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We have seen the definition and function of the heart, the spirit, and the soul. Our relationship with the Lord is always begun and maintained by the heart. Of course, to contact the Lord is a matter of the spirit, but this must be initiated and maintained by the heart, for our heart is the gateway of our whole being. A building with many rooms always has an entrance and an exit; a person comes in by the entrance and goes out by the exit. When the entrance is closed, everyone is kept away from the rooms inside the building, but once it has been opened, people can enter the building and enjoy each room.
The heart is not a separate and exclusive part of our being but is composed of all the parts of the soul and a part of the spirit. Therefore, being such a composition, the heart becomes the very gateway of our whole being. In other words, the heart becomes both the entrance and the exit of our being. Whatever enters into us must enter through the heart. Whatever comes out from us must proceed through the heart.
For example, if our heart is not alert as we listen to a message, we will not get the substance of it. Or, when we are reading, we will receive nothing if our heart is not upon the content. Even while eating, if we do not have the heart to eat, we will not taste the food. This proves that the heart is the controlling organ. In order to control the whole building, we must be able either to close or open the door. So with the heart there is the power to close or open our whole being.
For this reason the preaching of the gospel must be guided by the Holy Spirit that it might hit the human heart. The most effectual way of preaching the gospel is to touch the human heart. If one can break through the heart, many persons can be gained. This is why unbelievers harden and close their heart to the gospel preaching. Regardless of how much we preach, when they close their heart, we cannot touch them. We cannot minister anything into them, because their “entrance” is closed. We must find a way, if we are going to preach effectively, to break through the entrance. The best preacher is the one who finds the key to unlock the heart.
Even the Lord Himself attracts us through our heart. He does not stir our spirit first. The seeking one in the very beginning of Song of Songs asks the Lord to attract her by His love so that she may love Him. The Lord comes to touch our heart with His love. This is why, after the resurrection, the Lord asked Peter, “Do you love Me?” (John 21:15-17). The love of the Lord is the best way to unlock the door of the heart. Therefore, the most effective way to open the heart is to preach the love of God. Once the heart is open, it is easy for the Holy Spirit to touch the spirit and all the parts of man’s being. This is true not only in gospel preaching but even in the ministry of Christian teaching.
For this reason we must deal with our heart so that we might have a proper relationship with the Lord. How can we deal with our heart? Again, it is quite simple. The Scripture says, “Blessed are the pure in heart” (Matt. 5:8). Some translators have changed the word pure to clean — that is, “clean in heart.” But the word clean is not adequate. It is not just a matter of a clean heart but of a pure heart. We may be clean but mixed and therefore not pure. To be mixed does not mean to be dirty but to have more than one goal and one aim.
This is the problem with many brothers and sisters. They think that they have nothing wrong with their hearts because they are clean and without condemnation. But they are not pure, because they have more than one goal, more than one aim. Yes, they are aiming at God, but at the same time they are aiming at several other things. They may be aiming at God and at a doctor’s degree. When they have two things as their aims, they are mixed and complicated. For example, we cannot see two things with our eyes at the same time. If we try to look at two items at the same time, both of them will be blurred.
Why is it that some say they are not clear about the Lord’s will? It is because they have two goals, two aims. Many brothers and sisters have more than two aims. They are aiming at many things. Yes, they are seeking the Lord, but at the same time they are seeking other things, such as their position and their career. How can they avoid being perplexed and confused? Their heart must be purified from so many ambitions so that the Lord Himself may be their only goal.
Even many Christian workers have too many goals. One brother testified that he had a great goal: he wanted to be the biggest preacher in his denomination. His heart was clean, but he was not pure. His heart must be purified until he has only one goal — the Lord Himself. Some Christian workers have the Lord Himself and His work as their goal. They have two goals. They need to purify their heart until they seek nothing other than the Lord Himself as their goal. Their aim, their goal, and their interest should only be the Lord Himself. When they seek absolutely nothing but Him, their heart is pure, and if they have such a pure heart, the “sky” will not only be open but very clear to them. Sometimes the sky is open but cloudy. Why is the spiritual sky cloudy? It is because the heart is mixed and not pure. When the heart is purified from many goals, the sky is clear.
Another term the Bible uses to describe the heart is singleness — “singleness of heart.” Some versions translate singleness as “simplicity” — “simplicity of heart.” Singleness of heart means to be simple. To be simple means, in a sense, to be foolish. Those who really love the Lord and aim at Him are a kind of fool. We must all be Christian fools. This means, “I don’t know anything but Jesus. Whatever I do, I know only Jesus. Wherever I go, I know only Jesus.” We should not try to be clever. We have only one way — the narrow way of Jesus. People will say, “You are foolish,” but we should like to be so foolish. This is simplicity.
Three passages in the Scriptures referring to purity of heart are Psalm 73:1, Matthew 5:8, and 2 Timothy 2:22. The latter reference shows that while the churches are deteriorating, we must pursue the Lord with a pure heart and pray together with others who have a pure heart. There are at least three verses referring to singleness of heart: Acts 2:46, Ephesians 6:5, and Colossians 3:22. If we would seek and serve the Lord, we must deal with these two matters: to be pure and single in the heart. We must learn to have not only a clean and right heart but a pure and single heart. If we would deal with our heart in such a way, our whole being will be opened to the Lord, because the gateway is open. This is not some doctrine but simply instructions on how to deal with the heart so as to allow the Lord to possess our whole being.
Again, we repeat: the Lord must first attract us by His love. He touches our heart with His love in order to open our heart. Then immediately following the dealings with the heart, the conscience must be dealt with. The dealings in the presence of the Lord are first with the heart and then with the conscience. If we are pure and single in our heart, the function of our conscience will immediately be very keen and alert. While we are reading this book, we may not have the sense that we are wrong and have made mistakes, but when we deal with our heart and make it pure and single, the conscience will function in a full way. Our conscience will begin to accuse us, causing us to confess and deal with it. This will make our conscience without offense. Paul said that he exercised himself to have “a conscience without offense toward God and men” (Acts 24:16). A conscience without offense means to be free from any kind of offense or accusation.
In order to know the difference between the soul and the spirit, we need a keen conscience. But this is difficult when we reason in our mentality. You say, “Well, I am wrong ten percent, but that brother wronged me one hundred percent. So he owes me a balance of ninety percent.” This is nothing but mental figuration in the soul. While we are reasoning logically in our mentality, there is something deeper within us, saying, “Regardless of how much he owes you, you must deal with the ten percent.”
The spiritual account is not like the bank account. The account in the bank has credit, debit, and balance, but the account in the spirit has only one column — the debit. Regardless of how much credit we may have, as long as we have a debit, we must deal with it. Suppose I stole a watch from you, and you stole a car from me. We are very clear about what we stole from each other. But one day the conscience functions: “You have to deal with that stolen article.” Of course, if I were simply balancing a bank account, I would reason, “This watch costs one hundred dollars, and that car costs two thousand dollars, so this man owes me nineteen hundred dollars. There is no need for me to deal with my conscience; rather, I should collect the balance.” But the spiritual account does not work that way. The spiritual account demands that I forget how much the other person owes me and that I deal with the one hundred dollars. I must even apologize to this man: “Sir, I am so sorry. It is sinful for me to steal. Here is the stolen watch, which I am returning to you.” I must not say a word about that car. I have no right to mention it. Only the Holy Spirit has the right to say something to him. In the heavenly account there is only one column, not two.
Do you see the point? If you are arguing and reasoning, you are simply in the mind, not in the spirit.
To further illustrate, suppose the Holy Spirit is working in your spirit, demanding that you answer the call of the Lord. But many reasons flood your mind: “How about my wife? How about my children? What about their education? I still have a mother who is eighty years old. It is better to wait a little longer. After she dies, it will be the right time for me to answer the Lord’s call.” This is nothing but the arguments and rationalizations in the mentality of the soul. You are quite logical, quite reasonable, quite right, but there is still the call of the Lord deep in your spirit.
It is easy to understand the difference between the soul and the spirit, but the problem is that our whole being may still be locked, for our heart is not yet opened. We must say this again and again: we have to open our heart. When we deal with our heart so that it is pure and single, our conscience will then be very keen to make known many accusations and offenses. Our conscience, then, can only be made right by confession and by applying the sprinkling, the cleansing of the Lord’s blood (Heb. 9:14).
When our conscience is purified, we will serve the living God. God is a living God, but He is not a living God to us when our conscience is full of offense. When this is the case, we have a God in name only, but when our conscience is cleansed by the blood, we sense that God is so living. Sometimes it seems as if God is not so real and living; He is just a title, “God,” and that is all. Then our conscience is dull and full of offenses; it needs to be dealt with by confession and cleansing.
Then we will have a pure conscience. The apostle Paul told Timothy that he served God with a pure conscience — not only a cleansed conscience but a conscience without any mixture and shadow (2 Tim. 1:3). An accusation in our conscience makes it impure and opaque, hindering our fellowship with the Lord.
A pure conscience is also a good conscience (1 Tim. 1:5, 19; 1 Pet. 3:16, 21). A good conscience is a conscience that is both cleansed and purified. It is right and transparent, without any shadow. A conscience in such a good condition will bring us into the presence of the Lord. There is nothing as a barrier between us and Him, because the conscience has been cleansed and purified.
Following the dealing with the conscience, the faculty of fellowship in our spirit is dealt with, as seen in 1 John 1:1-7. Fellowship between us and God is maintained by a good conscience. When the conscience is offended, it becomes a barrier and damages our fellowship with the Lord; therefore, according to 1 John 1:9, we must confess our faults, our failures, and our sins so that the blood of the Lord Jesus might cleanse our conscience. Then there will be no condemnation in our conscience to hinder our fellowship with the Lord. Strictly speaking, our fellowship is dependent upon our dealing with the conscience. It is maintained through a pure conscience. Therefore, these two dealings are actually one, since to deal with our conscience is to deal with our fellowship. Fellowship will be maintained if there is nothing wrong in our conscience. If there is a break in our fellowship with the Lord, it means that our conscience is wrong. When our conscience is not pure and transparent, the fellowship is gone and can only be regained when our conscience is recovered.
Now we come to the intuition. As the fellowship follows the conscience, so the intuition follows the fellowship. If we are wrong in the conscience, the fellowship is broken, and when the fellowship is broken, the intuition does not function. The dealing with the conscience is therefore very basic. A transparent conscience will bring us into the presence of the Lord, resulting in a living fellowship with Him. Through this living fellowship, it is easy for our spirit to sense the will of God directly — this is the function of the intuition. This function depends entirely upon a perfect fellowship. When our fellowship is perfect, the intuition functions properly. When our fellowship with the Lord is broken, automatically the intuition does not work and can only be recovered through restored fellowship.
First John 2:27 is a very important word, which most of us neglect. It says that the anointing abides in us. The anointing is the working of the Holy Spirit within our spirit, giving us a direct sense from God. That direct sense is the intuition. First John chapter 1 indicates that the fellowship is kept, or maintained, by the blood. Chapter 2 indicates that the intuition works by the inner anointing of the Holy Spirit. When the Holy Spirit anoints us by moving in our spirit, we receive a direct sense of the intuition.
Through the intuition within our spirit we have an inner knowledge, not a mental understanding. The inner knowledge is in our spirit, whereas the understanding is in our mind, and the inner knowledge of our spirit always precedes the understanding of our mind. In other words, when the Holy Spirit anoints our spirit, we receive a direct sense in our intuition. Through the intuition within our spirit we have an inner knowledge, sensing something of God. But we still need the mind to understand what we sense in the spirit. Sometimes we can know something only in the spirit, but we cannot understand it in the mind. This sounds like heavenly language, and the world does not know what we are talking about. The understanding in the mind functions only to interpret what our spirit senses as the inner knowledge. Our enlightened and renewed mind will interpret what we sense in the intuition of our spirit.
Let us put it in this way. Sometimes in the morning while reading the Word and praying, a burden is spontaneously sensed deeply within our spirit, a burden so heavy and deep that we cannot understand what it is. We have to look to the Lord for the understanding of this burden. Gradually, during the day we begin to understand with our mind what is in our spirit. In the morning we sensed the burden, or the inner knowledge, by the intuition in our spirit, but during the day we gradually receive its interpretation in our mind.
To summarize, 1 John 1 reveals that the fellowship must be maintained, and 1 John 2, especially verse 27, shows that the intuition must be stirred up, or anointed, by the Holy Spirit. But both the fellowship and the intuition depend entirely upon our dealing with the conscience. Through such dealing we can obtain a transparent and pure conscience, which will give us a perfect fellowship with the Lord. This will result in the function of the intuition, because the Holy Spirit will then have the ground to move and anoint our spirit. Again we say that all these things must be put into daily practice. Day by day we must deal with our heart, our conscience, our fellowship, and our intuition.
