So many people are lost, confused, and trying to find themselves. When they do “find themselves,” life knocks what they thought they knew right out of their hands. And they’re left standing there confused and lost.
So many people even “find themselves” or their identity in who they have sex with. They find their identity in how they dress or their job description, or job title, or hobby, or even in their ministry title.
None of those things are actually WHO we are. Those things we do aren’t our identity. What happens when these change… does “who” we are at that point change? I don’t believe it does or should.
The definition of Identity is this; the fact of being who or what a person or thing is.
Who are we? How do we identify? Who are we meant to be?
Before we were born-again in our spirit, we were sinners, right? That’s who and what we were. We were “dead men walking.”
We were prisoners of Satan. We were alive in body and soul, but dead in spirit and on our way to death in the prison called, hell with a prison sentence of “forever.”
God sent the key to get us out of this prison. He sent His Son to rescue us. To set us free from the prison and prison warden.
Jesus is the key that set us free, and that can set anyone else who wants to be free, free.
When we accepted His offer of freedom, he took us home, washed us up, breathed life into our dead spirits and we became born-again, brand new creatures…born from the Spirit of God.
Just like we are, “flesh of our parent’s flesh,” we are now “spirit of our Heavenly Father’s Spririt.”
It’s our spirits that can communicate, hear from, and speak to God. When Jesus said this to the woman at the well in Samaria… I believe this is what he was referring to.
I say this to try and give a clear picture of who we are. It’s so important to understand who, what, and how our spirits operate. It’s essential to our identity and the success of our Christian walk.
SPIRIT, SOUL/PSYCHE, AND BODY
1. Transgressions and iniquity: that’s our sin. Jesus provided that key we needed to get us out of “prison.”
2. Peace; that’s for our soul/psyche
3. Healed- that’s our physical body
Jesus came to give us a new life.
This scripture here shows us that his death on the cross provided for our entire beings, to make us completely whole, body, soul/psyche, and spirit. It also shows that we have all three.
1Thessalonians 5:23
The Greek words (the original):
Pneuma: Spirit
This is the organ by which we communicate with and worship God.
Soma: Body
Physical body: Where our 5 senses are.
Touch, see, smell, hear, taste.
Psyche: Soul
Our Consciousness, emotions, who we are according to psychiatrists. This is also where our personality is.
(This is not to be confused with our “minds," as in the "renewing of your mind," that Romans 12:2 talks about.)
*We aren’t supposed to walk, do life, and conduct ourselves by “sight,” correct?
That would be our flesh/body and our soul/psyche. In other words, we don’t walk by how we feel in our emotions or how things look with our physical with our eyes.
Spirit with “S.”
Translators do the best they can when translating. It’s not an easy job. Unless they are going to just translate word for word, which doesn’t usually come across properly, they need to understand the person and culture they are translating and the person and culture to which they are translating to.
The same goes for translating the Bible.
There’s multiple places in the Bible that are translated with a capital “S,” which is meant to mean, “the Holy Spirit.”
Beware of this, because it’s not always the case.
For example:
John, a disciple of Jesus said in Revelation 4:2, “At once I was in the Spirit…”
Original Greek actually says, “in spirit.” When we read the entire context and we can see that he’s referring to his own spirit and not the Holy Spirit.”
Why Does This Matter?
Look at Galatians 5:16-26, (NLT)
V. 22 says,
Let’s look at our daily lives… Is peace a product of our life? What about joy? What about gentleness?
Most believers now days don’t actually have this fruit being produced as a result of their lives. They’re always struggling… even “mature” Christians. Struggling to produce joy. Struggling in their minds to find peace. Struggling with self-control in a lot of areas…. sexual, physical, and mental.
We’ve read these scriptures and prayed, “Holy Spirit, I give you permission… now produce this fruit in my life.”
Later, down the road, we find ourselves lost and confused and maybe even angry with God, because we prayed, but it’s still the same ‘ol, same ‘ol.
Why is this?
I don’t believe it’s because we aren’t saved… I believe for most we just haven’t learned to truly walk by the spirit… our spirit.
We’re still going by feelings. … for example, maybe we’re “looking” for a particular feeling to “prove”t o us that it’s the Holy Spirit talking…
That’s our Soul talking… not the Holy Spirit.
We’re still living by our soul/psyche… our own thinking and knowledge or feeling we get when we “feel” the Holy Spirit speaking.
We’re leaving everything up to the Holy Spirit, waiting for, and expecting him to do the work… like sitting on the couch and expecting him to wait on us… nah.
It’s not him, it’s us.
Think about the Apple Tree, for instance.
How does it produce fruit?
We know it needs sun and water and the right environment.
These are things the tree needs to be healthy and grow and produce fruit, but these things don’t actually DO the work, right?
The tree does. The tree has a responsibility to do something. If the tree decided to stop growing and producing, no amount of sun or water could produce the fruit in it.
We're the one’s who must live and walk by OUR spirits.
HOW?
By faith. Everything we do and everything we are as believers is all based upon faith.
Faith in God. Faith in His Word.
It seems so much easier to do things based on our souls/psyche… waiting for a certain “feeling” from what we’ve deemed as being the Holy Spirit.
1. Water ourselves with the Word of God and lots of it.
More than anything else from the world.
2. Get the Sunlight of the Holy Spirit.
Bask in His presence. Be submerged/baptized in the Holy Spirit.
Communicate in the language of the Holy Spirit by speaking tongues. In Ephesians 6, the Apostle Paul tells us to put on all these different things in our lives and to “pray in the spirit at all times and on all occasions… We need this.
If you live in a place that doesn’t get a lot of sunlight, you know that the absence of sunlight can help to cause depression. Being filled with the “sunlight” of the “Holy Spirit,” and praying in the spirit is a weapon against depression.
Our spirits know only how to please God. Our spirits won’t steer us in the wrong direction. Our spirits are born of the Holy Spirit. They’re His “mini-me’s.” Our spirits look like him, walk like him, and talk like him more and more as we read and practice His Word, whether we feel like it or not.
Walk by faith… not by what we see and feel.
Let your spirit be the dominant organ of your identity more so than your soul/psyche.
Our bodies and souls have the dominant leaders of our beings for so long. They aren’t going to just roll over and “play dead”… nor do you want them to. We need them. They make up the whole of who we are.
We just don’t want to let them “walk all over us.” We want to do what the Bible tells us to do… to walk by faith… walk by our spirit.
“So I say, walk by the (your) Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh (our body and human nature).
For the flesh desires what is contrary to the Spirit, and the Spirit what is contrary to the flesh.”
Don’t look for and wait around for and be led by your “feelings.” Walk by faith. Live your life based on what God says. If you asked the Holy Spirit to come in and fill you, you can be certain that He did, because His Word says that He gives to all who ask.
Conduct your life as such… that is FAITH.
“Oh, the joys of those who do not follow the advice of the wicked, or stand around with sinners, or join in with mockers.
But they delight in the law of the Lord, meditating on it day and night.
They are like trees planted along the riverbank, bearing fruit in each season.
Their leaves never wither, and they prosper in all they do.”
That is what God desires for us as our identity. God desires for our spirits to be the dominant leader of our being vs. our souls…. “So I say walk by the spirit…”
In his book, The Spiritual Man, Watchman Nee, called this the difference between a “soulical” Christian and a “spiritual” Christian.
Putting on our new spirit nature, which is our born-again spirit, created to be like him.. truly holy and righteous.
We must and we CAN walk with our spirits as the dominant organ of our entire being if we really are going to live successful Christian lives…
And on that day when our life in this physical body is done, having done all, we will still be standing.
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