Our Soul is Already Prospering

AA is mind control.

I have written about this at length for quite some time.

We have to watch our thoughts, catch to make sure that we do not get angry, according to the AA program.

I have paid more attention to this facet of this evil cult, yet now more than ever I understand why it is so disturbing and dangerous.

Man does not live in his head, but his life comes through the Spirit of God.

Our minds, our thinking, our reason are all a result of what we see and believe. Yet our knowledge base by its very nature will always be limited. There is still so much to know, and so much to learn.

For decades, men and women of medical science believed that the appendix was a vestigial organ, yet recently studies had discovered that the appendix secretes a vital enzyme for digestion.

True, men and women can live without their appendix, yet the argument that that part of our bodies is unnecessary or serves no purpose is no longer true.

When it comes to God, when it comes to His greatness in our lives, we cannot settle with  our own conception of God. He is far greater than anything we know or can know. One of the last prayers in the New Testament, from the second Epistle of Peter, encourages us to grow in grace and knowledge of the Lord (2 Peter 3: 18)

Looking back over a great degree of struggle and pain in my life, I notice that time and again it all ha to do with trying to control what I was thinking.

More importantly, it all had to do with the lie that everything depended on me.

Such thinking is inevitable if you operate according to a conception of God, rather than resting in the truth of a creator who holds everything together, regardless of what you are thinking or feeling.

AA is evil mind control.

Today, I was thinking about a great verse, a prayer which reveals the heart of Our Heavenly Father:

"Beloved, I wish above all things that thou mayest prosper and be in health, even as thy soul prospereth." (3 John 2)

I used to read "as your soul prospers" to mean that you cannot have bad thoughts and feelings.

You should never be angry. You should never be sad, and you should never hold a grudge against anyone.

Yet what does the rest of the letter reveal regarding this matter?

"3For I rejoiced greatly, when the brethren came and testified of the truth that is in thee, even as thou walkest in the truth. 4I have no greater joy than to hear that my children walk in truth." (3 John 3-4)

When we read about the truth here in this passage, John is not writing about telling the truth and not telling lies.

He talks about truth as a  noun, and as something that you walk in.

Now, John is an apostle to the Jews, and in his writings appear Hebrew concepts, which include "walk", which all speak of identity, not activity.

To walk in the truth is therefore to identify with the truth.

What is the truth, then, in this context?

Let us go to the Gospel of John for starters:

"Ye sent unto John, and he bare witness unto the truth." (John 5: 33)

Who did John testify of? Jesus, of course, but what specifically?

"The next day John seeth Jesus coming unto him, and saith, Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world." (John 1: 29)

Before this announcement, John writes in the first chapter of John:

"14And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth." (John 1:14)

In Christ, we find grace and truth, and these two are inseparable in Christ:

"17For the law was given by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ." (John 1: 17)

Grace and truth are treated as a single entity in this passage, as they are throughout the Bible.

Grace is the truth, and in Christ, we find the Truth personified:

"Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me." (John 14: 6)

He is the truth.

In the Bible, someone asked the question directly:

"Pilate saith unto him, What is truth? And when he had said this, he went out again unto the Jews, and saith unto them, I find in him no fault at all." (John 18: 38)

Pontius Pilate did not realize it at the time, but He testified of the truth, and he answered his own question:

There is no fault in Christ, and because we are in Christ, there is no condemnation for us (Romans 8: 1)

So, walking in the truth, enjoying soul prosperity, is all about walking in concert with the truth that all your sins are forgiven.

This forgiveness covers our thought life, too, and has taken us from dead in our trespasses to alive and seated in heavenly places in Christ (Ephesians 2:4-6)

Sin has been condemned in our flesh, and we are no longer in the flesh, but in the Spirit.

We are no longer under law, but under grace, and thus sin has no power of us (Romans 6: 11-14)

Taking another look at the verse in 3 John, we find the  phrase "even as your soul prospers". Your soul and mine is already prospering as we walk in the truth.

The prosperity in our souls has nothing to do with what we are thinking, but what the Spirit of God is doing in us, and the Holy Spirit witnesses of Jesus (John 15: 26) convicts us of righteousness (John 16: 8-11)

I do not have to control what I am thinking, because the prosperity in my soul has nothing to do with what I am thinking, but with what Jesus has done and is doing.

Besides, God's thoughts supersede anything that I may think or believe:

"How precious also are thy thoughts unto me, O God! how great is the sum of them!" (Psalm 139: 17)

and

"For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the LORD." (Isaiah 55: 8)

Let us renew our minds to the word of God (Romans 12: 2) and let Him transform us from glory to glory (2 Corinthians 3: 18)

This is such a wonderful revelation to me. I am accepted before God not because of what I am thinking or feeling, but because of Jesus.

We have the mind of Christ today, too (1 Corinthians 2: 16), and to this day, Jesus our High Priest forever justifies us (Romans 8: 31-34) and thus we do not have to worry about what we are thinking.

Our soul is already prospering, and it is all because of Jesus!