Lifetime Guarantee

This book was recommended to me (well, assigned) by a Christian counsellor I was seeing. Despite an over-optimistic sounding title, I found it a good way to look at the Christian life, and a helpful explanation of our sin. I was so impressed that I gave the book away before I finished writing the review. From the perspective of a year later, a couple things stick out to me from the book:

The ways we go about satisfying our desires without Christ get burned into highways into our brains, and we will easily slip back onto the highway.
God is going to manuever our lives so that our ways of satisfying ourselves without Him no longer work.
The author writes about hating to close closet doors for his wife, and then having the Holy Spirit speak to him that closing doors one of the ways his wife spells love. What impressed me was the vivid example of learning to do something you really don’t want to do out of a desire to love your wife (which is also loving God)
Various influences in our lives (particularly early in life) leave us with our emotional state stuck unusually high. God will bring it down. (Over the last year, I have experienced this, in fact)
Live as if Jesus were you. Pretend it’s Jesus doing what you do not want to do, and it is easier. (This has always seemed a bit simplistic and wishful thinking, but it has stuck in my mind, so maybe I ought to try it)
It is possible that God allows Satan to carry out some of his accusations, in order that we would be cured of trying to satisfy ourselves in that way.

The book is a bit colloquial for my tastes, but accessible to everyone. It is definitely helpful and insightful. It even delivers on the promise of the title, although actually implementing it in your life will not be quick or easy.

[Update 8/9/2010] Pretending made me feel uncomfortable and I think I missed the value of what Gillam is saying. Essentially he is saying that the fact is, we are loved by God. He died for us, He forgives us, He sees Christ’s righteousness not our sins. He calls us (collectively) His bride; He calls us (individually) His children. The truth is that we are loved by God. If we don’t feel that way, we are focusing on something other than the truth (assuming that sin is not hindering our relationship), so pretending that we feel loved is simply reminding ourselves of the truth. In fact, in some way it is part of preaching ourselves the Gospel every day: Christ died for our sins (even today’s), and Christ also died to make us his beloved children.

Review: none

▶ Notes

Preface

Problems in marriage or with low self-esteem (for example) are symptoms of a deeper problem.
“As I’ve interacted with thousands of people over my years as a Christian counselor, the hurting person would typically tell me about what counselors refer to as ‘the presenting problem.’ I got to where I would sit there with a sort of ‘hidden agenda,’ knowing what the real problem was but, of course, listening intently and empathetically anyway. I began to see tha twhat they were seeing as their problem was in reality but a symptom of the problem. They were looking for a way to eliminate the symptom, which in their view would solve the problem. That simply won’t work.” (p. 9)
We can’t live the Christian life. That’s why Jesus lives in us.
“Your problem is twofold: Number 1, you are trying to live the Christian life instead of understanding how to collaborate with Christ to live the Christian life for you and through you. Number 2, you are not comprehending how to appropriate your true identity as the new creation you already are in Christ.” (p. 11)

Chapter 1: Why You Struggle

“The term ‘flesh’ has many meanings in the Bible, but our primary definition here is this: Flesh refers to the old ways or patterns by which you have attempted to get all your needs supplied instead of seeking Christ first and trusting Him to meet your needs." (p. 17)

These begin as a child. “And when the Holy Spirit begins the work of tearing them down, most Christian panic at the idea of losing them.” (p. 17)

A series of steps:

1. God created us with needs so that we would turn to Him.

2. We decided to carve out a piece of the Universe and say “I am Lord of this Ring”. We began provisioning our own needs.

3. Children only learn about themselves as they interact with others. So when you point to your nose and then your baby’s and say “nose” they think their nose looks like the one you pointed to. They don’t observe that we both have noses. Similarly, when you tell your child how much he gets in the way, or how he is worthless, etc. he learns about himself (instead of yourself, which would be more accurate).

4. What we feel is related to what we believe. But when our emotions are at a high level, it takes a while to calm them down. And if your parents are always yelling at you, your emotions may never go down, and will get stuck at a high level.
5. Your behaviors become more reinforced in the brain the more you do them. We’ve spent our lives finding our own way to satisfy our needs, and they have become pretty reinforced.
6. If our emotions are stuck at a high level, we will renumber them and our abnormally high level will be 0. Someone whose 0 is a normal person’s 8, will hit 10 a lot quicker.
7. We now have built our life around some pattern. If we were rejected as a kid, the pattern is rejection (we will assume that we will be rejected, because we know we are now lovable. We will not accept love and will constantly test it. Or we will latch onto people who do love and try to suck it out of them.)
8. Whatever we believe, we will feel. If, for instance, we believe that we are unloved or worthless, and we don’t believe it if others love us, then we will be pretty miserable, because God created us to need love.

“You have a mind and you have emotions, a ‘thinker’ and a ‘feeler.’ Your feeler responds to your thinker; whatever you set your thinker on, your feeler will react to it.” (p. 21)
“Here’s a crucial point, so underline it: False guilt feels exactly like valid guilt (a conviction from the Holy Spirit).” (p. 25) Using the example of the kid whose parents wished he hadn’t disrupted their lives, he’ll feel guilty that he’s responsible for his parents’ unhappiness, when in reality it isn’t true.

Instead, read what God’s Word says about it. Don’t confess false guilt, praise God that even though we have committed real sins against God, we are forgiven. Of course, you still feel guilty, but God will work on that.

Three types of people:

Yukky Flesh: people whose parents did not love them. They don’t know how to play Lord of the Ring in such a fashion as to get love from others, so are pretty miserable.
Plain Vanilla Flesh: people who have been well accepted. Can get acceptance from others reasonably well, although perhaps at the cost of performing to certain standards.
USDA Choice Flesh: people who are good at being accepted. Acceptance is available in return for performance, and they know how to perform. So they feel accepted.

The last two types of people feel a lot better. But they are all three equally not seeking Christ for their needs.

“But how about Joe and Sam [Vanilla and USDA]? They thank God daily that they’re strong! They mean well, but they’re flying on flesh power and heading for a flameout. Here’s the point to remember: Now that these three men are saved, the Evil One will try to control each of them by working through their old patterning.” (p. 29) Satan will try to get Yukky Flesh from appropriating Christ’s acceptance, and Vanilla and USDA to settle for something less that Christ’s love.

“There is no such thing as Spirit-filled flesh ... . How are you attempting to get your love needs met? How does your method for getting acceptance differ from that of the lost man or woman?" (p. 30)

Chapter 2: How You Got Into Your Fix

Philippians 3:3-9 demonstrates that “flesh” means “old ways” (talks about Paul’s confidence-in-the-flesh boast). “Walking after the flesh” means to walk in our old ways of finding satisfaction apart from God.
The mistakes your parents made are in turn caused by their parents, etc. But it all ends up with Satan. The biblical one to be angry with is Satan, not your parents.
Types of rejection

Overt rejection: you are told by your parents that you are worthless, etc.
Covert rejection: a lot more subtle, and you may not realize that you are rejected.

Perfectionism: thinking acceptance comes from being perfect, so we try harder. As a Christian, this leads to needing to be a perfect Christian in order to accept yourself.
No Physical Love: a girl whose father never touches her will learn that she is unlovely. She is likely to relate to males by either sexual promiscuity (to try to get it) or difficulty related to men.
Ignoring your child: whatever the child’s parents spend time on must be more important than them. Therefore they are worthless. This might come from work, play, or even Christian work, but the message is still the same.
Better Solution: the parents always tell the child the better solution after he did it another way. So he may feel like he is stupid.
Ridicule: telling a child he is stupid, ugly, clumsy, uncoordinated, etc. is good evidence that the child is that way. A girl told that she is not beautiful is likely to be either promiscuous to show that she is feminine, or frigid because she is convinced that she is not feminine.
Nonverbal ridicule: sighing deeply when the child makes a mistake, acting as if it’s such a heavy burden dealing with such mistakes. Communicates to the child that he is stupid.
Not Teaching: the mother who never teaches her daughter how to be a woman (bake, sew, housekeeping, proper feminine hygiene, etc.). This fails to teach the daughter how to “female.” Similarly for fathers and boys.
Overprotecting: never letting children make decisions so that they will never fail. Then when they grow up, they don’t know how to make decisions. It’s kind of like raising a baby wild animal and then releasing it back into the wild—it can’t survive because it doesn’t know how.
Indulgence: “Indulgence is one of the most destructive things a parent can do to a child. Its end product is a person with an unbridled, unbroken will who lives with one goal in mind—to take care of Number One. If anything goes wrong, it’s never his fault.” (p. 42) Gillham feels that the increase in working mothers is the main contribution, because both parents come home from work tired and don’t want to deal with proper discipline.
Not Expressing Emotions: parents who don’t communicate their emotions cause the child to try to figure out another way of determining if they’ve made mom or dad happy. This may lead to using emotions as the barometer of truth, particularly for girls who are already more intuitive than boys.

Performance-based acception

When a child does something wrong (e.g. lie), if you say that you hate liars, you’ve now communicated that you hate the child.
Instead, so something like “You lied. Your mother and I made a decision long ago not to tolerate lying. God doesn’t, either, that’s why Christ died. I could let you keep on that way, but because I love you, I’m not going to let you, and I’m going to spank you for lying.” This communicates that you don’t like the action, but you still love the child.
Our schools often end up this way, too. One of Gillham’s sons had a teacher who viewed correct responses as what was learned and only pointed out faults, which needed correcting. But this tends to be taken as failure by the child. Instead, it is good to point out good examples (such as handwriting) in addition to pointing out mistakes and providing a correct model.

As Christians, God accepts us completely based on Christ’s death. “Performance is important to God, yes, but it has to do with winning His approval, not his acceptance. It has to do with hearing Him say, ‘Well done, good and faithful servant’ one day at the Judgment Seat of Christ, but it has nothing to do with hearing Him say, ‘I accept you as My beloved child’ (John 1:12)” (p. 51)
“To demonstrate how deeply entrenched Satan has made the performance-based acceptance syndrome, consider this biblically based illustration. On a one-to-ten scale, where ten is the best, put a number on ow well you accept yourself, your spouse, and your kids, assuming you are all born again. ... But God accepts you perfectly in Christ already. God doesn’t grade on a one-to-ten scale; He grades pass-fail. ... Actually, any Christian who accepts himself or any other believer at less than ten has higher standards than God!” (p. 51)

Chapter 3: How Anabel and I Got Into Our Fix

Bill’s dad was in many ways a great dad, but he was very passive and would never make any decisions. His mother was quite a strong personality and definitely made all the decisions. To Bill, it seemed like if he wanted to be a strong man, he was going to have to be stronger than the women he knew, namely his mother. Since that was close to impossible, he in some sense hated women and would take any opportunity to tear them down, because he felt that he was being outdone by a woman. He was extremely critical of Anabel—wrong kind of green beans, biscuits cooked just a little bit too long, etc., always pointing out some sort of failure.
Anabel had a father who wanted her to be a boy, so she was very athletic and tomboyish. She also had a can-do attitude. She would just try harder. So she would try harder to buy the right kind of green beans (too bad she didn’t notice the sale in another store), the perfect biscuits, etc.
God gives you the perfect thorn: Anabel is very sensitive and gets very hurt if you even suggest she buy the a different brand of green beans. If you are a harsh woman-hater, you’ll beg God to clean up your act. But someone who is a little critical prevents Anabel from just slinking off to a different church every time she feels hurt.

If it were the reverse, it would accelerate their flesh trip. If Bill had a woman who could take it, he’d just try harder to destroy her. And if Anabel had an always-accepting husband, she’d never deal with her hurts.

God leaves our sin so that he is glorified through changing us.
End-of-chapter question: If you have USDA Choice Flesh, by and large, and find yourself running into one brick wall after the next, what is one of the potential reasons for this?

Chapter 4: An “Old Man” in a New Earthsuit

Small children are totally self-centered. They’re born that way, nobody teaches them to do that. In fact, we spend lots of time teaching them the opposite. We’re all still like that.
Man is composed of three parts: the body (our earthsuit), the soul (our personality—mind, will, emotions), and the spirit.

See 1 Thess 5:23. Also, the word for “soul” and “psychology” have the same root word.
See also Handbook to Happiness (Charles Solomon)

(“Earthsuit” comes from C.S. Lovett. See also 2 Cor 5:1-8: “earthly tent”)

The earthsuit is how the soul interacts with the physical environment: fingers typing, mouths talking, eyes reading

“There are some very neat things to be experienced on planet earth through the earthsuit. ... All these are good things. God made the earthsuit and designed it to enjoy these things, but they must be done according to the Manufacturer’s handbook or we’re creating trouble for ourselves.” (p. 72)

We communicate to God through our spirit. If we are not Christian, our spirit is dead to God (but alive to Satan). When we become Christians, God re-births us and our spirit is alive to Him.
Our brain is part of our earthsuit. It processes stuff. It is not your mind, because then you would not have a mind when you die. The brain processes the senses and organizes it into meaning. It doesn’t care what comes in: if we show it pornography, it will interpret pornography; if we show it godly things, it will interpret godly things.

The mind and the emotions analyze the results of the brain (computer) and make recommendations to the boss (the will).
The will can override the recommendatios of the mind and emotions.

Life is Jesus.

This does not make us more uniform, as some would suppose. The saw, router, and lathe all require electricity for “life”, but become different when connected to that life. It is when disconnected that they become the same: hunks of metal.

God is outside of time. To him, he sees our past and our future at the same time. To us, we see things linearly.
When God said that Adam would die when he ate of the tree, he did not mean physically (otherwise we would not be here), or soulically (our personalities are still intact, as they must be in order for us to choose to love God). It is our spirits that died.

When we died to God, we became alive to Satan (see Eph 2:1,2)

After Adam sinned our:

Mind can no longer understand spiritual truth (no matter how much Bible it knows)
Will cannot submit to God’s authority; we are our own god, in charge of our own kingdom
Emotions are drawn to the world. We live to satisfy our needs and to feel good. (p. 82)
Body is dying

Who we are is determined by our birth, not our actions. Creatures are not birds if they fly, creatures are birds because they are born that way. If we are born of Adam, we are dead; If we are born of the Spirit, we are alive

Chapter 5: A “New Man” in an Old Earthsuit

“...for every verse you can find in the New Testament stating that the believer is indwlet by christ, you will discover ten verses stating that the believer indwells Jesus.” (p. 86)

We hear lots of sermons on salvation and Christ indwelling us, but not much the other way. (See Heb 6:1)

We were in Christ when he was crucified; we died with Christ

“Romans 6 and 7 and many other verses in the Word of God state categorically that all believers died when Christ died. The verbs in the Greek are all past tense. You and I were executed in Christ (side B [side A is Christ indwelling us]). God executed everything about you He could not tolerate in His holy presence and buried you with Jesus (see Romans 6:4; Colossians 2:12). That’s what water baptism is all about. It’s a pantomime of your co-death and rebirth in Christ.” (p. 87)

Three ways God dealt with our problem:

Christ’s blood paid for our sins (our performance)
Through Christ’s body we are sanctified (Heb 10:10)
Christ’s spirit changed our spirit to be alive in Him

Why are there two elements of communion? The bread reminds us that our flesh died with Christ, and the wine reminds us that Jesus’ blood paid for our sins.

God killed our old self that desires to satisfy our desires. Our body still has the mental pathways that allow Satan to tempt us into not serving God, but God killed the old nature. We are not siamese twins with new nature and old (see old/newwineskins and Matth 6:24)

pp. 91-92 are a list of characteristics of who we really are. (e.g. new creation, righteousness of God, son, heir, accepted, are light, complete/perfect, member of His body, already seated in heaven)
We are not sinners saved by grace, we are saints who sin. The Bible refers to Christians as “saints” 56 times after the cross; there are only three times Christians are referred to as sinners, and that’s mostly Paul describing himself.
We are in Christ right now. Not something in the future.
“God’s plan is that you would cooperate with Christ to let Him express His life by filtering that life through your personality and earthsuit.” (p. 94)
“Your new purpose is different from your old one of seeking to get all your needs supplied by using the old ways you learned beginning early in life. Your new purpose is to glorify Jesus. God has given you a new heart and has written His desires upon your heart and mind (Hebrews 10:14-16)” (p. 95)
Eph 2:5-6 and Col 3:1-4 state that we are (spiritually) in Heaven, seated with Christ, right now. “The old ‘rebel you’ was crucified in Christ and buried. The ‘new you’ was born, raised, and ascended into heaven where you are in Christ, totally accepted and loved.” (p. 96)
We still sin because we still have the old mental pathways that Satan uses to tempt us to folly him.
“Do you know [that you are accepted]? Or are you prostituting Christ’s life by living to get your need for acceptance met? That’s sinning and you are still walking after the flesh, the results of which will be burned up at the Judgment Seat of Christ. There will be no reward, because you will already have had your reward. Self-acceptance. A ‘righteousness of your own.’ You are not to strive to get love; we don’t live that way now. We live from a posture of knowing that we are loved. It’s time to go to the Lord and repent.” (p. 98)

Chapter 6: You Can Keep a Good Man Down

“Satan’s goal is to entice the believer into employing his same old fleshly techniques to get his human needs satisfied, or, in the case of the Yukky Flesh Christians, create a sense of hopeless despair.” (p. 102)
In Romans 7:15, Paul says: “For that which I am doing, I do not understand; for I am not practicing what I would like to do, but I am doing the very thing I hate.” There is one one actor, “I”. But in Romans 7:20, “But if I am doing the very thing I do not wish, I am no longer the one doing it, but sin which dwells in me”. Now there are two actors: “I” and “sin”.

Sin suggests something, and if we agree with it, then we truly sin.

“The Word says that Satan ‘disguises himself as an angel of light’ (2 Corinthians 11:14). What is ‘light’ in the Word? Truth! He can come at you as ‘truth,’ as ‘revelation,’ as ‘insight into reality.’ But how? It’s simple. He gives you a thought in your mind and disguises it to seem as if it is your thought. You say, ‘How could he do that?’ By speaking to you with first-person singular pronouns (I, me, my, myself, etc.)!” (p. 103)
The brain is simply a machine; if we keep using the bad habits ingrained into our brain for how to satisfy ourselves, we’ll keep getting the same bad results out.

[Geoff: Be transformed by the renewing of your mind]

Whatever this “sin” entity is, it’s in our body, not our spirit or personality. At least for the believer.
Satan tries to get us to meet the needs that God gave us ourselves, independently from God.
Ex. Sex drive

Male, dedicated Christian sees a beautiful woman. Has a deep highway in the brain for lust.
“What you believe about your identity is going to make the difference. You will live out whatever you believe to be your true self, your true identity.” In particular, you can view yourself as a sinner who’s (unfortunately) doing what sinners do, or you can view yourself as a saint who sins. With the latter view, you can reject the sin.
So now this guy’s brain identifies a beautiful woman, and Satan suggests “Wow, I’d like to take her to bed.” (Note the “I”) Satan is presenting this idea for your consideration. And his emotions might be saying “I feel like I have to, I feel powerless to resist”.
But you don’t have to. Observe that it is not your thought, it is Satan’s, and recognize the strategy (trying to get his sexual desires fulfilled), and trust God to take care of that.

Chapter 7: Living Like a New Creation

Christians have a completely good heart (given by God). Rom 7:15 describes Paul as struggling with hating what he does. If we had a completely bad heart, we would not struggle at all. If we had a partially good heart, we wouldn’t have any problem either: “For I do what I like to do; sometimes it is good and sometimes it is evil.”
In Rom 7:18 he says that nothing good dwells in his flesh. Not that he is no good, but that his flesh is no good.

Some people say Jer 17:9 (the heart of a man is desperately wicked) contradicts this, but this is talking about unregenerate people.

Rom 7:23: The problem is that sin is still in the body. Not that the body is evil, but we have bent it to evil uses and it still remains that way.
In order to defeat sin, we need to start walking a different way. Focusing on stopping walking the sinful way just leaves us focused on the problem, but if we start walking the holy way, we will eventually forget the sinful way (like we forgot algebra).
First we need to believe the correct things: we are holy, blameless, forgiven, complete, in Heaven, victorious; whether we feel this way or not is inconsequential.
Second, we need to offer our lives as living sacrifices. We were reborn not to get our needs met but to serve God. Our new identity is ambassadors.

The Holy Spirit lives in us; we should act out who we are—people with God’s character.
This is an active activity; God will express himself when we act with His character. “You’re not to sit there until you feel Him take over. He will express the same life through you that He lived through His own earthsuit and personality, a life of obedience to the Father. He lived a life of service, not survival. But we have to act it out, believing it’s Christ doing it through us, by faith.

This should be obvious to your family, Christian brothers and sisters, and to the world (in that order of noticeability).

We are commanded to set our thoughts on the things above.

It is not impossible to set our minds: imagine a turtle slowly walking across a highway across the prairie during the hot summer day with no cloud in sight. Easy; set our minds on the things of God is just as easy, we just need to do it. [Geoff: discipline of the thoughts]

If you’re feeling rejected, nervous, afraid, whatever, imagine yourself as you are, loved by God who is hugging you with His strong arms.

(Author commands the men to do take a moment to do this, even though they don’t want to)

See yourself as you are: loved, holy, blameless, forgiven, etc. Remind yourself, imagine it. You will have less and less time to listen to Satan telling you how you need to be satisfying your desires.

“God’s Definition of a Hypocrite: Pretending to Be What You Are Not. Satan’s Definition of a Hypocrite: Acting Contrary to How You Feel”

If you don’t feel like you love your wife, you can act with God’s character and act lovingly anyway. This isn’t being a hypocrite. But if you wait until you feel properly, you’re listening to Satan’s definition, and the feelings may never come.

Ex: “[Anabel] requests that when he mows the yard, please use the catcher and bag the cuttings. You see, she’s really saying, ‘Husband, please love me by bagging the grass.’ This is the way she’s spelling love today. But sin says to him, ‘It’s such a hassle to bag the grass! It takes twice as long! I wish she’d get off my case!’” (p. 136) He knows that the grass needs to be mowed and that he needs to love his wife. So he imagines that it is Christ in him doing it, and not himself. Now he no longer minds doing it.

[Geoff: I think the key is choosing to love your wife rather than satisfying yourself, or rather, choosing to obey God. If the imagining part makes it easier, that’s great, but I think the same thing would be accomplished if you simply revised your priorities to be "I desire to love my wife and this is how she wants to be loved. I will give this as a gift to her.”]
“The abundant life is being able to spend Saturday morning mowing and bagging grass for your wife without getting resentful over it.” (p. 137)

Ex: You’re a woman who has been looking forward to carpooling to a conference with a couple co-workers, but the other three say that they are going to go with Teacher #4 instead of her at the last minute. You’ve been rejected, certainly, and you feel inferior to #4. So you have to remember that in God’s eyes, you are not. In God’s eyes, you are valuable, loved, and blameless. You have to remind yourself of this.
Information gets converted to knowledge through obedience. (Paraphrased from Watchman Nee)

Chapter 8: Handling Your Emotions

“Now, feeler is a tremendous motivator to will. When feeler is talking 10s, will is heavily influenced to submit to its demands.” (p. 143-4)
Chapter illustration: You are in the woods and a man-eating bear starts running after you. Mind notices trees and a cabin, suggests either climbing a tree (no good, bears can climb) or going to the cabin. Feeler is Fear=10! Will chooses to run to the cabin, runs in, closes door. Cabin is really strongly built, bear cannot get in. But the one (small) window has noglass and the bear sticks his snout in. Your instinct is to cower in the corner. But after a while you notice that despite the bear’s pounding, he’s not getting in. You realize that the truth is that the cabin is solidly built. However, if you don’t act on that truth, you might still cower (unnecessarily) in the corner. Once you start acting according to the truth, your emotions settle down.
The order is truth, faith, works (living according to the truth), emotions.

The emotions will only sort of follow, because God wants us to trust in Him, not the emotions. Sometimes they will be there, sometimes not.

For instance, God seems to have been distant from Jesus at the Garden of Gethsemane, otherwise Jesus wouldn’t have asked three times. (If he’d gotten a no and persisted in asking, that would be rebellion)

We try to do it in the other order: faith, feelings, stronger faith, actions. This does not work.

Satan will use this.
Ex: Sharon cooks a surprise romantic dinner, sends kids to a friends'. Peter comes home from work, says he was requested to sub in for the church bowling team and leaves. Sharon is naturally disappointed and feels rejected. Peter realizes quickly that he should spend time with his wife, comes back. Sharon feels rejected at 10, the more so since she normally feels rejected by men at level 7. Although she realizes that she is not rejected, while Peter showers, her emotions are still at 10. Satan will use this opportunity to suggest that she is either fundamentally not worth accepting (if she tends to blame herself) or that Peter is cruel for subjecting her to this (if she tends to blame others). So when Peter gets back, he’s likely to get either a chilly and quiet meal, or get punched out.

Chapter 9: Making Your Behavior Match Your Identity

Bill (the author) had difficulty teaching his first class. He wanted to be a force for Jesus on the secular university. He’d prepare, then blank on something really simply and feel like an idiot. Tried everything (binding the devil, claiming the blood, etc.)
Finally read a pamphlet that talked about co-crucifixion with Christ. He went through the four steps:

1. Realized that the truth was that Jesus wanted to live through him. He couldn’t do it himself.
2. Accepted that (faith)
3. Lived his life as if Christ were living through him. He wasn’t responsible for results, Jesus was.
4. Eventually things got better. Sort of. (They never are totally perfect)

We tend to define success in terms of accomplishing something well. God defines success in terms of whether we relied on Him to do it.

Ex. Housewife whose husband gets upset if eggs are not perfect. She does her best to cook the eggs perfectly, but asks Jesus to take up the slack. If it goes well, she succeeded, if not, she didn’t. This is relying on herself. Instead, if she considers Jesus to be moving her hands, he’s the one cooking the eggs. Now if Jesus doesn’t cook the eggs perfectly (and he probably will for a little bit, but then won’t, to teach her to rely on him), it isn’t that she didn’t succeed. The results are up to him.

Truth: we are justified, saved, holy, acceptable to God, and in Heaven with Him.
Faith: we must put our faith in something: God

"¶ I wonder if you have enough faith to make these steps work. Let’s run a quick test and see. Do you believe the Bible is the Word of God? You say, ‘Yes, I sure do.’ You just passed the test. You’ve got all the faith you need. ¶ Many well-meaning Bible teachers will tell you that the reason you have no victory is that you need to get more faith. But if you want an exercise in futility, try to generate more faith by tomorrow morning. Talk about sending someone on a guilt trip! You don’t need more faith. You need more knowledge of the Object of your faith ... ¶ Suppose you enter a church and observe the pews. You conclude, ‘I believe that pew will support my weight,’ and you sit down. Sure enough, it does. That’s faith. It’s not Christian faith, it’s pew faith. Let’s suppose, however, that the pew were to collapse. And suppose some well-meaning brother said, ‘You know, if you had more faith that would never have happened to you.’ Now I realize the guy means well, but his theology is wrong. Did your faith let you down? No, your faith was sufficient. It was the object of your faith (the pew) that let you down. The pew wasn’t worthy of the trust you placed in it. ¶ God’s love and trustworthiness, on the other hand, are always dependable. You must put your faith in Him, the beautiful object of your faith. You don’t need great faith, but more understanding of the Object of your faith. ¶" (p. 162-3)

Works: Faith without works is dead (James 2:17). We need to act on the truths that we believe

“Here is the step where most Christians miss the mark. The flesh wants to skip over Step 3 and move directly to Step 4, Feelings. The flesh loves to feel something happen as ‘proof’ that things are now different, that ‘it has worked.’ The flesh always ‘seeks for a sign’ so it can hang its hat on the sign instead of on the Word of God. It wants to use the sign as the object of its faith rather than the Word that God has spoken.” (p. 163)
Act like who you are, not who you feel to be.
God grades pass-fail. Either we lived dependent on Him (success), or independently (failure). (See Hab 1:11)

Feelings: God will bring your feeler into line through the transforming of your mind

“Remember, that peace is not a feeling, but a knowing—knowing that the Father has everything under control; that you are in Christ, seated in heaven, resting; and that He is in you now, living.” (p. 172-3)

Chapter 10: “Leftly” Dividing the Word of Truth

The view that sin’s nature is dead and that we fight the power of sin (i.e. power of sin == sin nature) is not correct. If it were correct, then we would be fighting a civil war, a war against ourselves. If our true nature is righteous, holy, desiring God, etc., then it’s us and God (the Holy Spirit, in this case) against sin.

The Bible repeatedly contrasts believers and non-believers: alive/dead, holy/evil, forgiven/condemned, submit to God/reject Him, unvelied mind/veiled, darkened mind, etc. The Bible sees us a polar opposites, not part holy and part unholy/trying to be holy.

But what do we do about the passages that seem to imply that we have two natures:

The Christian life is like a road. We come to forks in the road. The right turn is Law: the better our performance matches His expectations, the more pleased He is with us. The left turn is Grace: we are perfect through Christ, so our motivation is love for Christ, not guilt for failures.
Salvation: right means that we try to please God through our actions; left means we accept Jesus’ death for our actions.
Baptism: right means believing we won’t be saved unless we are baptized; left means we look at it as personally identifying through a picture of God’s grace of salvation.
Security: right means we need to keep holding to Jesus or we slip into hell (“In other words, I must perform retain what I couldn’t perform to acquire in the first place.” p. 180); left means John 10:28, Heb 13:5
Sanctification: right means that we have to stop lying, cheating, stealing, etc., and start memorizing Scripture, witnessing, etc.; left means that we are a holy people, we aren’t trying to become a holy people. (Gal 3:3) "Then there are others who have discerned that the ‘mystery’ of the gospel that liberates one to live a consistent, obedient life is found by turning left at this fork.” (p. 182)

We are sons of God, we are new creations. “As an oak sapling grows, it doesn’t get ‘oakier.’ Oak is oak. It simply matures into what it is, a full-grown oak tree.” (p. 182)

There may be many of these forks. But we need to consistently turn left, towards Grace. And if we turn right at a fork, God will just let us go along until we can’t handle it any more and go back left.
“The law is intended exclusively for the unregenerate man, to motivate him to salvation (Romans 6:14, Galatians 3:19-26; 1 Timothy 1:9a). The new man in Christ is motivated to righteous living by the Holy Spirit within (Ezekiel 36:26,27); he has the laws of God written on his heart and mind (Hebrews 10:16).” (p. 184)
“‘The power of sin is the law” (1 Corinthians 15:56, emphasis added). Law is the ‘gasoline’ that fuels sin’s engine. That explains why we sometimes see a pastor who hammers away with law teaching run off with the church secretary. The power of sin in him ‘fed itself’ on the man’s teaching and destroyed his ministry with it. You give the power of sin a law to work with and it will eventually beat you, because God’s provision for the believer is grace, not law." (p. 185)
“It’s not our old sin nature we struggle with. It’s the power of sin working through the old, worldly ways.” (p. 186)

Chapter 11: Is God Trying to Tell You Something?

The Devil’s most effective tool against Christians is to convince us to use the well-worn habits of satisfying our desire for love and self-esteem ourselves. We need to look to Jesus as the only source. “Once we’re called out to Him, He lovingly begins to woo us away as His bride from our ‘former lovers’ through which we sought to get our needs supplied.” (p. 188)
Gomer, in Hosea, is a picture of Israel and the church. Her flesh pattern was trading sex to fulfill her needs. God started making that not work so well: (p. 190 - 191)

I will hedge up her way with thorns, and I will build a wall against her so that she cannot find her paths [old ways] again (Hosea 2:6) 'Therefore, I will take back My grain ... and My new wine ... My wool and My flax,’ the Lord said (Hosea 2:9, emphasis added)
I will allure her, bring her into the wilderness, and speak kindly to her (Hosea 2:14)

“Why bring her into a wilderness? Did you ever consider how well your flesh will supply your needs in the wilderness? Let’s say that you have a fancy address, you come from the ‘right’ family, or your bumper sticker boasts you are a native-born citizen of the ‘right’ state. How much good will these things do you in the wilderness? The only thing you can try to impress out there are the jack rabbits! You’re going to find one source and only one out there, and that’s Jesus.” (p. 191)

I will go back to my first husband, for it was better for me then than now! (Hosea 2:7)
Then I will give her her vineyards from there, and the valley of Achor [“trouble”, the valley of Achen] as a door of hope (Hosea 2:15, emphasis added). ‘then you will call me “my husband” and will no longer call my “my [burdensome] master”. (Hosea 2:16)

Hosea 2:15b: She will sing there as in the days of her youth [salvation], as in the day when she came up from the land of Egypt.

“Whatever ‘song’ is on the lips of the Christian who has yet to come to the end of the flesh’s resources is like the latest tune to hit the top forty. It comes with about a thirty-day warranty. The only permanent, lasting song that any Christian will experience on this planet—the only one with a lifetime guarantee—is the one she learns to sing in the valley of Achor, where she comes to the end of depending on her flesh.

If your life is meaningless, no one accepts you, understands you, losing your beauty, have a boss who waves a carrot you can’t reach, etc.: “Dear, unhappy bride of Christ. If you are under the load, you are in the valley of Achor. Stop trying to milk your needs supply out of this world by the flesh. That’s the wrong spouse. You are loved. You’re the beloved bride who has ‘no spot or wrinkle or any such thing; but ... [is] holy and blameless’ (Ephesians 5:27)”.

Chapter 12: God’s Ultimate Purpose For You

Why did God leave us on earth, instead of taking us to Heaven?
Digression:

God closes doors behind us. For example, once we’re born, we can’t cease to exist. God establishes limits that we can’t cross (Job 14:5). God wants to draw us to himself. So he establishes limits (circumstances) in our lives to drive us toward Him. We can only go so far before we bump into one.

“Your pathway as you bumped back and forth between His limits for you led you to a confrontation with Jesus Christ unto salvation. Some, however, shrink back from this decision and carom about inside the triangle till they die in their sins. What a tragic waste of God’s grace.” (p. 199)

Once we repent and accept Jesus and Lord and Savior, we are spiritually born. God closes another door (we can’t be spiritually unborn) We may, however, act like we weren’t spiritually born, and God will discipline us by tightening our limits (circumstances).

“God has two plans for accomplishing His goal. Plan A is for you to see truth in the Word and respond in faith and obedience. I find, however, that most of us Christians are mentally slow. We see a verse such as, ‘Pray without ceasing’ (1 Thessalonians 5:17) and respond with, ‘How can I do that? I can’t pray continually and still accomplish my work.’ So God has to revert to Plan B, Romans 8:28. He has to let a little ‘all things’ come into a person’s life. He tightens up the limits around a person to box him into a more dependent position. Gang, 2 Corinthians 12:9 says, ‘The weaker you get, the more My power in you will stick out like a sore thumb’ (loose paraphrase)” (p. 200)

God hates independence (p. 200)
Jesus was entirely dependent:

“Jesus was committed to staying in that grave until the Father did it for Him.” (p. 201)
“Think about Him hanging on that cross, the Father having rejected Him because of your sins, and calling out, Father! Why have You forsaken Me?' And yet, He stayed there, committed to dying and going to hades, trusting only in the Father’s integrity to raise Him up again!” (p. 201)

Our time here is training for Heaven. Those who learn to walk in dependence here, who develop Christian character, will be the leaders in Heaven (Matt 25:23). (Book suggestion: Don’t Waste Your Sorrows (Paul Billheimer))
One of the doors is Total Committment. “Total committment is coming to the point where you are willing to place nothing between you and the Lord.” (p. 203) Not your wife, kids, job, ministry, nothing.
The last major door is claiming the cross. This doesn’t mean service, because the cross is for death. This means you hold a funeral for yourself and start acting like the person you are, who is dead to sin.

Bill and Anabel lived in a house with sliding doors. She liked to have them shut, he wanted them open. Sometimes he wouldn’t close them, sometimes he would (“Dumb doors! Stupid wife!”, or sometimes, “Maybe if I do something nice for her today, she’ll do something nice for me tonight”). One time he felt the Holy Spirit telling him to close the door. Sin told him that they were his doors, he wasn’t going to let a woman control him. But he went back, closed the door, and realized that this was a way to love Anabel.

“I was being given the opportunity to act ‘dead to sin and alive to God,’ love Anabel, and pile up points for the Judgement Seat of Christ. Conversely, I could act dead to God and alive to sin, piling up more wood, hay, and stubble for the big wiener roast in the sky.” (p. 207)

God will test us after we make a committment. This isn’t for Him; He already knows if we’ve made it. It’s for us, so that we know.

“Testing is purposeful. So when it happens, just praise Him and get with the program. If you kick at it, you flunk the course and He reenrolls you in the fall term. It’s easy to praise the Lord when everything’s cool, but you can ‘offer up a sacrifice of praise’ (Hebrews 13:15) only when it’s not. A sacrifice costs something. It hurts to give it. Praising the Lord when you feel bad is not being a phony either; it’s being obedient. Your heart can be in it even when your emotions are not.” (p. 206)

"Only a broken person is fit for leadership in the Kingdom of God." (p. 208)
God boasts about us to Satan, who constantly accuses us (Rev 12:10). Like Job, He says, “Look at Geoff, ...” and Satan replies “Sure, you’ve built a hedge around him. Take it away and he’ll curse your face.” So God lets him operate a little more freely. He grants Satan extra permission (but still with limits—Satan was always limited with what he could do to Job). So Satan removes what we’ve been relying on, and we grow in Christ.

Remember, it’s Jesus’ “nail-scarred hand [who] inserts the key into the lock to the protective hedge”.

Satan can only do things with God’s permission (he always says “if you do this, he’ll hate your guts” he never says “I’ll do ...”) God is still very much in control.
What happened for Job was that he was cured of holding onto his rights, of getting acceptance from the community for his righteousness.
Peter was cured of basing his self-worth on his courage, his pride in himself. He always made a point of being the boldest: asked to walk on water, even attacked a cohort of Roman soldiers (600 men) single-handedly to protect Jesus! But this was all part of God’s plan to break Peter and Satan’s accusing:

Jesus says “Satan has obtained by asking permission to sift you [plural] like wheat; but I have prayed for you [singular], that your [singular] faith may not fail; and you, when once you have turned again, strengthen your brothers. (Luke 22:31,32, emphasis added; see NASB margin.” (p. 230, brackets were in original) And what do you know, Peter, cowardly denies Jesus before women and children!
God “limits Satan to attack only the flesh from which he wishes to free the Christian” (p. 230)