Our spirit can be harmed by the evil spirit. This harm is the flaming dart of the enemy, aimed directly at our spirit.
Into it he shoots sorrow, grief, anguish, woe or heartbreak to cause us to have a “sorrowful spirit” (1 Sam. 1:15): and a “broken spirit who can bear?” (Prov. 18:14)
It is exceedingly hazardous for anyone to accept without objection or question every sorrow which comes upon them and take for granted that these are naturally their own feelings.
They have not yet examined the source nor put up any resistance. Let us remember to never accept any thought or feeling lightly. If we wish to walk after the spirit, we must be watchful in all points, searching especially the source of every notion and sensation.
Sometimes Satan provokes us to harden our spirit. It can become stiff, unyielding, narrow and selfish. Such a spirit cannot walk with God, nor can it do His will.
And so, a believer will abandon his love towards others; they will discard every delicate, sympathetic, tenderhearted feeling towards others.
Since they have lost the generosity of the Lord and have walls up, how can the Holy Spirit ever use them mightily?
Frequently the enemy entices Christians to harbor an unforgiving spirit. Perhaps the fall of spiritual Christians can be traced chiefly to this very cause. Such bitterness and fault-finding and enmity inflict a severe blow upon spiritual life. If believers fail to see that such an attitude is distinctly from the enemy and not from themselves, they shall never be liberated from the spirit of hatred.
At still other times Satan induces the spirit of God’s people to become narrow minded.
He seduces these Christians into separating themselves from others by drawing lines of separation. If anyone is blind to the concept of the church as a body, they will be devoted to their “small circle,” proving that their spirit has not been enlarged.
Then enemies number one goal is to divide the body of Christ. “Unless we learn how to continually join our spirit to the Lord, which is what the word means in the original manuscript” We will never come into the unity of the spirit, because the believer still does know what spirit they are off, even though they have been born again.
The spiritual person, however, does not consider the things of God as his own but loves the whole church in his heart. If one’s spirit is open, the river of life overflows; should their spirit shrink, they hinder God’s work and lessen their own usefulness. A spirit that is not large enough to embrace all the children of God has been poisoned already.
Often Satan injects pride into the believer’s spirit, suggesting to them an attitude of self-importance and of self-conceit. He causes them to esteem themselves a very outstanding person, one who is indispensable in God’s work.
Such a spirit constitutes one of the major reasons for the fall of believers: “pride goes before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall” (Prov. 16:18).
The evil spirit infects the believer’s spirit with these and other venoms. If these poisons are not opposed instantly they soon become “the works of the flesh” (Gal. 5:19).
At first these are only poisons from Satan, but they can be transformed into sins of the flesh if the Christian accepts them, even unconsciously, rather than resists them.
If the venom in the spirit is not dealt with it shall immediately become the sin of the spirit, a sin more severe than any other.
Our spirit is perfect in heaven because of the finished work of Christ on the cross, but not on the earth. Only Christ, the seed of God is perfect in our spirit, therefore our spirit can sin, unforgiveness is a sin of the spirit.
In heaven our life on earth has already been lived, and YHWY will finish the work he has started in us here on earth, even if it takes our entire lifetime, and if we die without the sanctification of the Spirit, we will be saved so as by fire, but we will suffer loss.
James and John thunderously asked: “Lord, do you want us to bid fire come down from heaven and consume them? … And he said, you do not know what manner of spirit you are of” (Luke 9:54, 55). It is most essential that we know what kind of spirit we are. We often do not perceive that our spirit is prey to the deception of the enemy. Everything is wrong if our spirit is wrong.
From the experience of these two disciples, we observe that an erring spirit can manifest itself easily through spoken words.
Even so, the words uttered may not reveal nearly as much as the tone in which they are spoken. Sometimes the words are correct, but the tone is wrong.
To assure victory we need to watch even the sound of our speech.
Immediately when the evil spirit touches our spirit, our voice loses its softness. A harsh, hard, and loud utterance does not spring from the Holy Spirit; it simply exhibits the fact that the one who speaks has been poisoned already by Satan.
But we are in the process of being sanctified here on earth, and if we have the right spirit most of the time we repent and go forward.
How do we usually speak? Are we able to refer to others without any hint of condemnation?
Our words may in fact be true but lurking behind those words of truth could be the spirit of criticism, condemnation, wrath, or jealousy.
Whereas we should speak the truth in love. If our spirit is pure and gentle, then are we able to voice the truth.
Now should the spirit of condemning be within us, we most assuredly have sinned. Sin is not only an action; it is also a condition. What is hidden behind things is what matters the most.
How many times we sin while doing something for God or men, for darkly hidden away is an unfaithful, unwilling, or grudging spirit.
We must keep our spirit sweet and soft. It must be pure and clean. Do we consider an erring spirit sin?
Do we know when the enemy has attacked our spirit: when our spirit is poisoned?
Suppose we do know, are we humble enough to repent of such sin?
The moment we notice our voice has turned harsh, we must stop instantly. With not the slightest hesitation we should turn to ourselves and say, “I am willing to speak with a pure spirit; I am willing to oppose the enemy.”
If we are reluctant to say to our brethren, “I am wrong,” then our spirit remains engulfed in its sin.
God’s children ought to learn how to guard their spirit from being aggravated by the enemy. They should know also how to preserve it in sweetness and tenderness.
This is something I am still dealing with, my time is precious and I tend to get frustrated in having to deal with the world (people) in getting things fixed an making appointments because of their lack of wisdom or negligence in doing their jobs.
I am learning to take the shield of faith which quenches all the flaming darts of the evil one, so that I always have a gentle spirit in dealing with people.
This implies that we should swiftly exercise living faith to look for God’s protection and to withstand the enemy’s attack.
Faith is our shield. Faith is a weapon for quenching the flaming darts, not for pulling them out afterwards.
But should anyone be hit by a flaming dart, they must eliminate the cause of the dart. Something yet lacking in our character.
We should maintain an attitude of resistance, immediately denying whatever comes from Satan and praying for cleansing.