Verse of the Week:
For who among men knows the thoughts of a man except the spirit of the man. Which is in him? Even so the thoughts of God no one knows except the spirit of God. Now we have received not the spirit of the world, but the spirit who is from God, so that we may know the things freely given to us by God. 1 Corinthians 2:11-12Living an Abundant Life in the Spirit
I once read a very cool illustration that author/speaker, Dan Stone, would use about one of the ways some people grow in the Lord. He would pick 4 people to come up to the stand to help him illustrate his point. One person was God, another person was the human spirit, another person was the soul (our thoughts and feelings), and the last person would be the body. He would place the human spirit and God side by side. When we accept Jesus into our hearts, the Holy Spirit comes to live inside our heart, and our spirit and God's spirit join together create a permanent union. Both begin to function as one unit. Paul even tells the Corinthians, Don’t you know that you yourselves are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in your midst? (1 Corinthians 3:15)
After placing God and the spirit together, Mr. Stone would then place the human soul in front of God and then the human body in front of the soul. Here is what it would look like:
Mr. Stone then went on to say:
The body faces outward, toward the audience. That is the way God designed it, to receive its input from the external world, through the senses, and to transmit that information back to the soul. God designed the soul to face the spirit, to receive its primary input and direction and life from the spirit. We are meant to hear God speak. But mankind's fall changed that. Because of the fall, the soul is turned toward the body. Satan, through the senses, lured the soul to turn from its original purpose, from being an agent of the spirit, to instead being an agent of the body. That's why the Bible talks about fleshly sins- bodily sins. [...] Until a person knows who he is and is living out of his union with Christ, the soul for the most part remains as it was. It remains turned outward, receiving its input and direction and trying to receive its life from the pleasures of the body and world. But it wasn't created to be that way. This is the Christian growth: the Father/Son/Spirit wooing our soul back from its fascination with the outer (the body and world) to a fascination with the inner (the Spirit/spirit in union). Growing in Christ doesn't mean increasingly getting our act together, but being wooed back. The entirety of our Christian life is the process of our soul turning back to our spirit.
Even Paul told the Galatians to walk by the Spirit, and not the flesh. (Galatians 5:15)
That all sounds great right? I discovered the secret of abundant life: to live by the Spirit of Christ that dwells inside of me. However, here is what had me stumped for years....How in the world are we supposed to hear the spirit? It is an audible voice? It is going to flash signs in front of me, telling me where to go? I wanted to live by the spirit, but didn't have a clue how that happened. I would just simply do what thousands upon thousands of Christians do their whole lives, read the Bible and learn how to act like Christ based on what the Bible says. (Not that the Bible itself is wrong to read; it is vital to read to have deeper understanding of the things of God, but not when I use it to operate from the flesh.) If I failed, then I would just clean up my act and try again. It wasn't abundant life, it was a frustrating life. No matter what I did, I couldn't even begin to imitate Christ because my thoughts and feelings (my soul) were facing the external (the world and body), not my spirit. I was expecting to imitate a perfect person through my broken body. It is impossible for something broken to imitate something perfect. I knew my spirit was perfect once Christ came and healed it, but my body and soul were still the same ole Katrina. So what changed? I learned what the Spirit is....
Stay with me here....I am going to tell you what the Spirit is. There have been thousands of moments in my life when my thoughts and feelings start responding to a situation in the wrong way, and I, of course, completely mess up. However, when I think back to that situation, I remember hearing a tiny little voice in my head saying, don't do it or telling me to respond in a different way. Then I get upset with myself wondering why I didn't listen to that voice. Sound familiar? Sounds a lot like our conscience right? Remember in Pinocchio where Jimmy the Cricket sings, "And always let your conscience be your guide!" That cute little cricket is not far off from what I believe is the most transforming area in the Christian life. Your conscience is the door to your spirit. Before you think I am spouting off blasphemy...here me out.
Everyone has a spirit and conscience. Before a person gets saved, their conscience is based on their own set of moral values. Their conscience/spirit is just as broken as their bodies and soul. This is the result of us choosing to rebel against God and do things our way. Anything people try to do apart from God is brokenness. However, God sent Jesus to heal our spirit by dying on the cross for our brokenness. When we believe and accept what Jesus has done for us, Jesus comes to live inside of us...that is the Holy Spirit. Our old spirit is made new with Christ's spirit. In the end, our old conscience is replaced with a new conscience. I have heard people say that when they got saved, they no longer wanted to sin...where did that desire come from? Not from our flesh, but from the spirit of Christ living inside of you. A new set of moral values replace the old set. New thoughts in our soul replace the old thoughts in our soul when we listen to the spirit. Read 1 Corinthians 2:11-12 to illustrate my point:
For who among men knows the thoughts of a man except the spirit of the man. Which is in him? Even so the thoughts of God no one knows except the spirit of God. Now we have received not the spirit of the world, but the spirit who is from God, so that we may know the things freely given to us by God.
The new covenant has changed how we operate. We no longer operate under the law of the old covenant. People of the old covenant didn't have Christ's spirit, so they had no choice but to try to follow the law to the core because they didn't have God's spirit in them to listen to. We now are under the new covenant and operate under the spirit. Unfortunately, because people miss this concept of operating in the spirit, Christians continue to this day to try to follow the law to the core through the flesh. Over 400 years before the new covenant took place, the prophet Ezekiel shared a prophecy of what the new covenant would look like:
Moreover, I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; and I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. I will put my spirit within you and cause you to walk in my statutes and you will be careful to observe my ordinances. (Ezekiel 36:26-27)
We are able to observe God's ordinances when our soul faces our Spirit and not the body. When I live day to day, I am focusing on that little voice inside my spirit. It gets louder the more I allow my soul to operate in it, and it helps me to daily live life abundantly whether things are going good or bad. It helps me to see who the real Katrina is in Christ...that is I am patient, loving, kind, and forgiving because of Christ's spirit in me. When I am tempted to blow a fuse with my son, Brayden, that small voice in my head tells me to stop and I remember that in Christ I can be patient with Brayden, and I am patient many times because of Jesus. When I blow a fuse with Brayden, I know it is because I was operating apart from the spirit of Christ in me.
When troubles comes, we can definitely tell where our soul is operating from based on our reaction to the problem. Author, Paul Tripp, once said,
Trials do not cause us to be what we have not been; rather they reveal what we have been all along. The harvest the trial produces is the result of the roots already in our hearts.
When a trial comes, are we rooted in the spirit or the flesh? Jeremiah said it perfectly,
But blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord, whose confidence is in him. He will be like a tree planted by the water that sends out its roots by the stream. It does not fear when heat comes; its leaves are always green. It has no worries in a year of drought and never fails to bear fruit. (Jeremiah 17:7-8)
When problems come in life (not "if" but "when"), we have to ask ourselves if our reaction is rooted in Christ. If we are having a pity party or responding in a way apart from Christ, then it probably means we are looking at the external and not the internal. When problems come in life, it should make us run more to Jesus, not away. If we look to the spirit, we will experience abundant life no matter what.
8 We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; 9 persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed;10 always carrying in the body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be manifested in our bodies. (1 Corinthians 4:8-10)
No matter what life throws at us, we are ok because of the spirit of Christ living in us. When our soul turns to the spirit, we are able to handle life's trials with the joy that James talks about in James 1. Jesus even talks about how living in His spirit produces abundant life. He says,
If any man is thirsty, let him come to Me and drink. He who believes in Me, as scripture said, "From his innermost being shall flow rivers of living water." By this he meant the spirit [...]. (John 7:37-39a)
Water continues to flow out of my spirit and gives me the abundant life that allows Jesus to be seen and glorified to the people of this world. When my soul operates from the spirit it allows me to make decisions Christ would make, view the world through God's eyes, and bring God glory no matter what is happening.
Here is my final thought:
God's goal is to take us from the external to internal, from looking for life in the world, the body, or the soul to experiencing true life in the union of our spirit with God's spirit. -Dan Stone
Resources: Dan Stone and David Gregory "The Rest of the Gospel"
Trip and Lane "How People Change"
