Romans 8:14
- The Lamp of the Lord — God guides us through our spirit, not our physical senses or our mentality.
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God will enlighten us ... He will guide us by His Spirit.
He is Love.
Therefore if you are to walk in the light of the Spirit you must walk in love.
You must be love led.
You must be Word led.
When you are ... you will walk an unfailing life of peace, joy, goodness, and favor and so much more.
Anytime we walk outside of God's Word and Spirit of love we find ourselves off track. People often do this by trying to follow their feelings ... which is the realm of the soul
~ Spirit trumps Soul.
We are to be Spirit led ... not senses led.
We are to be Spirit led ... not senses led.
To be sense led is not faith. The Sense (soul realm) has to do with the 5 senses "sight, hearing, touch, taste, and smelling" ... and senses are often deceived.
Something may look one way and be another. It may sound like one thing, but be another ... and so forth. But the Spirit is the deeper man, operating from pure Truth. It is the unseen man. Peter calls this the hidden man of the heart. Since faith is the substance of things hoped for and the evidence of things not seen. To walk in faith and be led by the Spirit, is to be led by the inner most parts.
- Man: An Eternal Spirit ~ Gen. 1:26-27
Man is a Spirit, has a Soul, and lives in a Body.
— There is a difference between our inward man and our outward man.
The inward man is a spirit. God does something with the inward man, but not the outward man. We must do something with the outward man.
~ God transforms us from within ... The Word renews our thinking and gives us light to live by. ~ Psalms 119:130 The entrance of thy words giveth light; it giveth understanding unto the simple ... but it is up to us to respond to God's Word and walk in the light. It is up to us to mentally side with the Word so our minds are renewed to proper arenas of thinking.
Often times I hear people say the life of God has nothing to do with mental assent. That is a lack of understanding. We must give assent to the Word of God if we are ever to have our minds renewed, now, the life of God IS MORE THAN mental assent.
It is first mentally agreeing with God's Word, but the Word then drops into the very deep part of man (Spirit) and becomes an active part of who he or she is ... but it does begin with mentally agreeing with God's Word.
Once our minds are changed and the Word is written within our heart ... our actions change. However, if we rebel against it, or fail to give assent to God's Word we will continue in our own stinking thinking, and our actions remain the same.
The Good News is ... when we side with God, change our minds and do things God's way, we find ourselves living a wonderful life that is filled with love, joy, peace and all manner of blessing. We live the life Jesus offered us ... life and that more abundant.
The outer man (body and soul ... the place of the senses) will one day decease. But the inward man(Spirit) will live eternally. ~ II Cor. 4:16
When Jesus talked to Nicodemus in John chapter 3 about the New Birth. He was talking about a Spiritual renewal. He was not saying to be go back into the womb and be reborn. He was talking about a totally New life given by the Spirit.
He told Nicodemus ..."unless a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God." One must have Spirit eyes to see the kingdom of God. Natural man can not see it. And one cannot have Spirit eyes without Spiritual renewal (new birth).
Since Nicodemus being natural could only think naturally ... he said ... "how is it a man can be born over when he is old?" He was thinking of the natural birth ... vs. the Spirit birth that Jesus was speaking.
This is why Jesus said to him, "that which is born of the flesh is of the flesh ... but that which is born of the Spirit is Spirit."
Once we give assent to the truth of God's Word [Romans 10:9-10] we are born again ... God's Spirit moves in and will lead us as we allow. When we are born again ... we have been born and come alive to the Spirit. This is when old things pass away (are let go of) and all things become new (beginning with the renewal of the mind).
From this born again spirit nature, we are lead into all truth (II Cor. 5:17) ... even into the truth of being filled to an overflow with the Holy Spirit (with the evidence of other tongues according to John chapters 14-16 and Acts chapters 1-4. Once we receive the Baptism of the Holy Ghost with the evidence of other tongues we are empowered to be the witnesses we are intended to be.
This ends the first session of 'What is Being Led by the Spirit?' Next Session ... "Spirit Consciousness"
