Let’s look at Jennie Allen’s “Get Out of Your Head: A Study in Philippians” part 2

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Welcome back! Thank you for joining me today. We’re are working our way though Jennie Allen’s study “Get Out  of Your Head: a Study in Philippians” and today we’re gonna look at session 3-4. In last week’s post we went through the first two sessions where Mrs. Allen identified the problems we have when our thoughts are spiraling out (session 1) and then calling us to choose to make a shift (session 2). 

Are you ready to be equipped with weapons to fight the battle of our minds?

– 2Corin.10:3-5 says:

For though we walk in the flesh, we are not waging war according to the flesh. For the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh but have divine power to destroy strongholds. We destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God, and take every thought captive to obey Christ…  b

So this is right, even God tells us that we are at war, and we have weapons that we are instructed to use that will destroy strongholds, arguments, and every lofty opinion that is raised against the knowledge of God, by taking every thought captive to obey Christ. What are these weapons?

Ephs. 6:10-20 Finally, be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his might. Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil.  For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.  Therefore take up the whole armor of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand firm.  Stand therefore, having fastened on the belt of truth, and having put on the breastplate of righteousness,  and, as shoes for your feet, having put on the readiness given by the gospel of peace.  In all circumstances take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming darts of the evil one;  and take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God,  praying at all times in the Spirit, with all prayer and supplication. 

But my question is: Will Jennie Allen give us the armor of God, as Scripture does, or will she give us other weapons?

Let’s dive in shall we?

SESSION 3- WEAPONS WE USE- PART 1

“We are transformed by the renewal of our minds. We renew our minds by filling our minds with truth, with who God says we are, and then holding every other thought up to these truths. These truths are our weapons and they stop the spirals in our minds.”(pg59)- Did you notice that? She, in this statement is saying it is the truths about who God says WE ARE that are our weapons and stop the downward Spiral. God says that I am a sinner in need of a savior. What the Bible says about me is pretty negative. I don’t see how holding every thought captive to the truths of who God says we are will work, especially when  2Corin. 10:5 already told us that we take every  thought captive to: obey Christ. See the difference? One holds thoughts captive to our glory, while the other holds them captive to obedience and Christ’s glory. 

The Bible says who Christ is, what he has done, and is doing in us. We cannot rely merely on WHO God says we are to transform our mind. It is transformed by getting to know God through Christ by the Holy Spirit. We do not truly love someone or get to know someone by what they say about us. That’s not really loving them but loving ourselves through them. Renewing our minds with a focus on what God says about us puts the focus on us and only makes us love ourselves more. The scriptures talk about Christ and we study and learn about him to which our love and minds are turned to him.

In Philippians chapter 2 Paul goes into Christ humility and how he fully submitted and obeyed in his life and even his death. Like Christ, he urges the Philippians to do everything without grumbling and disputing so that they are blameless, pouring themselves out as spiritual offerings. He then talks about Timothy and Epaphroditus who both genuinely cared for their concerns more than their own well-being. In all of chapter 2 there’s nothing about dealing with negative spiritual thoughts, but is a chapter written to a church urging them all to love each other and sacrifice their lives for each other as Christ did.

From page 58 to 59 – she has us write the Gospel part of Philippians in our own words. And then has a focus on the results of holding fast the gospel without looking at the gospel in detail. She wants us to conform Our lives to be like Christ but ignores the power behind that conformity. She puts the focus back on us, directing us to focus on our thoughts and using God’s word as a sort of rerouter of our thoughts. While Paul is saying that it is holding fast the word of life (the gospel) that will keep us until Christ returns and causes us to do things without grumbling.

Now, do you remember what she said were the enemies of our minds? Self-Importance, Noise, Cynicism, Isolation, Complacency, Victimhood, and Anxiety. In these next 2 sessions she will go into what she believes are the weapons we should use to fight them. (I want to make very clear here that Philippians does not mention these enemies, nor the weapons she says we should use to fight them, but Philippians is about Christ, and how one finds and has their joy in Him thereby equipping us to do all thing in Him who strengthen us (Phil.4:13).

She will go into -6 weapons to use to fight these thoughts: humility, silence, delight, connection, intentionality, and gratefulness.  The first three are gone through in Session 3: Humility is submitting our thoughts to serving and putting others higher than ourselves. Silence is used to quiet our thoughts and correct them. Delight is choosing to look at beauty. While this advice may not be bad, I have 2 very strong issues with what she believes are our enemies and what needs to be used to fight them. And those issues are this 1) is that if scripture equips us for every good work (that includes the good work of good desires, leading to good thoughts, leading to good actions or love) then why doesn’t Scripture teach us about these enemies and these weapons that Jennie is describing here? 2) Are any of these enemies SIN, to which I should repent of? James 4:3-8 goes into this.

³ Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God. ⁵ Or do you suppose it is to no purpose that the Scripture says, “He yearns jealously over the spirit that he has made to dwell in us”? ⁶ But he gives more grace. Therefore it says, “God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.” ⁷ Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. ⁸ Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. ⁹ Be wretched and mourn and weep. Let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to gloom. ¹⁰ Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will exalt you. (James 4:8). This is what fixes our evil, passionate desires.

So that begs the question: Does God tell us the weapons we should use? Yes, He does. They are found in Ephesians 6, as we read earlier. She claims in the first session how it is the devil that wants our thoughts yet in Ephesians we have clear weapons or armor that is used to fight Satan and his schemes. None of them is what she listed. Since God has given us weapons, they are better weapons than what Jenny gives us. So to rely on Jenny’s weapons is to say that God’s are not sufficient to fix our hearts or thoughts. I’m not saying that what Jennie says are enemies to our mind are things we should not fight, or that her weapons are not good to do and have. What I am saying is that we should align ourselves with what God says are enemies are and use the weapons that God says we should use, because what Jennie gives us are only surface issues that do not identify what causes these thoughts or behaviors, sin. And the weapons are only paper weapons that do not defeat the cause. I  think if we go through each enemy and the weapon she gives we can see what I mean.

Enemie #1 is Self- Importance, Jennie’s weapon of choice is- Humility.

“One of the enemies of our minds specifically rampant in this generation is the inflated view of self being handed to us all over social media, in the shows and movies we watch, even in the self-help books we read. We’re fed a continuous message of how much we matter, how very important we are – but in the long run, the urge to protect ourselves and promote our own awesomeness leads to more separation, more disillusionment with each other, and more insecurity and fruitless comparison”(page 60). 

Humility is good and it does defeat self-importance. It is not thinking  of ourselves more highly than we ought, but to think with sober judgement, each according to the measure of faith that God has assigned (Rom.12:3). Question is: how does one receive sober judgement?

– Heb 4:12 says:

For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart.- Heb 4:12

 Right and sober judgement comes from God who, in His word tells us who we are (sinners in the hand of an angry God), and who He is; a merciful God who sent His Son, who humbled Himself, by emptying Himself, became a servant in human flesh, being perfectly obedient, even obedient to death on a cross (Phil.2:6-11). So we cannot be truly humble without calling out the sin that is in our lives, and turning to God, through Christ (2 Chron.7:14). 

Enemy #2- Noise, and Jennie’s weapon of choice here is-Silence.

“Humility is impossible unless we quiet the chatter and the noise and sit with Jesus…Silence, in itself, is the most basic and intimate form of humility… In the stillness and quiet, not only do we connect with God but we are also able to more clearly identify what is wrong. Recognizing our spirals and naming them is the first step in interrupting them. That’s why the enemy wants to fill our lives and our heads and hearts with noise. Because silence with God is the beginning of every victory. Stillness, solitude in the presence of God, is the basis of our strategy for interrupting all kinds of thought patterns.” (pg 62). 

Now we don’t quite get whether she means physical silence or silence in our heads should be used to interrupt the thought patterns. If she means to merely take some time to spend with God, then why not just say that? But I think she wants us to quiet our thoughts. To this I say no. Instead, I say overwhelm your thoughts with God’s thoughts- His Word. Meditate on it day and night as the psalmist says in Psalm 119. When we do this our minds are not quiet but are flowing with His word. And I will say this: it is hard to have self importance, Cynicism, Isolation, Complacency, Victimhood, and anxiety when our thoughts are constantly meditating on His Word.

 The 3rd enemy is Cynicism Which Jennie says we should fight with Delight- 

“The enemy’s strategy is to flood our thoughts with visions of all that is wrong in this broken, fallen world to the point we don’t even think to look for the positive anymore…but God has an abundance of joy and delight for us, and we’re missing it with arms crossed…. When research has studied awe and beauty, they found an interesting connection: when we experience awe, we move toward others in beneficial ways.We are freed from being the center of our own worlds for just a moment, we become more invested in the well-being of others, more generous, less entitled.”(page 65). I want to identify her endnote in this claim, which comes from Paul k. Piff ‘aw, The Self, and Prosocial Behavior,’ Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 108.

What are we to delight in? Beauty…”Stopping to delight in beauty is powerful”(pg 66). So she would have us delight in God’s creation? I am for this but only because of the CREATOR. To delight in creation apart from God is to worship and be in awe of creation. Paul describes how unbelievers do this and what it results in in Romans 1:18-25.

For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth.  For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them.  For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse.  For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools,  and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things.

 Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves, because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen.

I would rather encourage you to delight in God,as revealed to us in Scripture, the creator of all that is to be awed and all that is beautiful, honoring Him and giving thanks to Him, so that our thinking is not futile, and our hearts are not darkened, causing us to worship creation instead of the Creator.

Now we are getting into session 4, in which we are to reread Philippians chapter 2:14-30 and then Jennie gives us the 3 remaining enemies and weapons.

“I hope you’re getting comfortable with Philippians 2 and are starting to realize how surprising things like humility, silence, and delight act as powerful weapons. We’re going to park it here for another week, because it brings out three more ways to fight. And they’re all about busting out of our comfort zones.Our enemy seeks to suck away our power with thing like isolation, dissatisfaction, and complacency“(page 81)

 And again, I do not believe that Paul’s goal in Philippians is to teach us these enemies and these weapons. Now, These “weapons” are displayed in the text. An example of what I mean is… One of the enemies she mentions is “isolation” which we are to fight with “connection”. We can see that there is a connection between Paul and the Philippians, Paul and Timothy,  and between Paul and Epaphroditus, but Paul does not teach that connection is how we defeat Isolation. Nor does he teach that isolation is an enemy of our minds. Paul’s purpose in writing to the Philippians was to comfort them and encourage them into Christ, to urge them not to grumble, to serve each other; being of one mind, and to rejoice in the Lord always.  

SESSION 4-WEAPONS WE USE- PART 2

Now before she goes into the weapons she discusses what might prevent us from “shining like lights”. She reminds of where we read in Philippians 2:14-16 Do everything without grumbling or arguing, so that you may become blameless and pure, ‘children of God without fault in a warped and crooked generation’. Then you will shine among them like  stars in the sky as you hold firmly to the Word of Life”-Philippians 2:14 -16.

She says,“We’ve talked a little about how grumbling and anger and arguing are some of the many enemies to our lives being a true reflection of Christ. If we are not surrendered to the will of God and our worship is misplaced, then we will never live the mission God built for us.”(page 84).

1) it is a bold statement to say that something we do or not do can prevent a mission of God. It is a lack of understanding God’s sovereignty in all things. The heart of man may plan his way but the lord establishes his steps (Prov.16:9, Prov.21:1).

2) grumbling and anger arguing etc is not an enemy to our lives but is a result of what we hold firmly to. Notice that Paul said that we will shine like stars when we hold fast the word of life, Christ. When we are doing everything WITHOUT grumbling or arguing we become blameless and pure. And who are the blameless and pure? The children of God without fault. And we will shine like lights in a crooked generation as we hold fast to Christ. It is the holding fast of Christ, that causes us not to grumble, making us blameless and pure.

She will then dive into what might cause our spirits to grumble. She lists 4 things that she believes cause grumbling: Discontentment, Disillusionment, Discouragement, and Disengagement. She does not once call these sins, nor does she call anyone to repent of them. We are merely to take “our power” back by not allowing these things into our spirit, fighting them with weapons that are not found in Scripture. So let’s take a hot minute and see if these are sins.

Discontentment comes from the sin of coveting. God tells us not to covet (Ex. 20:17; Luke 12:15, among others), to seek God’s kingdom and righteousness, and to be content (Matt. 6:32-33; Heb.13:5). That includes possessions, positions, and purpose.

Disillusionment-a feeling of disappointment resulting from the discovery that something is not as good as one believed it to be. It is a result of putting one’s faith and trust in anything but God. This is a transgression of the 1st Commandment, and leads to idolatry. We may not create a graven image of that which we put our faith in, but it is an idol nonetheless. And spiritual idols are created when we do not love God with all our heart, soul, mind and strength. Now as we grow in faith and put our trust in God we will feel disillusioned with what we once trusted. But that disillusion was a result of our sinful trust in worldly things.

Discouragement- Why do people get discouraged? Could it be from a lack of knowledge and trust in God and His Sovereignty? If we love God with all our heart, soul, mind and strength, we know God. But because we doubt we are discouraged. The more we realize that God is in control over ALL things, and the more we trust that God is our loving Father, the less and less discouraged we are in life.

Disengagement- Mrs. Allen says “Our own insecurities or our disappointment in others cause us to pull back and isolate in order to protect” (pg 85). This is a result of  pride. We are prideful when we feel we must be secure in ourselves to truly love others. We are prideful when we believe that we are deserving of good treatment from others, or are expecting them to behave in a certain way. And then we are prideful if we withhold love from others because of our insecurities and disappointments. For love chooses to love regardless of how we are treated, for Jesus even tells us to love our enemies (Matt.5:44).

And just  to note- these feelings can be positive. I would pray that we as God’s people would feel discontent over this world as it is not our home (Heb. 13:14), disillusionment over our lusts as we realize that they do not satisfy (1 John 3:9), discouragement in our own strengths and works to save us (Ephs. 2:8-9), and to become disengaged from all false religion, lies, and the philosophies of this age (Rom.12:2).

We will always be struggling with sins, and therefore will always be battling these feelings. But thanks be to God our Father who sent His Son to live a life that was perfect and then gave His life as a sacrifice for our sins. So that there is no condemnation for us who are in Christ Jesus, who has set us free from the law of sin and death, so that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not in the flesh but in the Spirit (Rom.8:1-4).

So now, Mrs. Allen will go into the remaining 3 weapons.

These weapons are: Connection – putting myself out there to be known by others. Intentionality – putting myself out there to serve others and Gratefulness – going from victim to survivor.

Miss Allen quotes Philippians 2:1-2 to describe how Paul uses connection as a way of living.

If there is any encouragement in Christ, any comfort from love, any participation in the spirit, any affection and sympathy, complete my Joy by being of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind– “It’s a lot of togetherness, right? God purposefully places us in community so they can help us in the battle for our thought lives…we find ourselves in a generation that has made an idol out of the very thing God is calling us away from: independence. But often when we back away from others, it’s because we’re listening to lies about our worth. We’re convinced we’re not worth knowing. We’re convinced if we were known, we would be rejected… We weren’t meant to be alone in the dark. being known turns on the light. And that scares the devil. He doesn’t want us in the light, because when we stay in the dark with him, he can tell us whatever he wants. No more. Use the weapon of connection, and fight with the light”(page 86 to 87) 

It is comforting to know others who are like minded, and it is comforting to know that there are others who are struggling like we are but Connection to others, itself, is not the way we fight the devil with light. In fact the devil can use and does use in cults, the connection with others to draw them in. The Bible tells us that the light is God’s word, it is the truth. It reveals to us ourselves, shows us how sinful we are and dirty the world is, it shows us the lies the devil says. Those who are in the dark do not have God’s word and stumble (John 11:9-10). See Philippians 2:1-2  is talking about being in full accord and of one mind. Paul is encouraging the Philippian Church to be connected, not a willy-nilly connection, but a connection that comes from truth. The truth in Christ, the love found in Christ, the participation in the Spirit that comes from knowing Christ, all of this comes from the truths we know from the Gospel. It’s about believing the same things together, believing in Christ, that is what connects us. Here’s the thing – connection is not a weapon to fight the devil, connection is a result of the Church, the called out ones, who are in Christ, having the mind of Christ. 

2) the weapon of intentionality:

“We were not built to live for ourselves. I think of what Paul says about the Philippians -“everyone looks out for their own interests, not those of Jesus Christ”-and it reminds me of the 18 months of doubt that held me captive…(first I just want to point out a small error here. The verse she is quoting and really didn’t bother to sight is Philippians 2:21 which states “…for they all seek their own interest, not those of Jesus Christ.” In verse 20, before that, Paul had noted “for I have no one like him, (he’s speaking about Timothy here who he wished to send to them) who will be genuinely concerned for your welfare”… Then he says “for they all seek their own interest, not those of Jesus Christ”. So you can note here that the “they” that Paul is speaking about here are those that are with him in Rome not those in Philippi – the Philippians, those he’s writing this epistle to. But I will grant that that is was simple mistake.

“You and I were made to be part of an eternal story centered on the unyielding purpose of our service to an unmatched God. We were meant to live intentionally rather than floating along, trying to be comfy. Complacency is finding comfort in mediocrity, and accepting things as they are, clinging to the status quo. It’s numbing and zoning out… Intentionality is our weapon against complacency. We were meant to find joy in the work of God for others”(page 88-89)

I wouldn’t necessarily say intentionality is a weapon used to fight the thoughts that overtake us in our head. But I would definitely agree that a Christian lives a life of intentionality, not one of his own doing really but that of the Holy Spirit working and doing in him and through him. She gives another example of her spiral starting with stress as an emotion. Her thought to combat the complacency in mediocrity is “God has set Me Free to seek the good of others over my own comfort” (pg.89). And this thought leads to the behavior of pursuing the good of others which leads to a giving and loving relationship. And I would agree for a Christian this is a good way to think if you want to have a practical way to move forward out of your head so to speak. But if one does not understand the Gospel and know our God they will struggle with this or even worse do it because they believe it makes them right with God, when in actuality the Gospel through the Holy Spirit brings forth fruit, a desire to love others and bring glory to God. And that is why for the Christian, the Gospel is and needs to be the very focus week after week after week. It is the medicine, for all who are called out, healing every spiritual illness, thoughts, sins, etc.

I just have to do a side rant here-too many Christian books refuse to proclaim the Gospel or believe that it is needed by Christians. Evangelical Christianity today believes the gospel is for the unbeliever. But that is very unbiblical, as the Gospel is for those who would believe, the called out ones, the church. One who remains in unbelief does not and will not submit to the Gospel as Scripture says that Christ is the stumbling block and rock of offence to those who do not believe (1Pet.2:8). And because most of the popular Evangelical women’s ministry complex today believes that the Gospel is for the unbelievers to bring them into the Church, and they do not believe this Scripture is sufficient enough to equip women for every good work, they reach for philosophy, science, reason – and usually worldly reason at that. Sorry – just had to get that off my chest.

And finally, the weapon of gratefulness:

“The enemy offers us in a lineup of options that seem to comfort us but ultimately come up empty. One of those is the victim mentality…I’m talking more here about spending so much time licking our wounds that we don’t allow them to heal. We have to go from “victims”to “survivors”. And that ultimately pulls us out of ourselves and connects us with each other. We have a choice. We can center our thoughts on the certainty that, no matter what has happened to us, no matter what comes, we are upheld securely by God’s righteous right hand. And that will shift our minds towards gratitude.”(page 90 to 91).

Again I believe gratefulness, or as a Bible describes it- thankfulness, is something the Christian should look to strive for and is a result of knowing God; who he is and what Christ has done for us. Again it’s all rooted in the Gospel. It is not being a survivor that connects us with each other, it is being of full accord and of one mind as Paul described in Philippians 2:1-2.

Now here’s where I’m going to discuss her projects. At the end of every session she has us answer questions and complete projects. Some of them have us get into Scripture and answer questions which she labels “Who are you, Lord? & What do you want for me?”, “Digging Deeper” which are word studies (which I loved!), and then “Projects” which were activities that asked us to meditate on our lives and our thoughts and perform certain acts that she believes expound upon the weapons and teaching she gave in the session. 

Now it is the  “who are you, lord?” and “what do you want for me?” sections that I want to look at here. I appreciate the diving into Scripture, and this might be part of a personal preference, as I do not know Mrs Allen’s heart in writing this study. But I feel, like I said in last week’s episode, that she misses the mark. She gives a crumb instead of a whole meal. She focused on the imperatives without the indicatives. An imperative in Scripture are instructions, what we must do; while, indicatives, in Scripture, tell us what has been done . And here’s what I mean by this – that we see the beautiful teachings from the passages she selected are centered around instructions based on who God is. This is Law and it is good because the Law is good (1 Tim 1:8). But she neglects what is described in the text around the passage of HOW or WHY we obey and do what God wants. Those are the indicatives.

 I want to go through Session 2’s “Who Are You, Lord & What Do You Want for Me? The section to read was Rom.8 5-11.

 For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit set their minds on the things of the Spirit. ⁶ For to set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace. ⁷ For the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God’s law; indeed, it cannot. ⁸ Those who are in the flesh cannot please God.

⁹ You, however, are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if in fact the Spirit of God dwells in you. Anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him. ¹⁰ But if Christ is in you, although the body is dead because of sin, the Spirit is life because of righteousness. ¹¹ If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit who dwells in you.

And here is how I answered the 2 questions:

1)“Who are you, Lord?”- God is Spirit. 2) “What do you want for me?”- He wants for me to be filled with Him, giving life to my mortal body so I might walk in Him by setting my mind on the things of the Spirit. Now that’s a heavy thing, one that I cannot just pick up and do on my own. And here is where I say it was a crumb, because before Paul instructs us to live in the Spirit, describing what God wants for me, he went into the indicatives of what Christ did for us. 

There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.  For the law of the Spirit of life has set you  free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death.  For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do. By sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh,  in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.

See, the Reformers pressed how important it was to rightly handle Law and Gospel. And this was because our sinful nature looks to law and performance because it gratifies the flesh and our pride. But we see all throughout Scripture that it is WHO we believe in and what He did that 1) pleases God (Heb 11:6) and 2) produces works of obedience (James 2:17).

I shouldn’t really be surprised by this though, this study is more of a focus on what we need to do to “get out of our heads”, an imperative by- the-way, instead of Christ and what He has done. Please don’t misunderstand me, I am not saying we don’t need imperatives. But that instructions are given to us, in Scripture because of WHO Christ is and WHAT He has done.

I wish I could say that it was only this session that had this problem, but no, every single session that had the “Who are you, Lord? & What do you want for me?” all pushed imperatives and left out the indicatives. Session 3 was Psalm 19:1-6 which proclaims that the heavens declare the glory of the Lord, and because of her question “What do you want for me?” By asking this question we turn what is an indicative passage into an imperative one. Session 4 passage was Hebrews 3:12-14 instructing us to not fall away from God and to partake of Christ. If she had included  verses 1-6 in chapter 3 we would read of WHY we should partake of Christ, him being faithful to God and counted worthy of more glory than Moses, being faithful over God’s house as a son. In Session 5 we read Romans 7:15-25. Now if you know this passage, you’ll remember that it is Paul describing the war between his desires and his actions and from this we have to answer  who God is and what He wants for us- answering that God is holy, right and good who has revealed His righteousness through His commandments. And He desires for us to have a heart that longs to fulfill His Word. If she had included Rom 8:1-4 we would read how now, even though we sin there is no condemnation for us in Christ, because Christ  condemned sin in the flesh so that the righteous requirement  of the law might be fulfilled in us. This is the Gospel, ladies.

And this is what I’m saying she should have included and really should have been included in the whole entire study: the focus on the belief in the Messiah, in the mercy and Grace and salvation of God. The Gospel is the beginning of transforming our minds. Faith in Christ and the study of Scripture, through the Holy Spirit, brings us into, as Paul prayed in the beginning of Philippians,  love that abounds more and more, with knowledge and discernment, so that we may approve what is excellent, and be pure and blameless for the day of Christ, filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Christ, to the glory and praise of God (Phil.1:9-11). 

Again while she goes into “digging deeper” section, which I greatly appreciated by the way, the rest of the projects are entirely me focused.  project number three of session 4, in which she encourages us to seek out healthy people. Who does she say are healthy and whole? People who are “in touch with her strengths and weakness and clear on her values”(pg.99). I understand that she means healthy and whole in their thoughts and mind, or what we might call spiritually whole. The Bible has a lot to say about how one can be healthy and whole spiritually. Scripture makes a claim that we are 1) complete in Christ (Col.2:10), and 2) that we are to be trained in the words of the faith and of the good doctrine we receive in it  (1 Tim.4:6). It trains us in godliness and righteousness (2 Tim 3:16) and is of great value, for this present life and the life to come (1Tim 4:7-8). 

So does she mean that we should connect ourselves with healthy whole Christian women who study the word and know Christ? Because there is a difference, as unbelieving women can be in touch with their strengths and weaknesses and clear on their values. But they are not whole and healthy spiritually, but rather as Scripture describes them, darkened in their understanding, alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them, due to their hardness of heart (Eph 4:18). “Is she a good listener? Nobody’s going to be 100% on this, but you’re looking for emotional intelligence. And you have to be this kind of friend too. (Counseling’s great if you are looking for ways to be healthier).“(page 99) So you notice what she says we’re looking for- “emotional intelligence”. Then notice how she says we can be this type of person – by counseling. While Mrs Allen would say counseling can be helpful, even counseling is useless without God’s word, the Gospel, and the Holy Spirit. This statement reveals a lack in the belief that Scripture will make one healthy and whole spiritually, and mentally as well. 

Yes, we struggle, we deal with emotions that are sinful, we fight depression, anxiety, and sometimes physical illnesses that affect our hormones. For some of us we need external helpers because we deal with decaying bodies,such is life in this sinful world. But when it comes to our hearts that produce our thoughts (Matt 15:19) we are given the Spirit, that testifies of Christ (1John 4:2-3; 1 Corin.12:3; John 15:26, etc), that we are children of God (Rom. 8:16), abiding in Christ and obeying what He commands (1 John 3:24; 1 John 4:13; Heb. 10:14-17). God willing, I plan to address this in a future episode, as Scripture really does have something to say about fighting the enemy, who attacks the believer spiritually. And Scripture gives us weapons too. But they are not the weapons that Jennie gives in this study. 

But I think for today, it is enough. 

So ladies, in spite of what we might be dealing with in our minds, fear or peace, health or suffering, in times of abundance or need, may we go through all these things in Christ who strengthens us…till next time… may we be in His Word.

MelbaToast