In the spiritual battles that we face in our walk with God, we must choose the area of conflict and the weapons we are going to use.
We do not battle in the area of emotions or reason, but in the area of the will of God. What does God say? What does He want us to do? This is the place where we battle.
We are still interceding and praying for things that were born in a vision from God and some of these things should have been accomplished years ago. Why aren’t we more effective? It is not God’s fault. He has given revelation of the needs and issues.
Satan uses many devious devices to distract us out of the direct, perfect will of God. He may use distractions to open up another front so that we will not battle on and gain the stronghold that we are about to take. Often he tries to cause an interaction of the flesh in order to lessen the spiritual level of the whole Body of Christ and bring less effectiveness to the Kingdom. Because of Satan’s maneuverings, we can drift into something that is totally out of the will of the Lord. God must bring us into a realization of all of Satan’s strategy and maneuverings. They must be uncovered so that we are not “ignorant of his devices,” but wise to resist them.
In order to create the distraction that he wants, Satan often uses relationships or the vision we have of relationships. He tries to distract people from doing the will of God by preying upon what they think should be or should not be in a relationship that they have with another person, on whatever plane it is. Under the name of divine order, the relationship between children and parents, between husbands and wives, often becomes an issue, resulting in a great deal of frustration.
A wife who refuses to see the Kingdom in its proper aspect may demand that her husband relate to her on her terms; and if he tries to do that, it will be disastrous for him. The same is true when a woman wants to do the will of God but her husband demands that she be a wife to him on his terms. Such a relationship can become more possessive and suppressive than one can imagine; and as a consequence, she begins to lose out with the Lord. This can happen even among the ministries. Some woman who is doing fine serving the Lord may marry a very dominating ministry, who insists that she relate to him on his terms, as he interprets divine order to be, instead of him being amenable and broken before the Lord so that everything can be worked out the way God wants it to work out. A certain amount of neglect in a relationship can be very healthy, but if there is too much neglect, there is not enough closeness. The closeness that God demands must first of all be a closeness of spirit.
It is easy to get swallowed up in the difficulties we are experiencing under God’s dealings. Before long we are carrying a crying towel around, looking for someone who will listen to our sad story and give us some sympathy. The first thing that happens when you start reaching out for sympathy is that you make your position as logical and as reasonable as you possibly can by building a good case for yourself as the one who is being abused and put down. You present yourself as the one who is in the right, and the other person as “the heavy.” Of course, this is the only way you will get sympathy. If you admit that you are the one who is in the wrong, no one will give you any sympathy.
We must learn how to relate to one another as the Kingdom of God, and not on an individual basis as we often do. We will never survive as individuals or as a Body until every one of us becomes an edifying force to one another. We must learn how to eliminate our spiritual poisons without putting them on one another.
Whether you are breathing, or eating, or drinking, three processes are necessary in the human body for the sustaining of life. First there must be an intake. Next, there must be assimilation, as the body absorbs the good nutrients that it receives. Third, there must be elimination. The human body has various channels by which it eliminates poison: through the bowels, the kidneys, and the pores. In almost an unconscious process, the body sets about to eliminate everything that would be a toxic poison or of no benefit to the body. Unconsciously, without any mental concentration, the body takes what it needs out of that which it receives and eliminates the rest. The Lord must build these three processes within us spiritually. We take in the Word and assimilate it, for it is wholesome; but we eliminate everything that would be a corruption or a defilement of body, soul, or spirit.
The human spirit functions much the same as the human body. There is a certain amount of intake, and in this function the human spirit acts very much like a sponge or a blotter.
When you are around someone who is bitter or critical, you soak up the poison and become contaminated with it. Then how are you going to get rid of it? If you dump it on another brother or sister, soon everyone in the church will have absorbed that bitterness of spirit. The Word says, “Beware lest a root of bitterness spring up in any of you, and thereby many be defiled” (Hebrews 12:15).
You would be surprised to know how much poison in your spirit surfaces during the night. When you get up in the morning, you have more than a bad taste in your mouth. The Lord has been at work with you during the night season, and the poison is on the surface, ready to be eliminated.
When you get up, go before the Lord with this prayer: “Lord, I don’t want to be anything but a blessing today. I don’t want to carry a seething force in my spirit.”
As sure as the body can eliminate its poisons, so the human spirit can eliminate its poisons also. But you must not dump them on one another. Instead, cast your burdens upon the Lord. Draw a blessing from Him and absorb that. Then minister it to one another. This is an important secret for keeping the bond of unity. We must become such a spiritual force that we reach out and influence everything and everyone around us, saturating them with the presence of the Lord.
The family spirit in a church does not happen by accident. It comes through much prayer and intercession, much forgetting of yourself and throwing off of many negative thoughts. This causes the general spirit of everyone to rise. Many have come through unbelievable battles in their walk with the Lord. They are a pride and a joy to the Lord, as He looks upon them and sees what has happened in their lives. But they should not be dismayed if some of the old corruption keeps coming out, indicating that poisons still remain in their spirit. That is the time for a spiritual colonic. Such drastic action, followed persistently and consistently, will eliminate the poison.
If this seems to present a distasteful mental image, remember that the entire subject of our relationships can be distasteful, something that we do not want to face. It may take some time before you reach the place where there is no more bitterness and no more poison coming up in your spirit. Until it is all eliminated, cry to the Lord as David did, “Purge me with hyssop and I shall be clean. Wash me and I will be whiter than snow” (Psalm 51:7). “Lord, You desire truth in the inward parts” (Psalm 51:6). Seek the Lord to get out every bit of contamination, and then strive to keep it out. We must reach the place where we become a positive flow as we draw from the Lord and reach out to others.
Paul recognized the contaminating effect of the poisons given off by the human spirit. In Galatians 6:1, he wrote: Brethren, even if a man is caught in any trespass, you who are spiritual, restore such a one in a spirit of gentleness; looking to yourselves, lest you too be tempted. If you see that someone is defeated in his spirit and you want to help him, be careful lest you also become corrupted by what he has. Jude says that we are to rescue some, hating even the garment spotted by the flesh (Jude 23). When you are set to help another person, avoid being contaminated yourself. Do not let the poison reach your spirit. How subtle it is! Under the name of unity and fellowship, many things can happen that are not healthy. We must be careful about the flow that we allow to come to us as well as the flow that we send forth. By the wisdom of God we must learn so to feast upon the Lord and draw from Him that nothing that would corrupt our spirit will reach us and build up within us. Then nothing will emanate from us that will defile our brother.
Can you see how effective things of spirit are? The human spirit is not only effective in sending and absorbing; it also acts like a pipeline. You can channel whatever is in your spirit. A fundamentalist missionary in India wrote of an experience he had observed there which illustrates the power of the human spirit and the deadliness of bitterness. While a young mother was nursing her baby, the man who had raped her and caused her to have the child walked by. When she saw the man, she was so filled with hatred that her milk was poisoned and the baby died. Hatred has great power, and love has great power—even when people are not conscious of sending it forth.
Love does no ill to its neighbor. Read chapter 13 of I Corinthians again, and if your love does not correspond to the love described there, seek the Lord for His divine love so that it can flow in a pure, healthy stream from you. More and more this has to be. You may not always understand the reactions that people have to you. Unconsciously they may be reacting to something that is wrong in your spirit. But when your spirit reaches out with a pure flow of love, they will be drawn to you.
In II Corinthians 6:11–13, Paul wrote, Our mouth has spoken freely to you, O Corinthians, our heart is opened wide. You are not restrained by us, but you are restrained in your own affections (or your own spirit?).
Now in a like exchange—I speak as to children—open wide to us also. Open your spirit to one another in a good, healthy way. Keep your mouth shut if you cannot edify. Let the Lord help you eliminate the poisons out of your spirit. Then you will break through to the Lord and reach spiritual highs that you have never attained before. We do not want to just survive or maintain a certain spiritual level; we want to break through to the highest level we can possibly reach.