Introduction to
Spiritual Life Series
Romans 8:13
The sermon begins
with a prayer:
Okay, shall we pray.
Dear Father, we thank you that you alone can draw us to yourself, so
I trust You to do that with all of us, especially with me in these
evening services. Lord I pray that you would draw us all into your
own heart and you teach from your precious word. And dear Holy Spirit
will you work in our consciences so that we are not great students on
Sundays evening and bad obeyers during the week. Will You work in us
so we actually obey through the week what we hear from You on Sunday?
We ask this for Jesus' growth in our lives. Amen.
Loved ones, I would
like to start again the series on the Spiritual Life and began
tonight and go on through next three years on a spiritual life. I
have a verse of scripture that we might look at that describes the
spiritual life. It is Romans 8 and verse 13. "For if you live
according to the flesh you will die, but if by the Spirit you put to
death the deeds of the body you will live." RSV
I think a lot of us
here regard ourselves as Christians but we are virtually dead. I
think there are a lot of ideological believers, people who believe
that Jesus died for them and they themselves made surrender to him at
some meeting or other. But they did not walk according to the Spirit
or they did not live according to the Spirit and they are as good as
dead! And depending on where you stand on eternal security, if you
stand with me you say that they are really alive but they look like
dead people. Or if you stand on the other side and you believe that
there isn't an eternal security then you say they have died
spiritually. But however it is, they have no living relationship with
God.
Now that is one of
the reasons I think we should deal in detail with the spiritual life
and how to walk after the Spirit. I think a lot of you have deadness
in your lives not because you were never born in the Spirit but
because you don't walk after the Spirit. You stopped walking after
the Spirit very soon after you received Jesus.
The spiritual life
is a life that is lived by the rule and the direction of the Holy
Spirit of the God. It's a moment-by-moment direction and rule and if
you are not living that way you're probably dead as far as your
relationship with God is concerned. There's another important verse
that would tell you what we are about here on Sunday evening and why
I am going to try to speak on the spiritual life yet again in another
series. That verse is Genesis 2:9. "And out of the ground the
LORD God made to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight and
good for food, the tree of life also in the midst of the garden, and
the tree of the knowledge of good and evil." RSV
There are two trees
that you can eat from in order to try to have relationship with God.
You can eat from the tree of knowledge of good and evil or you can
eat from the tree of life. Let me share with you lest anyone here is
thinking, "What again?" Do you know how often I have
preached this series? This is my fifth time over eleven years. I've
talked about these things for four times already taking three years
each time to cover them. Now why do I do it again? Because I know
that what I need is not knowledge. I understand them fairly well in
my head. But I need life from the Holy Spirit. And what you need
these Sunday evenings is not a better knowledge of these things.
Loved ones, you need to pray that the Holy Spirit will prepare you
and that he will speak to me and get me new light so that you will
receive life. That's what you need to walk after the Spirit.
I understand it when
some of you say, "Oh!! Sunday evenings again -- spirit, soul,
and body -- No! I understand it all." But do you see that you
are proving that you live by knowledge and that you think because you
understand it you are in it. Loved ones, the greatest truth I saw
about dear old saints was they could listen to a simple evangelistic
sermon for sinners and they could come out filled with life from
Jesus after it. It was then I began to realize that loved ones who
are really alive in Jesus are seeking for life. They're not seeking
for knowledge. And the people who go out of a service and say, "It's
the same thing I heard before" are just trying to live off of
increasing knowledge.
One of the reasons I
decided to do this again this year was because I saw so many of us
running around trying to get more knowledge. It is really interesting
if you stand back from even a group like yourselves, it's very
interesting to see us all swarm like little bees to the next honey
pot that comes into Minneapolis-St Paul airport. It really is! A
great Christian speaker or leader comes into the Twin Cities and we
are off like a little swarm of bees. And really when you think of it,
it must have something to do with the knowledge business because if
it's the life business we know we can receive the same life from the
same Jesus who is in that person in our own bedroom. But I see so
many of us swarming after more and more knowledge. I see us buying
yet another book.
I don't know if
you've noticed the kind of books that are coming out now and that are
preying upon all of us. They are “how to” books. I won't name
them but they are all “how to” books even if "how"
isn't in the title. The Christian world is filled with books on
technique and method, really betting on the thirst for knowledge that
so called "children of God" have.
Loved ones, we don't
need more knowledge of good and evil. We don't need more ways of
being saved apart from God's life. We need God's life. I would point
out to you that the spiritual life is a quality of life or a level of
life. It is not a technique or a method of keeping close to God. What
we are eating from on these Sunday evenings is not the tree of
knowledge. If it is, you are just going to be bored to tears and you
had just better stop coming. But it's the tree of life. I know in my
own life over these past eleven years, every time I have talked about
these things Jesus has grown and grown in my own spirit. Just talking
about these holy things of God enables the Holy Spirit to make them
more and more real to you. So I ask you to come Sunday evenings,
yearning and hungry for food and for life.
There are two kinds
of people really that should not be here on Sunday evenings. You'll
find the basis for those two groups in 1 Corinthians 2:13-14. "And
we impart this in words not taught by human wisdom but taught by the
Spirit, interpreting spiritual truths to those who possess the
Spirit. The unspiritual man does not receive the gifts of the Spirit
of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand
them because they are spiritually discerned."
RSV
Now there are two
groups that should not be here on Sunday evening. The first is
non-Christians. That's because the truths we're sharing are for those
that are spiritually alive. They won't mean anything to loved ones
who haven't committed their lives to Jesus and received his Spirit
into them and allowed his Spirit to rule their lives. They won't
understand them and stuff will come over as legalism. They'll just go
from bad to worse. So loved ones I would encourage you not to bring
non-Christian friends on Sunday evening. You should bring them on
Sunday mornings. I feel there's a dearth, even in these Twin Cities,
of deep teaching on the spiritual life. That's what we are going to
involve ourselves in, in these services. So non-Christians should not
be present.
The other kind of
person that shouldn't be present is in verse 14. "The
unspiritual man does not receive the gifts of the spirit of God."
Some of you know what that Greek word is. It looks like PSYKIKOS. It
is the soulish person.
That's the person
who is looking for more knowledge. If you are just collecting deeper
knowledge, so you somehow think that you'll grow in Jesus the more
you understand the thing, then you shouldn't come. You won't get that
kind of truth here. It'll be life, spiritual life to you. You need to
come each Sunday evening not saying, "What is this guy going to
tell me that I don't know? What new thing is he going to tell me?
What new illustration is he going to use?" You need to come and
say, "Lord Jesus, I’m coming to you for food and for water of
life. I'm looking forward to receiving it from you.” If you come
that way and pray for me then the Holy Spirit will feed us all. We'll
grow together in Jesus. But will you really accept this? Don't you
see that it is beyond any man? We are poor little creatures, poor
little finite men and women. It is beyond any man to give you
something deeper than what you have, least of all this preacher here.
But Jesus can give us all food and water of life on these Sunday
evenings. So I ask you to seriously think of all of that as we begin
the study of the spiritual life.
Maybe you would
notice that the basis of our studies will again and again be
scripture and so I would just point out to you God's plan for our own
personal lives and personalities. It's one that most of you know very
well - a very famous verse, 1 Thessalonians 5:23. I would really ask
those of you who know some of the facts to pray for the loved ones
who don't know these facts and realize that there are some of us here
this evening that actually have never seen this and don't yet know
it. Pray that it will come home as new and fresh and real to them.
Here's the outline
of the personality that God has given us in his word - 1
Thessalonians 5:23. "May the God of peace himself sanctify you
wholly; and may your spirit and soul and body be kept sound and
blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ." God says we
live on three levels. We have a spirit, and a soul and a body. Now
that is called “trichotomy” for those of you that have done a
little study in psychology or even philosophy.
That is called
trichotomy because it is three. The normal distinction in secular
psychology that is made is dichotomy - two. There is the visible body
here and the invisible. The mind, or sometimes they say the spirit,
meaning the mental part of us. Now, God says that there is a
three-fold life within us. I don't know that it's a big deal to argue
over spirit, soul and body or spirit and body. I don't know that it's
important to argue two against three. It is important to see that you
can live on three levels of life. Your life can be dictated by either
the outside or the inside. I think in some ways it is important to
make the Biblical distinction.
The Biblical
distinction is that outside there is the body and inside that there
is the soul, which is the psychological part of us. Then, inside the
soul there is the spirit. One of the values I have seen of looking at
our personalities as God does is that many loved ones have trouble
with self-image. They have trouble with a good self-concept. And so
often if they don't make a three-fold distinction and only think of
the body and soul, they will try to correct that self-image or bad
self-concept by juggling their thoughts around or by working on their
feelings.
And often the poor
self-image is the result of something being wrong inside in their
spirit. It's a result of a wrong relationship between them and God.
But they go to a psychiatrist or they go to a friend or a counselor
and they try to work up good self-image and good thoughts. You'll
find them often talking about themselves in these terms. They'll say
"I don't love myself enough." And they get into all kinds
of contortions trying to love themselves without loving themselves.
They are trying to think of themselves as right and yet trying not to
think of themselves too much. It is really an impossible task because
the problem of a wrong self-image or self-concept is not in the soul.
It is in fact in the spirit. But if you don't make that distinction
you'll have real trouble continually with that.
If you don't make a
distinction between spirit, soul and body you'll often come up
against personal difficulties in your own life that you cannot solve
and that you'll deal with on the wrong level.
I think we have seen
difficulties in loved ones who are mentally disturbed and some of us
are demon-casting mad. We cast out demons at the first glint of
insanity and we're all for casting out a demon. Sometimes loved ones
who are emotionally disturbed or mentally confused have problems in
the soul. They have a disordered soul. They have a soul that has been
so used to being dominated by the body that it is working the wrong
way in all kinds of areas. What they need is for somebody to
carefully and loving deal with each one of those areas. As the soul
comes into order they themselves come into sanity and balance.
There are other
loved ones who are willfully disobeying God and they are willfully
entertaining a demon that brings error into their lives or brings
some overwhelming lust into their lives. Their problem then is one
that has to be dealt with by casting out the demon. But if you don't
make a distinction between spirit and soul, often you can try to
apply the same apparent solution to both cases and that's why many of
us have seen a failure in those situations.
I think another
problem you get into if you don't make a three-fold distinction (but
think only of body and mind, emotions) is that you have real problems
with the difference between faith and feeling. Because you say, "Yes,
I live by faith and not by feeling" yet you keep on thinking
"Isn't faith feeling God's presence? Isn't faith feeling the
warm glow of God's love in my heart or feeling His joy as I pray to
him?” If you don't make a distinction in what the spirit can
perceive and what the soul can perceive and you don't know the
difference you will never be able to make a distinction between faith
and feeling.
So there are many
reasons why it is important to accept God's outline of Biblical
psychology. I would not fight to the death on spirit, soul and body.
That's the terms. What I would fight to the death on is that whatever
terms you use you do live on three levels. There are three levels of
life that all of us experience and that is important to preserve the
reality of those if we are going to make a distinction between
spiritual healing and psychological healing, both of which are needed
under God's guidance.
This is the outline
that God gives of the personality. He says "May the spirit, soul
and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus." I
point out to you that that is a real prayer. God expects our spirits,
souls and bodies to be healthy and to be blameless and to be in good
shape. Only if all of them are in good shape can he really be fully
glorified. It is his will in Jesus to bring all of them into order
and into complete health. So that is the first point we need to be
clear on: that God regards us as spirit and soul and body.
Now maybe it is good
for you to see that you, yourself cannot make a distinction there
(between the soul and spirit). You can't. Brothers and sisters you
will become absolute, introspective nuts if you try to divide the
soul from the spirit. That's where I think at times after evening
service you ask me questions that cannot be answered. They are all
around the level of trying to make a distinction "Am I doing
this in my spirit, or am I doing this in my soul?"
Brothers and
sisters, it will get you absolutely nowhere. You cannot make the
distinction yourself between the spirit and soul.
The dear fellow
[Watchman Nee] that is an older brother to us just puts it very
strongly in his introduction to this whole thing. He talks about the
whole difficulty that comes about when you begin to look inward. It
is of the utmost importance that we never try to analyze ourselves.
"Upon reading such a treatise as this we may quite unconsciously
become overactive in self analysis. In observing the condition of our
inward life we tend to overanalyze our thoughts and feelings and the
movements of the inner man. This may result in much apparent
progress, yet actually renders treatment of the self-life much more
difficult. If we persistently turn within ourselves we shall lose our
peace completely. We shall soon discover the discrepancy that exists
between our expectation and our actual condition. We expect to be
filled with holiness but we are found wanting in holiness. This makes
us uncomfortable. God never asks us to be so introspective. To do so
constitutes one of the main reasons for spiritual stagnation. Our
rest lies in looking to the Lord, not to ourselves. In the degree
that we look off unto him, to that degree are we delivered from self.
We rest on the finished work of the Lord Jesus Christ and not on our
own shifting experience. True spiritual life depends not on probing
our feelings and thoughts from dawn to dusk, but in looking off to
the Savior."
Now that's what
faith is. It is looking off to Jesus. And so most of the things we
share on Sunday evenings are not to be taken by your mind and applied
and hammered into your heart. They are to be given to the Holy Spirit
who alone can apply them. He alone can make that division and it is
important to make it. You'll see other reasons why it's important to
make it. It's important for the spirit to gradually be divided from
the soul and then for them to be rejoined in the right relationship.
Because one of the problems you'll see in later Sunday evenings is
that they are wrongly related. But there is only One that can do that
and that One is mentioned in Hebrews 4:12.
No doubt many of
those in psyche wards are there because really the body of Jesus has
not realized or practiced this truth. So, they themselves are utterly
in chaos because of the disorder of the relationship of their soul to
their spirit. It's verse 12 of Hebrews 4. "For the word of God
is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to
the division of soul and spirit." Now do you see that? And that
helps anyone who might be tempted to say, " Oh I thought anytime
the Bible mentioned spirit it meant soul and anytime it mentioned
soul it meant spirit. I thought spirit and soul were the same."
No, do you see that
there is a clear distinction there. "...Piercing to the division
of soul and spirit, of joints and marrow, and discerning the thoughts
and intentions of the heart." The word of God alone, (who is
really the sword of the Spirit) can give you revelation in certain
moments when you may not be expecting it. He can give you revelation
of times when your soul is out of order with your spirit. Even then
it's been my experience that once I have received it, it was very
important for me to not try and apply it by my mental memory. But to
thank the Holy Spirit and to say, "Holy Spirit will you keep me
clear of this in the future? Now you have revealed it to me will you
keep me clear of it?" He knew fine well that it was not just a
matter of my perception, but that my soul had become over strong in
certain areas and he had to break that strength in me.
So that's the way it
operates. The Holy Spirit, through the word of God, pierces you and
reveals the intentions and desires of your heart so that you can say,
"Oh, what soulishness! How much was I involved with just my mind
and emotions or with myself?" And the Holy Spirit reveals that
to you. But then in subsequent weeks and months he breaks that in
you. We love to think it's just a matter of perceiving and we can do
it. It's not. Usually the soul has grown overly in some area and
needs to be broken of some strength. But that's the way it works. It
doesn't work through us doing it ourselves.
May I just point out
to you the way that God created us in the beginning? You find it in
Genesis 2:7.
"Then the LORD
God formed man of dust from the ground, and breathed into his
nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being."
Maybe I could just show you some of the important words in that verse
that we have read so often. "Then the Lord God formed man from
dust from the ground." Actually the word for dust is “aphar”
and the word for ground is “adamah”. (It becomes Adam). But God
made us of the ground and that is the "body" part of us.
He took dust and made our bodies. Then he breathed into man's
nostrils “the breath of lives”. Because actually the Hebrew is
“chay” and it always means the plural. So it is not “life” in
the singular but “the breath of lives”. And the word for “breath”
in that verse is the word “ruah”. That is the same word for
“spirit”.
You can see what the
Father did. He took our bodies and he breathed into them the spirit
and then man became a living being and the King James is right there
rather than the Revised Standard Version (RSV) because the word is
“nephesh” and that means “soul”. So God took dust of the
ground and made man's body. He breathed into it his “ruah”, his
spirit, and man became a living soul. That's why often the Bible uses
soul in two ways. Often it refers to man as a soul. You remember in
Revelation for instance they talk about the souls of the dead. Soul
is what makes man unique. Animals have bodies. Angels have spirits.
But man is unique in that he has a soul. The soul is the unique part
of man. It is actually the part that gives him his individuality and
gives woman her personality. It's the part where the two mix. It's
like taking water and putting powder into it and the result is
instant coffee.
And so the two are
blended perfectly together. That was the way it was at the beginning
of the garden of Eden. All three were blended perfectly. It is
interesting as you read some of the books by Andrew Murray and
William Law and books like “God's Life in the Soul of Man”,
you'll find that they attach all our problems to a disorder in the
relationship to these three things inside us. Salvation is those
three things coming into the right order.
In the beginning
they were perfectly blended. God put his Spirit into man and man
became a living soul. He was then capable of union with God. It is
good for us to see too that God's Spirit is separate from our spirit.
Do you see that? When God gave us his Spirit that spirit remained. It
didn't always remain in contact with God or related to God or was
alive to God. But that spirit remains and we all have spirits. Jean
Dixon has a spirit. Hitler had a spirit. The dangerous thing about
the loved ones in the Mormon church is that they have spirits. It is
the spirit in them that is dangerous. Their doctrine is dangerous but
the most dangerous thing is the demon of error that operates in them.
That's why when we talk about people who are in willful disobedience
and in willful error in the sects we say to keep clear of them. Don't
even talk with them. It's not that you might be overcome by their
arguments. It's because they have entertained an evil spirit of error
within them. Their spirit is possessed by that and you can actually
come away with some of that attached to your spirit if you are not
resisting and standing in Jesus against it. So, all of us have
spirits but our spirit is separate from God's Spirit.
It might be good to
look at a verse that teaches that plainly. It's Romans 8:16. It's one
of the assurance verses. You get the distinction there. "It is
the Spirit himself bearing witness with our spirit that we are
children of God." You see the capital "S" in Spirit
with the article - the Spirit.
But then where it
says “our spirit” there is no article. It is just the word
spirit. The first Spirit is always the Holy Spirit of God whenever
the Greek word has the article [the] in front of it. Whenever it
hasn't the article it means our spirit.
It's good for you to
see that there is the Holy Spirit of God who is unique and then all
of us who have spirits. When we are not children of God our spirits
are dead to Him. Of course the real danger is that they can be alive
to all kinds of other things. That's why there is such a plethora of
spiritism and spiritualism in our day. The materialism has become so
oppressive that our spirits feel more and more squashed to death and
crushed. So, there is a great hunger in even the spirits of absolute
pagans here in our western world. There is a great hunger. There is
in fact even in them a rejection and reaction against materialism.
They find that it doesn't matter how much they own they still have an
emptiness inside and their spirits demand some kind of life. Then
they go to the kind of life that Satan and his angels produce in
spiritualism and séances. There is a great deal of bad and evil
spiritual life in our world as well as the spiritual life that comes
from the Holy Spirit. It's important for us to see that.
Let's go right to
the final comments and finish there. One of the beautiful analogies
to our personality that the Bible gives is found in 1 Corinthians
6:19. "Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy
Spirit within you, which you have from God? " In other words the
body is really just an enclosure for the spirit within. It is
interesting just to look at the whole idea of your personality as the
temple of God. It does provide some light on the different parts of
our personality.
The temple in the
Old Testament had a "Holy of Holies" and it had an Outer
Court. Then it had thirdly a place that was designated the Holy
Place. The Outer Court was a public place there you could see plainly
because it was daylight. It was really like your body. You have no
trouble seeing what the hand is doing or the fingers are doing or the
feet are doing. You can see what your body is doing. It's a plain
and open thing that you can see with your own eyes and observe or
hear or taste.
The Holy Place was
within and yet there was the light of the candles. And there were
some other things in that Holy Place, so that you could see it. The
priests were allowed to go in and out of there. You couldn't see
quite so plainly because it wasn't daylight but you could still see.
And it is interesting that your soul is a place that you can look
into and see. You can look into the soul where the mind is and you
can perceive thoughts. I can reflect on my thoughts. You can look
into your feelings and see what you are feeling. So, the Holy Place
is a place that you can see, not quite so clear as seeing your body,
but you can still see.
The Holy of Holies
was absolutely dark because it was the place where God dwelt. There
was no light there because he provided all the light that was needed.
Any everything that went on in there went on by faith. The people
simply believed that God was there. They simply believed that God was
there in the Holy of Holies. And everything that went on in the Holy
Place and in the Outer Court was directed by what went on in the Holy
of Holies. Yet what went on there no one actually knew. They believed
God to be working there and operating.
If you would grasp
that with all of your being you would stop this business of trying to
look in to see how you are doing with God. Because the answer is you
cannot. The priest alone went in here once a year. No one else went
in and only the priest. Only the Holy Spirit can go into your Holy of
Holies. That's why you are absolutely dependent on what he says to
you when He comes out. You are. That's why it is so important when
the Holy Spirit speaks to you and says, "Do this", that you
should do it. He knows fine well that from what he has seen in here
with your relationship with God, if you do this thing that he tells
you, God will be able to fill a new place in your life.
All you can do is
obey blindly the directions of the Holy Spirit. You can always check
those directions against his Word that he has written. You can always
check that your directions are consistent with his Word. You can
always confirm it with other brothers and sisters who also have
contact with the Holy Spirit. But you yourself cannot see in there.
If you are going to have God working in your life it has to be by
faith. You have to exercise faith that God has done what he said he'd
do.
He stood at the door
and knocked. "If any man hear my voice and open the door, I will
come into Him and sup with him and he with me." You have to
accept by faith that he has come in and that he is working there. As
the High Priest, the Holy Spirit will go in and out of your spirit.
He'll check out how the works are and then he'll come out and tell
you what you need to do. You see the chaos that you and I get into
when we treat the words of the Holy Spirit lightly. That's where we
get into problems. If you say, "I have trouble with the presence
of God in my life", the only thing you can do about it is to
obey what the Holy Spirit is telling you to do in your outward life.
Then if you do that you can trust and believe absolutely that God is
completely at home inside your spirit. You can trust him to send out
from your spirit whatever kind of love, or joy or peace that you
need.
Remember the picture
of the temple. No one could see what went on there. Only God's Spirit
could and God himself. You can't see what is in your spirit. So when
you get worried about God's presence in your life because you can't
feel him it's ridiculous. If you get worried because you can't feel
God in your life it's like you are asking me, "What is a square
circle?" You can't feel God in your life and everybody knows
that. You can feel God in your soul if he is sending up some happy
feelings or if he isn't. But often he doesn't send up happy feelings.
Often he knows that it's time for you to walk a bit by faith.
Sometimes he does
grant you consolations - great joy and great peace. But very often as
you move on deeper with him in your life together he sends up no
happy feelings. He develops more and more your absolute faith. So
that, for instance, if a time should ever come where you would be in
a prison and tortured beyond the point of physical endurance, your
spirit would remain strong in God. You might not even know it was
strong but it would be strong. The Holy Spirit would be able to keep
it strong through the years that you had exercised.
So loved ones it's
that kind of situation that you are going to come into if you are
going to be used by God. It's not necessarily torture or prison camp.
But you are going to come into situations where your spirit has to
have absolute rock-like stability -- untouched by your body and soul.
The only way that that can be wrought in you is by the work of the
Holy Spirit. And he can only work if every time he comes outside that
door and says to you, " One glass of Coke is enough," or he
says, "That's enough looking, that's enough", you stop.
Or he says to you,
"Tomorrow morning, 6 AM, pray." Or he says to you, "You
give this money to this person." Or he says to you, "You
fill in your income tax completely this time." Whatever the Holy
Spirit says to you, you have to do it exactly. It's not even in my
hands to mellow it for you. I can't even make it easier for you. I
know that God gives the Holy Spirit to those who obey him. The Holy
Spirit alone can make God real in your spirit and keep your spirit
alive if you will obey him every time he comes out and gives you
directions and commands.
So that's the kind
of outline of our personality that God gives us in the Bible. That's
the kind of plan that he has for the relationship between them. Next
Sunday I'd like to deal in detail with the difference between our
spirits and our souls and the different functions of our spirits and
the different functions of our souls. I would ask you to pray and ask
the Holy Spirit. "What is there in this for me tonight?"
Not - "Holy Spirit what was Pastor trying to say?” but “Holy
Spirit what is there in this for me tonight?" I'm sure as I
gave some of those illustrations the Holy Spirit spoke to you about
something. Commit yourself this moment to obedience and you'll have
no trouble with what is going on in there. That is not your business.
Your business is obeying the High Priest who will keep things right
in your spirit. Because he alone can touch your spirit and he'll
touch it on one condition, that you'll obey him. It's a beautiful,
simple life. It never gets much deeper than "Trust and obey for
there's no other way." Let's pray.
Lord Jesus, thank
you that however deep we may go in the understanding of your truths
they all come down to a very simple gospel – “trust and obey, for
there's no other way, to be happy in Jesus but to trust and obey.”
And Lord thank you that we don't need to understand the world of
theology in order to do that. We know your voice, Holy Spirit. We've
heard your voice in our consciences a thousand times and we know you
know you've spoken to us about some things even now. We know that if
we obey you on those that you will take care of that part of us that
we cannot touch - our spirits - the part of us that contacts our God.
Holy Spirit we see that our soul can deal with "ourselves"
and our body can deal with the world but only our spirits perceive
God. You alone can make those spirits alive so that they can be
rightly related to our Father. We would commit ourselves to obeying
you so that you will keep us rightly related to God in Jesus our
Savior. Now the grace of our Lord Jesus and the love of God and the
fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with each one of us now and
evermore. Amen.
