If you hear the Word of God, but a lying demonic spirit tells you that you cannot really walk in it, the result in you is a low level of appropriation. Why not rebuke that lying spirit right now and proclaim, “What I hear, that is what I will experience! I determine to appropriate that Word, to walk in that Word, and to believe God for that Word to happen.”
Whatever we ask for, we can have (Matthew 21:22). So first of all, let us believe for a real release in our hearing of God’s Word. What we hear—that is what we will be. What we hear—that is what we will have. Absolutely resist the idea of having a Living Word in which we cannot walk entirely. Absolutely and perfectly, we will walk in the Word that God gives us. To do this, we need teaching about our spirit, soul, and body.
I Corinthians 1:26–29 is an excellent introduction to the verses we will read from I Corinthians 2. For consider your calling, brethren, that there were not many wise according to the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble; but God has chosen the foolish things of the world to shame the wise, and God has chosen the weak things of the world to shame the things which are strong, and the base things of the world and the despised, God has chosen, the things that are not, that He might nullify the things that are, that no man should boast before God. This describes perfectly where we are in God.
We are now ready to read some verses from the second and third chapters of I Corinthians that show the difference between a natural or physical man, a soulish man, and a spiritual man. Note how naturally all these selected verses tie together.
As we read I Corinthians 2:1–5, we see first of all that Paul did not begin, “I came to preach to you and to lay it all out, so that you will understand perfectly.” Whether or not they understood his words did not matter. He did not even care that they received a great sermon. He told them: And when I came to you, brethren, I did not come with superiority of speech or of wisdom, proclaiming to you the testimony of God (what God is saying). For I determined to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ, and Him crucified. And I was with you in weakness and in fear and in much trembling. And my message and my preaching were not in persuasive words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, that your faith should not rest on the wisdom of men, but on the power of God. Notice: Paul’s preaching and message were not in persuasive words of wisdom. He wanted to speak words that would convey such power that the Corinthians would have the Word in their spirits.
If you do not understand a Word, does this mean that it was spoken in vain? I asked the Lord that question, and He gave me this answer: The Living Word does not come to test your understanding. It is a Word spoken in the power of God, and you will receive it whether you understand it or not, as you learn to appropriate. One day you will understand, but your understanding will follow your appropriation. Every once in a while, as you look back, you will understand what God has done for you.
We are moving forward in the will of God faster than our understanding can often really grasp. I proclaim that as a valid principle which will work for us. We are to be spiritual people, even though the intellect and the reasoning of the soul takes a while to catch up with what we are in our spirit. We will be more than we realize.
In I Corinthians 2:6 Paul continues, Yet we do speak wisdom among those who are mature; a wisdom, however, not of this age, nor of the rulers of this age, who are passing away.
In verses 9–11, Paul picks up this theme again of what we receive in and through our spirit. But just as it is written, “Things which eye has not seen and ear has not heard” (he is referring to the physical senses), “and which have not entered the heart of man” (the soul), “all that God has prepared for those who love Him.” Will we see these things with our eyes? No. Will we hear them with our ears? No. Not even the imagination of our heart and of our soul life will perceive them. For to us God revealed them through the Spirit; for the Spirit searches all things, even the depths of God. For who among men knows the thoughts of a man except the spirit of the man, which is in him? Even so the thoughts of God no one knows except the Spirit of God.
Do you see why your spirit must be filled with the Holy Spirit, so that you can reach through to revelation? Revelation is in the spirit realm, not in the soul realm. You never see it with your eye; you never imagine it with your heart. It will be clouded and distorted for you until you receive it by the Holy Spirit to your spirit.
Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might know the things freely given to us by God. Verse 12. We will know them by revelation. The Holy Spirit comes to lead us into all the things that have been prepared for us by God. We will never obtain them any other way.
You can dance and sing on the soulish level all you want to, but you will never really know who you are or what God has prepared for you—you will never possess it or walk in it—until you become a spiritual person reaching up by the Holy Spirit into that realm. Then the Holy Spirit will teach you the things that God has prepared for you—things beyond what the eye has seen, the ear has heard, and the imagination of the heart has ever perceived (I Corinthians 2:9–16; John 16:12–15). Be aware that every time God says He has something for you, you must reach out in faith and grab it, even if you do not understand it fully. You are to know the things which are freely given to you by God (I Corinthians 2:12).
Half the battle in appropriation is to know these two things: first, know the enemy. The problem is half solved when you know what is bothering or restraining you. Then there is no confusion over whether it is God or the devil. Second, know what God has given to you; then it will be easy to appropriate. When there is uncertainty, and you do not know whether or not God wants you to have it, that uncertainty takes away the focus of your faith which must reach out and appropriate it. Faith grabs onto the provision of God and declares, “It is mine! I am going to have it! No more doubts! No more questions! When God gives me a Word, that is what I will immediately walk in!”
In I Corinthians 2:13, Paul expresses again the thought from the first part of this chapter: “I did not come to you with enticing words of man’s wisdom.” Which things we also speak, not in words taught by human wisdom, but in those taught by the Spirit, combining spiritual thoughts with spiritual words. The words “thoughts” and “words” are not in the original Greek. Actually it says, combining spiritual with spiritual, meaning the things of the spirit world. Paul stresses again this thought, “I am not speaking to you in old words taught by human wisdom that try to explain it. I am teaching you with words taught by the Spirit, so that I can bring spiritual things to you with spiritual expression. This you can take hold of and appropriate.”
The day has come that to hear a Word from God is to receive it right then. Have you not noticed this happening more often? When you hear a Living Word tape or read a This Week, you grab hold of the Word it contains right there. You might not understand all of it, and you will probably have to listen to (or read) it several times, but there was an impartation of the Lord to your spirit right there. The minute you grasp the truth, you are set.
Referring to the physical and soulish man, Paul continues, verse 14a: But a natural man does not accept the things of the Spirit of God. You must face this truth: As long as you are on a lower plane, you will find it difficult to really accept the things of God—even when you think you are accepting them. Your reasoning will always be working against it. There will always be some circumstance to knock you out. The natural man does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually appraised. I Corinthians 2:14b. Only your spirit can appraise the things of God. Only when you are moving in God are they a revelation to your spirit. In the meantime, if you try to reason them out, there will always be a little doubt in the back of your mind.
But he who is spiritual appraises all things, yet he himself is appraised by no man. For who has known the mind of the Lord, that he should instruct Him? But we have the mind of Christ. And I, brethren, could not speak to you as to spiritual men, but as to men of flesh, as to babes in Christ. I Corinthians 2:15–3:1.
Paul makes it very plain what the difficulty was, and men of God with a Living Word will find that true today as well. When they try to talk to a congregation as to spiritual people, but some individuals still have hang-ups in the soul life and in the flesh, the only thing that comes through is a conviction to everyone’s heart, making them feel, “I must dump what is clinging to me from the lower level. I know I am not walking in this higher realm of the Spirit, and I do not understand it too well. But I do know that I must repent and get out of the level I am in, and move into this level that the Lord is speaking about.”
So Paul said to the Corinthians, I gave you milk to drink, not solid food; for you were not yet able to receive it. Indeed, even now you are not yet able, for you are still fleshly. For since there is jealousy and strife among you, are you not fleshly, and are you not walking like mere men? They were living as mere human beings instead of as the regenerated sons of God. For when one says, “I am of Paul,” and another, “I am of Apollos,” are you not mere men? I Corinthians 3:2–4.
Never get the idea that the whole emphasis is to be on our spirit, and that the flesh or the body is nothing. Lest that confusion be in your mind, look at I Corinthians 3:16–17. Do you not know that you are a temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwells in you? The body is to be sanctified and made holy because the Spirit of God will dwell in it; it will be His temple. If any man destroys the temple of God, God will destroy him, for the temple of God is holy, and that is what you are. You are the temple of God. This means that you cannot live an unclean life. Even the body of flesh must be honored as a temple of the Holy Spirit. You must pass through these phases of growth and cleansing and come up to the spiritual level where you are hearing what God has to say to you.
Galatians 5 is another chapter in which Paul gave excellent teaching on the flesh and spirit, and just a few verses might help a great deal. In this chapter, he wrote much about those who walk in the flesh and those who walk in the Spirit, and how those who are in Christ have crucified the flesh with its affections and its lusts. Over and over again he emphasized this one principle: Those who are to walk with God must walk in the Spirit. We will never exhaust this wonderful truth.
We will learn how to walk in the Spirit, and then we will walk in revelation and in the seer-prophet ministry. We will walk in the revelation-knowledge of all those things that God has given us which we humanly can never completely understand. Our eyes will not see them; our ears will not hear them; the imagination of our heart will not tell us about them. These wonderful things will be revealed to us by the Holy Spirit. We have received the Holy Spirit, that we may know the things freely given to us by God (I Corinthians 2:12). Let us keep this truth in our mind and in our heart.
Galatians 5:16–18 expresses very plainly what we should do. But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not carry out the desire of the flesh. For the flesh sets its desire against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh; for these are in opposition to one another, so that you may not do the things that you please. But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the Law.
Are these verses talking about the human spirit or about the Holy Spirit? The capital “S” in the word “Spirit” indicates that the Holy Spirit is meant. However, there is no conflict in saying that it refers also to the human spirit. The mature sons walk with their spirits filled with the Holy Spirit; the Holy Spirit guides and leads them. Those who are led by the Spirit of the Lord are the sons of God (Romans 8:14). Romans 7 speaks about the flesh warring against the spirit, and the spirit against the flesh. This comes back to the same point: the domination of our spirit over our flesh life and our soul life. Romans 8:1, 4 says, “There is no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.”
We are reaching in to become the people that God wants us to be, and it will not be enough to say, “Well, I must reform because I have some bad habits.” It will not be the discipline of the flesh alone that changes them. When you walk in the Spirit, you will not fulfill (carry out) the desire of the flesh. That makes it very simple. Why worry about the flesh? Why worry about the soul life? Let us just get into the realm of Spirit. As we wait on God, are filled with the Holy Spirit, and acquire and appropriate what He has for us, we will not fulfill or carry out the desire of the flesh.
The flesh sets itself against the Spirit. The greatest enemy you have is not the principalities and powers, though they may prey on you. The greatest enemy you have is walking around in your own shoes! It is your flesh that sets its desire against the Spirit. Every time you are overwhelmed by the flesh, and the flesh is dominating you, protest with faith, “That cannot be! The Spirit must prevail! When I am in tune with God and walking with God, I will not have these problems.” Have you not found this to be true when you are really on top with the Lord? Then live that way! Do not walk after the flesh! Put it under!
But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the Law. Galatians 5:18. God has two sets of rules for dealing with all of His children. Those who walk after the flesh will find that He takes the stick to them and chastens them. But those who walk after the Spirit have no law over them. God knows that they are safe when they are walking in the Spirit, and that they will not fulfill the lusts of the flesh and carry out its desires. Which rule do you want to walk by? Do you want the Lord to be hard on you, or do you want Him to tear up all the codes and say, “We will not need to invoke this law, to measure everything you do.” If you would like the second arrangement, then walk in the Spirit and you will not be under the law.
Now those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. If we live by the Spirit, let us also walk by the Spirit. Galatians 5:24–25. This means that it is possible. If you have received the Holy Spirit and you know that it is your very life, then you can walk in the Spirit. That is the bottom line in this Word. What you have read, and what has blessed your heart, you can walk in. If it is life to you, you can walk in it.
The whole of your life can be lived in the Holy Spirit. You can do it. You can hear His Word, and you can walk in that Word. If you can have a blessing in the Spirit, if you can prophesy or move in the Spirit to any degree, then every day, in every step you take, you can walk in the Spirit. It is attainable, and it is practical.
What is the difference between the flesh and the spirit? What does the flesh do and what happens when you walk in the Spirit? Galatians 5:19–21 lists the deeds of the flesh. Now the deeds of the flesh are evident, which are: immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmities, strife, jealousy, outbursts of anger, disputes, dissensions, factions, envyings, drunkenness, carousings, and things like these. That is what the flesh will produce in you. When you live in the flesh for a little while, you will be surprised at what comes up.… I have forewarned you that those who practice such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God. Since we have come into the Kingdom of God, do you not think that this teaching will become increasingly real? This will make the difference between the extent to which you press into the Kingdom, and the extent to which you miss it.
In Galatians 5:22–23, Paul describes the fruit of the Spirit, the characteristics of the nature of God which grow in your life. But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law. No one has ever passed a law against them yet, for they belong to the nature of God. They describe what God is like. These characteristics will also grow in your life as you appropriate from God in your spirit by the Holy Spirit. It will be the Lord’s nature coming forth in your life.
What is the difference between this fruit of the Spirit and the gifts of the Spirit? The fruit of the Spirit is the nature of the Lord Jesus Christ. The nine gifts of the Spirit are the abilities of the Lord Jesus Christ: wisdom, knowledge, gifts of miracles, hearings, tongues, interpretation of tongues, prophecy, discerning of spirits, and faith. We want both—the fruit and the gifts. Working miracles is God’s ability; it is not done humanly. The gift of faith is a gift. You can repeat over and over, “I’m going to believe, I’m going to believe, I’m going to believe.” But the first time you face a real problem, you will realize that you have been trying to pump up something human, and what you need is a gift from God—His faith.
God is saying to you now, “Listen, My child, stop trying to do this thing in the flesh. Stop trying to make a reproduction of Jesus Christ that looks just like Him.” It will be a phony counterfeit, full of flaws. Open your heart, and in spirit tune into the Lord. Then His nature is imparted to you, and you appropriate it. Then you have faith! Where did that faith come from? It is the Lord’s faith. Where does the working of miracles come from? Peter and John said, “Do not look on us, as though by our power or holiness we did this. It was the name of the Lord Jesus Christ that healed this man. The Lord was the One who did it” (Acts 3:12–13, 16).
Are you beginning to realize that we can have the Lord’s power and the Lord’s abilities? His wisdom is not human wisdom, is it? His knowledge is not human knowledge. It is the Lord’s wisdom and the Lord’s knowledge. When somebody is aggravating you until you could really get upset, how wonderful it is to behold the long-suffering and the gentleness of the Holy Spirit coming forth in you. It is a real relief to find that you have shifted gears and let another nature take over. It is in the realm of appropriation where we lay hold upon Christ’s nature. It is just as simple as touching the hem of His garment (Matthew 9:20) and having something of His virtue, of His nature, of His holy ability flow into us. That is the way it happens.
Galatians 6:7–9 picks up the thread of what God is speaking to us about walking in the Spirit. Do not be deceived, God is not mocked; for whatever a man sows, this he will also reap. For the one who sows to his own flesh shall from the flesh reap corruption, but the one who sows to the Spirit shall from the Spirit reap eternal life. And let us not lose heart in doing good, for in due time we shall reap if we do not grow weary. Weigh this for just a minute, before you are tempted to say, “Yes, I know, those sinners out there are sowing to the flesh, and they are all going to perish.” Paul was not talking to sinners. This chapter begins, Brethren … (verse 1). Who are the brethren? We are the brethren.
If we sow to the flesh nature, there will be a corruption which we cannot escape. All the problems that exist in a church are not the result of hearing the Living Word; they are the result of sowing to the flesh nature. Are you one who listens to the Living Word all the time? Then appropriate it more. Do not just hear it to say, “Oh, isn’t that marvelous!” Hear it with your shoes on, ready to walk in it. Hear the Word; then walk in the Word. If we live by the Spirit, let us also walk by the Spirit. Galatians 5:25.
Every day look for the Lord to help you walk by the Spirit, and it will work. If you sow to the Spirit, of the Spirit you will reap life everlasting. Do not be deceived; God is not mocked. If you hear one thing and then walk in another, you will not get away with it. You are to be a living epistle of the Lord (II Corinthians 3:2). What the Lord has taught you, that is what you are to be. What He has said, that is what you are. His promises are to be appropriated. Every promise is like a warranty deed, declaring: “This is yours.” We have received the Spirit of God that we might know the things that are freely given to us by God (I Corinthians 2:12). Every promise is a deed written out in your name. Everything that God has said is yours. But here is the catch: You must appropriate it. Will it change you? Yes, it can even change you instantly!
We have heard about instant change so often. How does it happen? Instant change does not happen by a long course of discipline designed to make you a much better person. At the end of such a program of discipline, you probably will be a much better person, but that is all. Spiritual things are attained by the Holy Spirit witnessing to your spirit, “These things are freely given to you by God,” and by your grabbing them and taking them. You can walk in whatever you truly appropriate the minute you take it. Do not let anyone deceive you on that. What you have appropriated from God is yours. Walk in it in the name of the Lord.
How do we walk in what we have received from God? Paul answered this question in Galatians 6:14–15. But may it never be that I should boast, except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, through which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world. For neither is circumcision anything, nor uncircumcision, but a new creation. That is the answer. By the Holy Spirit, we actually become a new creation. We started as believers, knowing that to be born of God is to become a whole new creation, born of the Spirit. Therefore, having begun in the Spirit, we go on in the Spirit (Galatians 3:3). This is the whole key of Galatians. Are we to be made perfect in the flesh? No, we shall be made perfect in the Holy Spirit. God will bring us into it.
Believe to grasp this Word. Because you are set to walk with God, you cannot let one bit of it slip by. You have received a Living Word, and it has blessed you. Your understanding may not yet have caught up with some of the things you have read. The Living Word comes by revelation. Try to hear the Word with your spirit.
I learned a long time ago that when I read the Scriptures to be spiritual, I did not find myself being spiritual. So I stopped merely reading, and I began to eat the Word. The prophet said, “Thy words were found and I did eat them, and they became the joy and delight of my life; for I am called by Thy name, O Lord of hosts” (Jeremiah 15:16).
Get hold of a Word and say, “This is mine!” Then eat it; meditate on it. Focus on the Lord and appropriate that Word, because God fills His Word! In fact, God so fills His Word that when you take a Word and eat it, something of God Himself fills your very life.
If you can accept this one Word, you will change. It is impossible not to change when you appropriate the new-nature changes. Lay hold of the Words of God, for they are His nature and His life. You are not hearing empty words; you are hearing Living Words. Jesus said, “My Words are spirit” (John 6:63), and we are talking about the realm of spirit. You are reading words of spirit. These are not words which man teaches, but words which the Holy Spirit teaches, showing you and bringing to you spiritual things. You are loosed, and something is done in your life by the very Word you have read. This is a Living Word that is spirit and life to you. You are free. You do not have to walk in the flesh. You can leave that realm right now. Loose yourself from the flesh. Claim this change from the Lord.
How long does it take for this to happen? Psalm 1 talks about the man who is like a tree that brings forth its fruit in season, and its leaf never withers. Whatever he does prospers, because he is meditating on the Word. Our roots reach upward to God, and we bear fruit downward for the whole earth. It is just the reverse of the way a natural tree grows. We are reaching into the Word. And the minute we get hold of it, God does something electrifying through us. We are not trying to become something important as human beings. We are nothing in ourselves, but we are His channels the minute we put our roots into His Word and let it flow through us in its miracle power. We claim this as an instant change, and we appropriate it from the Lord.
We will not linger on with self-condemnation because we still remember the defeats of the flesh. We put them all aside. We crucify the flesh and everything that goes with it—even its condemnation. We reach up into the glorious liberty which belongs to the sons of God by the Word that comes to us in the name of the Lord.
As the Lord magnifies our need to us, we could become discouraged, because we see the defeat of the flesh in our lives. But the more we open our hearts to this Word, the more we realize that it is impossible for us to win victory in the flesh. We have to accept it in the Spirit. Our breakthrough is found in hearing by faith.