The gateways of the soul are- conscience, imagination, reason, mind, emotions, will, and choice. But choice is the key.
We can receive cleansing and healing for our conscience, imagination, and emotions. We can have strongholds removed from our reason, we can receive renewing for our mind, we can receive the power of God into our will, but we can still choose to do our own thing.
Even though the life of God is flowing into us and motivating us with the right motives, it is only in the moment of choice, that the will of God is outworked in our lives. The right motive and intention will not really help us unless we make the right choice.
We may have made many New Year’s resolutions that we have never followed through. I’m going to diet, I’m going to start working out, I am going to quit, this or that. But we never did do it, because we never had the commitment to follow through.
We thought we had the desire but when it came to choosing to use it every time we didn’t. Choice is the key and choice ultimately is motivated by worship.
Worship is I acknowledge Jesus as the lord of my spirit and I choose to surrender to the Father’s will for my life. I’m only choosing to do what I see the father doing. That is my desire to only do what the father’s doing.
So once we make the choice, in order for it to become a way of life, we are going to have to build up the desire.
The purpose of all spiritual discipline is to have a meeting with the Lord, to experience the presence of God in all that we do.
So we discipline ourselves to worship, to wait on the lord, to meditate, to pray and so on. We build this desire every day through surrender until we meet the Lord in it which births desire. We begin to experience the fruit of it, which causes us to desire more.
So working through the gateways of spirit soul and body is a spiritual discipline, but once they become open and flowing with the life of God, then we are enabled to continually make the right choice and we enter into a walk with God.