Spirit
Spirit is abstract, not visible and touchable, and is, therefore, a force or power behind our emotions, feelings, knowledge, understanding, and wisdom, therefore, we think and execute actions based on those abstract spiritual forces that empower us through desire fostered by life’s experiences. In other words, the force/power behind an emotion is a spirit that has a personality, therefore, if we have love in our hearts it is because God is with us for He is the author of love, and therefore love is sourced from the spirit that God put in man at conception, however, if we have hate in our hearts, it is because we allowed the spirit that has a personality or force of hatred to overwhelm us because of unfavourable situations that we encounter in our lives. If we cast out the spirit of hate and then turn away from Jesus, our hearts become empty of God and therefore open for that spirit to return, and our situation becomes worse than before.
43 When the unclean spirit is gone out of a man, he walketh through dry places, seeking rest, and findeth none.
44 Then he saith, I will return into my house from whence I came out; and when he is come, he findeth it empty, swept, and garnished.
45 Then goeth he, and taketh with himself seven other spirits more wicked than himself, and they enter in and dwell there: and the last state of that man is worse than the first. Even so shall it be also unto this wicked generation.
The more we experience and accept a certain emotion or belief based on our will or desires, the stronger the spiritual force behind that emotion or belief because we give it the power to use us, then the more it influences our personality, and the harder it is to get free from that influence. That is why people get into bondage with pornography, drug addiction, hatred, jealousy, rage, etc, which can lead to a spirit (personality) of murder, stealing, adultery, etc. That’s why Jesus said in Matthew 6:20-24 “that if our eye is single, then our body is full of light, but if our eye is evil, then our body is full of darkness but how great is that darkness”. To have a single eye is to be single-minded, or have a singleness of purpose, where we are sure about our walk with God through the knowledge of God like a light that directs our ways (Psalm 119:105), however, our eye being evil means that we are double-minded, and because we lack knowledge of God, our thoughts are tossed to and fro as we grope in the darkness, James 4:7-8. The question, however, is how dark or double-minded are our thoughts because a lack of knowledge can be severe if we ignore God’s Word and our actions can be catastrophic. That’s why 2 Corinthians 10:3-6 says that we must pull down imaginations to the obedience of Christ and Colossians 3:1-3 says that we should look to things above and not things of the earth because we are hid in Christ and are dead to this world. In other words, a born-again believer should be in the Word of God at every opportunity to know the will of God because they no longer belong to this world though they are in it, see John 17:16-28. Reading and acting on the Word of God is the only way to escape the corrupting of our minds by the things of this evil world. I maintain that people with mental illnesses may have been borne or been involved in an accident that caused their condition, however, I also believe that many get their mental condition because their thoughts are so obsessive in a specific area of their lives that triggers their condition, i.e. a spirit is given the power to control their mental condition because of excessive meditation, where offence, bitterness, sadness, depression, and unforgiveness become a contributing factor.
We are spiritual beings, whether good or evil, or a mix of both, and thus we form our character and destiny based on what we accept and reject through experiences in the soul, which consists of the mind, will, and emotions. If we know God, then we can train our souls to learn and act out God’s ways and change our behaviours so that we can become more like Him, and eventually conform to His image, where love, grace, mercy, etc is our focus, however, if we follow people and allow negative emotions to consume us, we conform to the character of those people and their emotions.
In Christianity, the battle is in the mind, and the way to conquer it is to ignore the lies we used to believe, and not to conform to friendships’ wills or desires if their doctrines do not conform to the Word of God, which is the only means to renew our mind and strengthen ourselves in the inner man (Romans 12:2). This is why reading and studying the Word of God is imperative to give us direction in our thinking and emotions so that we do not get tossed and turned by every wave of opposing doctrine fed to us from a wicked world, see Ephesians 4:11-14. That’s why God is pleased with faith (Hebrews 11:6) because faith in the Word (God) points us in the right direction and opens our eyes to the truth so that we can override those aspects of our will and emotions detrimental to our future. Repeated reading and meditating on the Word of God will get us closer to God’s Spirit, and we start to speak His Words as the Holy Spirit flows through us with knowledge, wisdom, and understanding. Related to this, my experience is that when I speak God’s Word with all my heart, I start saying things that I was not even thinking of saying, and yet, I understand them as I blurt them out for the first time, and I realise that it is God speaking through me. Of course, we need to assure ourselves that what was said is in line with the Word of God.
When a person continues in a specific emotion or belief in their lives, the possibility of getting oppressed or even possessed by a spirit, whether it is hate, jealousy, anger, etc, becomes greater, though Christians cannot get possessed because they belong to God when they are born-again, however, they can get oppressed by the spirit (personality). That’s why deliverance is sometimes needed in Christianity, but more so in a secular person because they can get oppressed and possessed.
The flesh of man
The flesh (body of man) profits us nothing because it is the spirit that gives life (quickens), see John 6:63. It is the spirit working in the body that activates our abilities to breathe, learn, eat, think, feel, and speak. The physical body is wonderfully made but has no ability within itself to do anything without the spirit, and therefore the soul as well. Matter such as rocks, sand, grass, trees, flowers, etc, cannot be spiritual because they cannot think, understand, or have emotions of themselves as they have no spirit or soul in them, and spirits have no purpose in the inanimate matter because they cannot do anything with them, i.e. a spirit of lust cannot get a rock to satisfy it through lust between two rocks. It sounds corny but true. Because God made man and animals using flesh in various designs and forms with a brain, senses, a nervous system, etc, He created a perfect physical environment by which His spirit can operate in a physical body through the soul. The soul is predominantly driven by the five physical senses, but the soul can be driven by God’s spirit in the body if we learn God’s ways through the Word, and through hearing His Spirit. God therefore breathed a portion of His spirit into those bodily forms to activate life, unlike rocks, sand, or grass which cannot store information and use it for posterity, i.e. they have no brain, or nervous system, etc, and, therefore, no spirit, so they cannot comprehend God’s Word. A brain, nervous system, etc, is required for the spirit to function otherwise the object has no ability to feel, think, or recall past events to make future decisions. Animals, however, are completely soulish because the spirit breathed in them is purely for living their lives out of the flesh and five senses because God did not give them the ability to discern and communicate with God, which is why man has dominion over creation and all animals.
We are living rational beings that can understand, reason, and behave to conform to God’s Word only because we have an excellent spirit from God, thus our bodies can be transformed into glorious spiritual bodies that are incorruptible at the reappearance of Jesus if we allow God’s spirit to steer our souls through faith in God. Creation, including plants, trees, etc, do not have spirits as they are inanimate with no conscience or contact with God, and thus cannot transform from having a perishable body to an imperishable body as they have no understanding of how to follow God, however, their glory will come when the new Heaven and Earth are fully manifest with the sons of God, i.e. when the entire Kingdom of Heaven is fully manifest in the new Heaven and Earth when Jesus reappears. When this happens, creation will also become incorruptible because the heavenly atmosphere (Kingdom of Heaven) of the new Heaven and Earth will give life to all things, see Romans 8:17-23.
The Old Testament is based on the flesh
In the Old Testament, we see that people operated almost entirely based on the desires of the flesh and the five senses when they decided to understand good from evil without God’s input. God then had to anoint certain people to guide others to God such as Noah, Abraham, and Moses as God put an excellent spirit in them. These people were His “rod” or “staff” to direct others, whereas the majority resorted to being driven and making decisions by the flesh and the five senses. We, therefore, see that the Old Testament of the Word of God is almost entirely based on man being driven by the flesh and five senses where personal self-righteousness, desires, and comforts are the prime objectives in life, giving rise to strife and conflict. We still have this problem today because most people operate by the law which is an aspect of the desire of the flesh which wants to be exalted through self-righteousness. In the OT God was showing us that, although we are predominantly carnal, to succeed in life we need Him otherwise our carnality engenders strife, competition, anxiety, etc, leading to all sorts of conflict, as we see from the battles that man has been involved in throughout the ages.
The Word of God warns in 1 John 2:16 “For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world”. To be lustful for the things of the world is to attract trouble, especially for Christians, because the devil monitors Christians far more than secular people. After all, he aims to get us to turn away from God.
When we operate purely by the five senses without God’s Word, we cannot see the truth and therefore allow ourselves to be influenced by the visible material world, where invisible evil spirits operate without our knowledge. The WOG says in Timothy 4:1 that those who depart from the faith in God will be listening to seducing spirits. That does not mean that they will know that spirits are influencing them, because Satan will not allow that, i.e. they influence us because of what we believe and hold onto, and they work at keeping our faith away from God and in what is corrupt, which is why holding onto our faith in God and His Word is very important. The world has moved down the path of a so-called “freedom” or “openness” which is bondage to sin because it brings pleasure to the flesh such as gluttony, greed, lust, lesbianism, transgenderism, abortion, etc. This is an example where giving people freedom appears benevolent but goes against God’s ways and is therefore an abomination. The satanic bible is clear in one of their commandments, “do as you will”, as it is enough to be an abomination against God, and most unsuspecting people love this because they think they are free when they are in reality tied to Satan’s ways.
The law is pleasing to the flesh
Mankind has always boasted about his righteousness by trying to fulfil the law, and forgetting that it is God’s spirit in man that drives our righteousness through the desire to do what’s right, therefore man usurps God’s glory for himself to appear good and kind in the eyes of others to get favour in return for whatever reason. The flesh therefore glories in the law (Galatians 6:12-14) and legalists will always judge others by the law because they appear to fulfil the law outwardly whilst in the presence of others. Legalism causes more strife between families and other groups of people than any other thing that I can remember in my life. Just think about it, most arguments are about who is right and who did the wrong, when grace is there for us to understand and forgive one another so that we can have peace. Of course, when someone does wrong, they need to admit it and repent to turn away from their wrongdoing, but that is not done overnight. This is what bad religion is all about, i.e. religion is about man appearing holy in the eyes of others but true religion is to comfort the lonely, James 1:27.
The truth is that man cannot uphold the law without God no matter how much he tries, which is why James 2:10 says that if we sin in one aspect of the law, effectively we miss the high standard of God’s righteousness. 1 John 1:8-10 also says that if we say we have no sin the truth is not in us and we make God a liar, therefore no man can judge another until he understands how to teach others with grace, patience, and understanding, Romans 12:17-21. No man can live life without sin unless he starts walking 100% by the spirit as Jesus did. Is it possible? I have not met any. That’s why grace is so important to understand as the law is not of truth as proven by Adam and Eve’s fall when they ate from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. The law came through Moses but grace and truth came through Jesus Christ, see John 1:15-17, implying that Moses’s law was not the truth. Why was the law not of truth? Because God never wanted man to be righteous according to laws, as laws raise pride because of self-righteousness and man can never understand righteousness in conformance to God’s standards, which is exactly what happened to Adam and Eve when they ate (listening) from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil.
We just need to look around at different cultures and realize that everyone has some form of difference in their righteous ways of living, i.e. some only eat vegetables, some believe that Holy wars are good, some believe that it is okay to accept all gods even though they contradict each other, some say it’s okay to be LGTQ or tranvestite, etc. Laws create conflict amongst ourselves, and they separate us from God Who is the gold standard of righteousness through love, because love does no harm to anyone, and God is the enabler of our righteousness through faith because God’s spirit is the power/force in our heart to learn and do what is right, whereas laws are merely words written in a book that has no power/force to influence us like the spirit can.
Do we want God’s or the devil’s personality? Remember that spirit is an unseen power/force with a personality that tries to satisfy either God’s Word that leads to eternal life or the lust that is in the world that leads to eternal judgment (death), which is why God said in Deuteronomy 30:19, “I set before you life and death, choose life”.