Your Spirit is Your True Nature
David Alsobrook
For what man knoweth the things of a man, save the spirit of man which is in him? even so the things of God knoweth no man, but the Spirit of God. 1 Cor. 2:11 KJV
People think they know themselves quite well, but anyone is capable of surprising themselves in a way they didn’t think possible. “I didn’t know that was in me!” They are surprised when it turns out that they didn’t know themselves very well after all. What their minds told them about them wasn’t completely true.
This is because thought based knowledge is limited and finite. Paul said it this way, “And if anyone thinks that he knows anything, he knows nothing yet as he ought to know.” (1 Cor. 8:2 NKJV) He knows nothing as he ought to know because his knowing, Paul said, is based upon what he “thinks”.
Mark this phrase: “thinks that he knows…” and say it a few times to let it sink in. What you know about yourself may be only what you think you know. And this knowledge, he says, is “nothing”.
Knowing based on thinking is biased and fragmented because mental thinking has its basis in self (ego). Self will always present a half-truth for the whole, it will invariably distort the picture.
The good news is that you are not merely a mind-body. Paul tells us that there is another part of you that does know what is in you. In fact, there is only one part of a man that knows that man and that is the spirit in that man. Your spirit (not your mind) knows what is in you. Relying on the mind leads to all kinds of faulty reasoning and poor decision making, yet almost everyone relies on the mind despite repeated cautions against it in many Scriptures. “Lean not to your own understanding,” goes unheeded as we plow on blindly through life. (Prov. 3:5) We rely on the mind and our suffering increases.
How is it that the spirit in you is the part of you that knows “you”?
The Spirit is the Hidden Part of You
“Behold, thou desirest truth in the inward parts: and in the hidden part thou shalt make me to know wisdom.” (Psa. 51:6 KJV)
The mind is one of your inward parts, but unlike your spirit it isn’t all that hidden. The mind is quite obvious from your early days of childhood. The mind operates on the surface realm of life, and in this realm it is useful. But there is a deeper part of you, the spirit, and just as the Holy of Holies in the old temple was hidden behind curtains, the spirit part of you is hidden beneath surface life. It is also called “the secret place of the Most High” because this is where God dwells with you, connects and communicates with you, and enables you to know true wisdom. Your spirit is your secret place. It is a place where you can not only visit, but may live. You can be spirit-based in your life.
There are quite a few places in our English New Testaments where the word “spirit” is, in my view, wrongly capitalized misleading multitudes that Paul is speaking about the Third Person of the Godhead, the Holy Spirit, but where he was actually speaking about the believer’s spirit. Take Galatians 5, for only one example, where he contrasted living and walking in the spirit with living and walking in the flesh. It is obvious that Paul was speaking to the Galatians in the same manner that he spoke to the Romans. Paul said, writing in Greek, that “the mind of the flesh” produces death, but “the mind of the spirit” produces life and peace. (Rom. 8:6,7) It is a proof of our ignorance of “the spirit” that anytime Paul says “pneuma” our minds automatically run to the Godhead because “spirit” is translated “Spirit”. Where Paul says “Holy Spirit” or “Spirit of God” he is referring to the Holy Spirit. But often where our English versions read only “the Spirit” Paul’s intent was “the spirit” (human spirit). In Romans 8:6,7 the correct English translation of the Greek is “the mind of the spirit is life and peace” the King James translators rendered it as “to be spiritually minded is life and peace”.
Now, we need to be clear here that the spirit inside you is birthed by the Holy Spirit, and is joined to the Lord. (John 3:6; 1 Cor. 6:17) The divine is there in your spirit, the Holy Spirit and your spirit are one, but I am making the distinction that where Paul simply writes “pneuma” as in Galatians 5, he is contrasting the realms of flesh and spirit in each of his individual readers. He tells them that there are works of the flesh to be avoided in contrast with fruit of the spirit to be cultivated. He sees both dimensions there in each man and woman reading and hearing his letter. The traditional way of reading Galatians 5 for English readers is to attribute all the works of the flesh to the human and all the fruit of the spirit to the Holy Ghost. This is not his intention. The traditional understanding puts the flesh “in you” and the Spirit “outside you” as part of the Godhead. This was never what the apostle intended. Paul was teaching that each person has “flesh” and “spirit”, and both are capable of producing their respective qualities.
Not only is your spirit hidden from others, it is hidden from your mind. Most people don’t know that they have a spirit. They see themselves as consisting of a body with a mind in the head and emotions in the heart. They value the mind because they have seen it can be useful, and because family and society has taught them this is what they are. One of the mind’s big tricks has been to fool everyone into thinking that the mind is what they are, instead of something that they have, like a hand or a foot. The truth is that you are not a “mind” any more than you are a “body”. You are a spirit but this may be a bit much at this point so I will say that your spirit is the deepest part of you and let it go at that. You don’t need to believe that you are a spirit anyway, as belief is mostly centered in the mind and doesn’t help all that much. Let’s just accept the concept of a tripartite being for the present consideration: spirit, soul, and body. (1 Thess. 5:23)
It is only after opening up to God that someone begins to sense the spirit inside. By the phrase “opening up to God” I do not mean becoming a Christian. I mean truly opening up to God, and I cannot tell you how that is done, but when it does happen you realize you did, indeed, open up to God. (It is actually something that is done more for you than something you do.) Still, even after opening up to God, one may be leery of the “spirit” because he is centered in his head. Reliance upon the mind persists even after valid spiritual experiences. It takes more than a few experiences to bring us to the point in our lives where we place greater priority on the spirit than we do on the mind. Indeed. Few who are regarded as “spiritual” are spirit-based. That is, the base of their life is centered in the spirit of them. A person may be sincere, devout, highly moral, and highly knowledgeable of Scriptures, belief systems, and all the other regarded virtues and yet be mind-based.
The mind makes us afraid of what may happen to us if we dethrone it. It tells us we will be stupid, whereas there is far greater intelligence in the spirit than there is in the mind. It may tell us that we will become idiots, and unable to talk or drive. None of this will happen, of course, because the mind will still be able to function nicely as a servant once it is no longer your king. In fact, the mind will function better once it is not working incessantly. The “carnal mind” will surely lie to you if you listen to it. Lie, lie, lie! It is indeed the enemy of God and unable to be subjected to divine rule. (Rom. 8:6,7) Once it is defeated the carnal mind is transformed into its former state as the “natural mind”. Truth be told, we may not have seen the natural mind since childhood. Then, as your spirit gains greater ascendancy your mind is changed again into what we could call a “spiritual mind”–full of life and peace. But you don’t really need to think about these different designations.
Have you ever noticed that when Christians say the Lord has told them this or that it is usually only their thoughts they are quoting? Sure enough, a few days later the Lord contradicts himself. This is a common mistake. The voice in the head adapts a spiritual tone and deludes the well-meaning, but highly imaginative novice. It is so different when someone has truly heard God. When words are spoken out of true knowing, ears perk up because there is a deep ring of reality within the listeners. Their spirits are bearing witness to what is spoken.
When your spirit makes you know something — you know that you know that you know — it does not employ reason, imagination, or thought processing. There is no back and forth, no cogitating, no ceaseless wondering . The mind can get involved afterwards, to help translate the spirit’s impression into words to speak to others but even this is a dilution from the purity of the original knowing. The original knowing is beyond words, just as it is beyond thoughts. It is amusing to watch someone endeavor to put into words that which comes to them from beyond the mind. They make prolific use of their hands, facial expressions, different intonations, and end with the sense that despite all their efforts they haven’t quite said it rightly. That is because anything of the spiritual realm cannot be said exactly as it is. Languages, all of them, are products of the mind. Paul knew well this inadequacy and taught that spiritual things “are spiritually discerned” saying that we are able to comprehend the realm of the spiritual through “the mind of Christ” which we now have. (1 Cor. 2:12-16) The word “spiritual” means “of the spirit” — referencing an activated spirit. Jesus, whose words were “life and spirit” to those who heard them, often used metaphors, analogies, and parables. One finds the phrase “is like unto” when he was endeavoring to use something in the physical world to compare to the spiritual dimension. When it comes to speech that stays only in “the flesh” (the natural), Jesus said there was no profit to the hearers. (John 6:63)
What your spirit knows it is clear, quick, and full of light. Just sit with “the knowing” and don’t try to formulate it into thoughts. Stay with what is made known for a while. It is meant for you and you don’t need to even understand it with the mind. Recognize the compulsion to mentally formulate spiritual insight as an ego device in the flesh. The mind hates when it is ignored (until it finally gives up, and it will) but you can put it in its place by refusing to listen to it. Instead, you can go more deeply into your spirit and “soak” in the knowing that still abides there. As you allow the mind to grow still, the spirit becomes more pronounced, more preeminent. Jesus said, “God is Spirit.” (John 4:24 WNT) This Spirit to spirit connection is heaven on earth.
You will never be able to know God so long as you depend on the mind. Paul makes this very clear in our opening verse’s context:
But God has revealed them to us through His Spirit. For the Spirit searches all things, even the depths of God. For who knows the things of a man, except the spirit of the man which is in him? Even so, no one knows the things of God except the Spirit of God. Now we did not receive the spirit of the world, but the Spirit which is from God, in order that we might know the things granted to us by God… (1 Cor. 2:10-12 EMTV)
Resign from the Mind
Once knowing by the spirit in you
has begun, it will continue and
increase. Indeed, once you are totally
open it will proceed in a fast way…as
long as you don’t fall back into the
mind.
I was recently preaching on love and
during the message this phrase
came out spontaneously, “Resign
from the mind. It is a poor
prognosticator of the future,
misinterprets the present, and
believes the past actually exists.”
Resign from the mind. Don’t try to
make it better, argue with it and
carry on those futile, never ending
conversations inside your head.
Make it your servant and use it only
when needed for practical matters.
The power in your spirit is
infinitely greater than the mind. It
will let go of you after you resign
from it. The mind will then relax and
enjoy the quiet. It won’t
disturb the peace as before.
Your Spirit
is
Your True Nature
It is vitally important to understand how your spirit is your God connection in this world.
My prayer is that this article gave you greater understanding on your true nature.
Am considerably behind in financial areas. Anything the Lord lays on your heart will be a great help now.
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