The first item of the sense of life is satisfaction. How do you know there is life within? There is satisfaction. You are satisfied and you sense the satisfaction. Then following satisfaction you have the sense of strengthening. When you are taking sides with the spirit, you also have the sense of refreshment. The sense of being watered is another sense of life. A person who is setting his mind on the spirit also senses enlightenment and the anointing (1 John 2:20, 27). The sense of life is the sense of satisfaction, strengthening, refreshing, watering, enlightenment, and anointing. When you sense all these items deep within, that is the sense of life, and this sense proves you are walking according to spirit.
To set the mind on the spirit is not only life but peace. The peace mentioned in Romans 8:6 is not the peace in our outward circumstances, but the peace within us. The sense of peace is firstly the sense of ease or comfort. Then following this there is harmony. There is no struggle or strife within. Rest, joy, and liberty are also included in the sense of peace. When you sense peace, you sense comfort, harmony, rest, joy, and liberty. These are the different aspects of the sense of peace. If we sense these things within us, this proves we are walking in the spirit.
Whenever you take sides with the flesh the result is death. You know death because you can sense it. You have the feeling, the consciousness of death. When you do things according to the flesh or according to your self you sense dissatisfaction and emptiness. Something within is also weakening you. This proves you are not in the spirit, but in the flesh or the soul. Oldness, dryness, darkness, and depression are other aspects of the sense of death versus the sense of life. Strife, discord, discomfort, restlessness, pain, bondage, and grief are aspects of the sense of death versus the sense of peace. When you have all these kinds of feelings, then you know where you are-you are in death. Don’t argue or reason. Even if what you are doing is good and “holy” you must check with your inner feeling. Do you have the ease, harmony, rest, comfort, joy, or liberty?
If you have these positive inward registrations and feelings, this proves you are in the spirit. If you don’t have these kinds of feelings, regardless of how holy, how good, and how scriptural you consider a course of action to be, you are not in the spirit, but in the self, in the flesh. The Christian life is a life absolutely according to the spirit. It is not according to any reasons, any teachings, or any standard of right or wrong, good or bad, worldly or holy. Our Christian life is according to spirit, and we know the spirit by the inner sense of life and peace.
If I come to a place to minister the Word, it is quite possible for me to speak in my self and by my self. If I’m speaking the word of God and for God and yet I’m speaking by my self, I will sense the emptiness, dissatisfaction, and dryness within. The Christian walk, the Christian life, the Christian activity is not according to the standard of good or bad, but absolutely according to the spirit. If we would know this one thing and be ruled and controlled by it, the Lord would transform our inward being and our daily life.
Don’t argue with the inner sense of life and peace. Don’t say that something is good, scriptural, or holy. Don’t reason and don’t argue that what you are doing is for the gospel or for the church. The test is-do you have the inner sense of life and peace? The more you reason with this sense, the more you argue, the more you will sense death within you. We can know the spirit just by this inner sense. If we are going to differentiate the spirit and the soul, we must deny the rational mind, emotion, and will all the time and take care of the inner sense.
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