The life of God flows out of heaven into our spirit. It flows in the river of life, which is Holy Spirit. Our spirit is the part of us that connects with God’s Spirit.
We were a spirit being before we became a human being. Our spirit came out of heaven into our body and our soul was formed.
Our soul is the part of us that gives us self-conscious. Our soul has senses which interprets what our spirit senses and what our body senses.
Our spirit senses begin to recede because we have not been taught how to develop them and our soul begins to be formed from the outside in through our body senses.
When our spirit awakens through sensing the presence of God by encountering the tangible love of God revealed through Holy Spirit towards us, our first love gate in our spirit opens and we now have access to the river of life.
It is the love of God that opens our spirit, but we have to learn how to keep our spirit continually open to the inflowing of His Presence and the only way we can do that is by entering into His Rest.
The government of God over our life is one of rest. A yielding to the inflowing of His Spirit where we are partaking of his nature and abilities.
Rest is the access point for heavens reality. Rest is what allows us to grow in his nature and creative abilities as our spirit becomes aware of them through its senses.
The starting point of accessing our inner spirit gates is rest. Entering into this rest is the beginning of the pathway of responsibility where we administrate his kingdom upon the earth.
When Jesus ascended he sat down at the right hand of the father, indicating rest. We are in him, so our access point to heavenly places in him is rest.
Beginning to enter into rest is about allowing our spirit to govern the rest of our being through rest. The problems we encounter are in our soul, we have to bring our soul into rest so that we have emotional rest. Emotional rest is the result of allowing our spirit to govern. Our physical body will line up with whatever our emotions are feeling.
Within our spirit is a seat of rest. When we allow Jesus to sit upon that throne we experience rest. It is the lordship of Jesus over our spirit. When we try to govern our own life, when our soul is in charge, we have no rest.
When we give up the throne of our lives inviting Jesus to sit upon it, he will then invite us to sit on it with him so that we can rule and reign together. Ruling and reigning with Christ begins within. This opens the door for us to then learn how to begin to ascend through rest into the heavenly places in Christ, so that so that we can administrate his government through a heavenly perspective.
When our spirit becomes alive unto God, our spirit senses the presence of God, because our spirit comes into contact with the presence of God, there is a joining of our spirit with God’s Spirit.
If we picture our being as a circle, God is at the center, then our spirit, then our soul, and then our body.
We need to see this picture in our imagination, because it is going to help us learn how to flow or walk with God.
In this picture we see ourselves as a four part being. This is the new creation; we are mystically joined with Christ. God will never leave us or forsake us; he is a part of our being now.
Inside of us is the glory of God, then our spirit on the outside of that, then our soul and then our body.
For the life of God to flow in us there needs to be a pathway starting from the glory of God on the inside of us, then passing into our spirit, through our spirit, into our soul and then out through our body into the atmosphere around us or the natural world.
Inside of our spirit there is a door that we have to open for the glory of God to flow through. This door is the veil between the unseen realm of heaven and the earth.
God has to move into and through our spirit, into and through our soul and into and through our body out into the atmosphere around us so that the kingdom of God is at hand, so that the people in the world can come into contact with the presence of God, we are to host the presence of God. When people look at us they need to see God in us.
Now in order for this to happen, we need to be able to touch the glory of God through intimacy – the very presence of God on the inside of us and allow it to flow through us.
Rev. 3: 20Behold, (this is a word used to express strong emotion, calling attention to something, Look!) I stand (to cause to be in a place or position, to position oneself)at (Of place)the door(used of any opening like a door, an entrance, way or passage into), and knock( occurring right now, strike loudly at the door for entrance) : if any man hear( an action subject to a condition, to listen to someone and pay attention)my voice, and open the door, I will come in(motion into, enter) to him, and will sup (to eat or dine, a feast, a celebratory meal, something that provides a great deal of pleasure, communion) with him, and he with me.
Jesus is on the inside of us, but on the outside of our spirit wanting to come in. If we do not hear him knocking it is because there is a veil between our spirit and His. The moment we turn, the moment we hear this word the veil is removed.
This word has to become a living part of us, so we have to meditate upon it. We have to not just read Revelation 3:20, we have to meditate upon it. Wake up! Behold! I have positioned myself, I am forever standing at the door knocking on it loudly, let me in!
As we meditate on this verse of Scripture we are going to begin to hear it, in our spirit. Every day, the moment we wake up, Jesus is knocking loudly at the door of our heart, let me in- let me be the lord of your life today. I have come to give you abundant life, a life you never dreamed possible, but first you have to let me in.
When we open the door of our spirit, for the lord to enter in, the first thing we will encounter is a feast, like the prodigal son, we will partake of the provision of Jesus Christ. Our first ministry is unto the Lord, we receive his unconditional love, and as that love flows into our heart we begin to love him back, we enter into intimacy with the Lord becoming one spirit, so that we can then begin to love others with the same love we have received from him.
God is knocking on the door of our spirit, asking us to open it so that He can come in and commune (to relate) with us. When our spirit becomes alive to God it then senses the uncreated life of God, His divine nature and participates in it having a common life, or fellowship of life.
There is a door in our spirit that we call the first love gate. When we open this door, God comes in and our spirit senses his divine love, so it is called first love, because we have never experienced this kind of love before, it is on a higher or deeper level than human love.
The first love gate is also called the heavenly gate, because this is the access point between heaven and earth. When we sense the presence of God we sense the unseen realm which is another dimension, we become conscious of the realm that God lives in.
The presence of God permeates this realm, everything is living there on a different level than the natural realm, the rocks, the trees, the grass, everything, it is like a parallel universe and is called the unseen realm, but it also has been created by God, it is not eternity, there is time there also but hours there can be like minutes here, you cannot be late in heaven, the time works for you and not against you. Eternity is another dimension, where there is no time.
The first love gate is where God comes into our spirit, and then our spirit has gateways in which the life and presence of God flow into our soul.
We have eight major spirit gates , seven soul gates and five body gates and this makes up numerous combinations of how the life of God flows through us. These are the gateways that I am aware of, but there may be more, but it gives us a picture of how we are supposed to function.
Our major spirit gates are· Revelation · Intuition · Fear of God · Prayer · Reverence · Faith · Hope · Worship
Our soul gates are-· Conscience · Reason · Imagination · Mind · Emotions · Choices · Will
Our body gates are sight, hearing, taste, touch, Smell.
We can look at each combination of gateways to see how they work together.
The first love gateway in our spirit is in the deepest part of us where we touch the lord and he touches us, it is the access point where our spirit connects with God’s Spirit; it is the joining of our spirit with His in intimacy where we become one spirit.
It is where the Lord becomes our lover enabling us to submit to his leadership through the interpenetration of His Spirit where our heart becomes His.
It is only through first love where we sense his presence in that love which motivates us and strengthens us to allow him to possess our heart which is our soul.
Our soul has certain God given needs which only He can truly meet, and we may have tried to get these needs met independent of him in the world.
We may have tried to get this first love need met through a human relationship which usually ends up in our getting hurt, damaged and fractured. Only God can meet our God given needs so that we become a whole person.
We may have been in relationships that we thought was of God, but until we allow God to meet these needs through a first-love relationship with him, we will not become a whole person where the love of God is perfected in us, so that we can love others with the same love we continually receive from Him.
Once God’s love is perfected in us, then we will know what love truly is and we will not commit ourselves to another person that is incapable of loving us in the same way.
We may be in a healthy relationship, but every relationship will get better when we learn how to first be rightly related to God, where he can express himself through us to others.
Understanding the gateways of spirit, soul and body and getting them open to the life flow of God, so that they can be cleansed, healed and working the way God intends, we allow us to grow up into a full grown male and female son of God, where we are transformed into the same image we are beholding in a first love relationship.
The first love gateway is a gateway into the area of the glory of God that dwells inside of us – in our spirit. It is the veil that was torn by Jesus so that we are able to enter freely and have intimacy with him in this most Holy place – his dwelling place inside of us, to be able to draw from Him and drink from Him.
First love is a euphoric feeling of being in love again. Once we begin to feel it, it builds a hunger and thirst inside of us for intimacy. Our utmost desire is to dwell in his presence, to be aware of his glory and partake of it. It is through the partaking of this glory that we are changed from the inside out and we literally become another person.
A whole new world of the Spirit opens up to us and we begin to experience heaven on earth on the inside of us and we find that the world outside of us now looks different.
It is from this place deep inside of us where we begin to experience first love that the river of life begins to flow. This river starts off as a small trickle from the source, the dwelling place of God inside of us and it keeps increasing as we learn how to access this place in our spirit and then learn how to dwell there.
We are on a journey and that journey is a discovery of the spiritual realms. We are a spirit, our spirit is unseen and when we become aware of it we become aware of the unseen realm.
How we become aware of our spirit is through the senses of our spirit becoming aware of the presence of God. God is light, God is Spirit and God is love.
The Spirit of God draws us to himself and when we respond to him we become aware of His presence. The light of God’s Spirit enlightens our spirit and we become aware of His love, we become aware of his peace and joy that are contained in his presence. We see things in a new light, in a new reality.
The light of God entering our spirit is called revelation. Our spirit senses or sees things on a higher or deeper level. God is communicating to us by enlightening our spirit.
This light in our spirit then flows into our soul, we receive the thoughts of God into our mind, we receive the feelings of God into our emotions, and we begin to receive the pictures or visions of God in our imagination.
When our spirit senses the Spirit of God or the presence of God, we are experiencing being born from above.
We were born from above before the foundation of the world, culminating (finished) in Jesus dying upon the cross and being resurrected because we were in him, but now we are experiencing what that means because God has now become real to our spirit. Our spirit senses the presence of God because he has enlightened it through our responding to His Spirit drawing us to himself through surrendering our life to him.
Because we are experiencing being born from above in being aware of His presence, our spirit now has access to the spiritual realms.
That realm of the spirit is in us, because God is within us, the kingdom is within us, and it is also around us and it is also in the heavenly realms outside of us.
But first we have to learn how to engage in the realm of the spirit that is within us, before we can engage in the heavenly realms that are outside of us.
There are two pathways that we can follow to engage that spiritual realm, the pathway of relationship and the pathway of responsibility. The pathway of responsibility has to do with going into the kingdom realms outside of us, in order to bring the manifestation of the rule of God down upon the earth.
The first pathway is a pathway of relationship and that leads to a deeper intimacy with God, it is a pathway that flows from the inside out. So the presence of God in us wants to flow through us and around us to touch the world around us. Just like when Jesus was here physically he touched people all around him every day with healing and deliverance, now he has gone back into heaven and He has released the Holy Spirit. And the Holy Spirit has come to live in us and though us when we open up our spirit to Him.
When we learn how to get all our spirit, soul and body gates upon and flowing with the life of God, we will become like a mighty river bringing life wherever we go.
In Ezekiel 47 it talks about healing waters flowing from the temple (we are now a temple of the Holy Spirit) and as it flowed out it started ankle-deep then it got deeper to the knees and then to the loins and then it was so deep that it became a river and brought life wherever it went. This is God’s desire for us, that we would bring life wherever we go. And that people would be able to engage with God through us wherever we go.
In John 4 it talks about the living water, when we drink it, it becomes in us a source of life, a fountain. As we learn how to continually engage in that source then that source according to John seven becomes a river flowing.
What we are learning is how the life of God flows out of heaven into our spirit. And then how our spirit has different senses that experience that life in different ways and how that life then flows into our soul and out of our body to others.
We have a source of life inside of us, a drinking fountain that we can drink of meeting our inner needs and help us every day through the difficulties of life.
But the fountain inside of us needs to become a river and this happens through understanding the gateways of our spirit, soul and body, learning how to open them and see that river flowing out through them.
The river of life flows from the throne of God. In our spirit there is a seat of government or a throne. Who’s in charge of our life? Either our soul- our self is upon that seat or we can learn how to surrender our spirit to the presence of God inside us, and let the flow of His Spirit govern our life.
In the quickening of our spirit we have been given a choice of who is going to rule in our life, of who is in charge. Our spirit has a built in yes to the will of God, so all we have to do is to learn how the river of life flows into our spirit, and then our soul and out through our body. This is called the pathway of relationship or intimacy. It is a pathway into experiences and encounters with God that become a way of life.
When we lived on the human level, our own soul was in charge. We have been in charge of our own life and might not have made too good of a job of it, so the best thing we can do, is to learn how to surrender to the leadership of the Holy Spirit.
What we want to do is first of all make Jesus the lord of the gateways of our spirit.
The gateways of our spirit are hope, faith, revelation, intuition, prayer, the fear of God and reverence and are all summed up in one major thing and that is worship.
We tend to think of worship as singing to God and that is a part of it. But actually worship is about being obedient to God and surrendering to God. Worship is what they did when they came before a King and they knelt down. So we need to learn to kneel down before God in our own spirit and say God I surrender to you and I surrender all these gateways to you, and then the flow of life can come through us to engage the world around us.
We need to learn how to open our spirit every morning and invite the lordship of Jesus over our spirit. Father I surrender control of my life to you; I thank you that you are lord of my spirit. I release the life of God to flow through my spirit, and I bring the gateways of my soul into submission to my spirit.
We need to have all of the gateways of our spirit active and flowing. Our spirit has the ability to sense the Lord. As our spirit senses the Lord, then the life of God can flow through the gateways of our spirit.
One of these gateways is the fear of the Lord. Before our spirit was alive unto God, our soul- self was on the throne. Our soul has been conditioned from the outside in. Through the pressures of life on the outside our soul responded by murmuring and complaining, getting upset and mad. We got fearful and afraid.
We have soul desires that we tried to meet through the things of the world. We got involved in relationships and got hurt. We have all experienced the manifestations of self and all the manifestations of self fall short of the glory of God.
God is holy, and as our spirit senses the fear of the lord, in our spirits awareness of the holiness of God, we experience the essence of God.
The fear of the Lord is our spirits awareness of the holiness, the majesty, the awesomeness of God. The fear of the lord is an experience where our spirit is partaking of God’s Spirit in His holiness. And it is the holiness of God that sanctifies us.
So the fear of the Lord is not being scared of God, because we are partaking of God, and it is something our spirit wants. But in that awareness we also see the things in our soul life that falls short of His glory, and this causes our body to tremble in a good way.
We have to allow the Spirit of God to search our heart. We have to know the difference between our spirit and our soul. Our soul has basic instincts and needs. When these instincts are hurt, threatened or interfered with, self-our soul gets offended, we get angry, we get in fear, and the life of God is not flowing into our soul. We will look at this in depth in the gateways of the soul, when we learn how to take a personal inventory.
The fear of the Lord helps us get out of ourselves. When the fear of the Lord is flowing through our spirit into our soul, then we can see our soul in the light of God.
We have problems in our soul because it is naturally self-centered, and the fear of the lord helps us to bring it into submission to the life flow of God through our spirit.
When our spirit is alive to God, our spirit is willing. Our will centers in our soul but it is directly related to our spirit. Our will has direct control over our spirit. We will and our spirit instantly responds to the direction of our will.
Our will and our spirit are interrelated. We will and our spirit responds to the direction of our will. We will to know God and our spirit connects with God’s Spirit. When our spirit connects to God’s Spirit his life flows into it. When our spirit is connecting to God’s Spirit his life flows into our will strengthening it. We should always be able at any moment to feel strength flow from God into our will.
When our spirit is alive to God, by an act of our will we should be able to tune into the divine nature of God, and the power of God. If we are not able to do this, it is because we are not aware of our spirit.
This is why the baptism of the Holy Spirit with the evidence of speaking in tongues is so important. When we have the ability to speak in tongues we instantly locate our spirit. When we are aware of our spirit we can draw the power of God into it.
Our will is directly related to our spirit, in our spirit we will to know the fear of the Lord, the holiness of God, and then it flows into our soul, into our imagination and we see how we have fallen short of His glory and our body trembles, it shakes a little bit. Or we just become aware of things, like our calling, our destiny and our body twitches.
Once our spirit senses the fear of the lord then that gateway of our spirit is open and active. We need to be always aware of the fear of the Lord.
The fear of the lord is not being scared of the Lord. It is a part of who God is and who we are becoming. It is the result of our spirit being one with the Lord.
The fear of the lord flows in the river of God, it comes out of heaven flows into our spirit and then through our soul and body gates out into the atmosphere convicting the world of sin.
The fear of the Lord is the realization of the awesomeness of God, being in awe of His purity and holiness causing us to tremble at the revelation of that which is not like him that may still be remaining in our life.
The fear of the lord causes us to see how we have fallen short of his glory, not to condemn us, but so that we can partake of that glory.
Psalm 19:7 the law of the LORD is perfect, converting the soul: the testimony of the LORD is sure, making wise the simple. 8 The statutes of the LORD are right, rejoicing the heart: the commandment of the LORD is pure, enlightening the eyes. 9 The fear of the LORD is clean, enduring for ever: the judgments of the LORD are true and righteous altogether. 10 More to be desired are they than gold, yea, than much fine gold: sweeter also than honey and the honeycomb. 11 Moreover by them is thy servant warned: and in keeping of them there is great reward.
The fear of the lord is to be greatly desired and honored. The fear of the lord flows out of heaven into our spirit and out of our spirit through the fear of the lord gate and influences all our soul gates; it cleanses them because the fear of the lord is pure.
The fear of the lord is a restraint against evil. The fear of the Lord causes us to see evil from God’s perspective.
As the fear of the Lord flows through our soul into our body it will cause our body to tremble at the awesomeness and holiness of God and as we surrender every area of our lives to His lordship they are sanctified as they are set apart exclusively for His use.
Sanctification is a result of the fear of the lord gate in our spirit continually open so that all our soul gates are influenced by the fear of the Lord; we consciously possess the awareness of the Holiness of God and ourselves being holy because we are set apart unto Him.
When the fear of the Lord is flowing into our spirit it joins us into the face of the father.
Of the seven spirits of God that rested upon Jesus, it only mentions one of them that he delights in. His delight was in the spirit of the fear of the Lord. The Scripture says that the fear of the Lord is his treasure.
When the fear of the Lord flows into our spirit, we see though the eyes of the Father, in the light of his holiness and fire. We see the motives of the heart; the fear of the Lord is God consciousness.
Through the fear of the lord we are absorbed into oneness with him, possessed by him. In him we live, in him we move, in him we have our being. Through the fear of the Lord he is able to penetrate into every part of our being, where it is no longer I who live but the son manifesting in many sons.
Through the fear of the lord we bring our soul into submission to him and then we open the reverence gate in our spirit.
The reverence, fear of God, worship and prayer gates are like fellowship gates, they are relational gates and they help us fellowship with God and experience him, engage with him and come into deeper intimacy with him .
As we are established in the love of God, we can then express that love as it flows through the reverence gate in our spirit into our soul.
Reverence is how honor and respect for God get out worked in our life because reverence helps us to keep our life in alignment with who he is, so that we please him.
Through the life of God flowing through the reverence gate in our spirit into our soul we can begin to make decisions based on what will please God rather than what will please ourselves.
So it is important to get the reverence gateway in our spirit open and flowing so that we can be transformed from the inside out and then we can become a reflection of our eternal image, so that we can radiate the glory of God like Jesus did. Jesus engaged the world with his spirit first, rather than his soul and body.
As we begin to learn how the reverence gate works in our spirit, we can see the flow of God influence our soul gates so that they can come into alignment with who we are in heaven and we can manifest the divine nature in the earth.
When the reverence gate in our spirit is open and flowing with the life of God then we experience what the bible calls repentance. Repentance is a gift of God where his thoughts flow into our mind.
The word repent in the Greek is metanoeo-it consists of two word 1) meta- it is mostly translated as- with, it means close association.1-it speaks of companionship, fellowship. 2-it speaks of motion into the middle or into the midst of something, it speaks of motion after a person or thing so as to follow and be with.
The second word is noeo -which means to perceive with thought coming into the consciousness. It is translated as- mind, think, understand, consider.
The life of God flows through the reverence gate in our spirit into our mind so that God is directing our thinking. The word repent speaks of the change that takes place in the mind, when we open our spirit to the influence of the Spirit of God.
The Holy Spirit will lead and teach us how to open and activate all the gates of our spirit, so that our spiritual senses are aware of the lord, and we can sense the Spirit of God moving in us, so that we can begin to walk with Him.
We activate our spirit through focus, speaking, just being aware of it. About the only time it really doesn’t seem to be active is when we are not aware of it, when we are just living in our soul and doing our own thing, until we do something our spirit convicts us of.
By opening the reverence gate in our spirit, we can be consciously aware that our life is pleasing to God.