We are a triune being, spirit, soul and body. We cannot come to the lord unless the Holy Spirit draws us, then he must convict us of sin. When we become willing to surrender the whole of our life to the Lordship of Jesus Christ, then God quickens our spirit and it becomes alive unto God. Our spirit now desires the things of God and we have a yes in it to the will of God, our spirit desires one thing but our flesh desires another thing, so we have a civil war going on inside of us.
To become a disciple of Jesus Christ, we have to lose our life (soul) to keep it into eternal life (zoe). We have to deny our self (soul) daily and take up our cross. The cross has to be applied to the soul life. So the salvation of our soul is a process. Our soul goes through a transformation where it is being changed.
When we submit to the process of the salvation of the soul we are making our calling and election sure.
The flesh is that union of soul and body that acts independently of the lord. As we learn how to walk in the spirit then we will never fulfill the lust of the flesh. But this is something we have to learn how to do.
Without Jesus we can do nothing, through him we can do all things. So Jesus becomes to us whatever we need. We have to humble ourselves under the mighty hand of God and learn how to depend totally upon him.
Jesus becomes to us wisdom, righteousness, sanctification. He becomes to us divine strength, divine love, joy, peace, and all the fruit and abilities of the Holy Spirit.
The eternal life of God flows into our spirit enabling us to bring our soul and body under the lordship of the Holy Spirit over our spirit.
The lord begins to direct our steps, and every circumstance and problem point to the provision of Jesus Christ. Everything we experience is about learning Christ. So that we are no longer living independent of him, but Christ is living through us through the infilling and out working of the Spirit of God so that we are learning how to abide in him.
We are following on to know the Lord, knowing the lord is an intimate relationship with him, where we can say if you have seen me you have seen the father, because it is the father who is living through me.
The church world at large doesn’t even know the Lord, they have never grown up into Christ. Their spirit may have been once for all enlightened, but their soul is not saved.
It takes the wisdom of God to win souls. God has to reveal the truth to them because they are leaning unto their own understanding of the truth. But the truth is a person. He becomes to us and in us everything, and as we experience him we are changed. It is the presence of God in our life that changes us.