[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]
We will continue our series on man’s three-fold nature – the spirit, soul and body. I covered in our previous devotion on man’s first dimension - the spirit. We have a new spirit now, for our spirits are born of God. But we will have a new body at the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ. We have a new life now, but we will have a new body then. As we continue our devotion of man’s three-fold nature, today I would like to focus on man’s soul dimension. As I stated earlier, the soul is the intellect. It is man’s sensibilities and will. It is the part of man that reasons and makes him think. It deals with the mental realm. In simple terms, your soul is your mind, your will, your intellect and your emotions/feelings. Your soul is where decisions are made on what you think and what you do. Your soul must decide whether to be led by the flesh (man’s disobedient nature inherited through sin) or to be led by the Spirit. Depending on what your soul decides your body will respond accordingly.
In Romans 12:1, Apostle Paul said “Present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God which is your spiritual worship. Do not conform to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind”. In this verse, Paul teaches us that we have to do something with our bodies and with our minds also. Paul was writing here to be born-again; Spirit-filled Christians. Yet their Christian experience had not affected their bodies or their minds. He told them that they were going to have to do something with their bodies; and with their minds.
God is not going to do anything with our body or our mind. God contacts our spirit. We contact God with our spirit and our spirit (the inward man/hidden man of the heart) becomes a new man in Christ. One of the greatest needs of the church today is that God’s people renew their minds (souls) with the Word of God. This is the reason God put teacher (those who really called to teach) in the Church - to renew our minds. Many times those who teach do so with only a natural knowledge that they have gained from the Bible and other sources. But I am referring here to one of the ministry gifts - those who are called and anointed by the Spirit to teach. So our minds are renewed by two methods. First, one feeding upon God’s Word in our private study and meditation and the second one is being taught by Spirit - anointed teachers.
Even if your spirit is born again and has the Holy Spirit abiding within, if your mind is not renewed with the Word of God, the mind which has been educated through the body and the physical senses will side in with the body against your spirit to keep you a baby Christian. But when the soul has been renewed with the Word of God, the spirit through the renewed mind can control the body. The soul (mind) will then take sides with the spirit because it knows the Word. It is renewed with the Word. It will allow the spirit to dominate. Then God’s Spirit will dominate through man’s spirit.
The man's soul is the weakest area. Therefore, it requires regular renewal through the Word of God. It is the favourite place for the Satan to enter into your thought arena which is your mind. There is absolutely no effort required to get the thoughts, in fact, thoughts would keep on bombarding into our mental realm. Therefore, most of the times we walk by what we see, understand and perceive instead depend on living Word. Pastor Hagin said in his teachings that “if the devil can hold in you in the thought arena (in your soul dimension), he will whip you. If you hold him in the arena of faith (in your spirit dimension), he is the victim.
The Holy Spirit does not dwell in our heads (soul), but in our hearts (spirit). Our head is what hinders us most of the time in receiving the promises of God. The Holy Spirit God does not communicate directly with our mind. The Holy Spirit God is in our spirit and communicates with us through our spirit. Of course, our spirit does influence our intellectual process within.
[http://biblearchive.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/tripartite-01.png]
