God Almighty took the risk of Holy Spirit power upon man

 

Yes I Am 30 - That Soul-Spirit Understanding

Yes I Am by Norman Grubb

Chapter 30

THAT SOUL-SPIRIT UNDERSTANDING

All of us in Union Life know that a special key is given us for our daily stabilizing by the writer to the Hebrews. He declares that this life has rest, not strain as its basis (4:1-11). It is the rest God has had since He rested on the seventh day after completing the creation. It is also that of Israel entering into the land of Canaan. But he goes on to say that the true rest is what we have in Christ, our Joshua. That rest is by no means a folding of the hands, but a fully active life that is a thrill to live because it has adequacy at its center, not inadequacy. Living life without what it takes to live it causes strain; living life with what it takes to live it produces rest. The resting life he describes this way: "He that is entered into His rest, he also hath ceased from his own works, as God did from His" (4:10). Living by my own works was when I was the worker. The rest-life will have even more works, for He is the worker. But that type of working is resting. The key to entering into God’s rest and continuing in it is by a revelation nowhere else so clearly stated in the Bible. It is in knowing the difference between soul and spirit (4:12).

We already have seen that the human spirit is the basic self. Soul and body are the means by which we express ourself and live a fully active life. So as long as we confuse what we are in our inner spirit-self with the ways in which we express ourself by our outer soul and body, we are in trouble.

The writer to the Hebrews likens the difference between soul and spirit to the joints and marrow in our physical bodies. The marrow is what contains the inner life of the bones - a picture of spirit. The joints are the way by which that inner life goes into action in hands and feet, etc. - analogous to soul. And he says we have spirit and soul so mixed up that it takes a revelation for us to see the difference. "For the word of God is quick, and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit" (4:12).

In simple terms, in our spirits we love. By our soul emotions and body action we express our love. In the spirit we know. By the soul we express our knowledge by our reasoning faculty. (Peter shows the relationship between those two when he says we should be ready to give "a reason for the hope that is in us.") So soul and body are the precious and only means by which we - our spirit, and God’s Spirit by us - can express ourselves.

The quality of Spirit-spirit union is stillness, for the universal is always still. "Be still and know that I am God." God spoke to Elijah in a "still, small voice." Spirit can be compared to the sea, which, with its mighty currents and streams, is a "still" source of power; the soul is like the rampaging waves which dash about as the expression of that power. The power is in the sea, and not in the waves.

So our danger and problem - till we are awakened to it - is in mistaking the surges of the waves (soul emotions) for the unmoved and calm center (spirit). We get into trouble when we mistake the variable emotions of the soul for our still spirit-center. The waves are feelings such as anger, hurts, jealousies, fears, lusts; or alternatively, soul feelings of depression, deadness, uselessness, meaninglessness, coldness, emptiness, inability to believe - an endless list. The same is true of our soul in its reasoning activities: All kinds of disturbing or evil thoughts can pour into us, with all the doubts and questionings they bring, and influence our mental attitudes. Notice that this verse of Scripture also compares soul and spirit to "the thoughts and intents of the heart": intents, our spirit - fixed purpose; thoughts, our soul - varied opinions about the intents.

That is also why John in his First Epistle (3:19-21) makes a differentiation between our hearts and God. He says, "If our heart condemn us, God is greater than our heart, and knoweth all things." "Heart," representing feelings, is soul - and we can get plenty of condemnation in our feelings. But God, who knows all and doesn’t condemn, speaks His assuring word into our spirits.

Even so, it is easy, outwardly, to be strongly drawn by some desire of the heart and seem to be helpless against it. But in my spirit-center, where God is, I know my real desire is His will, and He keeps His firm hold on me. A friend recently wrote regarding a strong desire for a certain thing: "....but in this I felt myself kept. This keeping made me angry at times, because I wanted to have my own way and I knew I could not. I knew it could never be because that wasn’t what the real me wanted." Outward and inward desire: the workings of soul and spirit.

A person inquires of me, "What do I do when I say I am ‘Christ as me’ and yet there is someone I hate?" I laugh and reply, "You are kidding yourself. You don’t hate; you can’t hate. You can only feel you do on your soul/emotional level and mistake that for hate. Hate is only love reversed - and you are love, which is He in you, and you love by the set purpose of the will; and you know that if the real need arose you would give yourself for the one you ‘hate.’ While soul love is emotion, spirit love is will - and we are fixed in that kind of love. So we may feel more like hell and yet be in heaven.

So we see ourselves in our spirit-center, where we and He are one in spirit, and all things are ours in Him. Soul and body are our wonderful means of endless spirit expression. And having grasped, by the revelation of the Word, the distinction between soul and spirit, I do not fear my soul and body... and still less do I foolishly wish I were without their disturbing reactions. No, I thankfully see myself as a whole person, God’s whole person. He has equipped me with these fascinating means for living out my full life as a whole self with Himself, in all my life’s activities. Because they are wholly His, I will put no limits on the liberated use of my soul and body. At the same time, I totally enjoy the fact that He has me safely in hand, even with the surges of the negatives temporarily flooding in. Spirit wins its battles over soul and body diversions, being "kept by the power of God"; and we, "having all sufficiency in all things, abound unto every good work."

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LWWW4 - Body,Soul, and Spirit by Page Prewitt

[Part 7] Body, Soul and Spirit
Once I came to accept this biblically-validated truth as the foundation for my own Christian experience–that I am in union with Christ and am thus one spirit with Him–I still had questions that had to be answered. (Let me interrupt and say that it is my experience that most people have these same questions.) Does the Holy Spirit take us over in our union with Him and automatically eclipse our freedom to choose and thus make it impossible for us to sin? Or can we say that because of our oneness with Christ, He is somehow responsible for our sin? Of course we must say NO to both of these suppositions. From Scripture and experience, two things are very clear: Christians (union people) do sin, and Christ has never sinned and never will sin. Another question that plagues us as Christians regarding sin is this: Do we have to go Satan's sinful, anti-God way?
To gain clarity on these questions, we must understand our humanity and how it functions. To do that, we must first gain an understanding of the difference between body, soul, and spirit. Each of these is part of every individual and each has its distinct and separate function, but all work together to make us the very glorious creatures that we know ourselves to be.
Following is a simple drawing which, along with the others presented earlier, has helped me and many others understand the inner make-up of the human self. Of course, these diagrams can only give an idea of what we as persons look like and how we function. No human explanation can adequately portray spirit truth. Please note that a true grasp of these truths only comes to the honest seeker by Holy Spirit revelation.
The outer circle represents our body, the middle circle our soul, and the inner circle our spirit. The body is the outer clothing or the outer expression of the soul and spirit.
DIAGRAM HERE

 Desire or love 

 is at the center

 of the human spirit.

[Part 8] Soul—The Troublemaker
Our soul is where emotions and reasoning take place–where we feel and think. It is very important that we understand and accept that our thoughts and feelings (fear, happiness, sadness, shyness, etc.) are morally neutral; all feelings are necessary components of the human personality.
But they are a huge problem because until we know differently, we believe that our feelings are not only how we are but who we are, and we operate (make our choices) based on this misconception. We are overcome with guilt and defeat at not being able to change or, better still, eliminate either our negative thoughts or feelings. The truth is that neither needs to be changed. They both originate in the soul, and as we said, they are morally neutral. Neither affects our inner spirit reality unless or until we believe them and act on them.


[Part 9] Just What Is Spirit?
Spirit, which is our real self, is represented by the inner circle. Spirit has three basic faculties–desire/love, mind/knowledge, and will/choice. Desire or love is at the center of the human spirit. Sad to say, in our lost state we are self-love, with Satan expressing his self-for-self love through us. But as we touched on earlier, when we become born again, the glorious exchange takes place whereby our sinful operator, Satan, is cut off from our human spirit through the body death of Christ and, in turn, He (Jesus Christ) joins Himself to our human spirit, and we become “one Spirit with Him” (1 Cor. 6:17). As we said earlier, we are the vessels through whom He expresses His selfless love–spirit love, the term for which is agapé.
Mind is our second spirit faculty. It is where we know things–not what we think about things (that is a soul function) but where we know them. Ideas belong to the soul realm; knowledge belongs to the spirit. For example, we may know a lot about God and Jesus on a soul level, but we can only know them and matters of the spirit by means of the indwelling Holy Spirit who is the Knower in and through us.
The third faculty of the spirit is the will, and it is here that our spirit choices are made. Our love and knowledge (the other spirit faculties) both help shape these choices which are, in turn, expressed through our soul and body. The will is the arbiter of our destiny: our God-ordained freedom to choose for God or against God exists in our will.
Because soul and spirit are so closely linked, it takes a revelation of the Spirit for us to know the difference between them. Hebrews 4:12 gives us an illustration of their closeness: For the word of God is quick and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.
The writer to the Hebrews is saying that the two are as closely connected as the marrow is to the bone. Like the marrow, spirit is the life of the body. The soul, like the joint, is the vessel for the marrow and is the means by which the inner spirit life expresses itself.