Ⅷ
In order to cooperate with God to preserve our soul in sanctification, we must clear the three main "arteries" of our psychological heart, the parts of our soul—our mind, emotion, and will—cf. Psa. 43:4; Neh. 8:10; 1 John 1:4; Jer. 15:16:
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In order for our soul to be sanctified, our mind must be renewed to be the mind of Christ (Rom. 12:2), our emotion must be touched and saturated with the love of Christ (Eph. 3:17, 19), our will must be subdued by and infused with the resurrected Christ (Phil. 2:13), and we must love the Lord with our whole being (Mark 12:30).
Ｂ
The way to unclog the three main arteries of our psychological heart is to make a thorough confession to the Lord; we need to stay with the Lord for a period of time, asking Him to bring us fully into the light, and in the light of what He exposes, we need to confess our defects, failures, defeats, mistakes, wrongdoings, and sins— 1 John 1:5-9:
１
In order to unclog the artery of our mind, we need to confess everything that is sinful in our thoughts and in our way of thinking.
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In order to unclog the artery of our will, we need to confess the germs of rebellion in our will.
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In order to unclog the artery of our emotion, we need to confess the natural and even fleshy way that we have expressed our joy and sorrow; also, in many cases we hate what we should love, and we love what we should hate— cf. Rev. 2:4, 6.
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If we take the time necessary to unclog the three main arteries of our psychological heart, we will have the sense that our entire being has become living and is in a very healthy condition.
Ⅸ
In order to cooperate with God to preserve our body in sanctification, we must present our body to Him so that we may live a holy life for the church life, practicing the Body life in order to carry out God's perfect will—Rom. 12:1-2; 1 Thes. 4:4; 5:18:
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Our fallen body, the flesh, is the "meeting hall" of Satan, sin, and death, but by Christ's redemption and in the regenerated spirit as the "meeting hall" of the Father, the Son, and the Spirit, our body is a member of Christ and the temple of the Holy Spirit—Rom. 6:6, 12, 14; 7:11, 17-25; 8:2-3; 1 Cor. 6:15, 19.
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To preserve our body is to glorify God in our body—v. 20.
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To preserve our body is to magnify Christ in our body—Phil. 1:20.
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To preserve our body, we must not live according to our soul, the old man; then the body of sin will lose its job and become unemployed—Rom. 6:6.
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To preserve our body, we must not present our body to anything that is sinful but instead present ourselves as slaves to righteousness and our members as weapons of righteousness—vv. 13, 18-19, 22; 1 Thes. 4:3-5.
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To preserve our body, we must buffet it and lead it as a slave to fulfill our holy purpose to become the holy city—1 Cor. 9:27; Rev. 21:2.
Morning Nourishment
1 John 1:7 But if we walk in the light as He is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus His Son cleanses us from every sin. (9) If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.Our psychological heart has three main arteries. These arteries… are also the three parts of the soul, …the mind, the will, and the emotion….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.
In order to unclog the artery of our mind, we need to confess everything that is sinful in our thoughts and in our way of thinking. By confessing our thoughts one by one, we shall remove the blockage from this artery.
If we go to the Lord concerning our will, He will expose it in a thorough and detailed way….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….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…. We shall realize that in many cases we hate what we should love, and love what we should hate…. 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. (Life-study of 1 Thessalonians, pp. 209-211)
Today’s Reading
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.We must also know how to preserve our body. Sin has damaged and ruined our body…. Romans 6:6 says that our body is a “body of sin.” Furthermore, we have presented the members of our fallen body to sin, to evil, to lawlessness. If we do not follow the old man, the body of sin will be made of none effect [cf. Rom. 6:6] …. 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. 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….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… [charges us] to abstain from fornication …to preserve our vessel, our body, in sanctification and honor [1 Thes. 4:3]. Therefore, in order to preserve our body, we should not present our members to anything sinful. Do not think that as you grow older you will not need to guard yourself from lust and defilement. As long as we have not been transfigured and still remain in the old creation, we need to preserve our body.
In 5:12-24 we see the cooperation of the holy life with the divine operation….The way to cooperate is to rejoice, pray unceasingly, give thanks to Him in everything, not quench the Spirit, and not despise prophesying in the church meetings…. In this way, our spirit will be preserved from deadness, our soul will be preserved from pollution in mind, will, and emotion, and our body will be preserved from the defilement of this age. Then in a practical way we shall have a holy life for the church life. (Life-study of 1 Thessalonians, pp. 211-214)
Further Reading: Life-study of 1 Thessalonians, msg. 24; CWWL, 1975-1976, vol. 1, “The Flesh and the Spirit,” ch. 1