To manifest our spirit, we have to activate it through speaking in tongues, silently or out loud. Our spirit has to expand within us, until it comes to the forefront of our consciousness, where we experience the life flow of the Spirit in it.
To manifest our spirit we have to be filled with the Holy Spirit.
Manifesting our spirit is a spiritual discipline. We have to come to the Lord and drink.
John 7: 37In the last day, that great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried, saying, If any man thirst, let him come unto me, and drink. 38He that believeth on me, as the scripture hath said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water. 39(But this spake he of the Spirit, which they that believe on him should receive: for the Holy Ghost was not yet given; because that Jesus was not yet glorified.)
John 4: 13Jesus answered and said unto her, Whosoever drinketh of this water shall thirst again: 14But whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst; but the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life.
Life in the Spirit is like digging a well. We have to allow the Holy Spirit to search our heart because things in our soul life can hinder the flow of life in our spirit. The Lord has to search our heart to remove the things (the dirt) that covers up the living water that He has put within us.
It is the principle of displacement, there are things that He must remove in order for the Holy Spirit to completely fill us. The lord has to take out of our heart what shouldn’t be there, in order for His life in our spirit to flow into our soul, until we overflow. It is through displacement that the Holy Spirit has enough room inside of us to move and accomplish what He wants to do.
When the Holy Spirit reveals an area of our soul that is not in submission to Him we have to repent or else our soul will desire things that are contrary to our spirit and we will experience conflict, our flesh will begin warring against our spirit.
Opposition attaches to what we do not remove. We give the enemy certain rights over our lives when we refuse to partner with the Lord in our spiritual development.
Water gives life. There can be no quality of life without it. As we develop our inner well or spirit we have power over life and the enemy.
When we maintain the well (a right spirit) we are always refreshed. Our body is stronger and we don’t get tired that easily. We are more mentally renewed and our emotions are balanced. A walk in the spirit should be a refreshing journey. We stay fresher longer.
We do not want to be spiritually dehydrated, where we are dejected, depressed, despondent, easily cast down, overly cautious. These are signs that we are not processing the life of the Lord properly. Rejoicing, thanksgiving and praise keep us hydrated and in confidence. There is only one way to live, the way Jesus lived it. We need to learn to drink of the water continually, to drink at specific times.
We take out the negative by exposing ourselves to God’s glory. We focus on love instead of fear, trust instead of anxiety.
Water creates life; the Holy Spirit generates power as our spirit connects with His. He is a wonderful companion; he is wise, gentle, funny, exuberant, excited by life, and totally enthusiastic about us. He loves to reveal Jesus to us. He loves us incredibly, and has incredible esteem in his heart towards us. He is a genius at everything; he is brilliant at the life of Christ in our experience.
We have to develop a personal relationship with the Holy Spirit. He is a person not a force, and he has a wonderful personality. He helps us with everything. We have to get to know Him, listen to Him and work with Him. We get to know the Father intimately through the Holy Spirit’s relationship with Him. We have to rely on the Holy Spirit, he is our personal friend and tutor, and trainer. He trains us for every eventuality, and for all aspects of life.
The Holy Spirit extracts that which is worthless, and replaces it with something precious. We have to clean out our well. By doing this we take our relationship with the Holy Spirit to the next level of God’s intention.
We need to ask the Holy Spirit to remove from our heart, that which he has been convicting us of.
We are called into an inner warfare first, we are spiritual warriors. The Holy Spirit lives in our spirit, if our experience with God is mostly mental or physical then we are living in the soulish realm. We need to learn how to activate our spirit so that we have an internal, personalized experience or expression of God’s presence. If our experience is just mental, then we need a metal stimulus to exist.
Spiritual warriors internalize their relationship with God. We have to live from within; we have to live from our spirit. Power flows from the inside of us to the outside. God has already put within us that which needs to be manifested. It must be revealed, declared and exposed.
The Holy Spirit is constantly seeking to cause our inner man of the spirit to rise up and manifest itself in the course of our everyday life.
The word manifest means to show or demonstrate plainly. We need to become a sign of God’s revelation.
We need an internal frame of reference; in any given situation we do not take our truth from external circumstances. The world gives us negative information. We ask the Father for His perspective. We never ask why? It is a victim question and we are not a victim. The Lord trains us to fight, and to overcome, we are more than conquerors. The father has never been overwhelmed, and Jesus is undefeated. The Holy Spirit only leads us in triumph.
An internal frame of reference takes all its testimony from God. We learn how to perceive in the Spirit. Wisdom is the understanding of how God thinks, how He sees things, and how He likes to act in a given situation.
The two questions we ask in any life event is- what does this mean? and what shall we do? As we see on the day of Pentecost.
An internal frame of reference creates the space within us to discover God in the midst of any life event. It empowers us to look forward and anticipate. It enables us to look back in hindsight to determine anything that we may have missed to complete our learning circle in terms of present, future and past. The Lord goes before us so that we can anticipate. He walks with us so that we can be aware of his present intention. He comes behind us so that we can ascertain what we could also have learned.
Anticipation, awareness and ascertaining are critical forms of developing our wisdom in our walk with God. We need to use our internal frame of reference on a daily basis as a lifestyle relationship. When we seek to know, then God talks to us. We go into too many situations blind and unprepared.
Jesus always knew, in His spirit. He knew what was in the hearts of men, and was not caught unaware. He knew how to wait on the Father and commune with the Holy Spirit, and how to live from the inside out.
We need to take time to stop and listen, we seek God’s perspective we ask for wisdom not knowledge. Father what does this mean, we never assume. Our starting point for revelation is always with the Father never the circumstance. We do not live in our circumstance we live in Christ.
Our circumstances are not the problem, but our perception of the circumstances is the problem. All of our transformations come from a renewed mind set. Circumstances are transformed when we think different about them. We then discover that instead of a situation being against us it can be designed to work for us.
When we view life from outside a place of who God is for us, we have a perspective that is hostile to the purpose of the Father. When our thinking is hostile to the heavenly purpose, it is reflected back in peace and an impoverished lifestyle. Repentance is the art of thinking again, so that our actions can be governed by a better thought.
The manifestation of our spirit occurs when we are God conscious. We are aware of the Spirit of God on the inside of us, when we are more aware of God, than ourselves, more aware of our spirit than our soul.
Everything that we need to become a spiritual person is already on the inside of us. All we have to do is to learn how to activate it and let it flow. We need to learn how to let God work in us. To draw upon the provision of the Spirit inside of us, we need to learn how to drink of the Spirit, so that we can release the Spirit.
Our spirit is linked to our voice, our spirit needs a voice. We need to release the spirit with our voice. When we feel the power of God in our spirit, we need to learn how to voice it; this is why our spirit wants to speak, it wants to come out. To manifest our spirit is to allow it to become visible through our mouth. We must connect verbally to fully manifest our spirit.
We must learn how to fully engage in the Spirit with our whole person. We have to live from the inside out. Power flows from the inside to the outside. Our spirit has to rise up and manifest itself in the course of our everyday life.
Manifestation involves the whole person. Our spirit, soul-our mind and emotion and body must all work in agreement.
An improper response achieves a poor result. We get opportunities in life to break through into a place of overwhelming victory. If the enemy cannot prevent the victory, he wants to downsize it. It is our whole hearted response that makes us more than conquerors. We do not just win the battle, we occupy territory.
To partner with God takes everything we are and have. There is no place for a lukewarm response. When we manifest our spirit, every part of us is in whole hearted agreement with God. Manifesting our spirit releases power, it positions us before God. We manifest our spirit in worship first. We call up all that we are in Christ for the sake of true worship in spirit and truth. We are replenished by our passion. Luke warm worship produces nothing, we are still tired, weary and oppressed by circumstances. Full engagement in worship lifts our head above the battle and the enemy. We have energy when we have presence.
The starting point for breakthrough lies in our will. Spiritual discipline is the process of submitting our will to the desires of our spirit. Our spirit can only rule our soul and body through the act of our will. Our will is the vehicle that God uses to establish faith and govern our mind and emotions. We must turn our will over to God in order to live in the Spirit consistently. It is God who works in us to will and to do. Before God can do anything He has to get a hold of our will. If we refuse to put our will under the rule of God, He will not do anything. It is the will that acts on the mind and that forms attitude and approach. Our feelings follow the same way our will engages.
Our will is cold blooded. It should rarely be emotionally influenced. We can make a cold blooded unemotional decision to do something and our faith will arise. Our will does not need our emotions to function. Our emotions have to be under our wills direction and rule. Our emotions cannot be allowed to rule us. We allow the Spirit of God to redirect our will.
God works on the will first and then through it He renews the mind, gets a hold of our emotions and transforms us. As the transformation happens, our faith rises. God has given us a will so that we would never be at the mercy of our emotions which are influenced by so many things. We believe for God to touch us even if we don’t feel it. God says it, we believe it that settles it.
God loves to touch our emotions, but He has a divine order, in which they may be experienced. That order is that our will is paramount in our approach to God and believing. The will adores God and is designed to receive Him. God works in our will in order to upgrade faith. As faith arises, we worship, trust and obey.
Once faith arises and is present, we can be transformed in our thinking to experience who God is for us.
Breakthrough is an act of the will. Sometimes the will, will use our emotions and other times our thinking will be given an upgrade. There are other times when the will is all alone, and we do things that may make us feel nervous and don’t make sense.
Any thought or emotion not centered in our will, will talk us out of faith into logic. The development of our will as a key source of anointing is one of the major disciplines in our relationship with God. Discipline is about enjoyment, it is concerned with loving the learning that is present with every situation. When we love the Holy Spirit who is our trainer, we will learn faster and better. We must love the learning so that we can overcome in all things.
We are never asked to live from a negative, we are encouraged to trust, be in faith and believe. God believes the best of us even though we are in constant transition. We are in the process of being changed from glory to glory and are greatly loved in the process.
We are not asked to live from a place of weakness. We are encouraged to discover God’s strength to us. The grace of God is powerful towards us, it overrules every negative perspective.
Strength is the key to transformation. Power is perfected in weakness means that strength flows into what we are not.
2corn 12: 9And he said unto me, My grace is sufficient for thee: for my strength is made perfect in weakness. Most gladly therefore will I rather glory in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me. 10Therefore I take pleasure in infirmities, in reproaches, in necessities, in persecutions, in distresses for Christ’s sake: for when I am weak, then am I strong.
We boast about our weakness in the context of God’s strength. We take pleasure in our weakness, because God reaches out to us and pulls us into Himself. It is the embrace of His Spirit that strengthens us. It is from this place of intimacy, that we realize that we are the beloved of God, that He shares His glory with the ones He loves.
It is our privilege to go through life, fully loved. All our change procedures come through being incredibly loved. This is why we love change and the process of learning. It is the flow of His love into our spirit that motivates us to hunger and thirst after being filled with it.
If we experience all our changes in the love of God, we become excited about who God is for us, and who we are becoming in Him. He chooses us in our weakness and loves to meet those needs with His strength. He strengthens us through His presences, with His presence in those low places, those weaknesses. He does not give us strength, He becomes our strength.
Our weakness is the low place where God steps into our inadequacy. He inhabits that place with His own courage, firmness and power. If He were to leave that place, that space in our life, we would still be weak. The increase and upgrade in that place or area of our life is not that He has given us something to fill that gap in our life. He is our increase in Himself.
Relationally He inhabits our weakness, and we learn the pleasure of His Presence there. We can boast about our shortcomings, because when we become aware of where we are falling short, he can fill that shortcoming with Himself.
We learn how to turn an inadequacy into a joyful vulnerability.
When we lack the ability to think quickly, when we cannot remember the question, or have to study the question before we can answer it, then the grace of God can empower us to experience the father in a significant way in this area. We do not listen to the question, we listen to the Lord. We hear the question but we do not have to process it. We open our heart to the Lord and say what He says. Without that grace and that presence, we are the same old person that doesn’t have a clue what is going on. In our weakness we can boast in who God is for us, to us and in us.
It is a wonderful culture of dependency to which the Father wishes to commit to us that empowers us to be brilliant in Him in all of our low places. His presence is our increase. We get to abide in Him. He fills the space that we cannot fill.
Everything that is meant to rob us or disempowering us instead becomes our place of praise, rejoicing and laughter. Insults become fun. Distress is downgraded by rest and peace. In persecution we get to overcome and take ground. In difficulties we learn faithfulness, patience and stamina which are all the qualities that we need to become over comers. Our dependency upon Him must be total. When we are weak we are at a higher point of strength-in Him. Christ in us gives us the expectation of something brilliant happening.
God calls us in our weakness then calls Himself to meet our needs in those places. Our weakness is His calling upon our lives. Weakness and strength form an amazing paradox that we are to enjoy not endure. A paradox is two seemingly opposing ideas contained in the same truth. We need both sides of the paradox at work within us. Paul said I was with you in weakness, fear and trembling, yet He could do all things through Christ. He has the greatest understanding of grace and weakness. His ability to rest in Christ’s strength opened him the mysteries to learn the things that were hidden. He never got stressed in His weakness because his focus was on enjoying who God was for him.
When we are strengthened with the might of God in our spirit, it opens up our comprehension. In every encounter with God, He becomes a revelation to our spirit. He exposes us to his goodness, power and wisdom. We have to become familiar with how His mind and heart function with us relationally. His goal is our participation with His fullness. We are to be a people who live above our circumstances. He fills all things with Himself.
Enjoying our weakness in the context of His fullness, of His abundance, that provides a necessary humility that sustains us under pressure. We are exalted in our humility and are lifted above the heads of our enemies. Our weakness is where we encounter abundance. He steps into all that we are not with all that He is. This is salvation.
God enjoys our weaknesses because this is where He shows Himself strong on our behalf and we give Him all the glory.
Because both depend upon the truth, faith and our will combined together are enough to create a move of God in our spirit. An act of the will can set recovery into motion. We need to continually remind ourselves what is true about the nature of God. We need to be continually dependent upon His kindness. God wants us to be a testimony of His nature. When people look at us they should see something of God in us. What God is to us we ought to be able to reveal to others.
There are certain areas of bondage, difficulty and oppression that the Lord has set us free from so that we can help others. Our individual revelation of His nature is the central point of our confession. That confession combined with our will keeps us standing when we feel like falling. Prayers asking for help become proclamations that He will do.
Glory attaches itself to faith and the will; they will see us through to a place where God shines upon us. Faith and the will focus on who God is for us now. What is true about God is our central point of confession. Faith is the designed method for us to receive all God wants to do for us, to give. The development of our faith is of prime importance to the father. We doubt because we do not trust the Father. Trust is a relational issue. Trust in the Lord with all your heart and do not lean unto your own understanding. Trust is a matter of the heart. If we do not trust we will depend upon our own logic and ways of understanding which is mostly a product of our world environment. As we express heartfelt trust it leads to accepting God’s perspective on our circumstances that generates a positive confession. It is when we admit God’s purpose we begin to recognize signs of His presence. We come into a place of instruction that enables us to partner with the Lord for our freedom and benefit. Trust moves us swiftly into faith. We must do all that we can to partner with the Holy Spirit to cultivate faith.
Throughout his life David spoke out of his will. When he decided on a course of action he saw it through. His psalms are full of choices to trust God. David lived from God not towards God. His thinking was directed toward the problem not the Lord. Faith is a lifestyle it is a posture in the goodness of God. A royal outlook comes from throne room living. Time spent with God means His way of living clothes us from heaven. The royal mindset sees the bigger picture.
Faith is the beginning of trust which leads to active hope.
God is our inheritance, He is irrepressible (not restrain able, not able to be controlled) and indomitable (unconquerable, brave, determined, and impossible to defeat or frighten). He cannot be overcome.
We are going to have to see ourselves as God sees us if we are going to be everything He wants us to be. What did the Lord see when He looked at Gideon- the Lord is with you, you mighty man of valor. We have to adjust to God’s perception of us.
A spiritual warrior lives with this weakness and strength paradox. God always puts our weakness together with His strength. He couples our inability with His provision. Our weakness is no longer a hindrance God sees it as an asset.
It is vital that our understanding is based upon God’s nature and way of perceiving.
Living out of our soul is a lower order of engagement because we are the prime focus. When we allow logic and emotion to lead us, fear grips us. But when we manifest our spirit we have agreement and alignment with God.
A spiritual warrior’s life, attitude and perspective must be drawn from an internal source. If it is not we look to external stimuli at the time when we should be looking at who God is in our spirit. We cannot build a life by trying to correct our weakness. We build our lives by defining and refining the gifts, strengths and revelation God has given us.
God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power, love and a sound mind. This is our starting point. When we focus on our weakness we can’t make a difference in a critical moment. No one can inherit or possess a gift from God when they focus on their weakness. We already possess what we need to get free and stay free. It is already in us, put there by God. We need to take inventory of our gifts and use the weapons God has given us. God opens up realm after realm of increase as we grow in Him. As we use what we have been given more is released to us. The sharing of our faith becomes effectual by the acknowledging of every good thing in us in Christ Jesus.
What our soul sees as crisis is actually an opportunity for expansion. Either our soul will dominate us or our spirit. We have to live from the right place.