The spirit within man not only has its need but also has its feeling. The body has its physical feelings. When a person is cut by a knife or beaten with a rod, he feels pain outwardly; this is the feeling of the body. When someone is ridiculed or rebuked, he feels pain inwardly. This is not a physical feeling but a psychological feeling, a feeling of the soul. Beside these two kinds of feelings, the physical feeling and the psychological feeling, there is another kind of feeling which is in the deepest part of man. Sometimes we feel pain and sorrow in our deepest part. That feeling of pain is not physical or psychological. It is deeper than the psychological feeling; it is the feeling of the spirit.
Many times you want to do a certain thing. Your mind thinks it is reasonable, and your relatives and friends all approve of it and consider it sensible, but there is something in your deepest part, your innermost part, that disagrees with it and says it is wrong. There is a feeling in your deepest part; this feeling is the feeling in your spirit, which transcends the physical feeling and the psychological feeling. It transcends the mind and intellect, and it transcends the soul. The feeling of the spirit is not psychological or mental, and even the more it is not physical. Rather, it is a feeling in the deepest part of man. In particular, when one does something immoral or something shameful, in his depths he feels unsettled or uneasy. His intellect, his mind, his consideration, and his thought may let him go, but this feeling in his deepest part does not let him go. Regardless of how his intellect agrees with it and how his thought justifies it, the feeling of his spirit deep within him neither approves or justifies it.
The spirit was created by God for man to contact Him; hence, the feeling of the spirit is especially keen with respect to God. The spirit of man causes him not only to sense the need for God but also to sense God Himself. Very often the mind and intellect of man consider the existence of God illogical, yet the spirit of man senses that there is God. Very often the mind and thought of man cannot perceive the things of God, yet the spirit of man can sense the things of God. The sense of the spirit is a direct faculty for man to perceive God. It is through the sense of the spirit that God enables man to know Him and perceive the things that are of Him. Because man has the sense of the spirit and is able to know God and perceive the things of God, man can worship and serve God. Since man can know God and perceive the things of God only through the sense of the spirit, man must worship and serve God through and in the spirit.
Therefore, the fundamental matter of service is a matter of our spirit and the Spirit. God is Spirit, and we have a spirit within us. God as Spirit wants our spirit to serve Him. Therefore, service is a matter of our spirit serving the Spirit, that is, the spirit of man serving, worshipping, contacting, and having fellowship with the Spirit of God. Only this kind of service is the true service.
The religions of the world teach people how to worship and serve God. That worship and service, according to the Lord’s word, are mostly not true. Even the worship and service in our midst today also may not be completely true, and it is possible, even very likely, that some of them are not true at all. Much of the worship and service that we consider right and good may in fact be wrong and not true in the Lord’s eyes because they are not rendered in spirit. Only the worship and service rendered in spirit are the true worship and service.