Search
1 Thes. 4:4; 1 Cor. 12:3; 1 Thes. 5:16-19; 2 Cor. 7:1; Acts 24:16; 1 John 1:7-9; Rev. 12:10-11; Rom. 6:6; 2 Tim. 2:22
I. Preserving our spirit for life
А. Exercising our spirit to contact God
B. Keeping our spirit living
C. Keeping our spirit from defilement
D. Dealing with our conscience to stay living
II. Clearing the arteries of our psychological heart
А. Concerning the mind
B. Concerning the will
C. Concerning the emotion
III. Preserving our body
Hallelujah! We have been saved and regenerated. The law of life and the light of life are in us. We have the sense of life and have been brought into the fellowship of life. We see that we have been purchased by and for God, and we have consecrated ourselves for God’s satisfaction because of His love. It seems as though we have all we need and have done everything there is to do. However, there is much more to our Christian life. We may have everything already, but now is the time to experience these things item by item, to grow in life and to mature in life.
In this lesson, we will learn how to preserve our whole being, spirit and soul and body, so that we may be a person of life. [Through the fall our body has been ruined, our soul has been contaminated, and our spirit has been deadened. In God’s full salvation, our entire being is saved and made complete and perfect. For this, God is preserving our spirit from any deadening element (Heb. 9:14), our soul from remaining natural and old (Matt. 16:24-26), and our body from the ruin of sin (1 Thes. 4:4; Rom. 6:6). Such a preservation by God and His thorough sanctification sustain us to live a holy life unto maturity that we may meet the Lord in His parousia] (second coming).
[Our spirit is composed of three parts: the conscience, the fellowship, and the intuition. Our spirit is mainly for us to fellowship with God. When we have fellowship with God, we contact Him. This contact with God spontaneously gives us a sense of God, a consciousness of God. Intuition denotes the direct sense and consciousness that came from God. Through this intuition we can know whether we are right or wrong. If we are wrong, we shall be condemned by our conscience. But if we are right, we shall be justified by our conscience. Our conscience, therefore, either accuses and condemns or excuses and justifies. The way to preserve our spirit is first to exercise it to have fellowship with God. If we fail to exercise our spirit in this way, we shall leave it in a deadened situation.
Whenever we Christians come together in a church meeting, we need to function. We need to pray, praise, or give a word of testimony. This is to exercise our spirit and not allow it to remain dormant or in a deadened condition. But sorry to say, many saints do not preserve their spirit by exercising it in this way. Instead, they allow their spirit to remain dormant. It seems that they leave their spirit in a tomb.] Is your spirit in a tomb right now? O Lord Jesus! First Corinthians 12:3 says, “No one can say, Lord Jesus, except in the Holy Spirit.’’ Call on the Lord to exercise your spirit to come alive.
The apostle Paul said, [“Always rejoice; unceasingly pray; in everything give thanks; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you. Do not quench the Spirit’’ (1 Thes. 5:16-19). To rejoice, to pray, and to give thanks is to exercise our spirit. When we exercise our spirit in this way, we cause it to be living. Exercising the spirit to keep it living is the first way to preserve it.
Because of the fall, our spirit has been deadened. Our spirit, therefore, must overcome the problem of deadness. The spirit of an unbeliever is absolutely dead. Most of those around you at school, at work, or in your neighborhood are utterly dead in their spirit. Have you been sanctified, separated, from a spirit-deadening situation?] We should struggle to save ourselves from that kind of situation by exercising our spirit. “Praise the Lord, call upon His name, declare His doings among the people, make mention that His name is exalted’’ (Isa. 12:4). By doing that, we [pull our spirit out of death and cooperate with the operation of the Triune God in sanctifying us. He wants to separate all of us from those whose spirits are deadened. Because we have been regenerated, we need to be different. We need to show that our spirit is living, that it is not deadened. Thus, our spirit should rejoice, pray, and give thanks to the Lord.]
[Another way to preserve our spirit is found in 2 Corinthians 7:1. In this verse Paul says, “Having these promises, beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from all defilement of flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God.’’ This verse indicates that we should abstain from all defilement of both flesh and spirit. We need to stay away from anything that contaminates our spirit. This is the reason we should keep our eyes from looking at evil things, such as defiling pictures. Such pictures defile not only our eyes; they also defile our spirit. As a result, you will not be able to pray unless you first ask the Lord to cleanse you from all defilement.]
Though we may try to preserve our spirit, we may often become deadened or defiled. Our conscience, the most evident part of our spirit, will have some uneasy feelings. These feelings indicate to us that we have a problem with God, that the fellowship of life is cut off. We may even try to exercise our spirit, yet, we still would not have any release. In order to restore the fellowship to enjoy life again, we must deal with our conscience until it is void of offense (Acts 24:16). The way to deal with the conscience is to repent and confess (1 John 1:7-9), until the fellowship of life with the issue of peace is restored.
[These feelings of the conscience can be divided into three categories: first is the feeling toward sin. If we sin before God or before man, the conscience will immediately have the feeling of condemnation. The second category is the feeling toward the world. If we love other matters or are occupied with anything outside of God, the conscience will also give us a feeling of condemnation.] The third category is the feeling [concerning anything apart from sin and the world. There are certain matters that are neither sinful nor of the world, yet they cause our conscience to lose the feeling of peace. For example, looseness and inaccuracy in our daily living are not sin nor of the world, yet our conscience is disturbed by them. If someone scatters clothing and other articles around, leaving the room in a state of disorder, his conscience will rebuke him.]
[The three categories of the feelings of the conscience are the result of our offenses — we have either offended God or sinned against man in our intention, motive, word, and action. Therefore, these feelings can be considered as feelings of offense. The feeling of offense itself is a serious damage to our spiritual condition. When one’s conscience has this feeling of offense, his fellowship with God is hindered and thus his entire spiritual condition is lowered. Therefore, whenever a Christian has the feeling of offense in his conscience, he must immediately go before the Lord to confess his sin according to this feeling and claim the cleansing of His precious blood. Sometimes there is also the need to go before man and deal with the matter. Then the feeling of offense will vanish, and the conscience will be void of offense. Therefore, dealing with the conscience, on the one hand, is to cause our conscience to become keen and rich in feeling, and, on the other hand to cause our conscience to be secure, at peace, and void of offense.
The blood of the Lord is our only weapon to overcome Satan’s accusation and attack. Revelation 12:10-11 tells us that Satan accuses us day and night before God, but that we can overcome him by the blood of the Lamb. First John 1:7, 9 tells us that if we confess our sins, God will forgive our sins, and the blood of the Lord will cleanse us from all unrighteousness.]
Therefore, every time we confess according to the feeling of the conscience, we should be freed from condemnation. We should have the sensation of life and peace. If the condemnation lingers on, we simply declare to Satan that he must leave us, because God has already forgiven us according to His word. Hallelujah! God is righteous and just, He forgives and cleanses as soon as we confess. As we are saying “O Lord, forgive me,’’ He has already forgiven us.
After we are saved, the feeling of the conscience increases as the life grows. To the extent our life grows, the feeling of our conscience increases. The more we advance in the growth of life, the richer and keener will be the feeling of our conscience. The growth of life affects the feeling of our conscience, and the feeling of our conscience aids the growth of life. These two, in a mutual cause and effect relationship, forward us onward in the path of life.
[Our psychological heart has three main arteries. These arteries, which are also the three parts of the soul, are the mind, the will, and the emotion. It is important to know how in a practical way to have these arteries unclogged. The way to unclog the three main arteries of our psychological heart is to make a thorough confession to the Lord. From experience I have learned that we need to stay with the Lord for a period of time to confess our defects, failures, defeats, mistakes, wrongdoings, and sins.]
[We may begin by confessing all the sinfulness and uncleanness that is in our mind, in our thinking. The artery of our mind can be compared to a ditch that is clogged with dirt and needs to be dug out so that water can flow through it. By confessing our thoughts one by one, we shall remove the blockage from this artery. As we are making confession in this way, we may confess to the Lord how natural our understanding is concerning many matters.] We may understand the Lord, the church, the saints, and our parents according to our natural concepts and not according to the Spirit and the word of God. We need to confess to the Lord and say, “Lord, forgive me. Although I love You, my understanding of many matters are still natural. Deliver me.’’ [This is an illustration of the kind of confession we need to make concerning our mind.]
[What then, about our will? If we go to the Lord concerning our will, He will expose it in a thorough and detailed way. It may seem as if we are being examined under a divine microscope, for one by one there will be brought to light all the germs in our will. In particular, we shall realize that we are very rebellious, that we do not know what it means to be submissive to the Lord. One by one, we need to confess the germs of rebellion in our will. The Lord may show you that, a few years ago, you were wrong in a particular matter. Then He may go on to show you how you were wrong with a certain brother or a certain sister. Each time you will need to confess. You should thank the Lord that you are under His light, under His exposure. By confessing all that the Lord exposes in our will, we unclog the artery of our will.]
[The artery of the emotion also needs to be unclogged. When we realize how serious is the problem we have with our emotion, we may be deeply sorrowful. We may despair and feel utterly ashamed of the condition of our emotion. We shall realize that in many cases we hate what we should love, and love what we should hate. When we come into the light of the sanctuary, we shall see that the most ugly aspect of our being is our emotion, for we do not use it properly. Both our joyfulness and our sorrow may be altogether natural. As the Lord exposes us, we may feel ashamed of the way we have expressed joy and sorrow, for that expression often was natural, fleshly, even fleshy. No wonder our psychological heart does not function normally.
If we take the time necessary to unclog the three main arteries of our psychological heart, we shall have the sense that our entire being has become living. Our mind, will, and emotion will all be in a very healthy condition. All the “dirt’’ in these “ditches’’ will then be dug away.]
[If we would preserve our body, we should live a life that never follows the old man, that never follows our soul. Romans 6:6 says, “Knowing this, that our old man has been crucified with Him that the body of sin might be made of none effect, that we should no longer serve sin as slaves.’’ If we do not follow the old man, the body of sin will be made of none effect. This means that the body of sin will lose its job and become unemployed. But if we live according to the soul, we shall use our body to serve the old man. Therefore, to preserve our body first requires that we do not live according to our soul.
Second, to preserve our body requires that we not present any member of our body to anything that is sinful. For example, we should keep our eyes away from evil pictures and our ears from unclean things. Many things that are broadcast over the radio are defiling. A number of saints have testified that they cannot bear to listen to certain talk among those at school or at work because that talk is so evil. Many people of the world are able to speak concerning sinful things without any sense of shame. Thus, we need to keep our body from seeing and hearing things that will contaminate and ruin it. This is to preserve our body in sanctification.
Paul illustrates the importance of preserving our body in this way by giving in chapter four (of First Thessalonians) the charge to abstain from fornication. To abstain from fornication is to preserve our vessel, our body, in sanctification and honor. Therefore, in order to preserve our body, we should not present our members to anything sinful.]
[Today’s world is full of contamination and defilement. This makes it very difficult for us to preserve our body. Wherever we go there are defiling elements.] Young people should not try or even go near anything that defiles. If you flee (2 Tim. 2:22) from contamination, then you can grow in life with others who call on the Lord. As long as we are living on this earth, we need to preserve our body.
In conclusion, we must preserve our spirit, soul and body by exercising our spirit, confessing our sinfulness and shortcomings, and by staying away from anything that defiles. In this way, we may experience life and grow in life, rather than be stunted in our growth. May the Lord be merciful to us to remind us daily to preserve our whole being for life.
