Paul wrote 2 Timothy 1:6-7 according to his experience. He reminded Timothy to fan into flame the gift of God within him. Then he said that God has not given us a spirit of cowardice. Instead, God has given us a spirit in the center of our being surrounded by the three parts of the soul— the will, the emotion, and the mind. The spirit given to us by God is of power, of love, and of sobermindedness. Power belongs to our will. Love belongs to our emotion. Sobermindedness belongs to our mind. God has given us a spirit of these three things. Our will should be strong, full of power; our emotion should be loving, full of love; and our mind should be sober, full of sobermindedness.

According to the divine revelation, God does not give us a spirit of cowardice, but a spirit of power. That means your spirit is connected to your will, which is powerful. So whenever you exercise your spirit, you have to realize that your will is involved. Our spirit is surrounded not only by the powerful will but also by the loving emotion and by the sober mind. That means your mind should not be cloudy or foggy, but very clear, very sober.

Paul had the revelation of this and also the experience. Verses 6 and 7 of 2 Timothy 1 are marvelous. These verses show us that we saved ones have the capital to live the Christian life and the church life. This capital is the God-given spirit. This God-given spirit, according to God's ordination, is surrounded by the power of our will, by the love of our emotion, and by the sobermindedness of our mind. These three helpers are surrounding our spirit, not to depress us, but rather to uplift us and help us.

We have to exercise such a God-given spirit. The capital for a person to run in a race is his God-created legs. Without God creating two legs for you, how could you run? You have no capital to run. In like manner, if God did not give us a spirit, we would not have the capital to run the Christian race. But today we have a great account, a great deposit in the bank. We have a God-given spirit. As long as we have the God-given spirit, we have power, love, and a sober mind with a clear sky.

To say that we have the capital means that we have the capacity. We can do things because we have the capacity of power. We should not say that we do not love people, because we have the capacity of love. We should not say that we are in darkness, because we have the capacity of sobermindedness with a clear sky. We should declare, "My sky is not cloudy; my sky is clear," because this is our capacity.

Quite often we are cheated and deceived by the enemy. We say that we are weak and cloudy. But when we say we are weak, we are weak. When we say we are cloudy, we are cloudy. On the other hand, when we say we are strong, we are strong. When we say we are clear, we are clear. When we say what we are, that is what we are. Do not say you are weak. If you say you are weak, weakness is with you. But if you say you are strong, strength is with you. We can say we are strong because we have the capacity. We have the capital. God gave us, not a spirit of cowardice but a spirit of power, of love, and of sobermindedness. We should declare this and claim this. Then we will have it. This is our portion. This is our legal, God-appointed lot, which has been allotted to us by God.

Sometimes in the past, I felt down as I was preparing to speak for the Lord. It seemed that I had nothing to speak. But at that juncture I prayed. In my prayer I realized that this was a cheating. Actually, I was not weak and I did have something. There were times when I stepped up to the podium to speak without knowing what I was going to speak. When I was asking the saints to open their Bibles to read some verses, I did not know what we would read until that very moment. After we read these verses, the message came to me. Quite often such a message is more living, more powerful, and full of more impact and supply than other messages.

I am sharing this to point out that you should not listen to what you feel or what you think. What you feel and what you think are altogether a lie, a falsehood. Christians should not believe that. We should always believe and declare and claim that we are strong. We are full of love. We can love our enemies. We are well able to love everybody. We are very clear. Our sky is crystal clear. You have to believe because you have this capital. This is your capacity. You should claim and declare, "I am strong! I am loving! I am clear!" You are blessed if you say this. This is the way to exercise your spirit. This is to fan your spirit into flame. Then you will pray. The more you pray, the more you are fanning, and the more burning there will be within you.

Whenever there is the fanning, there is always a battle with Satan. While the fanning of a fire is going on, the fire department is fighting to quench the fire. This is an illustration of Satan trying to quench the fire being fanned within us. Today there are many things that are like cold water, trying to quench our inner flame. Sometimes a telephone call comes with bad news. Then someone comes to you with more bad news. Things will happen in our environment which can quench us. At that time, we have to fight. We have to declare the facts. We have to fan our spirit into flame. Then we will be the highest persons, the super persons.