I have been challenged by two different people to shorten the posts to this blog. This is the first attempt at doing that. We will see how it goes.
Jesus said, "But the hour is coming, and now is, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth; for the Father is seeking such to worship Him." (John 4:23)
Somewhere in the past dozen or so years, most churches seem to have lost the concept of what a worship leader is and does. We could just keep this simple and say a worship leader leads worship. That is probably too simple. It implies we understand what worship is. Most people, it seems, do not know the difference between "praise" and "worship." The difference is critical if we want to truly worship God. Praise is a function of the soul. Worship is a spiritual activity.
We have usually called the time we are in the church building, doing things together, worship. To the contrary, worship is the time when we are one on one with God, in spirit, no distractions, no disruptions. We cannot really worship "with" other people. We can worship in the same place (body), at the same time, and even do the same things, (soul). To truly worship, we must move into the spirit and be alone with God.
In any church service there are three different groups of people. One group does not need any help to worship. Tell them it is time to worship and they begin. The second group, knows about worship and has experienced it on some level, but they need to be helped, to be led, into the presence of God. The third group has no idea what worship is about. They have to be taught whatever cannot be caught during the worship time. Even when they catch onto what is going on, many find it helpful to be given the whys of those things.
A worship leader has a sole purpose when he or she is standing before an assembly. That is to lead each person into the presence of the Almighty. It stands to reason then, that the worship leader must know how to move into the spirit himself or herself. However, simply playing an instrument and/or holding a microphone while worshiping on stage is not leading worship.
Some people think the worship leader has to have superior musical abilities. Seven times in the Psalms we are encouraged to, "make a joyful noise" not "be excellent in music." The truth is that average musical abilities will suffice if the worship leader is able to bring people to the door of the most holy place and then get out of the way so each person can stand face to face with God.
We have visited a number of churches of late and have found it difficult to move past the distractions of cumbersome, wordy songs that most of the congregation finds difficult to sing. It is often as though the person or group on the platform has no idea the difficulty of the songs gets in the way of worship. We used to attend a church where the worship leader had decidedly average musical abilities. Yet somehow, he managed to lead people into the presence of God on a weekly basis, and sometimes mid-week as well. Conversely, there are many very talented musicians and song leaders who simply cannot make the move from soul to spirit to truly lead worship.
All we do here is attempt to stimulate people and churches to better and greater things, hoping that in so doing we will not be a hindrance to the work of the Gospel and the removal of the religious spirit. Should any of these concepts resonate with your spirit, make the necessary changes. Ultimately we members of Christ's body will all come to unity of the faith. (Ephesians 4:13) God bless!
Showing posts with label spirit. Show all posts
Showing posts with label spirit. Show all posts
Saturday, October 15, 2011
Sunday, November 8, 2009
Perhaps if We Talked Less and Listened More
Someone somewhere said, "God gave us two ears and one mouth for a reason." I feel fairly certain that was said as a sublte reproof because most of us do at least as much talking as we do listening. I suppose it is not really fair to indict all of you along with me, but there is another old saying that, "Misery loves company." I admit, I have done my share of complaining in 58 years of treading this soil. Then again, as most of you know, I am an introvert so my talking is, more often than not, consolidated to times when I have to talk, like when I am teaching a class. It did not always used to be so. I craved attention and was pretty good at talking for the sake of getting it. I could throw out a witicism or a barb with barely a thought about how it might be received. I have also been wounded a few times. Trust me, everyone knew about them. A couple friends even told me to quit talking about the wounds and the people who had inflicted them. I do not think either of them read this blog. They probably do not even know it exists. Then again, my guess is neither of them even remember the incidents. Still, I feel like I need to acknowledge David Saltzman and Nancy Ostini who caught me up short on two separate occasions. Thank you.
I, having said that and you having read that, can agree it is good advice to listen more than we talk, but then again, everyone knows we talk too much and do not listen enough. When we do listen, we usually listen to ourselves regardless of who is actually talking at the time. My in house human communications expert tells me that as much as ninety-three percent of our communications with one another is non-verbal. We are communicating by body language or facial expressions. Even voice inflections are considered non-verbal in this regard. When we attempt to communicate with some other person, we are trying to convey to them concepts in our mind which are not necessarily received correctly. Add to that the fact that we often hear what we expect the other person to say and/or hear what we wish the other person would say and it adds up to something well less than perfect understanding on both ends. The bottom line is that we do not hear because we do not listen.
In the last post, I mentioned I try to keep my spiritual ears open to the Holy Spirit regardless of whatever else I might be doing. Some people think that is kind of freaky or mystical or something. Virtually all those people have either not experienced the Holy Spirit speaking into their spirit or simply did not recognize it when He did. Years ago, while trying to explain the concept to a group of brilliant, young, college students (yes, I was definitely over matched intellectually) the Holy Spirit did speak into my spirit with a simile they immediately grasped. The spirit in man is like the operating system in a computer. Once it is connected to the power (Holy Spirit) and turned on it runs in the background enabling everything else to work. All we have to do activate our spirit. It probably is not productive to discuss whether once our spirit is activated, we need to reactivate it regularly. Maybe we can go there another time.
Scripture does tell us to, "be filled with the spirit" (Ephesians 5:18) I am going to throw in a little Greek lesson here, but I will not charge you extra for it. This phrase is in the Greek present tense. The present tense shows continuing action in present time. When we read the phrase in English we are inclined to think it means to be in a state of having been filled. In other words, we were filled once and we are supposed to stay that way. That would be a different tense in Greek (the imperfect tense if you are interested). By being in the present tense, a literal translation would be "be being filled" or to be in a state in which we are continually being filled. (Scripture actually refers to that as a river and a fountain in various places.) That is only possible when we stay connected to the Holy Spirit. He provides the power for our operating system, our spirit, to run in the background regardless of what we are doing or what is going on around us. This is the state of being Isaiah was referring to when he wrote, "You will keep him in perfect peace, Whose mind is stayed on You." (Isaiah 26:3) The writer of Hebrews tells us essentially the same thing when he writes, "Let us therefore be diligent to enter that rest..." (Hebrews 4:11)
Some of you long time readers are surely asking if I have confused the spirit and the soul. Not at all. The mind is what we use in our effort to activate the spirit. Prayer, praise, and worship are all activities that turn our spirit on. Our soul sits between our body and our spirit, listening to the desires of each of them as they play tug o'war with each other. We decide which direction we will ultimately go. We decide whether to do what Jesus wants or what we want. In spite of the fact we know that going head to head with Him ends in a headache at best, we often stubbornly persist in having our own way. We do this knowing the truth of Proverbs 14:12 that our way will always end in death. It occurs to me that is not always a bad thing. Sometimes that death is to our fleshly desires. That death will end up working out well, but my gosh it is so painful to learn things that way. Why not just make it easy on ourselves and listen to what the Holy Spirit has to say to us--then do it.
Maybe this is my post for old sayings. I am in this for a penny, in it for a pound. If you are coming along, it will not be long before the battle is engaged in earnest. Now would be the time to decide. Our encouragement would be to listen to what the Holy Spirit is telling you. Listen all the time. Then do whatever that is. It will not always make you the most popular person in town. That also is a lesson for another time. See you soon. God bless!
I, having said that and you having read that, can agree it is good advice to listen more than we talk, but then again, everyone knows we talk too much and do not listen enough. When we do listen, we usually listen to ourselves regardless of who is actually talking at the time. My in house human communications expert tells me that as much as ninety-three percent of our communications with one another is non-verbal. We are communicating by body language or facial expressions. Even voice inflections are considered non-verbal in this regard. When we attempt to communicate with some other person, we are trying to convey to them concepts in our mind which are not necessarily received correctly. Add to that the fact that we often hear what we expect the other person to say and/or hear what we wish the other person would say and it adds up to something well less than perfect understanding on both ends. The bottom line is that we do not hear because we do not listen.
In the last post, I mentioned I try to keep my spiritual ears open to the Holy Spirit regardless of whatever else I might be doing. Some people think that is kind of freaky or mystical or something. Virtually all those people have either not experienced the Holy Spirit speaking into their spirit or simply did not recognize it when He did. Years ago, while trying to explain the concept to a group of brilliant, young, college students (yes, I was definitely over matched intellectually) the Holy Spirit did speak into my spirit with a simile they immediately grasped. The spirit in man is like the operating system in a computer. Once it is connected to the power (Holy Spirit) and turned on it runs in the background enabling everything else to work. All we have to do activate our spirit. It probably is not productive to discuss whether once our spirit is activated, we need to reactivate it regularly. Maybe we can go there another time.
Scripture does tell us to, "be filled with the spirit" (Ephesians 5:18) I am going to throw in a little Greek lesson here, but I will not charge you extra for it. This phrase is in the Greek present tense. The present tense shows continuing action in present time. When we read the phrase in English we are inclined to think it means to be in a state of having been filled. In other words, we were filled once and we are supposed to stay that way. That would be a different tense in Greek (the imperfect tense if you are interested). By being in the present tense, a literal translation would be "be being filled" or to be in a state in which we are continually being filled. (Scripture actually refers to that as a river and a fountain in various places.) That is only possible when we stay connected to the Holy Spirit. He provides the power for our operating system, our spirit, to run in the background regardless of what we are doing or what is going on around us. This is the state of being Isaiah was referring to when he wrote, "You will keep him in perfect peace, Whose mind is stayed on You." (Isaiah 26:3) The writer of Hebrews tells us essentially the same thing when he writes, "Let us therefore be diligent to enter that rest..." (Hebrews 4:11)
Some of you long time readers are surely asking if I have confused the spirit and the soul. Not at all. The mind is what we use in our effort to activate the spirit. Prayer, praise, and worship are all activities that turn our spirit on. Our soul sits between our body and our spirit, listening to the desires of each of them as they play tug o'war with each other. We decide which direction we will ultimately go. We decide whether to do what Jesus wants or what we want. In spite of the fact we know that going head to head with Him ends in a headache at best, we often stubbornly persist in having our own way. We do this knowing the truth of Proverbs 14:12 that our way will always end in death. It occurs to me that is not always a bad thing. Sometimes that death is to our fleshly desires. That death will end up working out well, but my gosh it is so painful to learn things that way. Why not just make it easy on ourselves and listen to what the Holy Spirit has to say to us--then do it.
Maybe this is my post for old sayings. I am in this for a penny, in it for a pound. If you are coming along, it will not be long before the battle is engaged in earnest. Now would be the time to decide. Our encouragement would be to listen to what the Holy Spirit is telling you. Listen all the time. Then do whatever that is. It will not always make you the most popular person in town. That also is a lesson for another time. See you soon. God bless!
Thursday, August 27, 2009
The Work of God
Sometimes we get it right. Sometimes we get it wrong. That applies to all of us who tread this sod in human form. God never gives ministry to people who always get it right. Nobody does. Let the record reflect: I am not as smart as you probably think I am. My IQ tests put me a couple steps above average and I have a fairly good memory for things I consider important, although it is not nearly as good as it used to be. Still, at family gatherings, I look at several people, including my own children, who are smarter than I am. By the way, for the record, I live right here in this skin. I am not all that impressed. I am just a guy doing my best to do what I am supposed to be doing. There is one thing I do better than most that makes people think I am smarter than I am--and I can only wish I did it better than I do.
The inter-working of the spirit, soul, and body has long been an area of interest to me and is a specialty in my teaching. We have discussed that before. (The Image of God--Spirit, Soul, Body 6-14-09) I claim some level of expertise in that area. It is because of this expertise that I feel fairly comfortable saying, I seem to have an above average ability to function out of my spirit rather than out of my soul. That is strictly an observation on my part and admittedly subject to personal bias. Nonetheless, living in the spirit is something I aspire to do more and to do better, and it is my considered opinion that you should too.
Functioning out of the spirit is foreign to the human nature. As with most things in the kingdom of God, what we think to do, feel to do, know to do, and will to do are almost exactly opposite from what we should be doing. King Solomon recognized this concept when he wrote, "There is a way that seems right to a man, But its end is the way of death." (Proverbs 14:12) What we think, feel, and do out of our human nature will always be wrong. That is why it is imperative that we think, feel, and do as Jesus would. He was our perfect example of how to live life on this earth, and He operated out of His spirit through the power of the Holy Spirit. Of course, it also did not hurt that He did not have to deal with a sin nature every day.
Most Christians, it seems, think they operate out of their spirits, but most do not. There are a couple axioms that will help in determining how effectively we are operating out of our spirits besides the one from Proverbs mentioned above. The first axiom is that believing is seeing. In our minds, seeing is believing. The word for this is counterintuitive. That means it seems backwards to our intellect (soul). The second axiom is that the physical world is the real world. In fact, the spiritual world affects everything that happens in the physical world. That is not some sort of mystical, or religious science concept, it is simply fact. The enormity of the ramifications of this second axiom are impossible to overestimate. (I know. I actually wrote that sentence in such a way that most people would have to stop and think about it after reading it more than once.) That means if we really understand the second axiom, the benefits to us are huge.
When we understand the physical world is subject to the spiritual world we understand we need to do things differently. One example of this is that we would never try to hoard the resources God puts into our hands. The Bible is full of instructions to give. The great verse we see almost every Sunday of football season in the endzone is the ultimate example of this principle. John 3:16 tells us that God loved the world so much that He gave His only Son, Jesus. Jesus did not hold onto His equality with God, but gave it up to go to the cross for us. (Ph. 2:6-8) God gave His Son. The Son gave His life. We have not begun to touch that level of giving.
I remember shortly before Christmas in 1979 I was ushering at church, probably for a Sunday morning service. One of the men I was working with asked me how I was doing, you know, one of those polite, friendly questions. My answer became a revelation from God to me. I listened to myself say, "I am great! This is my first Christmas with a son." It instantly became very real to me what God had done in giving His Son. I am not giving up my son. (I actually have a word from the Lord that I will not have to give up my son. That is another story.) Do not misunderstand me here. I love my girls. I am not giving them away either, but in that moment I really knew what God had done. Ok so I already gave two of my daughters to husbands, but I told every one at the wedding receptions the daughters and still mine and now I have more sons as well.
The Bible tells us why God gave His Son. He did it because He made the laws by which the universe is governed. One of them says whatever is given will be multiplied and given back. It is called the Law of Sowing and Reaping. Because it is a law it always works. God applied this law in giving His Son because He wanted more sons. There was no way for us to be born again and be sons of God (rather than being just His creations) until Jesus submitted Himself and became the sacrifice for our sins. If one accepts the Law of Sowing and Reaping, he does not even need to be spiritual to understand this. Simply apply logic and we see God giving, Jesus dying (giving His life), people being born again and becoming sons of God.
"...now we are the children of God," the apostle John says, "and it has not yet been revealed what we shall be, but we know that when He is revealed, we shall be like Him..." (1 John 3:2) That sounds a little oblique. What does it mean anyway? Perhaps it is not the whole answer, but Jesus has been revealed to us, so at least part of the answer has to be that we are to work the works of God on the earth while we are here. He did say we would do the works He did. (John 14:12) There is also a future element here which is the usual interpretation. Jesus is coming back and our mortal bodies will be changed. Then we will be doing the same work He is doing somewhere else.
This is sort of sounding like the previous post. Suppose we leave this one right about here and start doing whatever it is the Lord is calling us to do individually.
The inter-working of the spirit, soul, and body has long been an area of interest to me and is a specialty in my teaching. We have discussed that before. (The Image of God--Spirit, Soul, Body 6-14-09) I claim some level of expertise in that area. It is because of this expertise that I feel fairly comfortable saying, I seem to have an above average ability to function out of my spirit rather than out of my soul. That is strictly an observation on my part and admittedly subject to personal bias. Nonetheless, living in the spirit is something I aspire to do more and to do better, and it is my considered opinion that you should too.
Functioning out of the spirit is foreign to the human nature. As with most things in the kingdom of God, what we think to do, feel to do, know to do, and will to do are almost exactly opposite from what we should be doing. King Solomon recognized this concept when he wrote, "There is a way that seems right to a man, But its end is the way of death." (Proverbs 14:12) What we think, feel, and do out of our human nature will always be wrong. That is why it is imperative that we think, feel, and do as Jesus would. He was our perfect example of how to live life on this earth, and He operated out of His spirit through the power of the Holy Spirit. Of course, it also did not hurt that He did not have to deal with a sin nature every day.
Most Christians, it seems, think they operate out of their spirits, but most do not. There are a couple axioms that will help in determining how effectively we are operating out of our spirits besides the one from Proverbs mentioned above. The first axiom is that believing is seeing. In our minds, seeing is believing. The word for this is counterintuitive. That means it seems backwards to our intellect (soul). The second axiom is that the physical world is the real world. In fact, the spiritual world affects everything that happens in the physical world. That is not some sort of mystical, or religious science concept, it is simply fact. The enormity of the ramifications of this second axiom are impossible to overestimate. (I know. I actually wrote that sentence in such a way that most people would have to stop and think about it after reading it more than once.) That means if we really understand the second axiom, the benefits to us are huge.
When we understand the physical world is subject to the spiritual world we understand we need to do things differently. One example of this is that we would never try to hoard the resources God puts into our hands. The Bible is full of instructions to give. The great verse we see almost every Sunday of football season in the endzone is the ultimate example of this principle. John 3:16 tells us that God loved the world so much that He gave His only Son, Jesus. Jesus did not hold onto His equality with God, but gave it up to go to the cross for us. (Ph. 2:6-8) God gave His Son. The Son gave His life. We have not begun to touch that level of giving.
I remember shortly before Christmas in 1979 I was ushering at church, probably for a Sunday morning service. One of the men I was working with asked me how I was doing, you know, one of those polite, friendly questions. My answer became a revelation from God to me. I listened to myself say, "I am great! This is my first Christmas with a son." It instantly became very real to me what God had done in giving His Son. I am not giving up my son. (I actually have a word from the Lord that I will not have to give up my son. That is another story.) Do not misunderstand me here. I love my girls. I am not giving them away either, but in that moment I really knew what God had done. Ok so I already gave two of my daughters to husbands, but I told every one at the wedding receptions the daughters and still mine and now I have more sons as well.
The Bible tells us why God gave His Son. He did it because He made the laws by which the universe is governed. One of them says whatever is given will be multiplied and given back. It is called the Law of Sowing and Reaping. Because it is a law it always works. God applied this law in giving His Son because He wanted more sons. There was no way for us to be born again and be sons of God (rather than being just His creations) until Jesus submitted Himself and became the sacrifice for our sins. If one accepts the Law of Sowing and Reaping, he does not even need to be spiritual to understand this. Simply apply logic and we see God giving, Jesus dying (giving His life), people being born again and becoming sons of God.
"...now we are the children of God," the apostle John says, "and it has not yet been revealed what we shall be, but we know that when He is revealed, we shall be like Him..." (1 John 3:2) That sounds a little oblique. What does it mean anyway? Perhaps it is not the whole answer, but Jesus has been revealed to us, so at least part of the answer has to be that we are to work the works of God on the earth while we are here. He did say we would do the works He did. (John 14:12) There is also a future element here which is the usual interpretation. Jesus is coming back and our mortal bodies will be changed. Then we will be doing the same work He is doing somewhere else.
This is sort of sounding like the previous post. Suppose we leave this one right about here and start doing whatever it is the Lord is calling us to do individually.
Tuesday, August 4, 2009
The Greatest of These
There is an amazing temptation, when we are confronted by spiritual challenges, to "shoot" the messenger, so to speak. Although, demonic spirits can independently inflict all manner of havoc on human beings, from physical illness to mental and emotional distress, they usually work through other people.
When we are attacked by a person, we tend to think we are simply the victim of a mean-spirited attack by a someone who has something against us. Perhaps there are such attacks, but the very fact we are being attacked demonstrates there is something going on behind the scenes we do not understand. We are assuming here that we have done nothing deserving of being attacked. People just do not attack other people for no reason. That sounds like a ridiculous statement until we think about all the reasons one person might attack another. When we break the reasons down to their essence we find there are really only a couple reasons for the attack. Either the person being attacked has something the attacker wants, or the attacker feels threatened in some way. Sometimes the threat can be a perception of loss of status as when one is insulted in the presence of a friend and feels the need to save face.
The apostle Paul said he had a thorn in his flesh, a messenger of Satan sent to buffet him. (2 Corinthians 12:7) He correctly discerned where the attack originated. Satan sent a messenger to attack Paul. Satan is still in the business of sending messengers to attack people.
Pay close attention now. This is a critical point. Many of those messengers are demonically inspired people. Although we say they are demonically inspired, these people have no idea they are being manipulated into those attacks. In fact they are good, God fearing, church going, tithe giving Christians. They may even think they are doing God's work. If they, themselves realized what they were doing, they would not do it. Again, we are seeing the very definition of spiritual deception.
Long time readers of this blog will not be the least bit surprised to hear me say the problem is the people who attack others are operating from their soul rather than their spirit. The human soul is the playground of demonic spirits, messengers of Satan. Again, read carefully. We are not talking about demonic possession or even oppression (the scriptural term for either of those conditions is really demonization). What we are saying is that demonic spirits can impress upon our mind and emotions, ideas that we may act on contrary to what we might otherwise do. As a result, we become angry and give full vent to those impressions--then we wonder how we could have done that. It is interesting that we see other people do those things and think they are just hateful people. We wonder what is wrong with them. However, when we do those things, we allow for the fact that we are simply human beings who sometimes have those problems. A friend of mine, Pastor Dennis Easter, is quoted as saying, "Isn't it amazing that we fail to see the grace of God working in others the way we know it is working in us?" Is that the sound of our common conviction I hear? Maybe it was just me.
What then should our response be when we are attacked? There is only one possible response to that question for the Christian. We must absolutely, unequivocally, respond in love. Jesus said the greatest commandment is to love the Lord our God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength. The second, He said, is like the first. We are to love our neighbors as we love ourselves. (Matthew 22:37-39) We used to receive a church newsletter from a church we had never attended. We had become aquainted with the interim pastor and he decided to send us the newsletter. He routinely included in the newsletter, what he called "Scripture without comment." Following his lead, no brilliant analysis of those verses. Read them and do them. If you do, you will have fulfilled all the law and the prophets. (verse 40) "And now abide faith, hope, love, these three; but the greatest of these is love." (1 Corinthians 13:13)
When we are attacked by a person, we tend to think we are simply the victim of a mean-spirited attack by a someone who has something against us. Perhaps there are such attacks, but the very fact we are being attacked demonstrates there is something going on behind the scenes we do not understand. We are assuming here that we have done nothing deserving of being attacked. People just do not attack other people for no reason. That sounds like a ridiculous statement until we think about all the reasons one person might attack another. When we break the reasons down to their essence we find there are really only a couple reasons for the attack. Either the person being attacked has something the attacker wants, or the attacker feels threatened in some way. Sometimes the threat can be a perception of loss of status as when one is insulted in the presence of a friend and feels the need to save face.
The apostle Paul said he had a thorn in his flesh, a messenger of Satan sent to buffet him. (2 Corinthians 12:7) He correctly discerned where the attack originated. Satan sent a messenger to attack Paul. Satan is still in the business of sending messengers to attack people.
Pay close attention now. This is a critical point. Many of those messengers are demonically inspired people. Although we say they are demonically inspired, these people have no idea they are being manipulated into those attacks. In fact they are good, God fearing, church going, tithe giving Christians. They may even think they are doing God's work. If they, themselves realized what they were doing, they would not do it. Again, we are seeing the very definition of spiritual deception.
Long time readers of this blog will not be the least bit surprised to hear me say the problem is the people who attack others are operating from their soul rather than their spirit. The human soul is the playground of demonic spirits, messengers of Satan. Again, read carefully. We are not talking about demonic possession or even oppression (the scriptural term for either of those conditions is really demonization). What we are saying is that demonic spirits can impress upon our mind and emotions, ideas that we may act on contrary to what we might otherwise do. As a result, we become angry and give full vent to those impressions--then we wonder how we could have done that. It is interesting that we see other people do those things and think they are just hateful people. We wonder what is wrong with them. However, when we do those things, we allow for the fact that we are simply human beings who sometimes have those problems. A friend of mine, Pastor Dennis Easter, is quoted as saying, "Isn't it amazing that we fail to see the grace of God working in others the way we know it is working in us?" Is that the sound of our common conviction I hear? Maybe it was just me.
What then should our response be when we are attacked? There is only one possible response to that question for the Christian. We must absolutely, unequivocally, respond in love. Jesus said the greatest commandment is to love the Lord our God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength. The second, He said, is like the first. We are to love our neighbors as we love ourselves. (Matthew 22:37-39) We used to receive a church newsletter from a church we had never attended. We had become aquainted with the interim pastor and he decided to send us the newsletter. He routinely included in the newsletter, what he called "Scripture without comment." Following his lead, no brilliant analysis of those verses. Read them and do them. If you do, you will have fulfilled all the law and the prophets. (verse 40) "And now abide faith, hope, love, these three; but the greatest of these is love." (1 Corinthians 13:13)
Monday, July 6, 2009
The Idols In Our Hearts
Now some of the elders of Israel came to me and sat before me. And the word of the Lord came to me, saying, "Son of man, these men have set up their idols in their hearts, and put before them that which causes them to stumble into iniquity. Should I let Myself be inquired of at all by them? Therefore speak to them, and say to them, 'Thus says the Lord God: "Everyone of the house of Israel who sets up his idols in his heart, and puts before him what causes him to stumble into iniquity, and then comes to the prophet, I the Lord will answer him who comes, according to the multitude of his idols."'" (Ezekiel 14:1-4)
This is a scary passage of scripture when you understand what God is saying here. Ezekiel was the voice of God to the nation of Israel at this time in history. The elders (government officials) came to him to find out what God was saying to them. Before they could say anything, God told Ezekiel these men had set up idols in their hearts. They had caused themselves to stumble into sin by doing so. Then God asked a rhetorical question. He asked if He should let them inquire of Him at all when they have done that. Then He told Ezekiel what to say to the elders. He said to tell them, "Everyone...who sets up idols in his heart, and puts before him what causes him to stumble into iniquity, and then comes to the prophet, I the Lord will answer him...according to the multitude of his idols." God is going to answer him as his idols would. That is scary.
Generally when we think of idols, the first things that come to mind are physical things or fleshly desires. Many people think first of money or things money can buy. Some people have made education or position idols that God must not touch. We even sometimes prize relationships with other humans above our relationship with God. These could all be idols, but idols in our hearts are often much more insidious than we have thought.
My pastor recently wrote to me in an email reminding me that our hearts are deceptively wicked. (Jeremiah 17:9) His reminder goes right along with this passage. God is saying that if we come to Him looking for the answer we want, He will answer us according to our desires. To say it another way, if we have put something between us and Him when we come to ask Him anything, He will tell us what we already want to hear. That being the case, we would be in jeopardy of not knowing whether an answer we receive in prayer is what God wants us to hear or what we want to hear. How then would we know if anything we hear from God is really what he wants us to hear and not the product of our own desires?
Thankfully and graciously, we have two things the elders of Israel did not have at the time of Ezekiel. We have the completed cannon of scripture, the Bible, and we have the Holy Spirit. Jesus said of the Holy Spirit, that he would lead us into all truth. (John 16:13) Unfortunately, that does not make us error proof. It should, but we often operate in our souls rather than in our spirits. You remember the soul, our mind, emotions, and will. The soul is, in fact, the greatest idol most of us have to deal with when coming to God regardless of whether we are born again or not.
Some people think whatever God says to them has to make sense. Let us go by the numbers. Sense is the domain of the mind. The mind is part of the soul. When we say what God tells us has to make sense, we have made our mind an idol. It is something that we value more than God. God will answer us according to what makes sense to us. We could tell story after story of God directing something that did not make sense until we saw the final result. Then we understand why He directed it. These are not only our stories, but are corroborated by many people who have passed through our lives. God's will does not always make sense initially, but it will always make sense ultimately.
Perhaps you are one who has to feel something passionately to overcome inertia and get started with it. Feelings are emotions and are, once again, the domain of the soul. We probably do not need to go into any more detail on that. If it feels good do it would not be the guiding rule here.
Of course, we also have our will to deal with when God tells us to do something. Yes, soul again. We may actually know beyond all reason or feeling what it is God wants us to do and the will can still veto any action on our part.
The idols in our hearts can keep us from hearing from God. We are hesitant to give concrete examples of things we have seen because to do so might offend some readers now or in the future. However, throwing caution to the wind in this case for the sake of illustration, let us tell of the pastor who stood in front of his church on a Sunday morning and, mistaking a move of the Holy Spirit for emotionalism, quenched the Spirit that day. It is a mystery as to what he was thinking. We might also tell of the pastor who for fear of financial difficulty spent eighteen months preparing the sale of a portion of the church property only to find out when the transaction was completed, there was not enough land left to build the facilities the church needed. Another example that comes quickly to mind is the pastor whose church was floundering due to his own lack of spiritual perception. He blamed another for the problem on what he thought was good evidence. As of this writing there has been no perceptible change.
Whenever we operate in the soul rather than the spirit we have placed an idol between us and God. He will answer us according to what we think, how we feel or what we have determined beforehand we want to do. The result will be the best we can do, far less than what God would do were we able to stay out of his way.
We are not sure our will would have allowed us to take on the task of exposing and fighting the religious spirit over Santa Maria had we considered our feelings or thought twice about it. Sometimes it works to fly by the seat of one's pants. God uses all kinds of people. Let him use you. You will find the peace beginning to rule in your heart as you find your place in His kingdom. God bless you.
This is a scary passage of scripture when you understand what God is saying here. Ezekiel was the voice of God to the nation of Israel at this time in history. The elders (government officials) came to him to find out what God was saying to them. Before they could say anything, God told Ezekiel these men had set up idols in their hearts. They had caused themselves to stumble into sin by doing so. Then God asked a rhetorical question. He asked if He should let them inquire of Him at all when they have done that. Then He told Ezekiel what to say to the elders. He said to tell them, "Everyone...who sets up idols in his heart, and puts before him what causes him to stumble into iniquity, and then comes to the prophet, I the Lord will answer him...according to the multitude of his idols." God is going to answer him as his idols would. That is scary.
Generally when we think of idols, the first things that come to mind are physical things or fleshly desires. Many people think first of money or things money can buy. Some people have made education or position idols that God must not touch. We even sometimes prize relationships with other humans above our relationship with God. These could all be idols, but idols in our hearts are often much more insidious than we have thought.
My pastor recently wrote to me in an email reminding me that our hearts are deceptively wicked. (Jeremiah 17:9) His reminder goes right along with this passage. God is saying that if we come to Him looking for the answer we want, He will answer us according to our desires. To say it another way, if we have put something between us and Him when we come to ask Him anything, He will tell us what we already want to hear. That being the case, we would be in jeopardy of not knowing whether an answer we receive in prayer is what God wants us to hear or what we want to hear. How then would we know if anything we hear from God is really what he wants us to hear and not the product of our own desires?
Thankfully and graciously, we have two things the elders of Israel did not have at the time of Ezekiel. We have the completed cannon of scripture, the Bible, and we have the Holy Spirit. Jesus said of the Holy Spirit, that he would lead us into all truth. (John 16:13) Unfortunately, that does not make us error proof. It should, but we often operate in our souls rather than in our spirits. You remember the soul, our mind, emotions, and will. The soul is, in fact, the greatest idol most of us have to deal with when coming to God regardless of whether we are born again or not.
Some people think whatever God says to them has to make sense. Let us go by the numbers. Sense is the domain of the mind. The mind is part of the soul. When we say what God tells us has to make sense, we have made our mind an idol. It is something that we value more than God. God will answer us according to what makes sense to us. We could tell story after story of God directing something that did not make sense until we saw the final result. Then we understand why He directed it. These are not only our stories, but are corroborated by many people who have passed through our lives. God's will does not always make sense initially, but it will always make sense ultimately.
Perhaps you are one who has to feel something passionately to overcome inertia and get started with it. Feelings are emotions and are, once again, the domain of the soul. We probably do not need to go into any more detail on that. If it feels good do it would not be the guiding rule here.
Of course, we also have our will to deal with when God tells us to do something. Yes, soul again. We may actually know beyond all reason or feeling what it is God wants us to do and the will can still veto any action on our part.
The idols in our hearts can keep us from hearing from God. We are hesitant to give concrete examples of things we have seen because to do so might offend some readers now or in the future. However, throwing caution to the wind in this case for the sake of illustration, let us tell of the pastor who stood in front of his church on a Sunday morning and, mistaking a move of the Holy Spirit for emotionalism, quenched the Spirit that day. It is a mystery as to what he was thinking. We might also tell of the pastor who for fear of financial difficulty spent eighteen months preparing the sale of a portion of the church property only to find out when the transaction was completed, there was not enough land left to build the facilities the church needed. Another example that comes quickly to mind is the pastor whose church was floundering due to his own lack of spiritual perception. He blamed another for the problem on what he thought was good evidence. As of this writing there has been no perceptible change.
Whenever we operate in the soul rather than the spirit we have placed an idol between us and God. He will answer us according to what we think, how we feel or what we have determined beforehand we want to do. The result will be the best we can do, far less than what God would do were we able to stay out of his way.
We are not sure our will would have allowed us to take on the task of exposing and fighting the religious spirit over Santa Maria had we considered our feelings or thought twice about it. Sometimes it works to fly by the seat of one's pants. God uses all kinds of people. Let him use you. You will find the peace beginning to rule in your heart as you find your place in His kingdom. God bless you.
Sunday, June 28, 2009
More on Spirit vs. Soul
In The Church today we take for granted that if we are doing things that look spiritual they must be spiritual. Unfortunately soulical things look spiritual to the uninitiated, untrained or inexperienced. Those statements taken together may offend some. Should you be one who is offended by those simple facts, it is time for some introspection and perhaps some input from one who is farther along in spiritual life than you are. Just my thoughts on the matter. After all, that is the purpose of blogs in general. In this one, we answer to a higher authority. So while the thoughts may be ours, we hope they are directed by the Holy Spirit. Having said that, let us try and explain what we mean by the first two sentences.
Let us first examine our practice of worship. To give greater definition to that term, we are discussing the time during a church service when the primary activity is group singing, praise, and hopefully worship. Surely those are spiritual things? Wait a minute. Let us carefully consider our answer to that question.
We sing. People without Christ sing. Some of them sing very well. Are they performing a spiritual exercise when they sing? They cannot possibly be. Their spirits are yet dead in sin. Why then would we think our singing is a spiritual exercise when theirs is not? We would give you pause to think, but this format is not really conducive to that. You might want to consider the question before proceeding. The defining factor here is that when our singing comes out of our spirits, it is a spiritual activity. We cannot help you any more than that at this point.
Well then, what about praise? Surely praise is a spiritual activity? Let us answer that question with a question just for rhetorical effect. Have you ever given a compliment, or been complimented? That is the essence of praise. In praise we give glory, a compliment, to God for any of his various works that come to mind. The mind is part of the soul. We have likely all had people without Christ give us praise for something. They praise. We praise. One is not automatically a spiritual activity and the other not. Do not stop reading yet. It gets better--we hope.
Singing is not necessarily a spiritual activity and praise is not necessarily a spiritual activity. Worship, however, is always a spiritual activity. By definition, we can only worship in response to God calling forth worship from us, that is from our spirit. Our spirit links with God's Spirit and we communicate directly with Him. Sometimes this seems to be a random act of God, but we can learn to do it intentionally anytime we desire. A dear saint of God told me many years ago she was opposed to the idea that God was like a faucet we turn on when we want something. God is always on. We have to turn on our own spirit to commune with Him in worship.
The problem with saying that worship is always a spiritual exercise is that what passes for worship many times is really nothing more than us attempting, or wanting to worship. We never actually get past our soul into our spirit. Hence, we never actually worship. We do not accurately discern spiritual activities from soulical activities. We may think we are worshiping because someone has told us that what is going on is worship. We think we are doing what everyone else is doing so we must be worshipping. Most people do not understand that worship is one on one time with God, giving Him the glory due Him for being God. This can never be done corporately. We can sing and we can praise God together, but to move into real worship, we must come face to face with Almighty God and give voice to our spirit's yearning to worship. In worship we give glory to God for being God with all that incorporates. Of the items we are discussing, only worship incorporates spirit, soul, and body together in the same activity.
What we have been discussing so far is the vertical activity of worship. There is a horizontal, soulical activity we usually think of as being spiritual. We even often use the Greek word rather than the English word. Using the Greek word must make it spiritual. It is taken directly from the Bible after all. The word and the activity we are discussing is, of course, koinonia, the Greek word for fellowship. We have fellowship one with another. We do not really need to do the whole, people without Christ thing again do we?
Someone has defined koinonia as, "Any church gathering with food." That is a fanciful definition, but unfortunately not too far off the mark. Many churches consider any gathering outside the routine, scheduled services in the church building to be koinonia. Nothing could be further from the truth. In fact, our suspicion is that most believers have never experienced koinonia. Koinonia is one on one, face to face, spirit to spirit interaction with another believer. It gets interesting here because, unlike worship which is only one on one with the one God, we can have koinonia in groups. What passes for, and is usually called koinonia is often nothing more than friendly, soulical interaction. There is nothing wrong with friendly, soulical interaction. It just is not koinonia. When two or more people are gathered together in Jesus' name, He promised to be in their midst. (Matthew 18:20) When our spirits are tuned to Him, we are also linked to each other by the Holy Spirit. It is only at that point we have acheived koinonia.
Both worship and koinonia function as closed loops. The difference is that in worship the closed loop is God and each of us individually. In koinonia, the closed loop incorporates God and everyone else who is linked to him in the same place. The disciples in the upper room, waiting for the arrival on earth of the Holy Spirit (Acts 2:1) were said to be "in one accord". They were enjoying one another's fellowship in the presence of God. Think of the loop as coming from God, running through each of the believers in the room and returning to God. That is the essence of koinonia.
In summary, soulical activities often look like spiritual activities. We have given but two examples although those two incorporate our vertical relationship with God and our horizontal relationship with other people. In a sense, we might say those two activities include everything we can do. We need to be aware that simply because something may look spiritual does not necessarily mean it is. Of course we also need to learn to function in the spirit intentionally and often. The more our activities are spirit centered, the more abundant our life will be.
Let us first examine our practice of worship. To give greater definition to that term, we are discussing the time during a church service when the primary activity is group singing, praise, and hopefully worship. Surely those are spiritual things? Wait a minute. Let us carefully consider our answer to that question.
We sing. People without Christ sing. Some of them sing very well. Are they performing a spiritual exercise when they sing? They cannot possibly be. Their spirits are yet dead in sin. Why then would we think our singing is a spiritual exercise when theirs is not? We would give you pause to think, but this format is not really conducive to that. You might want to consider the question before proceeding. The defining factor here is that when our singing comes out of our spirits, it is a spiritual activity. We cannot help you any more than that at this point.
Well then, what about praise? Surely praise is a spiritual activity? Let us answer that question with a question just for rhetorical effect. Have you ever given a compliment, or been complimented? That is the essence of praise. In praise we give glory, a compliment, to God for any of his various works that come to mind. The mind is part of the soul. We have likely all had people without Christ give us praise for something. They praise. We praise. One is not automatically a spiritual activity and the other not. Do not stop reading yet. It gets better--we hope.
Singing is not necessarily a spiritual activity and praise is not necessarily a spiritual activity. Worship, however, is always a spiritual activity. By definition, we can only worship in response to God calling forth worship from us, that is from our spirit. Our spirit links with God's Spirit and we communicate directly with Him. Sometimes this seems to be a random act of God, but we can learn to do it intentionally anytime we desire. A dear saint of God told me many years ago she was opposed to the idea that God was like a faucet we turn on when we want something. God is always on. We have to turn on our own spirit to commune with Him in worship.
The problem with saying that worship is always a spiritual exercise is that what passes for worship many times is really nothing more than us attempting, or wanting to worship. We never actually get past our soul into our spirit. Hence, we never actually worship. We do not accurately discern spiritual activities from soulical activities. We may think we are worshiping because someone has told us that what is going on is worship. We think we are doing what everyone else is doing so we must be worshipping. Most people do not understand that worship is one on one time with God, giving Him the glory due Him for being God. This can never be done corporately. We can sing and we can praise God together, but to move into real worship, we must come face to face with Almighty God and give voice to our spirit's yearning to worship. In worship we give glory to God for being God with all that incorporates. Of the items we are discussing, only worship incorporates spirit, soul, and body together in the same activity.
What we have been discussing so far is the vertical activity of worship. There is a horizontal, soulical activity we usually think of as being spiritual. We even often use the Greek word rather than the English word. Using the Greek word must make it spiritual. It is taken directly from the Bible after all. The word and the activity we are discussing is, of course, koinonia, the Greek word for fellowship. We have fellowship one with another. We do not really need to do the whole, people without Christ thing again do we?
Someone has defined koinonia as, "Any church gathering with food." That is a fanciful definition, but unfortunately not too far off the mark. Many churches consider any gathering outside the routine, scheduled services in the church building to be koinonia. Nothing could be further from the truth. In fact, our suspicion is that most believers have never experienced koinonia. Koinonia is one on one, face to face, spirit to spirit interaction with another believer. It gets interesting here because, unlike worship which is only one on one with the one God, we can have koinonia in groups. What passes for, and is usually called koinonia is often nothing more than friendly, soulical interaction. There is nothing wrong with friendly, soulical interaction. It just is not koinonia. When two or more people are gathered together in Jesus' name, He promised to be in their midst. (Matthew 18:20) When our spirits are tuned to Him, we are also linked to each other by the Holy Spirit. It is only at that point we have acheived koinonia.
Both worship and koinonia function as closed loops. The difference is that in worship the closed loop is God and each of us individually. In koinonia, the closed loop incorporates God and everyone else who is linked to him in the same place. The disciples in the upper room, waiting for the arrival on earth of the Holy Spirit (Acts 2:1) were said to be "in one accord". They were enjoying one another's fellowship in the presence of God. Think of the loop as coming from God, running through each of the believers in the room and returning to God. That is the essence of koinonia.
In summary, soulical activities often look like spiritual activities. We have given but two examples although those two incorporate our vertical relationship with God and our horizontal relationship with other people. In a sense, we might say those two activities include everything we can do. We need to be aware that simply because something may look spiritual does not necessarily mean it is. Of course we also need to learn to function in the spirit intentionally and often. The more our activities are spirit centered, the more abundant our life will be.
Sunday, June 14, 2009
The Image of God--Spirit, Soul, Body
This could easily be part 5 of "The Workings of a Religious Spirit" because one of those workings is the inability to distinguish between the works of the spirit and the works of the soul. It seems better to use a couple posts to discuss what it means to be created in the image of God. Most of what we have learned about the distinctions between spirit and soul we learned from the great Chinese theologian, Nee Tu-sheng who ministered in China before and after that country's fall into communism. For greater detail and greater insight, we highly recommend his book, The Spiritual Man which is now available in one volume. The book is written under his more famous pen name of Watchman Nee.
There are whole segments of the evangelical church that believe man is bipartite (two parts), having a corporeal (flesh) part and an incorporeal (not flesh) part. This understanding is not incorrect, it is simply incomplete. Anyone who cannot understand this simple truth from 1 Thessalonians 5:23 and Hebrews 4:12 will probably not understand our explanation either. Our incorporeal part is really two parts, spirit (the part of us that connects us to God) and soul (mind, emotions, and will). We really have three parts to us just as God has, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Thus, this is at least a part of what it means to be created in the image of God. The reason for this misconception is largely historically, bad teaching, but there is more to it.
When Adam and Eve sinned in the garden of Eden, they chose their will over God's will. The result was their souls came between their spirits and God's spirit which effectively meant their spirits died. They were unable to connect properly with God's spirit due to interference from the soul. They passed that condition down to the rest of the human race. The end result for us is that we are born natural men who cannot understand the things of God. They are foolishness to us. (1 Corinthians 1:18) This is why Jesus told Nicodemus we must be born again in order to see (perceive, understand) the kingdom of God. (John 3:3) Being born again returns our spirits and souls to the proper attitude (double meaning intended) so that we are able once again to have individual, direct contact with God through our spirit. It is usually better to move from a known area to an unknown area when attempting to understand something, so before we discuss the spirit, let us detail the workings of its worldly counterpart, the body.
Our bodies really only have one primary function. While it is true they house the spirit and soul during our earthly pilgrimage, their real function is to give us contact with the world. By world, of course, we mean the physical world, everything that can be perceived with the physical senses. Our bodies were created to see, hear, taste, touch, and smell this world. Were we in a different world with a different atmosphere, different light spectrum, different gravity, etc., our bodies would be ideally suited to that world. We might say the body is situated so that it receives input from this world. This information is then relayed to the soul where we process it according to what we think (mind) about it, how we feel (emotions) about it, and what we will do (will) about it. We then send that information from the soul back to the body to act on it. This is the whole of what the natural man does. The man who has been born again, however, has another factor to consider when evaluating input from the world.
The spirit is the God part of man. When it is working properly, the spirit keeps us in constant and direct contact with God. Our spirit has only this one function, communion with God. Like the body, our spirit takes in information, but the only information it receives is from God. Do not be confused here. Evil spirits do not work in our spirit. Their playground is our soul. It is in the mind and emotions they do their evil work. In fact, one of their primary methods is to attempt to convince us the entire spiritual world is nothing more than a figment of our imagination. To be a little more complete, there are also demons that affect our bodies, but we are outside the scope of this teaching.
The information our spirit receives from God is then sent to the soul for processing. We determine what we think about it, how we feel about it, and what we are going to do about it. That sounds hauntingly familiar. The problem is, even after we are born again and our spirit is functioning properly, we do not always know whether the information in our soul came through our body or our spirit. We also cannot ever discount demonic influences in the soul. Once we have processed the information we have received we decide what we will do about it. Primarily there are two options--do something or do nothing. Doing nothing is the easiest of the two choices, unless the information truly came through our spirit to do something. Then doing nothing becomes a very uncomfortable choice. If we decide to do something, we formulate what it is we want to do and send that information from the soul to the body to take action.
We could almost call this next item a mystery since a mystery in the New Testament is something that was heretofore hidden, but has now been revealed to us who operate in the spirit. The mystery that has been revealed is that Jesus is the body part of God, if you will. His earthly body was just like ours, but his resurrection body is different. However, put your thinking cap on, because while Jesus is now in the heavenly throne room in his resurrection body, he also left his body behind to continue his work on earth. We are Jesus' body on earth. He works through us. Of course he can intercede in any circumstance at anytime without our help, but when he does that, on the earth side we call it a miracle. In heaven, God works the same way we work. Wait, reverse that. On earth, we work the same way God works in heaven. He receives information from the world, processes that information, and acts on it. When he chooses to act via his body, that is us. We do the work. That is our job. We were created in the image of God to be his body on earth, to do his works. If that does not make you want to treat yourself (and other Christians) will a great deal more respect, there is not much else we can say to you about it.
There are whole segments of the evangelical church that believe man is bipartite (two parts), having a corporeal (flesh) part and an incorporeal (not flesh) part. This understanding is not incorrect, it is simply incomplete. Anyone who cannot understand this simple truth from 1 Thessalonians 5:23 and Hebrews 4:12 will probably not understand our explanation either. Our incorporeal part is really two parts, spirit (the part of us that connects us to God) and soul (mind, emotions, and will). We really have three parts to us just as God has, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Thus, this is at least a part of what it means to be created in the image of God. The reason for this misconception is largely historically, bad teaching, but there is more to it.
When Adam and Eve sinned in the garden of Eden, they chose their will over God's will. The result was their souls came between their spirits and God's spirit which effectively meant their spirits died. They were unable to connect properly with God's spirit due to interference from the soul. They passed that condition down to the rest of the human race. The end result for us is that we are born natural men who cannot understand the things of God. They are foolishness to us. (1 Corinthians 1:18) This is why Jesus told Nicodemus we must be born again in order to see (perceive, understand) the kingdom of God. (John 3:3) Being born again returns our spirits and souls to the proper attitude (double meaning intended) so that we are able once again to have individual, direct contact with God through our spirit. It is usually better to move from a known area to an unknown area when attempting to understand something, so before we discuss the spirit, let us detail the workings of its worldly counterpart, the body.
Our bodies really only have one primary function. While it is true they house the spirit and soul during our earthly pilgrimage, their real function is to give us contact with the world. By world, of course, we mean the physical world, everything that can be perceived with the physical senses. Our bodies were created to see, hear, taste, touch, and smell this world. Were we in a different world with a different atmosphere, different light spectrum, different gravity, etc., our bodies would be ideally suited to that world. We might say the body is situated so that it receives input from this world. This information is then relayed to the soul where we process it according to what we think (mind) about it, how we feel (emotions) about it, and what we will do (will) about it. We then send that information from the soul back to the body to act on it. This is the whole of what the natural man does. The man who has been born again, however, has another factor to consider when evaluating input from the world.
The spirit is the God part of man. When it is working properly, the spirit keeps us in constant and direct contact with God. Our spirit has only this one function, communion with God. Like the body, our spirit takes in information, but the only information it receives is from God. Do not be confused here. Evil spirits do not work in our spirit. Their playground is our soul. It is in the mind and emotions they do their evil work. In fact, one of their primary methods is to attempt to convince us the entire spiritual world is nothing more than a figment of our imagination. To be a little more complete, there are also demons that affect our bodies, but we are outside the scope of this teaching.
The information our spirit receives from God is then sent to the soul for processing. We determine what we think about it, how we feel about it, and what we are going to do about it. That sounds hauntingly familiar. The problem is, even after we are born again and our spirit is functioning properly, we do not always know whether the information in our soul came through our body or our spirit. We also cannot ever discount demonic influences in the soul. Once we have processed the information we have received we decide what we will do about it. Primarily there are two options--do something or do nothing. Doing nothing is the easiest of the two choices, unless the information truly came through our spirit to do something. Then doing nothing becomes a very uncomfortable choice. If we decide to do something, we formulate what it is we want to do and send that information from the soul to the body to take action.
We could almost call this next item a mystery since a mystery in the New Testament is something that was heretofore hidden, but has now been revealed to us who operate in the spirit. The mystery that has been revealed is that Jesus is the body part of God, if you will. His earthly body was just like ours, but his resurrection body is different. However, put your thinking cap on, because while Jesus is now in the heavenly throne room in his resurrection body, he also left his body behind to continue his work on earth. We are Jesus' body on earth. He works through us. Of course he can intercede in any circumstance at anytime without our help, but when he does that, on the earth side we call it a miracle. In heaven, God works the same way we work. Wait, reverse that. On earth, we work the same way God works in heaven. He receives information from the world, processes that information, and acts on it. When he chooses to act via his body, that is us. We do the work. That is our job. We were created in the image of God to be his body on earth, to do his works. If that does not make you want to treat yourself (and other Christians) will a great deal more respect, there is not much else we can say to you about it.
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