Our spirit is the part of us that gives us God- consciousness; our soul is the part of us that gives us self-consciousness and our body-world consciousness.
Our soul is our natural human life; we have natural needs built in it. We have a need for love, acceptance, affirmation significance, purpose, security. Where are we going to get those needs met?
There are only two pathways that we can follow represented by two trees in the garden, The tree of the knowledge of good and evil, and the way of the tree of life.
The tree of knowledge of good and evil represents independence of God where we try and get our needs met through self-effort; this is a way of life, the broad pathway everybody walks on.
The tree of life represents dependence upon God where he meets the needs of our soul, that he has put within it, this is a way of life described as the narrow way, the pathway of relationship.
Our soul is what makes us human. Our soul gives us self-consciousness. We were born into this world and we grew up and began walking on a pathway of trying to get our needs and desires met, depending upon our parents and others, and then through self-will.
Our soul has basic needs and desires. Our Soul is programmed by God with various desires and needs which are designed to draw us to him.
Our soul has emotional needs and desires- Love, Acceptance, Affection, Affirmation, Approval, and Significance, worth, Value, Identity, Safety, Security and Purpose.
Our soul is directly related to our body, so we have physical needs and desires that affect our soul- food, clothing, shelter, health, sex.
There are three driving forces which relate to the physical body and influence the soul, self-preservation, hunger, sex.
Our soul also has instincts- it has a Social instinct-how we think and feel about ourselves. How we think others view us. Wanting to belong or be accepted, wanting to be recognized.
Our social instinct has to do with personal relationships, our relations with God, our relations with other human beings and the world around us.
Our soul has a Security instinct which has to do with material things, needing, money, shelter, property, possessions, things of value, time.
When we think somebody or something is threatening one of our instincts – we become angry or fearful that our needs are not going to be meet and this blocks us off from the life flow of God.
God desires to meet all the needs of our soul and body and we are going to learn how he does this. When we try to get all our needs met through our own efforts we can end up hurt, damaged and fractured and even fragmented, we are going to learn how to allow God to heal our soul and restore it to a healthy condition.
Before we can really separate and reintegrate the soul and the spirit we need some reintegration within the fragmentation of our soul.
When our soul has been fragmented though traumatic events in our life, then we cannot consciously respond to what God wants to do, because those parts are in our subconscious and we get stuck emotionally. When something triggers these parts of our soul then we respond and behave in what is out of character, with how we normally behave.
Because we have been hurt we put up walls and barriers to protect ourselves, but we have to open up our heart to God so that his love can penetrate those areas, because they become prisons of our soul.
So we need those walls to come down, otherwise we keep God out. If we have had any upbringing which was legalistic that can be a problem to us.
Our spirit came out of the heart of God. In his heart he has all these wonderful thoughts about us, and a prewritten destiny for our lives. When our spirit entered our body our soul was produced. Through legalism we develop a wrong concept of God so that we feel separated from him, we have to open our heart up to him so that he can reveal who he truly is- love. Any concept that does not conform to that image is not of His Spirit.
The love of God will break down all the fear that is inside us, if we allow him to penetrate those barriers. Our spirit soul and body are supposed to be completely integrated and like one.
Through walking on the pathway of the knowledge of good and evil we have lost the true knowledge of identity that came from God himself because of the fallen image through sin.
Sin is the lost image which is “the sin”, which is what we received from Adam, it is not talking about behaviors, but our behaviors come out of that lost image.
All died in Adam spiritually. So we were all separated in that way because we lost our image.
We have all been designed for an intimate relationship with God. We were not designed to be self-conscious apart from God. Before Adam chose the pathway of good and evil, everything that Adam knew about himself came from relationship with God. Everything that he related to in the spiritual realm came from his relationship with God. Everything he related to in the physical realm came from his relationship with God.
So Adams identity, image, esteem, value, worth, security protection, provision all flowed from the amazing sense of God’s love for him expressed in the vast some of his thoughts, through a heart-to-heart knowledge, God did not need to tell Adam and Eve a whole load of things, all they had to do was just be with him in his presence and they just knew a lot of things. Because that’s how it works when you’re in relationship with him on the pathway of relationship.
When Adam chose independence, spiritual separation brought a lostness of identity through spiritual death. On the pathway of the knowledge of good and evil we try and rediscover identity from the world around us, because the flow is no longer flowing from the inside out, so it’s all got to flow from the outside in.
Through the pathway of the knowledge of good and evil we become self-conscious and world conscious in independence from God. And this is where most of our problems have come from. This is where most of our damages come from and God wants to restore our soul so that we have no self or world awareness apart from him.
Heb 4:12 for the word of god is living and effective and sharper than any double edged sword, penetrating as far as the separation (the act of dividing) (root-to part) of soul and spirit
The living word is Jesus, the life of the Father that flows out of heaven into our spirit. Once we get all our spirit gates open and flowing we sense the divine nature of God flowing into us, the living word. Unless our spirit is conscious of the inflowing of the presence of God in the fruit of his Spirit there can be no restoration of our soul.
Our spirit has senses in which we become aware of the presence of God, and as the presence flows into our soul it transforms it. But there may be things in our soul that block His Spirit from flowing into it.
We must allow Jesus to divide our soul from our spirit, allow His Spirit to reveal how it has been damaged, allow His Spirit to heal and restore it, then reintegrate it back into oneness with our spirit, so that it no longer operates independently of Him.
Most of us have not been brought up in Christ, we were in the world, we were lost and our heavenly Father began to draw us back to Himself through the Spirit, and our spirit responded and we became aware of His presence. Then we found that our spirit desired one thing and our flesh another so we found ourselves in a struggle.
Through the dividing of spirit and soul, we will begin to understand ourselves and why we are the way we are. We will begin to enter into His rest, which is the government of His Spirit, His presence over us.
We will enter into the abundant life of God, which is living in dual realms. Our awareness of heaven will be so great that the things of the world will not affect us the way it does others who have not yet experience this intimacy with the Lord.
When our flesh desires one thing and our spirit another, we cannot walk in the Spirit. But when we walk in the spirit, then we will never fulfill the desire of the flesh and the battle is over, we become a whole person the way God intended from the beginning.
So what is our flesh? It is that union of soul and body that acts independently of the Lord. Our soul is directly related to our body, because the life of our soul is in the blood.
So our soul has been formed through nature. We have inherited a lot of things from our natural parents that are not good. We receive the DNA of our natural parents, genetic epigenetic programming. So something’s were programmed into us through our parents through the blood or genes, our seed line. The record of sin in our ancestors was passed on to us, if it was never dealt with in their generations.
So we receive from our parents, the family records, behaviors, even memories can be passed on from generation to generation, all sorts of generic stuff, iniquity, familiar spirits. But Jesus has made provision for all this stuff to be dealt with.
Our soul has been shaped from the outside in through 1-nature, 2-nurture and 3-trauma. So it may have been damaged, and fractured. So we are going to look at our soul gates to see how they have been damaged and allow Jesus to heal them and make them whole so that our soul can be reintegrated( to bring together into a whole) back into oneness with our spirit.
Our soul has senses which become gateways in which the life of God flows into them from the inside, or the life in the world flows into them from the outside.
The gateways of our soul are conscience, reason, imagination, mind (unconscious, subconscious, conscious), emotions, will, choice.
In dealing with our soul we must remember who we are in our spirit. When we learn how to open our spirit to the Lord so that his life and power flow into it strengthening and expanding it, then through the flow of the Spirit we can have the things in our soul dealt with.
4 Eph 1: 4According (implying manner, when) as he hath chosen us (specific point , selection) in him before (before time) the foundation ( the beginning of creation, founding, laying down) of the world (heavens and earth, the universe, the inhabitants of the earth), that we should be (present infinitive-no reference to time, to exist) holy (hagios-the root of the word is-hag-which means with, and hagnos-pure. The word means with-pure, sharing in God’s purity) and without blame (without spot or blemish) before (face, presence of) him in love.
It reads when chosen us in him before time, foundation of the world, we exist holy and without blame before his face in love.
Our spirit preexisted in God before his face holy and blameless in love. We were in Christ before we ever became a human being and we agreed to come to the earth.
We are dealing with mysteries here, we were a spirit being, we were born a human being, for the purpose of becoming a son of God, to receive the seed of his very D.N.A by joining our spirit to God’s Spirit, which would then transform our soul and transfigure our body, inheriting our Fathers kingdom for the purpose of governing the natural creation-both the heavens and the earth that we created after we were already chosen in Christ.
Before we came to the earth we were a spirit, but our spirit was not joined to the Lord, we were somewhat like the angels, but we were chosen to come here and we were predestined to become like Jesus Christ, but there is a process we must go through, so we need to be excited about this process of transformation.
Being in Christ is the new creation, we have the very D.N.A of God inside us, and the growth of our spirit is limitless, when we learn how to join our spirit to the Lords, in one spirit. This makes us unique to all the other beings that God has created.
Wholeness is not just possible; it is our destiny to be whole, to be one, spirit, soul and body, to be a son.
The goal of wholeness is restoration. Restoration begins within us and then expands out through us restoring all things to God’s original intention and purpose.
When our spirit entered our body our soul was produced, but our soul has been shaped through 1-nature, 2-nurture, and 3-trauma, and needs to be transformed.
Nurture is our environmental programming. The way we were brought up, through our parents, significant others around us, school, friends, and various things.
Our soul has been programmed from the outside in, what other people have taught us or what we have learned independent of God, the wisdom of the world. And a lot of what we may have been taught has not been good.
Usually nurture is like a drip drip drip drip drip. If we’ve been told you are no good, no good, no good, no good, eventually we believe it, it becomes a part of our subconscious . We may not believe it the first time or the second time, but eventually it wears us down and we end up believing what people have said.
And if we had negative parents who have been negative to us, it can be a very powerful thing to change in our thinking. People become trapped, they know in the intuition of their spirit it is not true , but they cannot stop believing it, it has been programmed into their thinking, and certain things in life trigger it and it is loaded into their conscious mind and the program plays over and over again. But this type of programming can be removed and our minds renewed.
Unless we learned to walk in the spirit at an early age, the pathway of the tree of life, we have walked on the path of the knowledge of good and evil and our soul has been programmed from the outside in through 1-nature, 2-nurture 3- and trauma.
Nurture is our natural environmental programming; it is the record of our upbringing from our parents, older brothers and sisters and those in authority over us, or role models or people we desired to be like. Did we receive acceptance and affirmation, approval, security; did we get any of it?
If we didn’t our heart( soul) will be insecure and Jesus described our heart as soil, hard, so if we have we been damaged, we have within our heart memories, stones in our heart, thistles, thorns, things that choke out the flow of God’s life into it, anxieties, worries all that sort of things. That will have come from our environment.
So if we have a soil of insecurity, negative things easily take root. Certain plants grow in acid soil. Certain plants grow well in alkaline soil and if you got the wrong soil, the plant won’t grow so well. If we have insecure soil all the negative things will just produce roots and fruit.
And so many people go around with all sorts of fruit in their lives because they have been sown into the soil of their heart and it was cultivated there and grown. So we may have all those things in our heart our subconscious mind.
So sometimes words, curses, vows, agreement with lies, all those things can be part of our upbringing and things that happened in our life. If we vow never to be hurt again it will totally shut down our emotions. Before that we may have had very normal emotions. But we got hurt and because we got hurt we closed the emotions and became like a rock.
Everything people said was water off a ducks back. We don’t care. But that’s only the surface protection, inside we are really hurting, but we might not realize it. But we don’t feel it until it springs up and then all of a sudden it is like all this stuff is going on in me.
When we were young if we were not exposed to the things of the spirit which create a desire for them, we begin to desire the things of the world, which may not be wrong in themselves, but they take ascendency, and desires for other things overpower the word and our spirit never grows up.
There are four types of hearts in the parable of the sower-only one kind of heart will allow the incorruptible seed of God to produce a full grown son of God! The first type of heart, we have all experienced at one time or another. It is experiencing a hard heart, but our goal is to experience an honest and good heart, to experience the pure heart that sees God.
Math13: 22He also that received seed among the thorns is he that heareth the word; and the care (that which brings disruption to the personality and mind, to draw in different directions, to distract-that which causes this) of this world, and the deceitfulness (delusion) of riches (material goods), choke (overpower, suffocate)the word, and he becometh unfruitful (bearing no fruit, or bad fruit, not to bear to perfection or ripeness as the seed does the fruit).
Our soul has been programmed by nurture, the bad must be removed, and desires for other things can distract us from our destiny. If we want to grow up into sonship we must allow the Spirit of God to search our heart.
Our soul has been shaped by 1 nature 2-nurture 3 trauma.
Trauma is one of the most serious things and it fractures our soul because it can be instant, it affects us immediately.
Tauma then becomes contained within our neural pathways because it can form an instant neural pathway to a memory which is stored in our heart and then every time that’s triggered we instantly go down the path and we’re feeling like we felt before and we’re operating out of that memory and all of a sudden we’re traumatized or completely debilitated.
Trauma is the record of our negative experiences, it builds layers of protection and coping mechanisms, defense mechanisms.
Traumatic experiences program and shape our soul from the outside in. Abuse- physical, sexual, emotional, psychological, verbal.
All traumatic incidents and accidents become stored within us as a record. They can become even stored in the cells of our body and that can create a fear or anxiety in us or other things in us. As they become triggered you can feel it in your body.
Grief, loss, death, divorce, can become traumatic and effect us in a way in which we never do recover from without the Lord’s intervention.
Trauma becomes a major problem because it can create instant neural pathways to memories that continue to influence us for years even after we have totally forgotten the incident. The memories are still there in our subconscious. Or the memories can be disassociated around the pathways so we completely forget them.
That’s where parts of our soul become fractured, where we get stuck or where we are dissociated, we don’t even remember. We can have no memory of the trauma because we’d so dissociated it, completely forgotten. We can be wondering all our life why we behave certain ways and it is triggered by that traumatic incident that we cannot remember.
We can be brought up in a degree of security in our family life and something can happen which actually has little effect on us because we know we are loved and accepted. Someone else can have the same thing happen to them and it can be totally life changing and devastating. It has to do with the impact that is has upon the individual not the severity of it. It may be something that is trivial to one person but for someone else, it is life transforming in a negative way.
All of us have different things that affect us. The key is God wants to restore us and make us whole. There may be parts of us that are stuck emotionally. Sometimes you say something to someone and you trigger an emotional reaction from them and they’re acting like a five-year-old or a bad-tempered teenager. And it’s like what did I say? What caused that reaction in somebody?
Some of the reaction’s that people have are uncontrollable for them. They don’t even know why they react that way. But we can come to God, and he can deal with a lot of that. And he can reintegrate us and emotionally we can become mature, really easily.
People can be so immature emotionally over certain things and then they meet and have an encounter with God and he heals them in that area and all of a sudden it’s like you would not think it was the same person, Because they are no longer being triggered by those things. The Holy Spirit is able to produce fruit in them. So even the cells of our body can record trauma and that can be physical trauma which creates fear of situations because we don’t want to go back there.
So trauma itself needs to be released from the cells of our physical body, from our emotions, from our heart, from our mind, the memories that are stored can be released and healed and made whole.
We can invite Jesus as the Prince of peace, as the perfect love of God to come into those areas of fear and we can release them to him, because it’s a choice. Or we can hold onto them. Or we can say I open my heart to you, I remove the barriers and protection mechanisms, because we have to let him in. And then trust him that he is actually going to deal with that trauma within us, so that we can become whole.
Our spirit and soul has to be divided, and then reintegrated, but first our soul needs to be cleansed and healed from the damage it has received through nature, nurture and trauma, trying to get its needs met from the world through the outside in.
When we were born a human being our spirit went into a place of darkness, and our soul was shaped and formed from the outside in, because we were never taught how to access God through our spirit and have him meet all the needs of our soul, and learn how to live from the inside out.
Trying to get our own needs met is called partaking of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, Which becomes a pathway or a way of life. It is living independently of God, not being conscious or led by his Spirit. This is the way every human being lives.
They have basic needs in their soul and even though they may believe in God and pray to him to meet their needs, they do not know how to walk in the spirit, so they walk according to the flesh, which is the pathway of the knowledge of good and evil, the broad way.
When our spirit becomes enlightened through God’s Spirit coming into it, our spirit becomes conscious of the presence of God, this is communicated to our soul, so that we feel his presence, we sense the anointing of God.
Our soul has been in charge of our life up until this time, and will then draw upon our spirit to meet its need in independence. Our soul will use our spirit to do its own thing, so that it can feel good.
Our spirit is now alive to God, but we will still struggle with our spirit wanting one thing and our soul another. We will bring our soul under submission to our spirit, we learn how to surrender our soul, but this is not oneness, this is not wholeness.
God wants us whole, to sanctify us spirit, soul and body. So as our spirit grows we get to the place where we need our soul and spirit separated.
The separation is from our soul and spirit being tied from the outside in. And then God can reintegrate it. And this is the key to the supernatural life, our spirit and soul should be integrated from the inside out.
2 Corinthians 3:18 we are being transformed into the same image (the image of our sonship, the image of Jesus as the son of God) from 1° of glory to another. So it is an ongoing process of maturing becoming more and more whole.
God reveals himself to us from the inside out. Our spirit senses his glory; this is transferred to our soul where we behold his image, or we perceive his thoughts, which begins to program our soul from the inside out.
We are transformed through the renewing of our mind, which is an ongoing thing of bringing us into an agreement and alignment with the way God thinks. We are coming into alignment with who he is and also how he thinks about us.
Our spirit has a consciousness, it is conscious of God and this consciousness is transferred to our soul from the inside out. So our consciousness should be expanding. And whenever we have an experience that expands our consciousness it doesn’t go back to the same shape. Just like a balloon, we blow up a balloon and when we let all the air out of it, it’s actually stretched. It is bigger than it was before.
Our spirit can expand and so does our consciousness. God wants to encounter us in such a way that it expands our consciousness and challenges us to what we thought we knew and what we already know, to what there is to know.
We have to let the living word of God stretch us.
There is a process of transformation in which the life of God flows into our spirit and then into our soul gates- our mind, emotions, imagination etc. and we behold the glory of our sonship, the image of our sonship, who we are in the eyes of our father.
The engaging of this revelation changes us because we are experiencing the essence of God in it.
We are changed from one degree of glory to another so it is a process. The revelation exposes all the thoughts we have in our heart which have been programmed into us from the outside in by following the pathway of the knowledge of good and evil, trying to get the needs of our heart met through self-effort.
Transformation involves living by a different life source which changes us through intimacy with the Father, as he begins to father us into our destiny.
We are learning how to live from the inside out, which reprograms our thinking which has been the result of living from the outside in, looking to the things in the natural realm to meet our God-given needs.
So in this process we ask God almighty, the source of our strength to search our heart.
In this way we can encounter God in such a way that it expands our consciousness so that we see ourselves through his eyes and not through the pressure that may be coming from the outside.
In this process God does not need our assistance, but our surrender. We have to open our heart to him so that through the inflowing of His life we can partake of our identity.
The outworking of our identity or character is not in our own strength, but the flow of his strength or ability through us. The grace of God is the energy or power of God that manifests our sonship out of heaven into the earth.
When we are stressed out we have to disconnect to what is stressing us from the outside, and tune into the flow of peace on the inside, allowing God’s Spirit to reveal the root of our thinking.
It is not in our use to be-ness or I am trying to become-ness, but in our I am-ness. All this comes from his immediate presence in us and around us. I am in him and he is in me. And once this is in worked into us, it begins to change and transform and shape us, from the inside out, where we can begin to rule over our circumstances.
Through this process we are enabled to display the glory of God so we can manifest our sonship on earth as it is in heaven. It is our glory (the glory of sonship) which is the reflection of his glory. So the more we know him, the more we are in the light, the more we actually are able to demonstrate that.
So we can choose to embrace and pursue the process or we can stay babies, infants or toddlers whatever stage we are. He won’t stop loving us , but he wants the best for us, so that we can fulfill our destiny in him, our position in the government of God over the natural creation
Psalm 139: 23Search ( to penetrate, examine intimately, find out) me, God(el-strength, almighty), and know ( to know by seeing) my heart (lēbāb-bethink themselves) ; test( like in metals, investigate, examine, prove) me and know(know by seeing) my concerns(cogitation, thought, a disquieting thought, an anxious feeling, anxieties ) 24 see(to see so that one can learn to know)if there is any offensive(an idol ; also pain (bodily or mental) :- sorrow)way (path, road( as trodden), course of life or mode of action, journey)in me;lead ( to guide-in the right direction-on the proper path, to transport into as colonists, bestow, bring, govern)me in the everlasting(ʿôlām-concealed, the vanishing point; generally time- out of mind ancient (time), continuance)way (path).
Penetrate me and find out, almighty, see inside me to know, how I bethink myself, prove me like gold in the fire, know by seeing my anxious thoughts, see so that I can know, any idol- pain through a path in me,lead me on the proper path, transport me into the spirit into the ancient path.
Our spirit came out of eternity, out of the heart of God out of His Spirit. God thought about us, he saw us, he spoke us into being. We were chosen in Christ, the new creation before our spirit came into the earth.
God created us in spirit before our spirit entered our mother’s womb. Our spirit was perfect in Christ; this is the very substance of our being- who we are, our identity.
When our spirit entered the womb of our mother our soul was produced and our body began to develop around our spirit and soul.
Our spirit has now entered a different environment, in the natural realm and has to be awakened and reconnected with who we are in Christ, and this awakening is a process of growing up into our eternal image through the pathway of the way of the tree of life.
To enter into the ancient way we have to go through the fire, the light of God revealing who we are in spirit, and the removal of the things in our soul, blocking the flow of His Spirit.
Psalm 139: 23Search ( to penetrate, examine intimately, find out) me, God(el-strength, almighty), and know ( to know by seeing) my heart (lēbāb-bethink themselves) ; test( like in metals, investigate, examine, prove) me and know(know by seeing) my concerns(cogitation, thought, a disquieting thought, an anxious feeling, anxieties ) 24 see(to see so that one can learn to know)if there is any offensive(an idol ; also pain (bodily or mental) :- sorrow)way (path, road( as trodden), course of life or mode of action, journey)in me;lead ( to guide-in the right direction-on the proper path, to transport into as colonists, bestow, bring, govern)me in the everlasting(ʿôlām-concealed, the vanishing point; generally time- out of mind ancient (time), continuance)way (path).
In order for God to restore our soul, we have to allow him to search it. Search me God, but we have to mean it. And when we really mean it then we have to be prepared for him to do it.
So try me and know my anxious thoughts see if there’s any hurtful way in me and lead me in the everlasting way. The way that comes from eternity, the way that was always in his heart for us, in his mind for us.
Greek thinking is linear, Hebrew thinking is circular. The beginning and the ending in one, an eternal perspective. We were created perfect-the beginning-who we are, but then we go through the process of becoming that, the journey (the time realm) where the beginning meets the end.
Our life has been pre-written or pre-destined, the blue print, the mandate. But then we have to walk it out, we have to become who we already are.
The time realm (the created realm of heaven and earth) is where it is worked out.
Jesus was the lamb slain before the foundation of the world. Then he was sent into the world and it was outworked, the beginning met the end and it was finished.
So we were in Christ before the foundation of the world, when he died we died with him and when he was raised we were raised with him and seated with him, this is called the provision.
The pathway of the tree of life is the journey of the finished work, being outworked in our life. Our spirit awakens to our identity and destiny, and then we learn how to partake of the provision on our journey.
This is called learning how to walk with God, it is the outworking of mystic union with Christ, where we go through a transformation process, learning how to live in him, move in him and have our being in him.
This life is a school of the spirit, where we grow and develop through overcoming, so that our birthright of being a son of God which is to be enthroned, our inheritance of being seated in heavenly places upon a throne, which is our destiny, can come into manifestation. We have to be trained and prepared for the function that we have as a co-heir of the kingdom, and co-creator in the ages to come.
We go through a process where God transforms us from the inside out, when we open our heart for him to come inside. His Spirit flows into our spirit and then into our soul, searching it and revealing what has taken place in it through being on the pathway of the knowledge of good and evil.
We were born into it-nature-we received the record of our natural ancestors. We walked on it through nurture, our environmental upbringing what was taught to us from others. And we were damaged on this pathway through trauma, the things that we experienced that were not the will of God for us, but by being born into a world that was not under his government.
So our soul has been develop from the outside in, we have been hurt, fractured and damaged by being in this world, but we are not of it. We are from another world; we are citizens’ of heaven.
So we go through a process of restoration, being restored to original condition, and then we learn how to live from the inside out in union with God.
We learn how we were designed to function. We learn the senses of spirit, soul and body and how they become gateways for the life of heaven to flow through, so that we can begin to walk on the pathway of life.
We have walked on the pathway of the knowledge of good and evil, so we go back through our life looking at our gateways, looking at how we have lived from the outside in through the gateways of body, soul and spirit.
We look at patterns of behavior that had been birthed in our life by events and choices and things we did. It is easier to go backwards from now until we were born, and beyond if the lord reveals the record of our natural ancestors.
We are seeing through the illumination of the Holy Spirit. We see patterns of thinking and behavior from walking on the pathway of good and evil. We see how these patterns had been generated across the years of our life, patterns of thinking we didn’t even realize we had.
We see any programming through our personal experiences or any environmental lack, because it is not just things that happened to us, but things that don’t happen to us. Because when we should get affirmation and we don’t, we have an unmet need. And then we can look for that to be met in the wrong places. And that would get us to treat people in such a way that they will meet our unmet need. And therefore we may not be open to be truthful and honest with them. Because if there is a danger that they stop meeting our unmet need we guard it protect it. That is why people are not truthful and honest with each other because they’re afraid that their needs won’t be met, and that’s why codependent relationships go on.
So we got be careful that we don’t follow the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. That is this whole trading floor pathway. It’s using our own understanding to meet our own need in that way (trading). So it’s the path and source of all self. That’s why we got to surrender self, because it’s the source that comes from a wrong path.
In trying to meet the God given needs of our soul on the pathway of the knowledge of good and evil, we end up trading on demonic trading floors.
Tyre -money, materialism .
Athaliah -kingly seed.
Jezebel -Manipulation, control, domination, witchcraft.
Cain -murder.
Delilah -seduction.
Leviathan -Gossip, lies, deception.
Apollyon -opposes the gospel.
Now this comes from Satan’s trading originally, I will ascend, I will be like God. That was his- I got this information and I’m going to use it to elevate myself. And then he led a whole lot of others astray.
So these are sort of trading routes and this is a pathway. And then actually we live in all these fruits of that trading which is not a good thing.
So this trading is based on the desires of our heart as a result of “the sin” of our fallen identity within our nature and the desire to get it back.
So when we see people doing things that we class as bad behaviors, we can see that it is coming from a broken identity and they need and are looking for something that they were designed to find only in God. We don’t judge them and condemn them, because we use to do the same thing when we were on the wrong pathway. It is just a cry for help; a desperate desire to get back what is a hole in us that we want to fill. And of course we fill it with all sorts of stuff, to numb the emptiness or the pain. So the first negative trade was Satan before time and then the negative trade on earth with Adam and eve.
Negative trading-the legitimate desires of our heart are inbuilt by God and met by following the pathway of the knowledge of good and evil- earthly, natural or demonic wisdom. James says there are three sources earthly, natural; demonic that comes from the outside in- the world.
So we don’t want any of those earthly, natural or demonic, we want godly wisdom. We want to follow the way of the tree of life, to get all our needs met from our Father.
We then become partakers of the divine nature and we can receive all things pertaining to life and godliness. So everything is available for us if will look to the right source. So trading- all relationship formed to meet my own need for love and all the other needs of our soul we find in God as we enter into his kingdom. We learn how to draw upon the provision of the cross. The cross of the Lord Jesus Christ is a trading floor. Where we exchange our brokenness for his wholeness.
The searching of our hearts by the Spirit begins to reveal how we have traded to get our needs met, on the pathway of the knowledge of good and evil.
As the lord searches our heart, he reveals the demonic trading floors that we have been trading on to get the needs of our soul met.
At first we may think that we have not traded on any of them. But as we learn how to walk with the Lord, we begin to see how we use to live, when we were walking on the pathway of the knowledge of good and evil.
The Spirit searches our hearts by penetrating into it. God is light and the entrance of The Spirit illuminates our heart. God does not look at our sin; we see it reflected in His light. Sin is not sharing in our inheritance, which opens the door for other things entering in, to meet our needs.
Our soul needs to be separated from our spirit, so that it does not draw upon our spirit to meet its needs.
Our soul wants recognition. So we go to church trying to get a position, to be recognized. So we serve the pastor and do all his dirty work, the things he does not want to do. So anything that needs to be done we do it, we are trading into it because we want to be recognized, and it can be a totally subconscious thing that we are not aware of.
But when we go through the process of transformation we see what we are doing, we see what is truly motivating us.
When we lack significance, it is because we are not receiving it from God through intimacy with him. As we learn how to be filled with the Spirit we begin to hear his voice and he affirms us. Then we do not need significance, our spirit is receiving it from the father, and our spirit takes ascendancy and the need of our soul is being met, so that it doesn’t have to act independently, because now in our soul, it no longer matters if we are affirmed by others.
So all the pathways of the knowledge of good and evil that we walk on, is our soul drawing from that source to get its needs met, which causes it to act independently of God.
When God reintegrates our soul to our spirit, so that it becomes a willing servant of our spirit, then we will become whole, our soul will no longer be operating independently.
So all counterfeit methods we use for meeting the needs of our soul. For giving us acceptance, affirmation, approval, significance, security, provision, purpose, destiny, happiness, satisfaction, fulfillment, leisure, peace all these things, they’re all sorts of offers that we get to meet a need that are not coming from the Lord and become trading floors.
So the trading floors are demonic substitutions for God’s provision for us. They offer a perverted altar to sacrifice on. And as we take a look at them, we will probably realize that we have traded on every one of them.
When we start learning how to walk with God, we might not be trading on any of them, because our spirit will not let us, but the motive still might be in our heart, so we want to get rid of it, through the cleansing work of the Spirit in our heart.
So we trade when we take the pathway of the knowledge of good and evil and it becomes an option for us, a shortcut to success, power, money, position, influence, gratification whatever it is, the enemy will always offer the shortcut.
God wants to lead us through the pathway of maturity, so there is a process; there is growth, but never a shortcut.
The Charismatic church always offers a shortcut, come have hands laid upon you, and you can get something from me that you don’t have to go through and get yourself. It is never going to work. We have to get our own intimate relationship with the Lord and this takes time to develop.
We can never impart what we got from the Lord, because it is ours, from our personal relationship with God. The other person needs to get theirs from their relationship with the Lord and that takes time, perseverance, diligence and desire. All we can do is plant the seed through impartation, to open a door.
We are learning how to walk with God. In the beginning our spirit will take ascendency, but then our soul. If our spirit isn’t ruling, then our soul will, until it surrenders the need to do so.
Our soul looked to the world to meets its needs. Then our spirit becomes alive to God, and our soul then draws upon our spirit to meet its needs, or draws upon the spirit of the world to meet its needs.
The dividing of soul and spirit causes the soul to lose its right to rule. Then it is reintegrated with our spirit and becomes a willing servant. Our soul becomes a bond-servant, because the life of God flowing through our spirit meets all its God given needs, and it now wants to serve its master and no longer be independent.
Our mind is a good servant but a poor master. Our emotions are a good servant but a poor master. All the gateways of our soul are good servants, but when the soul wants to rule, we always end up getting damaged. So we do not want free will. Our will is a good servant but a poor master. We want our will in total submission to the Lord ship of Jesus Christ over our spirit, so that the power of God flowing into it through our spirit can strengthen it to do God’s will.
So through the dividing of soul and spirit, we get rid of all the triggers in our soul, all the hidden motives become purified and refined.
So we go the process of asking God to examine our heart and show us our motives.
Am I trading on any of these floors? Have I traded on any of these floors? What did I do when I traded? Why did I trade on those floors? Is the need I had then now being met in God, because if it isn’t, then we still have a vacuum in us that is going to be filled in some way?
We want to be filled with the fullness of God, so that we can mature to the full stature of Christ- the manifestation of sonship. So we have to go through this process of maturing, if we want to be enthroned as king.
Trading floors – it’s a place where we exchange, trade one thing for another. Adam and Eve traded their seed for knowledge. We can trade, like money; we can trade money to try and buy something. We will look at these trading floors in another message. But trading on the wrong floor keeps us spiraling around and around and around, and we keep trading on the wrong platform, not able to get out of it. Because the issue is we got a need and we’re looking into the wrong place.
So how does the dividing of soul and spirit take place? It takes place on the other side of the veil in the heavenly tabernacle.
Being in the spirit is like stepping through a veil. We are stepping into the presence of God, so the Spirit can do the work. Jesus is our high priest, he prepares the sacrifice, he cleanses us- we just offer ourselves a living sacrifice.
We have to step through the veil and become aware of the government of his presence, in order to begin experiencing the separation of soul and spirit.
To enter into the process of transformation we have to learn how to step into heaven. Whatever we want to call it, it is becoming aware of the presence of God. We are stepping into the Spirit; we are stepping into the unseen realm of his kingdom.
We have to be in the Spirit in order to behold his glory. We are entering into the realm in which we experience God. There has to be a flow in which God is communicating to us.
So this is something we have to practice every day until it becomes a way of life, it becomes second nature to us. We step into heaven, into the heavenly realm of the presence of God. It is in this atmosphere where we are not so affected by the things that are on earth, it is a place of stillness.
So this is what we do every day or pray when we are dealing with these things.
Father I thank you that you have made a way to access your heavenly presence. By faith I step in through the veil of Jesus, through the way of the cross. I present myself to you Jesus my high priest in surrender as a living sacrifice.
We are stepping through the veil into the holy place in the tabernacle, to stand in the light of his truth.
I ask you to search me, reveal the blind areas of self to me. Show me the hidden motives of my heart. I stand in the light of your truth. Show me the pathways of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil that I have followed.
Show me where I have accepted the enemy’s lies and deception. Reveal where I have followed earthly, natural, demonic wisdom to meet my own need. Show me where I traded by taking a shortcut to gratification through, money, influence, power, position, success or position.
Show me where I’ve received my identity from performance, work or ministry. Show me where I have formed relationships to meet my own needs for love, acceptance, affirmation, approval. Show me where I have sought to meet my own needs through humanism, rationalism, following the pathway of self.
I submit and surrender my life following the pathway of the tree of life as my source. I commit myself to a lifestyle of renouncing all negative trading. I renounce my sin where I have followed the path of good and evil. I renounce all patterns of sin in my heart. I renounce all my defense mechanisms, coping mechanisms, survival mechanisms.
We do this every day with diligence and persistence, until eventually these become a part of us.
When we say I present myself to you as a living sacrifice we have to mean it, because we are giving God permission to work within our lives, because we have to go through this transformation process in order to enter into a face to face relationship with him.
Father, give me revelation of my true identity as a son of God. Give me a heart of security in its identity. Renew my mind to the mind of Christ. Meet all my unmet needs in yourself. Heal all my unhealed hurts. Restore my soul to original condition.
Father, I receive your unconditional love, acceptance, affirmation, approval, what we are doing is practicing walking on the pathway of the tree of life, which becomes the source of meeting all our needs.
In the dividing of soul and spirit we step into the kingdom realm of our father. This is a spiritual realm of God’s presence on the other side of the veil.
We close our eyes, we release our spirit to embrace God- this is spirit to spirit communication. It is called being in the spirit. In this realm our spiritual senses are enhanced. We receive revelation in our spirit which is translated to our soul. It is the opening of our understanding to see things from God’s perspective. It is called hearing God, or communicating with him. We receive revelation in this realm and then we step back into the natural realm and try and walk it out, because until our spirit and soul are divided we cannot stay there.
When we are in the spirit, we are aware of the manifest presence of God, as long as we able to stay in this realm, then it is continually flowing out of heaven into the natural realm, into and through us, we are living in dual realms.
The life of God flows out of heaven into our spirit, into our soul and body into the atmosphere around us.
When we are in the spirit, then the desire and the motivation of our heart is to love God, to fulfill our destiny, to bring glory to him is all that we are doing here on the earth.
So being able to step in and out of the spirit or heaven is a good starting point. We are able to tune into the lord at will and receive from him.
The goal is being in and out at the same time flowing from one to the other continually, because otherwise when we are out, we are not flowing from being in.
Until our soul is restored, we are going to keep finding ourselves pulled out of the spirit by something, because our soul is being influenced by something in the world or is trying to do something independently of our spirit.
We are to acknowledge God in all our ways and not lean unto our own understanding. Our soul will always want to understand something, until it is divided from our spirit. In the division of soul and spirit, the soul is content to know nothing. And if our soul needs to know something it will just flow from heaven through our spirit and we will have the understanding.
So we need the fire of God to purify our hearts (our souls), to purify our motives, to bring us into that place where we have a pure heart, because the pure in heart will see God. This is talking about a face to face relationship with God where we enter into the dark cloud to see the person of God.
This is why our soul has to be transformed; our soul is transformed by fire or water which is a process which enables us to encounter the person of God and not just his presence.