We are spirit. We are sons and daughters of God, who is Himself, Spirit, John 4:24.
We have a soul and a physical body but we are first and foremost spirit.
Our spirit existed before our soul and our physical body. Our spirit will be what lives on in eternity.
We live in a physical world. All our senses are attuned mostly to the information coming in through our physical body and our soul is where all that information is processed. Those senses are good. They can be of great benefit to us, but…
Our spirit matters so much more, John 6:63.
We are spirit first but if all our senses are reading our physical environment, our spirit will remain just a quiet observer of all that is happening in our physical world, we will be completely unaware of spiritual matters.
The spirit world is very real. Sounds so odd and spooky, I know, but there is a very real spiritual realm. It is more real than this physical one we live in. It is eternal. It’s just a little beyond our comprehension because we can’t see it, touch it, smell it, taste it–via our physical senses.
So thinking about it and talking about it with people seems so weird. Yet we have such a curiosity about it. Even non-christians, are curious about the supernatural. The proof, Hollywood is cashing in on all things vampire, mummy, ghosts and ghoul.
There are two kingdoms in the spiritual world, God’s and the devil’s.
If we believe in Jesus, if we confess with our mouth He is Lord and believe in our heart God raised Him from the dead, we experience a “re-birth”, Romans 10:9. We are born again, John 3:3. It is a spiritual birth. It is the miracle of salvation and the greatest of all miracles.
We now belong to God’s Kingdom and we are alive with His life. The Kingdom of Light, also called the Church, God’s family, God’s Kingdom, God’s people, or the Kingdom of Heaven.
People who are spiritually dead, separated from God by unbelief, by their own choice, belong to the devil’s kingdom. The kingdom of darkness.
If we live so attuned to this physical world, our soul and our physical body dominating all our decisions, we will miss what is going on spiritually and miss what really matters.
Sometimes the harsh realities of this physical world can lead us to believe that this is all we get. We just have to accept our lot in life. All our energies and attentions remain focused on surviving this physical world, just getting by, striving. Our attention-grabbing-circumstances are powerful persuaders when it comes to our decisions, and are really effective at absorbing all our attention.
Our spirit all the while is wanting to be linked up with God’s Spirit. So we can experience God’s life within us and see other people get connected to God’s life. That’s what really matters–to be connected with God’s spirit and work to see others get connected. And having our decisions about life determined by that spiritual reality–connection with God.
It is through our spirit we connect to God, bypassing our natural physical body and our soul, our spirit willingly, gladly, joyfully connects to God, Luke 1:47.
It takes attention and work because our spirits are willing but our flesh is weak, Matthew 26:41. We get tired. We have to learn to direct our attention away from our energy draining circumstances and direct our attentions to what God is doing and saying.
The Holy Spirit, God’s Holy Spirit, communicates directly with our spirit, Mark 13:11, all the time. By giving our attention to what God is doing and saying we become all the more alert to God and we develop a sensitivity to Him. The Holy Spirit will move us, lead us, direct us, Luke 2:27, because we have become spiritually aware and sensitive.
We, just like Jesus, will discern in our spirit, Mark 2:8, what is going on in people’s hearts and minds and we will be able to read our culture. So that we can win as many to Jesus as we come in contact with because the life in our spirit, God’s life, flows from us, into the spirit of those people John 7:38, because deep calls to deep, Psalm 42:7.
What we can’t see with our natural eyes will be deeply felt, or spiritually discerned. It won’t be our words that change a person, but the spirit within us, empowered by God’s Holy Spirit 1 Thessalonians 1:5. As we are faithful and speak about Jesus and the life we get through Him, God will bring about the miracle of salvation in that person–another person’s spirit coming alive on the inside.
Our soul is made up of the sum total of who we are from birth till now…
All of life’s events.
All our memories, good and bad.
Every experience, remembered or not.
All our hopes, dreams, aspirations, ambitions, intentions.
Every conversation we’ve had.
All our likes, loves, dislikes and all our hates.
Our thinking.
Our personality.
Our ego.
Our intelligence.
Our emotions.
Our mind.
Our self-will.
