually, so God will not promote you.
Promotion is God’s Hands
God only promotes you if you are a grace-oriented Christian. If you are grace-oriented you will not only understand that everything you are is from God’s grace but this doctrine will be foundational in your decision making. Grace orientation comes through doctrinal inculcation or cognition. Cognition is an act or process of learning or perception; hence, something known or perceived. You cannot ever withdraw from or ignore this doctrine, even under stress, pressure, or adversity. You cannot forget inculcated doctrine.
Divine promotion in the protocol plan of God necessitates humility, authority orientation, objectivity, flexibility, and grace orientation. From these your grace orientation develops.
Promotion from God begins in spiritual adulthood. No believer is promoted until he or she reaches spiritual self-esteem. When God promotes you, He is glorified. Promotion is always based upon the God’s grace; when God acts in grace, He is glorified. Divine promotion is always fair. Furthermore, promoted believers as spiritual, invisible heroes, provide maximum historical impact in the Church Age toward people and angels. Your impact with angels is even greater than your impact with people.
Promotion and Christian Production
God promotes believers as part of His grace policy. Therefore, God promotes the humble believer whose inventory of Bible doctrine relates to grace orientation. Virtually all of it is, of course! Believers in line for divine promotion are humble believers. This is tantamount to grace orientation. Promotion does not involve the doing of good deeds and the performance of Christian service. Both promotion and the doing of good deeds result from spiritual growth momentum.
God promotes the prepared believer. You only prepare for life by learning and using spiritual skills. Your promotion in the spiritual life relates to your Christian production by this: Master your spiritual skills by which you grow in grace before you become involved in production skills for the performance of divine good.
By this My Father is glorified that you bear much fruit, and so prove to be My indoctrinated ones. John 15:8Indoctrination refers to perception, metabolization, and application of doctrine, that is, your spiritual growth. Divine good or fruit-bearing often occurs as invisible good, invisible divine good related to impact on human history, and to impact on the angelic conflict. Promotion is not based on production, but spiritual growth, which you can only fulfill by learning, understanding and applying Bible doctrine.
