God breathed into us our spirit. When the spirit entered the body the soul was formed. In our soul and body are the instinctive drives we have being human.
When we are born from above the seed of God is conceived in our spirit and we become a child of God by nature, our spirit is joined to the Lord’s.
But unless we learn how to walk by the spirit, we are going to walk on the soul level. Most of the church is on the soul level.
When we become a spiritual person we still have a soul and body, but they do not take the ascendency. Our spirit takes the ascendency, and the soul and body are in subjection to it.
When we walk in the spirit, the power in our spirit eliminates the fleshly and soulish aspects of us that are independent of God. We love the lord with our soul and body.
The Holy Spirit transmits revelation to our spirit, and new experiences first come through the realm of our spirit. They do not come through the realm of our soul.
The deception and the distortion of things come through our soul, our soul is aware of the things in the world in which Satan can influence. The purity we experience comes through our spirit as it connects with God.
When we learn how to worship the Lord with our spirit we come into experiences of revelation that might be contrary to the doctrines we have learned with our mind in church.
1corn 2: 9But as it is written, Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered (to come up, ascend, spring up) into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him. 10But God hath revealed (to uncover) them unto us by his Spirit: for the Spirit searcheth all things, yea , the deep things of God. 11For what man knoweth ( to know by perception) the things of a man, save( except) the spirit of man which is in him? Even so the things of God knoweth no man, but the Spirit of God. 12Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the spirit which is of (out of) God; that we might know the things that are freely given to us of God. 13Which things also we speak, not in the words which man’s wisdom teacheth, but which the Holy Ghost teacheth (two words1-intimate union with 2– instructed by teaching); comparing spiritual things with spiritual. 14But the natural (“belonging to the psuche, soul”) man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually ( by the aid of the Holy Spirit) discerned. 15But he that is spiritual (in contrast to soulish) judgeth all things, yet he himself is judged of no man. 16For who hath known the mind of the Lord, that he may instruct him? but we have (continual possession) the mind (the faculties of perceiving and understanding and those of feeling, judging, determining) of Christ.
When our spirit gets saved, we still have to experience a work of salvation in our soul, our soul is being saved, and that is why many still have a problem with anger and other works of the flesh, even after their spirit has been born again.
The new birth of our spirit opens the door to the spirit world.
When our spirit gets regenerated, we experience the realm of the spirit; we taste of the Lord’s love and joy. We read the word and it comes alive to us, and then we go to church and hear something different. If the church we are going to is soulish they pull us back down to the soul level. This is because the church we are going to is walking on a soul level.
When our spirit is born again it is free, but we can drift right back into the soul level, until we learn how to divide our spirit from our soul. When we come into the realm of the spirit, we have revelations, visions and dreams.
God is bringing us into something that is alive in our spirit. When we are around a body of believers that walk in the spirit, we start receiving revelations in the spirit, but if we are around soulish people, who understand the things of God with their mind, this atmosphere can quench the spirit in us. Revelations do not come through the soul they come through our spirit. God is a Spirit and when we learn how to worship Him in spirit we receive revelation from Him. When the Spirit comes upon us, baptizing us in His Spirit, He is literally indwelling our body and quickening our spirit. Our spirit is coming more alive to Him.
When we are having a soulish experience, we are not experiencing the Holy Spirit speaking to our spirit.
When the Spirit of truth is come, He will guide us into all the truth, He will show us things to come; he will take of what is Jesus’ and shall reveal it to us. There should be a continuous work of the Holy Spirit in us driving us, exciting us and revealing the Lord’s glory. If this is not taking place in us it is because we are not living in the realm of the Spirit, we are living in the realm of the soul. The Lord is calling us to come up higher.
As we start becoming aware of our spirit and learning how to activate it, we will be on a level somewhere between the soul and the spirit, as our spirit is growing stronger and we are becoming more aware of it. As we enter into the realm of the Spirit we enter into the place where we walk and talk with the Lord; we commune back and forth.
We might believe all the right doctrines, but the word has to come alive in our spirit. Usually when we break into the realm of the spirit, others call it heresy.
Acts 24: 14But this I confess unto thee, that after the way which they call heresy, so worship I the God of my fathers, believing all things which are written in the law and in the prophets:
We have to learn how to walk with God and learn to hear His voice. We have to wait upon Him with a focused listening, and spend time worshiping Him. We do not have a walk with the Lord, if we do not have an awareness of the Lord, if we are not communing with Him. We have to get out of the realm of the soul and into the spirit if we are going to walk with the Lord.
In the soul realm what we have is religion and experiences, God will even deal with us and chasten us, but we still do not know Him.
The purpose of all the things we go through is to get us to the point where we are no longer content to live on a soul level, with all its frustrations, and begin to start worshiping the Lord with all our heart so that we rise up into a realm of the spirit. We only receive deep revelation when we come into intimate contact with His Spirit.
When we receive the baptism of the Holy Spirit, it is to make alive and further quicken the faculties we have in our spirit. Our spirit has the faculty of hearing and seeing. The more highly developed and open our spirit is, the more it will rise above the physical senses, it will impress upon the physical senses the feelings and awareness of what is taking place in the spirit realm.
The gifts of the Holy Spirit are the divine endowments of grace that enable us to tune into the mind of Christ. To superimpose upon our mind what God see’s or is thinking about a thing. Then we are given an ability to see something with divine understanding.
Worshiping in the spirit is the door into the realm of the Spirit. Nothing can replace this basic need of worshiping God in our spirit. A walk with God begins and continues throughout eternity with worship.
Once our spirit is in tune with God, we have entered into the realm that will continue throughout eternity. Those who have not entered into the realm of the spirit do not know the Lord.
A walk with God is not based on an experience; it is based on a continuous revelation of the Lord. He continually reveals Himself to us. His presence becomes more and more real in the sense of intensity, concentration, strength, force, and amount, clarity (as to perception or understanding), Vividness (Perceived as distinct) brightness, brilliance (Exceptional quality), radiance.
A walk with God is based on a revelation. We get revelation when we worship God. As we are worshiping all of a sudden something comes alive and real to us. Our spirit opens up to the realm of revelation.
When we break through into his presence through our worship, revelation begins to come, and the things of the Spirit become alive to us. We can be hearing the same word for years, but all of a sudden it becomes alive to us in our spirit. We were hearing it without ears to hear, but when our spirit started to worship, then the word came alive on the inside, the revelation opened up to us.
The revelation comes to our spirit, not to our mind. It is when we become willing to act on the word we have heard, when we become willing to do His will that our spirit opens up. We know when we have a will set on God, and this is where worship comes in.
When we set our will upon God, and begin to worship, then our worship breaks through. Prayer is not prayer unless it comes out of our spirit. We can be soulish and cry out when we get ourselves into a corner, but then when we get out of the corner, we forget all about God, we are not really interested in a walk with God. But when our will is set on God, this is worship, and when we are in this walk, then revelation comes to our spirit.
As long as we stay in the spirit realm, and not the soul realm the revelation will continue to come, it will continue to flow. When we begin to lag behind from the earnest will to worship, this is when the flow stops.
We never need revivals as we did in the old order, to prod and stir people up in the soul level, because we are not living on that level. If we brought in some famous evangelist, the church would be empty within a week. No one wants to go back to the soul level anymore—they want to walk into the realm of the spirit. So what do we do when people get a little lax? Just stir them up and say, “Now set your will upon the Lord. Open your spirit up to God.” Everything now is based upon what happens to your spirit.
Suppose we want to win souls to the Lord? Forget it! Let’s regenerate spirits! When people find the Lord their spirit is made alive to God; and then they go into a process of the saving of the soul. The soul involves habits, emotions, etc.; so when or spirit is saved we usually start dropping off the habits.
From month to month we start overcoming things of a hereditary nature, all of it coming through the soul. When we receive the Lord our spirit is saved; our soul is being saved; and we have the promise of redemption. From the moment that the Holy Spirit came within us, it was a seal of the Holy Spirit that the body would ultimately be redeemed.
We are then, waiting for that redemption of the body, to be glorified in Him. Our salvation is only about halfway along: the spirit—that’s done; the soul—that’s being done; the body—yet to be done, and that is why we have divine healing services. We still appropriate a great many things for this body that has the Holy Spirit as a seal of the long-promised redemption and the glorifying that is to come.
How do we get into a walk with the lord? Our spirit opened up to the Lord and revelation came to us.
We are not winning people on a soul level now. We’re not interested in winning souls—we’re interested in bringing a spirit into life. When we win people through some soul-saving program and then teach these things of spirit to them, we still lose them. They wander off because they were converted on a soul level.
How do we reach people today? We start in strictly from a spirit level. We can illustrate this by carrying on a conversation with someone. We can talk to them about their job and without their being aware of it; we can minister to their spirit at the same time. By maintaining a right spirit, we minister the spirit.
If a woman has the right spirit, she can win the rebellious hard hearted husband without a word? I Peter 3:1 tells us, …ye wives, be in subjection to your own husbands; that, even if any obey not the word, they may without the word be gained by the behavior of their wives—her spirit gets to him.
Suppose someone is oppressed—how do we minister to them? We bind the strong man, bind the thing that is affecting their spirit and keeping them blind and in death; and then we minister to them, and bring them right into the Lord.
We have amazing methods of approaching through the spirit: sermons will be preached on that level; personal work will be done on that level. We need to bring people into the lord on a spirit level.
It’s interesting how people will warm up to someone with a right spirit, but they won’t warm up to someone who is very religious. Most religiousness comes through the soul. It often stirs up argument and debate. People love to argue politics and religion, and they always get soulish about it.
All of our political campaigns and elections are conducted on the soul level—throwing dirt, slinging mud—because Americans are soulish people. Politicians are not men of spirit—they are men of soul. Therefore, the more they appeal to the soulish level, the more votes they will receive because more people are living on that level than any other.
The devil is ruling over the souls he has taken captive; and we snatch people out of his influence by binding the enemy, and then bring them in through the realm of spirit.
We minister more to the spirit, knowing that it is the predominant force in the human make-up; and when we reach the spirit, we can reach any part of the body. In this day in which our spirit is coming alive, it superimposes itself over all other faculties and senses. The day is past when we just pray for the sick. Let’s minister to their spirits and get them well.