This is the case not only with our mind and will but also with our emotion. Many times, the love even among the brothers is soulish, emotional, and fleshly, and the love among the sisters is entirely outside of the Holy Spirit and is not controlled or ruled by the Holy Spirit. For example, it is often the case that one sister really likes another sister and spends much time with her to shop, chat, and joke. Although the Holy Spirit gives this sister the feeling that she is too much and is improper, she ignores this feeling and considers that it is not important. She simply continues to act according to her own will. From this we can see that many times the more the Holy Spirit prohibits us, the more independent our emotion becomes. This is because we are still living in our soul—sometimes we live in our mind, sometimes we live in our emotion, and sometimes we live in our will. For us to live in God, we need death and resurrection, which will allow the Spirit of God to bring every single part of our being into God, so that we may submit to the ruling and direction of the Spirit.
Philippians 2:13 says, “For it is God who operates in you both the willing and the working for His good pleasure.” This means that outwardly there is a working, inwardly there is a willing, and both this willing and working are God’s operation in us. God operates in us in this way because it is His purpose that our will be brought under His ruling. Thus, we must experience God’s operating in us. God is in us, and His intention is to bring our willing and working under His ruling. For this, He operates in us to rule our willing and working so that we will no longer rely on ourselves.
As those who have been saved, we have God in us, but often our willing and working are not under God’s ruling, the ruling of the Holy Spirit. Sometimes we decide to be ruled by the Holy Spirit, but other times we allow our will to be independent. Our willing has not submitted to and is not under the direction of the operation of God. This is even more the case with our outward working. If we want to go east, we go east, and if we want to go west, we go west. Whatever we want to do, we do it. Although outwardly this may not result in any big mistakes, the most obvious and greatest mistake is that we are not directed by the operation of the Holy Spirit while we do these things. While the Spirit is operating in His way, we continue to work in our own way. Sometimes we even press the Holy Spirit to the extent that He does not operate in us anymore. Because we ignore Him when He operates in us, eventually He stops operating in us.
Philippians 2 reveals that God wants to work in us to the point where both our inward willing and outward working are brought under the Holy Spirit and are directed by the operation of the Holy Spirit. If both our willing and working are under the operation of God, we will be brought into God and will spontaneously enter into the Spirit. When we are brought to this point, although we continue to have outward workings and continue to work, our working is no longer something of ourselves but of God and of the Spirit within us. When the Spirit within us moves in a particular way, we will work in that way, and when the Spirit within us moves in another way, we will work in that way. Our outward activities will come from the operating and moving of the Spirit of God in our spirit, and our entire being will be under the Spirit of God. When we are in submission to the Spirit of God, we will have spiritual reality, and when we are under the Spirit of God, spiritual reality will be expressed through us.
Romans 8 tells us that our mind may be set either on the flesh or on the spirit (v. 6). If our mind is set on the flesh, our mind will become the mind of the flesh, and if our mind is set on the spirit, our mind will become the mind of the spirit. The will of God is to bring our mind under the ruling of the Spirit so that our mind will become a mind of the spirit, a spiritual mind. When our mind has become a spiritual mind, then our thoughts will be the result of the ruling and direction of the Holy Spirit and not the issue of our independent mind. At this point, our mind will be in God and of God.
Our mind, emotion, and will should be under the ruling of the Holy Spirit. Whether we are loving the brothers or fellowshipping with the sisters, all of our emotions should be restricted and ruled by the Holy Spirit. If the Holy Spirit agrees with our love, then we should love, but if the Holy Spirit is against our love, then we should not love. Our love must be under the ruling of the Holy Spirit. Similarly, our mind has to submit to the leading of the Holy Spirit, and our will has to follow the feeling of the Holy Spirit. In this way, every part of our soul—our mind, emotion, and will—may be brought into God. At this time we will be those who live in God and in the Spirit, and our living will have spiritual reality.
The Holy Spirit’s blessing and working in us are to bring us into God so that our entire being—our mind, emotion, and will—will be brought into God and directed and ruled by the Spirit. Then the Spirit of God will not only be in us but will also dwell in us and regulate everything within us. In this way we will no longer be soulish or fleshly but spiritual, and we will have the expression of a spiritual condition. This will be spiritual reality.