LOSING to WIN
MAN’S SPIRIT #3
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Mapping the soul took a long
time. I intended to use the resulting analyses
to plot my own loss recovery. After all,
I presumed, who could be more equipped to solve this problem than an ex-counselor
and church growth consultant. Yet efforts
to correct my troubled thoughts and emotions yielded nothing. “What have I left
out?” Finally it occurred to me that
the problem was not something left out but something overlooked. I assumed as a Christian I knew all about man’s
spirit …the central feature of personality. However attempts to define the human spirit produced
a very superficial description. So I cracked
open my Unger’s Bible Dictionary only to discover that I was not the
only one settling for ambiguity on the subject. It defined spirit as an, “…immaterial
part of man…related to worship and divine communication.” A dictionary as unreligious
as The American College Dictionary provided more insightful description
even though it referred to the human spirit as a principle, “mediating between
body and soul” which “tempers thought, feeling, or action.” The New Standard
Bible Dictionary doesn’t do much better but added that the word spirit “is
used of that specific side of human nature which allies man to God.” It also
contrasts spirit with the word soul which “is restricted to the secular
exercises of the inner man.” It goes on to acknowledge in its treatment of
spirit that the New Testament presents a more “consistent psychological theory”
of the spirit than the Old Testament.
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Even
so, no scripture gives a clear definition of the human spirit. Christian writings about man’s spirit, of
which there is little, tries to deal with its ethereal qualities and ends up
being little more than opinion assertions. A lead from Wheeler Robinson, Principal of
Regent’s Park College, of London suggested that an investigation into the role
the spirit plays within the human personality offers a very revealing study of
the human spirit. Dr. Robinson put it
this way,
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“…we can see enough of the direction and
character of ‘spiritual’ activity to ascribe this unifying function to spirit
as one of its essentials.”
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Taking his cue I found at
least three significant “roles” scripture reveals the spirit plays while fulfilling
its one principal task…heart unification. It appears that holding the personality
together is indeed the spirit’s main job.
Perhaps the best picture of the spirit carrying out this function is seen
in the book of James. It shows the human
spirit in an almost ruthless struggle to unify the personality. The brief exposure occurs within a dispute James
was trying to resolve. The conflict is
over something two or more people want but are unable to get. However he calls their attention to the real
source of the problem,
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“What causes fights and
quarrels among you? Don’t they come from
your desires that battle within you?”
James 4:1 (NIV)
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James insists in this passage that their
desire for something in the outside world is caused by the sensation of an
internal deficiency. The spirit within
each of them was responding to some lack or unfulfilled desire within. They had mistaken their internal longing for some
external object or distinction. In pointing
that out James discloses the spirit within franticly trying to fulfill an unsatisfied
desire within their heart.
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“Or do you think Scripture
says without reason that the spirit he caused to live in us envies
intensely.” James 4:5
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James’ remedy to the outward conflict
is redirected to an inward solution, saying, “…purify your hearts, you
double-minded.” (James 4:8b) This
compound word “double-minded” is the same he used earlier in verse 1:8 when he first
diagnosed their condition as double-minded. He pronounced the condition of the
parties involved as being, “unstable in all he does.”
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I found the word rendered “mind”
in that compound word to be very important.
It was usually translated as “soul” or “life”. So James was talking
about an unstable soul within which an intense struggle raged. The passage gives us a snap shot of the soul
swinging beyond its orbits. However more
to our point it reveals the spirit taxed beyond its unifying ability. The
forces that render the spirit unable to perform its task become clearer as we accumulate
more information about the human spirit.
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The spirit serves as a
gravitational center for the personality. It carries out that task by doing
three things. (1) It subjects the
longings of the soul to an ethical value grid. (2) It monitors and addresses
the deficits of the soul. (3) It also energizes the soul to achieve personality
fitness. These three functions of the
spirit are necessary to hold the heart together as a unit. In some ways they
resemble solar system. Whereas a solar
system has gravitational pull, centrifugal force, and motion to hold it
together the personality relies on the characteristics of the human
spirit…Conscience, Perception, and Energy.
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(1) CONSCIENCE
(a)
The spirit
automatically senses the virtue of a desire or longing of the soul. It indorses, though not always correctly, the
healthy ones and opposes the others. (Romans 2:14) “Indeed when the Gentiles,
who do not have the law, do by nature things required by the law, they are a
law for themselves, even though they do not have the law,”
(b)
These innately
intuitive judgments of the spirit influence the thoughts and feelings of the
soul. (Rome 2:15) “…since they show that the requirements of the law are
written on their hearts, their consciences also bearing witness, and their
thoughts now accusing, now even defending them.”
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(2) PERCEPTION
(a)
The spirit
observes the soul. “For who among men knows the thoughts of a man except the
man’s spirit within him? (1 Corinthians 2:11)
(b)
In so doing the spirit is aware of the soul in
distress. “I remembered my song in the
night. My heart mused and my spirit
inquired:” (Psalm 77:6)
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(3) ENERGY
(a)The spirit allies itself with soul
desires it perceives as valuable. “…your name and renown are the desire of our hearts. My soul
yearns for you in the night; in the morning my spirit longs for you.” (Isaiah
26:8b + 9a)
(b) The spirit emits energy throughout the
heart ranging from weak to strong. “…poor in spirit…” (Matthew 5:3) and
“…strong in spirit…” (Luke 1:80)
(c) There are
also other forces that influence the soul, stimulating opposition to the
spirit, weakening the spirit’s power within the heart. “…the spirit is willing
but the flesh is weak.” (Matthew 26:41 + Mark 14:38)
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The obvious conclusion drawn
from the above references is; though the spirit exerts a force within the
personality it is does not carry enough power to completely direct the affairs
of the heart. One reason for its lack of
power is the transformative nature of other energy sources. The scriptures speak of four basic energy transformers
which influence the currents flowing within our personality. These transforming
influences are called; WORLDLY, CARNAL, SECULAR, and SPIRITUAL. Each point
of connection transmits a two-way current.
These in turn modify the current emitted by the sources represented
below. The
symbol < - > represents the
two current.
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WORLD < - > BODY < - > SOUL < - > SPIRIT < - > GOD
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The significance of
highlighting this two-way current is to introduce and demystify the will of the human spirit.
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Sense the human “will” is a force emitting from
the features of the heart I was tempted to ignore its significance in the
structure of a healthy personality.
However that was a mistake. As it
turns out human Will plays such a crucial role in our spiritual health that
Martin Luther, the founder of all Protestant Christianity, said that
overlooking its significance automatically places the believer at odds with God’s
salvation. He said that to know nothing
about the “nature, extent, and limits” of our will is to, “…know nothing
whatsoever of Christianity.” He was so
emphatic about agreement on that point that those who disagree in Luther’s
assessment means, “…he is the Christian’s chief foe.”
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So then, scripture speaks of the will as a
force emanating from a source, like man’s spirit. Perhaps the best way to think of the human
will is as a force radiating from the heart.
That which it radiates is desire.
So we see God expressing His will through His Holy Spirit which conveys
His desire to man’s spirit. Man’s spirit
can then, if it will yield to that desire, transmit that Godly desire as its very
own will to the soul. If the soul, in its turn, also accepts that Godly desire then
it transmits it to the body and so on.
That force has become, in the proses, the person’s unified will and
ultimately is expressed in the world.
However it must be transferred through many realms each with their own
desires and their own wills.
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The lack of personality unification
is what Paul was referring to when he confessed in Romans chapter seven that
the reason he could not consistently obey God was sin lived in him. In other wards one or more of these ports of
transmission replaced God’s will with its own.
Paul, at that point, was admitting that his human spirit was not totally
in charge of his personality, the heart. A strengthened well-structured heart can
transmit a more attractive will from the human spirit of man. It can actually carry the energy necessary to
gain the cooperative desire and compliance of the whole heart.
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However
when the spirit is struggling with a soul fragmented by loss or one inappropriately
reconfigured after some traumatic life alternating event, the spirit is too busy
holding the personality together to successfully influence the entire person,
spirit, soul, and body. The Good News for
me came as I saw my personality more clearly and by that recognized God’s
Spirit within. Armed with the
recognition of God’s existence within it became easier to rule my personality.
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In
the next blog entries, as part of this LOSING TO WIN series, I hope to explain that
transformative step God used to coax me out of the darkness of loss.
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