Man's Spirit LOSING TO WIN #3

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.