Listening to Your Heart

spirit-soul-body-image

 

 

Man is comprised of body, soul and spirit. It is easy to understand what the body is, and we know the soul is composed of our will, intellect and emotions. It becomes more difficult to distinguish the spirit.

Man likes to divide man into two parts, visible and invisible. Medical doctors recognize the body and the soul, but few believe that there is a spirit. Yet the Bible speaks of all three as belonging to man.

Dr. Eben Alexander, a neurosurgeon, believes in a three-part man (since his out-of-body experience, while he was in a coma for three weeks). He now understands that there is a difference between soul and spirit, the brain, and the mind of man; and that the mind lives on after the brain is dead. (Dr. Alexander’s book – Proof of Heaven)

I Thessalonians 5:23, “Now may the God of peace make you holy in every way, and may your whole spirit and soul and body be kept blameless until our Lord Jesus Christ comes again.”

Hebrews 4:12, “For the word of God is alive and powerful. It is sharper than the sharpest two-edged sword, cutting between soul and spirit, between joint and marrow. It exposes our innermost thoughts and desires.”

Scripture validates that the spirit, soul and body can be divided from one another, and that there is a difference between soul and spirit.

The spirit and soul are two different entities, but only God’s Word is able to separate them. This is why we need to renew our minds with the Word of God. Only the Word of God is Spirit and Life, and inspired by the Holy Spirit. As you read and study His Word, you begin to feel the ‘life of the Holy Spirit’ lift from the pages of the Bible and touch your human spirit or heart. Your spirit soon becomes aligned with the Spirit of God, and you will know when God is speaking to you in your heart. He never contradicts His written Word.

Bible radiates light

I left my Bible lying on the kitchen counter one day, and my wife was going to flip through it to see how I highlighted scripture. When she went to open the Bible, she felt her hand being lifted back up and held there in midair. It startled her. What she was feeling was the power of the Holy Spirit that resides in the Word of God.

Jesus said that we must be Born Again to be able to enter into the Kingdom of God. The Kingdom of God is not meat and drink, but peace, joy, and right living in the Holy Spirit. (Romans 14:17 & John 3:7)

carnal and spiritual man

 

 

 

 

Our spirit man is dead, from the fall of Adam. Our carnal soul and carnal body influence our choices in a carnal, fallen world. Only when our human spirit is born anew into the Kingdom of God, does it begin to desire the things of God, and starts to influence the carnal soul to think anew about the choices, in light of pleasing or displeasing God.

The body, and its five senses, operates on the physical and natural level.

The soul, and its will, emotions, and intellect, operates on a natural and a spiritual level, either good or evil.

The unregenerated spirit, and its desire to pray and worship, operates on a carnal, spiritual level, substituting anything and everything in the place of the one true God.

The regenerated spirit operates on a good, spiritual level, because it is now joined with His Spirit.

The spirit was meant to rule the soul, and the soul to rule the body. Today we live for the body, and then the soul, and either forget about the spirit or use it to worship anything but its Creator.

God created us to have a relationship with Him on a daily basis. He means for us to be dependent on Him for daily guidance. Yet, man chooses to ignore God and depend on his own intellect and talents to climb his way up a ladder that is not even supported against a firm foundation.

Many times, when we face tough decisions in life, we hear others say to us, “Follow your heart.” “Listen to your heart.” Or we will hear people say, “He has a big heart.” “I meant it from the bottom of my heart.”

We understand that these phrases don’t refer to the physical heart that pumps blood throughout our bodies. We realize that there is more to man than just his body.

The Bible refers to man’s heart around 800 times, and few of them refer to the physical heart. Most of these refer to the inner man, the center of man’s being. (II Corinthians 4:16 & I Peter 3:4)

So when one says “listen to your heart”, we know we are to listen to the heart of our inner man, our spirit.

Just as our body gives us warnings about touching a hot stove, the spirit gives us warnings about partaking in certain activities, or saying certain things, or entertaining certain lifestyles. We call this our conscience. Our conscience and our hearts are both part of our spirit, and are there to influence our soul to choose to do the right thing before our Creator.

When your physical senses tell you that you need to run from a problem, or that there is no way out of a situation, you need to know that there is another voice that will guide you to do what is right, the voice of your heart, the heart transformed by the Word of God.

This is why David said that he would hide God’s Word in his heart, so that he would not sin against God. The Word of God, meditated upon in prayer daily, feeds your Born Again spirit and keeps it alive and sensitive to that which pleases God.

Jesus said that when the Holy Spirit comes into our hearts or spirits, He would guide us, and convict us of what is right and wrong, and bring to remembrance all things that Jesus has taught us.

So if we have received His Holy Spirit in the New Birth, and we are reading and studying His Word, our human spirit is alive and being fed spiritual food. Our human spirit is then able to hear what the Holy Spirit is guiding us to do, or not to do, and our carnal soul begins to take on the flavor of our spiritual heart. The spiritual heart influences the soul to think like Christ, then influences the brain to direct the body to partake of those things that please Christ.

wooden bucket and well

The water takes on the flavor of the wooden bucket. If the bucket is kept clean with constant drawing of fresh water, the water will taste like fresh water. If the bucket is allowed to sit for weeks and months without drawing fresh water, the water, no matter how fresh, will take on the taste of the unused bucket.

Preachers and saints, many times, taste like unused buckets, because they have not been filled with the Living Water, that only comes from spending time alone with His Spirit and His Word.

Many call themselves Christians today. But the term Christian means many different things to different people. The world has been given a taste from the Christian bucket that tastes a lot like the people who are claiming Christianity. Yet, what the world is crying after is a taste of Living Water, that only comes from Christ flowing through the flesh of the bucket of the Christian.

The only way for your flesh, or bucket, to taste like Christ’s Living Water, is to spend so much time with Him that He keeps the taste of your flesh buried beneath His Living Water. The size and shape of the bucket doesn’t matter, when the water is crystal clear, ice cold, and refreshes the soul.

Your human spirit needs Born Again.

Your Human Spirit needs filled with the Word of God.

As you develop a relationship with Christ living in your heart or spirit via His Holy Spirit, you begin to desire what He desires. Your heart begins to feel passion for what His heart feels passionate about. What is in the heart of man is what comes out of the mouth of man. What is in the heart of man is what he lives out in his daily activities.

You can only follow the leading of the Holy Spirit in your heart or spirit, if you are continually renewing your mind with the Word of God. (Romans 12:2)

This entry was posted in Uncategorized and tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , . Bookmark the permalink.