Second Corinthians 3:17 states that the Lord is the Spirit, Romans 8:16 reveals that the Spirit witnesses with our spirit, and 1 Corinthians 6:17 says that he who is joined to the Lord is one spirit. These verses reveal that the Lord who is the Spirit is living, dwelling, working, moving, and acting in our spirit. They also show us that if we desire to know the Lord in a practical way and to experience Him in our daily life, we must learn to discern our spirit. If we do not know our human spirit, we cannot understand God’s moving within us and cannot follow the Lord, because the Lord today is the Spirit living within our spirit.
If we have followed the Lord for some time, we may know in a general way that the Lord is within us, but we may not know exactly where the Lord is within us. Human beings are composed of many parts. Psalm 51:6 says, “Behold, You delight in truth in the inward parts; / And in the hidden part You would make known wisdom to me.” This verse speaks of inward parts (plural) and a hidden part (singular). God desires truth in the inward parts, and in the hidden part He causes us to know wisdom. What are the inward parts, and what is the hidden part? As Christians we need to understand these matters.
Human beings have many inward parts. These parts include the spirit, the soul, the heart, the mind, the emotion, the will, and the conscience. We may be very clear about the outward parts of our physical body, but we may not know much about our inward parts. The Scriptures tell us that the Lord is in our spirit (2 Tim. 4:22). Thus, it is very important for us to discern our spirit and to realize that our spirit is different from our soul, heart, mind, emotion, and will. We may be clear that our spirit and our body are different, but we must also be clear that our spirit is different from the other inward parts of our being.
Ezekiel 36:26 helps us to see that our heart and our spirit are not the same. This verse begins, “I will also give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you.” In this verse the Lord gives us a new heart and also puts a new spirit within us. This shows that the heart and the spirit are two different things. To understand the difference between these two, we need to know the function of the heart and the function of the spirit. Mark 12:30 reveals that the function of the heart is to love the Lord. This verse begins with the charge, “You shall love the Lord your God from your whole heart.” Second Timothy 4:22 and John 4:24 reveal that the function of the spirit is to receive and contact the Lord. Second Timothy 4:22 says, “The Lord be with your spirit,” and John 4:24 says, “God is Spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truthfulness.”
We often say that we love the Lord or that we have fellowship with the Lord. We must be clear, however, which part of our being we should use to do these things. For example, suppose you love a certain book very much. You may love the book with your heart, but you cannot take and receive the book with your heart. If you wish to take the book, you must use your hand. With regard to a book, the heart is the loving organ and the hand is the receiving organ. Just as our heart is the organ that we use to love a book, our heart is also the organ that we use to love the Lord. We love the Lord with our heart, but we cannot receive the Lord with our heart. Rather, we receive the Lord with our spirit. At the time of our regeneration, the Lord created a new heart and a new spirit within us. He gave us a new heart so that we could love Him, and He put a new spirit within us so that we could receive Him into us. Many Christians believe that as long as we love the Lord, we will be spiritual people. To them all that matters is the heart. This is wrong, because, as we have seen, we cannot receive the Lord with our heart. With our heart we can love the Lord, but if we desire to receive and contact the Lord and to have fellowship with Him, we must learn how to discern and exercise our spirit.
The Scriptures reveal that the heart is composed of four parts—the conscience, the mind, the emotion, and the will. Hebrews 10:22 says, “Let us come forward to the Holy of Holies with a true heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience and having our bodies washed with pure water.” This verse shows us that the conscience is part of the heart, because the verse says that our heart can be sprinkled from an evil conscience. Matthew 9:4 says, “Jesus, knowing their thoughts, said, Why are you thinking evil things in your hearts?” This verse tells us that the heart can think evil thoughts. This reveals that the mind, our thinking organ, is part of the heart. John 16:22 says that our heart can rejoice, and Romans 10:1 states that pleasure is related to our heart. These two verses reveal that the emotion is part of the heart. Finally, Hebrews 4:12 makes it clear that the will is a part of the heart. This verse says that the Word of God is able to discern the thoughts and intentions of the heart. Intentions are something of the will. Thus, we can see that the heart is composed of the conscience, the mind, the emotion, and the will. The sum of these four parts is the heart.
The mind, emotion, and will, which are all parts of the heart, are also the three parts that make up the soul, that is, the natural life, the self. These three parts are not parts of the spirit. Thus, if we desire to know the Lord and to follow Him, we should not endeavor to do so according to our mind, emotion, or will. If we are following our mind, emotion, or will, this indicates that we are not following the Lord, because the Lord is not in these parts but in our spirit. Often we think so much that we quench our spirit. At other times we do things that are against the Lord because we are so strong in our will. Moreover, we often find ourselves under the influence of our emotion, and this causes us to go against the Lord. This shows us that if we want to follow the Lord, we must deny our mind, emotion, and will. We must deny all these parts of our inner being and follow the spirit. When we follow the spirit, we follow the Lord Himself, because the Lord is in our spirit. He is not in our mind, emotion, or will but in our spirit.
The Lord is in our spirit. Hence, it is critical for us to learn to discern our spirit and to know the difference between our spirit and our mind, emotion, and will. If we do not know this difference, we will often find our fellowship with the Lord frustrated. For example, many times while we are praying, we sense the presence of the Lord and have genuine fellowship with Him in spirit. Often, however, while we are having such fellowship, we suddenly exercise our mind and begin to think about or remember something. When we do this, immediately our fellowship with the Lord stops. Our fellowship with the Lord is hindered by our thinking and our mind. Our mind is often a source of trouble to us. Perhaps our mind is bothered by a certain brother. In our mind we are not happy with this brother, and the more we think about him, the more we want to give him up. However, while our mind is thinking about giving him up, we have an entirely different sense in our spirit. In our innermost part we have the feeling that we must love this brother. At such a time we need to decide whether we will follow our mind or our spirit. To follow the mind is to follow the self; to follow the spirit is to follow the Lord. In such a situation we must give up the self and tell the Lord, “Lord, I do not agree with my mind; I agree with my spirit. I reject my mind, and I take my spirit.” This experience illustrates a basic principle—the way to follow the Lord is to do things not according to our mind with its thoughts but according to the inner sense and the deep consciousness in the innermost part of our being. We need to follow this deep inner sense because it is the sense of the Lord in our spirit.
If we desire to follow the Lord, we must deny our emotion in addition to denying our mind with its thoughts. Once a sister who was a co-worker came to me and said, “Brother Lee, I simply do not like the sister who is working together with me.” This sister had a problem with her emotion. According to the feeling in her emotion, she did not like her sister. After this sister told me her situation, I said to her, “Sister, although you may not like your fellow sister, what is your sense in your innermost part?” When I asked her this question, tears began to roll down her face, and she said, “To be honest, in my innermost part I have the feeling that I must work with this sister and that I must love her.” Then I asked her, “What are you going to follow? Are you going to go along with your own desire in your emotion, or are you going to go along with your innermost part, your spirit?” She answered me, “I know that I must go along with my spirit, but I do not want to do this.” Then I told her, “Please do not tell this to me; tell it to the Lord. Tell the Lord that although you know that you must follow your spirit, you do not want to.” After hearing my answer, the sister replied, “Brother Lee, I do not want to go to the Lord because I already know what He will say.” Then I answered by telling her, “Sister, you must go to the Lord. If you do not go to Him today, you will have to go to Him tomorrow, and if you do not go to Him in this age, you will have to go to Him in the next. Eventually, you will have to meet the Lord. You have come to me, but I cannot help you. If you go to the Lord, the Lord will be able to help you. You must go to the Lord.” This story applies to all of us. When we are troubled in our emotion, we must not follow our emotion; we must follow our spirit. If we do not want to follow our spirit, we must go to the Lord and open to Him. If we go to the Lord, the Lord will strengthen us to follow Him in our spirit (Phil. 2:13).
Sisters are often troubled by their emotion, but brothers are more often troubled by their will. Many brothers have a strong will; once they make a decision, they cannot change it. I once had a co-worker who had a very strong will. Once he had made a decision, no one could change him. One time he made the decision to go to a certain place to work, even though we all felt that it was not the Lord’s will for him to do so. We told him how we all felt, but he gave us reason after reason why he had decided to go. Faced with his strong will, we had no choice but to send him. However, on the day that this brother intended to move to this new place, the Lord met him. He tried numerous times to leave, but each time the Lord intervened and prevented him from leaving. After his third attempt, I asked this brother, “Brother, how do you feel in your spirit?” I did not want to know how he felt in his mind or in his will; I wanted to know how he felt in his spirit. This brother answered, “Last night I was clear in my innermost part that I should not go.” When he gave me this answer, I realized how strong his will was. He was so strong in his will that even when he was clear in his spirit that the Lord’s will was against his own will, he still could not change his will. We need to realize that if we are going to follow the Lord, we cannot be this way. We must be simple and must deny our mind, emotion, and will in order to follow the feeling in the deepest part of our being. This is where the Lord is. The more we follow our inner consciousness and our deepest feeling, the more we will sense the presence of the Lord, enjoy the Lord, and experience the Lord.
When we go along with our spirit and follow the sense in our spirit, there will be a result—Christ will make His home in our hearts. Ephesians 3:16-17 says, “That He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with power through His Spirit into the inner man, that Christ may make His home in your hearts through faith.” The Lord is dwelling in our spirit. When we go along with Him, the Father strengthens our spirit by His Spirit. This opens the way for the Lord to make His home in our heart and in our entire inner being. This means that the Lord fills our mind, emotion, will, and conscience. This is the Lord’s desire, and this is the right way for us to experience the Lord. We may know that we need to be filled with the Lord and transformed into His image, but how can this take place? The way is for us to realize that the Lord as the Spirit is living, dwelling, and working in our spirit, to see that our spirit is different from our mind, emotion, will, and heart, and to give up what is not the spirit and follow the sense in our spirit. If we go along with our spirit, our spirit will be strengthened by the Spirit, and the result will be that Christ will make His home in our hearts and fill all our inward parts with Himself. Then Christ will be everything within us, and our whole being will be filled with Christ. This is the way to follow the Lord and to live the genuine Christian life.