The human spirit is mysterious. Various people have characterized it in their own special way. What would you say about the human spirit?
Our first topic deals with where our human spirit comes from. By taking a close look at the creation of man in Genesis, we not only see the fact of where our spirit comes from, but we can see how God Himself is so closely related to the human spirit.
Then, before going too deep into our study of the human spirit, we recognize that the Bible makes a clear distinction between the human spirit and the soul.
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2 Corinthians 3:17 And the Lord is the Spirit; and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.
John 4:24 God is Spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truthfulness.
Ephesians 6:17 And receive the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which Spirit is the word of God,
Ephesians 6:18 By means of all prayer and petition, praying at every time in spirit and watching unto this in all perseverance and petition concerning all the saints,
John 6:63 It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh profits nothing; the words which I have spoken to you are spirit and are life.
Fellowship
The goal of morning revival is to get revived and we can get revived by touching the Lord. Because 2 Corinthians 3:17 tells us that the Lord is the Spirit, we know that we have to use our own human spirit to contact Him. Our human spirit corresponds to the Lord as the Spirit. The Lord Jesus even instructs us in John 4:24 to use our human spirit to contact Him!
Did you know you had a human spirit? This is a spiritual organ deep inside you. When you call on the name of the Lord you are exercising your spirit. When you tell Him you love Him you are exercising your spirit. Essentially, whenever you turn your being to the Lord and direct your heart and your speaking to Him, you are exercising your spirit. Reading only with our eyes and our mind, like we do for school, is not enough for us to touch the living Christ who is the Spirit today. What we need is to pray to contact our dear Lord Jesus all the time, even while reading His word.
Here are some examples. If you reply to the Word of God with an “Amen Lord,” that is to contact the Lord. If you begin to read a verse with, “Oh, Lord Jesus,” and then read the verse, then this is also an excellent way to contact the Lord, that is, to touch the Lord through prayer as you read.
There is not one way to pray-read. Ephesians 6:18 shows us that we should receive the Word by means of all prayer. This means all kinds of prayer. When pray-reading, you can be calling on the Lord, confessing, or petitioning the Lord. All prayer is good. In fact, using John 6:63 as an example, you can say to the Lord, “Lord, It is the Spirit who gives Life; Lord, You are the Spirit and You give life. Lord, give life to me!”
Those who have tried pray-reading have discovered that it is one of the quickest ways to get out of our selfishness and into the enjoyment of God. God has put His very thoughts into the Bible. By praying and reading the Bible, His selfless, loving, and pure thoughts get into us and can even become our thoughts. This is a part of sanctification. By pray-reading, we are being sanctified! Moreover, John 6:63 tells us that the Spirit gives life. Therefore, whenever we pray-read, we not only receive God’s thoughts, but even His life.
Do practice contacting the Lord while reading His word. If there are several verses that you read, pick one and linger there, praying with the words from that verse, and contacting the Lord Jesus. This is an excellent way to be revived morning by morning.
1 Thessalonians 5:23 And the God of peace Himself sanctify you wholly, and may your spirit and soul and body be preserved complete, without blame, at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Hebrews 4:12 For the word of God is living and operative and sharper than any two-edged sword, and piercing even to the dividing of soul and spirit and of joints and marrow, and able to discern the thoughts and intentions of the heart.
Luke 1:46-47 And Mary said, My soul magnifies the Lord, 47 And my spirit has exulted in God my Savior.
Proverbs 20:27 The spirit of man is the lamp of Jehovah, / Searching all the innermost parts of the inner being.
John 4:24 God is Spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truthfulness.
John 5:39-40 You search the Scriptures, because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is these that testify concerning Me. 40 Yet you are not willing to come to Me that you may have life.
Fellowship to help us know Christ and pursue Him
The quotation below comes from the book, God’s Plan of Redemption, by Mary E. McDonough
The terms “inner man” and “outer man,” or their equivalents, are employed in modern psychology, but the psychology of the Bible is more analytical inasmuch as it indicates a subdivision of the invisible part of man, thus teaching us that man is not dichotomous but is a trichotomous being. We find this plainly taught in 1 Thessalonians 5:23 and indicated in Hebrews 4:12 and Luke 1:46-47.
This tripartite being may be illustrated by a third piece of cardboard containing three circles. Within the inner circle print the word “spirit.” Within the second circle (surrounding the first) place the word “soul,” and within the outer circle the word “body.” (See Figure)
With the spirit we know God and our relation to Him and our relation morally to every created object. With our soul powers—the intellect, sensibilities (affections, emotions) and will—we are able to deal with the intuitions of the spirit, the claims of these various soul faculties and the record of the bodily senses.
“The spirit of man,” not the soul, is said to be “the candle of the Lord” (Prov. 20:27). Caution the class in reference to a careless use of these terms. Do not say “soul” when “spirit” is meant and vice versa. Avoid the phrase “body, soul and spirit,” as it inverts the Divine order of arrangement. In a normal condition the powers of the spirit control the powers of soul and body.
(God’s Plan of Redemption, by Mary E. McDonough, http://marymcdonough.ccws.org/redemption/index.html)
The Recovery Version of the Bible renders 1 Corinthians 2:14-15 with the word “soulish” and we find it most appropriate, especially in its context. “But a soulish man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him and he is not able to know them because they are discerned spiritually. But the spiritual man discerns all things, but he himself is discerned by no one.” (1 Corinthians 2:14-15)
Instead of soulish, many translations of the Bible use “natural”. In any case, The footnote on “soulish” in the Recovery version goes right along with sister McDonough’s admonition that we distinguish between the spirit of man and the soul of man: “A soulish man is a natural man, one who allows his soul (including the mind, the emotion and the will) to dominate his entire being and who lives by his soul, ignoring his spirit, not using his spirit, and even behaving as if he did not have a spirit (Jude 19).”
We need to pursue Christ with an exercised spirit. Calling on the name of the Lord, crying to Him from our deepest part, “Oh, Lord Jesus”, is one way to exercise our spirit. We can also exercise our spirit by praising the Lord. Praising Him with “Praise the Lord!” and “Hallelujah” is to worship the Lord with our spirit.
If we read the Bible merely with our mind we will be like those who search the scriptures yet are not willing to come to Christ. To exercise the spirit means to contact the Lord Himself. When we come to verses in the Bible we should read and pray, pray and read, always contacting God as we read the scriptures. This is to exercise the spirit. This is why pray-reading is recommended. We don’t advocate pray-reading as a form, but we exhort the believers to continuously contact the Lord in their reading.
If man does not exercise his spirit, no matter how noble his deeds, no matter how deep his thoughts, no matter how scriptural his words, the transmission of God to that man will be absent. Let us make a strong resolution to be the spiritual men, ones who receive the things of the Spirit of God and discern all things. In our personal time with the Lord and in our corporate pursuit with others, let us come in this way, with an exercised spirit.
Zechariah 12:1 The burden of the word of Jehovah concerning Israel. Thus declares Jehovah, who stretches forth the heavens and lays the foundations of the earth and forms the spirit of man within him,
John 3:6 That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.
Ephesians 2:22 In whom you also are being built together into a dwelling place of God in spirit.
Ephesians 5:18 And do not be drunk with wine, in which is dissoluteness, but be filled in spirit,
Ephesians 6:18 By means of all prayer and petition, praying at every time in spirit and watching unto this in all perseverance and petition concerning all the saints,
Romans 1:9a For God is my witness, whom I serve in my spirit in the gospel of His Son
Romans 8:16 The Spirit Himself witnesses with our spirit that we are children of God.
2 Timothy 4:22 The Lord be with your spirit. Grace be with you.
Fellowship to help us know Christ and pursue Him
God created us with a human spirit for good reason. The human spirit matches God’s Spirit so that God can dispense Himself into us. We know from John 4:24 that God is Spirit, and by all the verses above (and so many more) we also see that we have a human spirit. By it we contact God and receive Him! John 3:6 shows us that the part in our being where we were born again was our human spirit.
A hymn titled “There’s a Life That’s Deeper than our Mind” talks about touching our human spirit. In this hymn there is also a call to the Christ who is in our spirit to come make home in our heart– that is, to spread out from our human spirit to our whole being. (You can see the lyrics to the whole hymn here: https://www.hymnal.net/en/hymn/ns/217 ).
When we touch our spirit—such a thrill! This is far beyond emotion, mind, and will— It’s within our hidden part— Come, make home in all our heart; Let Your presence flow as rivers deep within.
All the genuine spiritual experiences in our Christian life are experiences in our human spirit.
We may have previously thought that we were only made of an inner part and an outer part, but the Bible reveals a third part, the human spirit. How wonderful it is to discover our human spirit!
And God said, Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of heaven and over the cattle and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps upon the earth. (Gen 1:26)
How do we see God’s purpose in His creation of man?
Jehovah God formed man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and man became a living soul. And Jehovah God planted a garden in Eden, in the east; and there He put the man whom He had formed. And out of the ground Jehovah God caused to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food, as well as the tree of life in the middle of the garden and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. (Gen. 2:7-9)
Describe the scene in Genesis chapter 2.
In Him was life, and the life was the light of men. (John 1:4)
Jesus said to them, I am the bread of life; he who comes to Me shall by no means hunger, and he who believes into Me shall by no means ever thirst… As the living Father has sent Me and I live because of the Father, so he who eats Me, he also shall live because of Me. (John 6:35,57)
But whoever drinks of the water that I will give him shall by no means thirst forever; but the water that I will give him will become in him a fountain of water springing up into eternal life… God is Spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truthfulness. (John 4:14, 24)
It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh profits nothing; the words which I have spoken to you are spirit and are life. (John 6:63)
How can you tie these verses in John with the verses in chapter 2 of Genesis?
Further reading: The Tree of Life, chapter 1, published by Living Stream Ministry
