Now we should be clearer than before about the difference between the intuition and the mind or emotion. Once we understand the intuition, we will be more clear about the spirit which is usually more mysterious to us. Now we should realize the basic difference between spiritual experience and soulish experience. A spiritual experience is spiritual because it begins from God and is known in our spirit. A soulish experience, on the other hand, begins from man himself and has never passed through the spirit. Therefore, one can be full of Bible knowledge and have a specific, accurate comprehension of Christian doctrines. He may be zealous and apply all of his talents to the work. He may have amazing eloquence and give absorbing speeches on subjects and topics about the Bible; nevertheless, his being may still be living in the realm of the soul. He may not have stepped beyond the soul for even one single step; his spirit may still be dead. People will not be brought into the kingdom of God through our encouraging, exhorting, arguing, inciting, attracting, and urging. They can only come through regeneration, which is just the resurrection of the spirit. This new life will come with various abilities, among the most important is the intuition to understand God, know God, and acknowledge God.

Does this mean that the human mind (brain) is completely useless? Of course not. Surely, there is use for the mind. However, we should remember that the intellect does not come first; it is secondary. We do not know God and the things of God by the intellect. If we did, eternal life would be useless. The eternal life (i.e., the new life) is nothing other than the spirit which is mentioned in John 3. We know God through our newly received eternal life and newly acquired spirit. The use of the mind lies in its ability to explain to our outward man what we see in our spirit and compose it into words for others to understand. We can see this in the example of Paul. In his Epistles, he emphatically pointed out that the gospel he preached is not of man; it does not come "wholesale" from man's mind, and it is not "sold in retail" to other minds. Instead, he received it through revelation. Though he may have had the best mental capability, his doctrine did not come from his thoughts, either suddenly or progressively. His mind was in union with his spirit, and it just communicated to others the revelation he received in his spirit. The mind (the soul) is never the organ for receiving spiritual knowledge; it is merely the organ for passing on spiritual knowledge.

Besides the spirit, there is no other place where God can communicate with us. There are no other ways for us to know God except in the intuition. Through the spirit, man enters into the eternal, divine, and invisible realm. We may say that the intuition is the "brain" of the spirit. When we say that man's spirit is dead, we are saying that his intuition has lost all feelings and is unable to know God and understand the things of God. When we say that the spirit is in charge of our whole being, we mean every part of the soul and every member of the body should completely follow God's will, which has been made known to us through the intuition. We have said previously that regeneration is absolutely necessary, but we will say it again emphatically. The human mind, emotion, and will cannot know God and substitute for the intuition. Unless man receives the life of God afresh, and unless his intuition is resurrected, he is forever separated from God. Regeneration is very real. It is not just a term or a moral change but a definite entrance of God's life into our spirit, resurrecting our spirit and intuition. It is an absolute impossibility for man to do good and please God by himself because these activities are in the realm of the soul; they are not done through an intuition that has come alive toward God. It would be very difficult for a man to be born again by himself because he has nothing that can produce any new life. If God would not beget him, he would not be able to beget himself. Furthermore, no matter how much we understand doctrines, and how much we put our trust in them, they are altogether useless. Nothing can save man except putting himself in God's hand and asking Him to work. A man's spirit will remain dead forever unless he acknowledges that everything of himself is useless, that he is standing with the Lord Jesus in the place of death, and that he is receiving His life.

Man's way is not to receive the Lord Jesus as Savior; it is not the way of resurrecting the intuition (spirit). Instead, it is the way of substituting the intuition with the mind. Man considers, ponders, and comes up with different philosophies, ethics, or religions. But God says, "For as the heavens are higher than the earth,/So are My ways higher than your ways,/And My thoughts higher than your thoughts" (Isa. 55:9). No matter what thoughts man has, he is still of earth and not of the heavens. After our regeneration, God desires that we know His works and His will through our intuition so that we would walk according to them. But how easy it is for believers to forget what we learned at regeneration! How many believers walk according to their mind and emotion in their daily lives! When we serve, we still use our intellect, zeal, and ideas to move the mind, emotion, and will of others. God wants to teach us that neither our soul nor the souls of others have any spiritual usefulness and value. God wants to destroy our natural life together with its intellect, ability, and strength. Therefore, He allows us to fail, be disappointed, and become cold and useless in our spiritual work. This kind of lesson cannot be learned in one or two days. God will instruct us all of our lives and make us realize that other than walking according to the intuition, everything else is vanity.

Here lies the key issue: when the intuition proposes something totally different from what the soul proposes, which one will we follow? Now is the time to determine who will be in charge of our life and which way will we go. Now is the time for the decisive battle that decides who will be the head, our outward man or our inward man, the man of feeling or the man of the spirit. At the beginning of our Christian life, our spirit warred against our flesh. Today there is a war between our spirit and our natural life. Formerly we warred over the problem of sins; now it is not a matter of good or evil but of natural kindness or the goodness of God. Previously we were concerned about the nature of the things we did, but now, about the source of the good things. Today there is a war between the outward man and the inward man, a war between God's will and man's intention. Learning to walk according to the spirit is a lifetime job for the "new man." If one can fully walk according to the spirit, he will entirely overcome his flesh. Through the strengthening of the Holy Spirit into the spirit of the new man, he will entirely eliminate the mind of the flesh. A fleshly mind results in nothing but death in spiritual things, while a mind set on the spirit is life and peace.