[ecko_quote source="I Thessalonians 5:23"]Now may the God of peace Himself sanctify you completely, and may your whole spirit (man’s spirit), and soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ [/ecko_quote]
Man is a spirit who possesses or has a soul and lives in a body. Your spirit is as real as you are. When you receive Jesus Christ as your Lord and Saviour, it is your spirit that is born again. Man’s spirit is the part of him that knows God. God is a Spirit, and God made man to fellowship with Him. God made man for His own pleasure. Man is not an animal. In order to fellowship with God, a man must be in the same category as with God. Pastor Kenneth Hagin gave an illustration and asked the readers this, He said, "Did you ever try to fellowship with an old cow? We cannot fellowship with cows because they are in a different kingdom, a different class from us. They do not worship God. However, we can fellowship with one another, and we can fellowship with God because we are in the same class of things, if we could call it that for understanding.
When you receive salvation, you become a new creation. The Spirit of God moves inside of your spirit to live not just for a visit. Your everlasting life begins at that moment. Your spirit will live for all eternity. Your death is recorded on the cross of Jesus (Romans 6:6). Death is now in your past and no longer in your future. In John 11:26 Jesus said, "Whoever lives and believes in Me shall never die". When you receive Jesus as your Lord and Saviour, it is your spirit that is born again, not your body. Your body will be glorified in the future, but that does not happen until the rapture of the church.
Jesus told the woman at the well in Samaria, “God is a Spirit and they that worship Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth (John 4:24). We cannot know God or touch Him physically. He is not a man, He is Spirit. But we can reach Him with our spirits, and it is through our spirit that we come to know, God. For your understanding, the word “heart” and “spirit” are used interchangeably in the scriptures. Your heart is your spirit. When the word of God speaks about the heart of man, it is speaking of the spirit of man. The Apostle Paul, in 2 Corinthians 4:16, said though our outward man perishes (decaying), yet the inward man is renewed day by day. The outward man, or the body, is growing older and is decaying, just as the house you live in is decaying and needs constant upkeep and repairs. But the real you is not getting any older. Paul said, yet the inward man (spirit) is renewed day by day. In other words, my hair may become greyer, and I may get a few more wrinkles, but the real me will never become old. For the inward man is renewed day by day.
The outward man is seen, but the inward man is that hidden - unseen man. Too many people are defeated in life because they are looking at the wrong things. All they ever see is physical. Smith Wigglesworth once said, “I am not moved by what I see. I am not moved by what I feel. I am moved only by what I believe. The only way we can look at the unseen is by faith. Believing take place in the heart (spirit) and confessing with our mouth that Jesus Christ is Lord (Roman 10:9-10).
In 2 Corinthians 5:6-8 Paul said, “we are always confident…”. Paul knew what he was talking about. He was confident that while we (the inward man) are at home in the body, we are absent from the Lord”. But when we (the inward man- the real man) are “absent from the body”, we are present with the Lord”. Our spirit (the inward man) lives long after our earthly house has returned to the dust.
Science has spent millions of dollars to develop the physical body of a man. Additional millions have been spent developing man’s intellectual processes, which are a part of his soul. But we know so little and have done so little about developing the spirit of man. However, man’s spirit can be educated and improved just as his mind can be. The spirit can be trained and built up just as the body. How, you may ask? Through the study of God’s Word. Jesus said, It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh profits nothing. The words that I speak to you are spirit, and they are life (John 6:63). If God willing, I will continue our devotion on man's three-parts being.
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