Elihu realized that there is a spirit in man which is the reality of man before God (Job 32:8, 18).
David asked God for a willing spirit in the enjoyment of God’s salvation (Psa. 51:12). In the Old Testament, David realized that in order to enjoy God’s salvation, we need a willing spirit.
Mary was in the New Testament, but she was an Old Testament saint. The spirit of Mary had exulted in God her Savior, so that her soul magnified the Lord (Luke 1:46-47).
For us to experience Christ as life in the dynamic salvation of God, we must know our spirit. Our first experience of Christ as life is our regeneration by the Spirit in our spirit (John 3:3, 6). Then our spirit witnesses with the Spirit that we are the children of God (Rom. 8:16; cf. 9:1). Now that we are saved, something within always helps us to realize that we are the children of God. That is our human spirit.
We have the spirit of the sonship of God in which we cry, “Abba, Father” (Rom. 8:15). After we were regenerated, it became sweet to cry, “Abba, Father,” because our spirit has become a spirit of sonship. We have the Lord within us in our spirit. Second Timothy 4:22 says, “The Lord be with your spirit.” The dwelling place of God is in our spirit (Eph. 2:22).
God is Spirit and we need to exercise our spirit to worship Him (John 4:24). Only spirit can worship Spirit. Furthermore, we must serve God in the newness of our spirit (Rom. 7:6b). In the church, if you serve God by your body or by your soul, you are old. People can sense this oldness. The newness in God’s service is in our spirit.
Ephesians 1:17 shows that we receive wisdom and revelation with our spirit. Paul prayed that God would give us a “spirit of wisdom and revelation.” In 3:5 he said that the New Testament revelation concerning Christ and the church was revealed to the apostles and prophets in their spirit. He also prayed in 3:16 that we would be strengthened into our spirit, our inner man. Then he said in 4:23 that we are to be renewed in the spirit of our mind. The mind needs to be filled with our spirit. Also, 5:18 indicates that we need to be filled with God in our spirit. Paul said that the believers should not be drunk with wine but should be filled in their spirit with God. To be drunk is to fill up our body with wine, but to be filled in our spirit is to be filled with God.
We need to set our mind on our spirit so that we may enjoy the indwelling Christ, the pneumatic Christ, as the indwelling Spirit to be our life and peace (Rom. 8:6b, 9-11). We have the Spirit of God as the pneumatic Christ in our spirit, but not in our mind, so we must set our mind on the spirit. Then the Spirit of God within our spirit will come to fill up our mind, and we will enjoy the indwelling Christ as our life and our peace.
Ephesians 6:18 says that we need to pray at every time in our spirit. Ephesians has six chapters. Every chapter has a verse concerning our human spirit:
1:17—a spirit of wisdom and revelation
2:22—God dwells in our spirit
3:5—revelation in our spirit
3:16—strengthened into our spirit
4:23—renewed in the spirit of our mind
5:18—being filled in our spirit with God
6:18—praying always in our spirit
If you take these verses away from Ephesians, it becomes an empty book. This shows that we need to live and walk with God in and according to our spirit (Rom. 8:4b).
In our work to minister Christ for the producing and building up of His Body to carry out God’s eternal economy, we need to be burning in our spirit (Rom. 12:11) by fanning into flame the gift of God in our spirit, which is of power, love, and sobermindedness (2 Tim. 1:6-7).
We can see this by the examples of the apostles. They worked by exercising their spirit. Paul served God in his spirit (Rom. 1:9). He was provoked in his spirit by the worship of idols in Athens (Acts 17:16). He also purposed in his spirit to go to Jerusalem (19:21). He made this decision not in his mind but in his spirit. He was going bound in his spirit to Jerusalem (20:22). Apollos was fervent in his spirit in speaking Christ (18:25). John was in his spirit to see the four great visions concerning the church (Rev. 1:10—3:22), the destiny of the world (4:2—16:21), Babylon the great (the Roman Catholic Church) and her termination by Christ’s second coming to establish His kingdom of one thousand years (17:3—20:15), and the New Jerusalem in the new heaven and new earth (21:1—22:5). This is the entire book of Revelation. Revelation covers these four big visions. We too need to be in our spirit to see the visions in this book. It is a matter not merely of mental understanding in our mind but of spiritual realization in our spirit.