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We need to receive the living and operative word of God with a praying spirit so that we can build up our new man and so that we may be able to discern our spirit from our soul—Heb. 4:12:
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The enemy’s strategy is always to mix our spirit up with our soul; our greatest problem is our mixture; the more we know God by being filled with His light, His presence, the more we will treasure purity over power—Matt. 5:8; Luke 11:34-36; Psa. 119:105, 130.
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The way to purge such mixture is through the revelation of the Holy Spirit; the dividing of the soul and the spirit occurs when God’s word illuminates us, shining within us to reveal the thoughts and intentions of our heart—36:9; 1 Pet. 2:9.
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Whatever we see under the shining of God from the word of God is killed by the light; the greatest thing in the Christian experience is the killing that comes from light; the dividing of the soul and the spirit comes from the shining—Isa. 6:1-8; Acts 9:1-4; 13:9-10.
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Revelation is seeing what God sees; it is God opening our eyes to see our intentions and the deepest thoughts in our being as God sees them; as soon as God exposes our thoughts and shows us the intentions of our heart, our soul will be separated, divided, from our spirit.
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Apart from pray-reading, the book of Proverbs is merely a collection of proverbs, but when we read Proverbs prayerfully, that is, when we pray-read Proverbs, our pray-reading causes all the proverbs to become words of spirit and life to us.
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We should not come to Proverbs as a letter-keeper but as a God-seeker; we should be those who seek God with all our heart, who seek God’s favor by entreating His countenance, who ask God to cause His face to shine upon us, and who walk in God’s presence—Psa. 27:8; 105:4; 119:2, 10, 58, 135, 168; 2 Cor. 3:6.
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Ephesians 4:22-24 tells us clearly that a believer in Christ has two men—the old man and the new man; the old man is of Adam through our natural birth, and the new man is of Christ by a new birth, regeneration; we need to live a life of putting off the old man and putting on the new man; according to God’s economy, Proverbs should not be used to cultivate and build up our old man but to cultivate and build up our regenerated new man:
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In order to enter into the intrinsic significance of the book of Proverbs according to God’s economy, we need to be those who are living according to the new creation (Gal. 6:15); the old creation is our old man in Adam (Eph. 4:22), our natural being by birth, without God’s life and the divine nature; the new creation is the new man in Christ (v. 24), our being that is regenerated by the Spirit (John 3:6), having God’s life and the divine nature wrought into it (v. 36; 2 Pet. 1:4), having Christ as its constituent (Col. 3:10-11), and having become a new constitution.
Morning Nourishment
Heb. 4:12 For the word of God is living and operative and sharper than any two-edged sword, and piercing even to the dividing of soul and spirit,…able to discern the thoughts and intentions of the heart.2 Tim. 1:6-7 For which cause I remind you to fan into flame the gift of God, which is in you….For God has not given us a spirit of cowardice, but of power and of love and of sobermindedness.
The Hebrew believers were wondering what they should do with their old Hebrew religion…. So the writer of this book said that the word of God, that is, what was quoted from the Old Testament, could pierce into their wondering like a sharp two-edged sword and divide their soul from their spirit. As the marrow is concealed deep in the joints, so the spirit is deep in the soul. The dividing of the marrow from the joints requires mainly the breaking of the joints. In the same principle, the dividing of the spirit from the soul requires the breaking of the soul. The Hebrew believers’ soul, with its wondering mind, its doubting concerning God’s way of salvation, and its considering of its own interests, had to be broken by the living, operative, and piercing word of God that their spirit might be divided from their soul. (Heb. 4:12, footnote 2)
Today’s Reading
In Hebrews 4:12 the word discern is used….Quite often our thoughts are deceiving. But if we exercise our spirit, there is a discernment that our thoughts are evil, because behind our thoughts there is an evil intention. To discern the thoughts and intents of the heart equals the dividing of the soul from the spirit….The enemy’s strategy is always to mix our spirit up with our soul. In today’s world nearly everyone is in a mixed situation. They mix up their spirit with their soul. Whenever such mixing is there, the spirit loses and the soul wins.Before a brother begins to talk to his wife about another brother, he has to consider, “Is this of my spirit or of my soul?” If it is of his soul, what he says will be either gossip or criticism. If it is of his spirit, what he says will be something led by the Lord. This shows that we have to discern our spirit from our soul.
Actually, our person, our being, is quite complicated …because we have three parts. We have the flesh, which is bad; the spirit, which is good; and the soul, which is in between. We should always follow our spirit and walk in all things according to our spirit. This is according to Romans 8:4. We should always be on the alert to discern anything that is not of the spirit but of the soul. Then we will remain in the spirit all the time. This is to exercise, to use, to employ, our spirit.
It is easy to know what is of the flesh and what is of the spirit; but quite often it is a very mixed-up situation between what is of the soul and what is of the spirit.
Our Christian walk is a very fine walk. If we are going to walk according to our spirit, we must learn not to do things too fast or to say things too quickly. It is safe to wait awhile. I have had this experience in writing answers to letters. Sometimes I will write a letter and then keep it for another day before I mail it. The next day a new thought might come to me to include in that letter, or I may realize that I said something wrong. To wait in this way helps us to walk according to our spirit.
Within us there is a battle between the spirit and the flesh and even more between the spirit and the soul. So we have to exercise our spirit, to use our spirit, that is, to fan our spirit into flame. Then we should learn how to control our mind by setting our mind on our spirit. We should also always discern what is of the spirit and what is of the soul. If something is not of the spirit, we do not want to say it or do it. This is to use, to exercise, our spirit. I hope that we will practice using our spirit until we build up a strong habit of exercising our spirit. (CWWL, 1993, vol. 2, “The Spirit with Our Spirit,” pp. 186-187)
Further Reading: CWWN, vol. 54, “The Breaking of the Outer Man and the Release of the Spirit,” chs. 7-8; CWWL, 1993, vol. 2, “The Spirit with Our Spirit,” ch. 8