Holy Spirit:
What happened when Jesus was Baptized by John and the Holy Spirit descended upon Him in bodily form and remained on Him? Some believe Jesus was endowed with the Holy Spirit at that time and was activated by the Holy Spirit coming to Him in the bodily form of a dove and remained.
Mt 3:13-17 Then Jesus came from Galilee to the Jordan to be baptized by John.But John tried to deter him, saying, AI need to be baptized by you, and do you come to me?@ Jesus replied, ALet it be so now; it is proper for us to do this to fulfill all righteousness.@ Then John consented. As soon as Jesus was baptized, he went up out of the water. At that moment heaven was opened, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and lighting on him. And a voice from heaven said, AThis is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased.@
Jn 1:31-34 I myself did not know him, but the reason I came baptizing with water was that he might be revealed to Israel.@ Then John gave this testimony: AI saw the Spirit come down from heaven as a dove and remain on him. I would not have known him, except that the one who sent me to baptize with water told me, >The man on whom you see the Spirit come down and remain is he who will baptize with the Holy Spirit.= I have seen and I testify that this is the Son of God.@
The first and last Adam
1Co 15:45-49 So it is written: AThe first man Adam became a living being@ ; the last Adam, a life-giving spirit.The spiritual did not come first, but the natural, and after that the spiritual. The first man [was] from out of earth, made of dust (earthly-minded); the second Man [is] the Lord from out of heaven ( verse 47 amp) As was the earthly man, so are those who are of the earth; and as is the man from heaven, so also are those who are of heaven. And just as we have borne the likeness of the earthly man, so shall we bear the likeness of the man from heaven.
Jn 3:30-32 He must increase, but I must decrease. [He must grow more prominent; I must grow less so.] [Isa. 9:7] He Who comes from above (heaven) is [far] above all [others]; he who comes from the earth belongs to the earth, and talks the language of earth [his words are from an earthly standpoint]. He Who comes from heaven is [far] above all others [far superior to all others in prominence and in excellence]. It is to what He has [actually] seen and heard that He bears testimony, and yet no one accepts His testimony [no one receives His evidence as true].
Ro 8:3. . . .Sending His own Son in the guise of sinful flesh and as an offering for sin,
What gives Jesus the right to call God his Father?
Father: A male person whose sperm unites with an egg, resulting in the conception of a child.
Mt 1:20 But after he had considered this, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, AJoseph son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary home as your wife, because what is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit.
Jesus did not receive anything from John the Baptist. Jesus was not born with the sinful spirit of the first Adam as all on Earth are born with. But He was born with God=s own Spirit, from the moment He was conceived.
To answer our first question, John fulfilled God=s plan by identifying Jesus as the Christ in the way God had instructed him to do and thereby became that Heavenly witness to the fact that Jesus was the Christ. It did nothing more for Jesus other than fulfillment of the wonder and the sign that told Him it was time to start His ministry, and told us He is the promised One. In other words it was for our sake not His that the Holy Spirit descended down upon Him in bodily form as a dove. Just like in Jn12:28
Jn 12:28-32 Father, glorify your name!@ Then a voice came from heaven, AI have glorified it, and will glorify it again.@ The crowd that was there and heard it said it had thundered; others said an angel had spoken to him. Jesus said, AThis voice was for your benefit, not mine. Now is the time for judgment on this world; now the prince of this world will be driven out. But I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all men to myself.@
To answer the second question God was by definition the actual Father of Jesus. He had the Father=s own Spirit from birth instead of the corrupt spirit of Adam. He was not one of us although He looked like He was.
When Paul went to Jerusalem to see James, Peter, and John, he was basically presenting to them that the practices of the Old Covenant was the Jewish religion. Which he felt had nothing to do with the New Covenant. He showed the Church leaders that God did not will that the gentiles convert and practice the Jewish religion in order to enter into the New Covenant. That it was an unnecessary burden since one got saved through the New Covenant and not the old; Jewish religious practices (observance of the Old Covenant) . Peter agreed because of his experience with Cornelius. James saw through the scriptures and Peter=s experience that God willed that there would be both Jewish believers and Gentile believers, not Jews and converts to Judaism.
However, James the church leader, was perplexed with the problem of how the Jewish believers would ever relate to the Gentile believers when they were considered unclean in their ways. Especially since there were synagogues in all the gentile world and thereby both Jewish believers and potential Jewish believers in all those Gentile cities. In an effort to keep the two groups with their two different practices bound together as believers, James required a few simple things of the Gentile believers:
Acts15:19-21AIt is my judgment, therefore, that we should not make it difficult for the Gentiles who are turning to God. Instead we should write to them, telling them to abstain from food polluted by idols, from sexual immorality, from the meat of strangled animals and from blood. For Moses has been preached in every city from the earliest times and is read in the synagogues on every Sabbath.@
Mostly what James was asking was dietary rules that would allow Jewish believers to have some bases to fellowship with gentile believers as well as giving a way so that the Jewish believers would not look down on the gentile believers as something unclean and less than themselves.
However, by reading Romans we know how Paul felt about even these few requirements. He called those who would follow those requirements believers who were Aweak@ in their faith. He proclaimed that he was strong in his faith and did not follow these rules except when it might hurt a fellow believer to do so. He went onto say:
Ro 14:16-17 Do not allow what you consider good to be spoken of as evil. For the kingdom of God is not a matter of eating and drinking, but of righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit,
And in another part:
1Co 10:25-30 Eat anything sold in the meat market without raising questions of conscience, for, AThe earth is the Lord=s, and everything in it.@ If some unbeliever invites you to a meal and you want to go, eat whatever is put before you without raising questions of conscience. But if anyone says to you, AThis has been offered in sacrifice,@ then do not eat it, both for the sake of the man who told you and for conscience= sakeC the other man=s conscience, I mean, not yours. For why should my freedom be judged by another=s conscience? If I take part in the meal with thankfulness, why am I denounced because of something I thank God for?
So if Paul took away the few requirements James placed on the gentiles, except to keep from sexual immorality, in addition, freeing them from practicing the Jewish religion (in other words from following the Old Covenant), and furthermore there was no written New Testament, my question is this: what practices and rules did the gentile church follow to be considered a believer?
Most will say they lived by faith. Or they are saved by grace through faith. However, what does that mean? Does it mean do whatever you wish but as long as you believe Jesus is Lord you will be saved? No, even the ones who say this choke on the words believing they have to still keep the rules in the Bible somehow. As a result they have long complicated explanations how you still have to keep the written word. The real answer is spiritual union. It was the New Covenant promise, and it was spiritual union with Christ that the gentiles practiced.
It is through marriage to Christ or spiritual union with Him that we are saved and made righteous. Some believe that a person who follows Christ this way (by faith) is just doing whatever he wants. Ignorance of what spiritual union is, leads us to believe it would be going from rule keeping to lawlessness.
The truth is that we are going from obedience to obedience. We are going from obeying the written word in the bible to obeying the Living Word in our hearts through our conscience which makes us in spiritual union with Christ. Living out His Spirit's promptings and not our own life desires.
Spiritual Union:
There is a difference between a natural marriage and a spiritual marriage/union with Christ. The natural marriage is two people with two bodies living out what they and God in heaven has ratified as one life. Both individuals formerly had their own agendas, purposes, and aspirations for life. But now, after natural union a new life forms out of their love for each other. That new life is their marriage. Now the couple works for, has aspirations, and purpose=s themselves according to this new common life they live. Although they may have two different bodies doing separate things, they both work for the promotion and nurturing of their new life together. Their lives are inseparably bound together and God Himself has agreed with them. From then on He views their individual persons as living out one life.
In a spiritual marriage, or union, with Christ you have two individual people living out one life in one body. Unlike the natural union which is two people in two bodies living out one common life. It is only in Christ that the fulfillment of Gen 2:24 can happen.
Ge 2:24 For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and they will become one flesh.
Although Jesus might reside in Heaven at the right hand of His Father, in His resurrected Body, Jesus has also returned to the world in a disembodied formCHis Spirit.
Jn 16:7 But I tell you the truth: It is for your good that I am going away. Unless I go away, the Counselor will not come to you; but if I go, I will send him to you.
Who has spiritual union with Christ and Who is His Body? It is not the Church! It is the few people in each church large or small who obeys the promptings of His Spirit. Therefore in doing so they carry out God=s will and not their own. They become the embodiment of Jesus being moved by His disembodied Spirit. They are united as one by this act of love (obedience) done in freedom for the sake of being united with Jesus through His Spirit.
You see we are not talking about following the Holy Spirit=s general direction for your life, and the field He wants you to work in. Then figure out how to accomplish those things in your own estimation, and then having things figured out pray and ask God for what you need to get it done with. That is not spiritual union. It means a complete dying to self. It means not having a will for your own life; not having an agenda or a plan; it means not having any desires or ambitions for yourself and your own life or time or resources. Paul said it best, one died for all and all died for one. It is as Jesus modeled spiritual union: I don=t have an agenda, but my Father has a plan and I do the work He gives me; I only say what the Father tells me to say; I only do what the Father tells me to do. If you have seen me you have seen the Father. He is the embodiment of the Father doing only His will and not His own while caring not about the results or the effect it has on His own person. Spiritual union means having no time to say to people what you desire to say, because you spent it all saying what He wants said. It means not having the time to do the things you want done that will maintain your own life because you are too busy doing the things He wants done leaving no time to do your own things. It means letting your world crumble around you leaving you with no attachments to the world that might put you in conflict with what He is asking you to do.
It not only means to do the promptings of His Spirit in you, but to harken to His Spirit in your thought life so you can hear His promptings. How can we know His promptings, desires, and thoughts, if we are so preoccupied in our mind with the going over and over in our minds our own desires, thoughts, understandings, and our desperation to do what we want to do? To be able to harken to the Spirit it means chasing away every thought that considers your own desires ambitions, feelings, needs or agendas, so you can be quiet enough to hear His Spirit within you and to have your own passions stilled enough so as not be confused with what is from Him and what is from you. It means to evolve in your prayer time by not telling God what needs to happen and start listening to hear what He wants you to do. It means you love Jesus so much that you let your own life fall apart while you are busy doing what He wants done when it profits you nothing but furthers His Kingdom. It means you have no integrity with the world and with man, but with every prompting of the Spirit. When you do these things, you have died to your own life and are honoring the disembodied Spirit of Jesus in you. It becomes true what Paul said it is no longer I that live but Christ in me. Because only His will is carried out and not your own. Then it could be said you are the body of Christ, and if they see you they see Christ. And Jesus will say to others if they gave you a glass of water, you gave one to me because it was My Spirit in him that he was living out and not his own. And when you slandered and persecuted him you were slandering and persecuting Me because he was living out what my disembodied Spirit was urging him to do. So it was Me in him doing those things, and not him.
You see, before spiritual union with Christ in our lives, all that we did was according to our own sense of right and wrong, and according to our own will and desires. That is even if we did our own will within the frame work of moral rules such as the Bible. When people came against us we were alone and it was us they were attacking. However, when we came in union with Christ our looks did not change. The world sees the same person only a little nicer. And when we live out what His Spirit prompts us and people attack us, we must remember what they cannot know, they are no longer attacking us but the Lord in us. Because we did what He told us to do.
Modern Christians don=t understand dying to self any more than Nicodemus understood being born again. He was perplexed wondering how could he be born again with a new life and still have the same body, same memories, the same status, skills, life experiences, and personality. With his superficial mind and wisdom, if it was real, shouldn=t he start life over as a new life and as a new born baby? How can it be that he has a new life when nothing externally has changed? Can you see how his question now makes sense? It was not with his outside life he became a new born, but with his very essence. He acquires a new spirit outlook, a brand new spirit perception of life, new motives and inspirations. That is what Jesus brings through His disembodied Spirit when He comes in spiritual union with you. Likewise, when we die to self we die to the essence of our life, or hope, aspirations, personal desires, and our own sense of right and wrong.
For that union to become oneness of the two, we, the embodiment of Jesus and His Spirit, must no longer live out our own ideas about our life, and instead live out His. To make spiritual union, He dies to His body, and we die to our life. Then the two become one through the binding power of love expressed through obedience. And that doesn=t mean for an hour on Sunday and a few major decisions. And it doesn=t mean now God gives us what we want to live out. It means with every decision, every act, every word, we do what He, who we are in spiritual union with, wants done.
Spiritual union is a total return to first-century values and New Covenant practices. As God has been preparing us for the last Gospel Age, there has been many moves of the Spirit. In the last 100 years or so there has been the Holiness Movement of Sanctification which gave way to the return of the power gifts of the Spirit, tongues, through the Azusa street revival. Then the Healing Movement, which gave way to the Faith Movement. Then the Prayer Movement that brought a new intimacy with God. However, the Prayer Movement, has taken the revelation of intimacy with God as far as it can go and it has stalled out.
All these movements Holiness, tongues, the power gifts, faith, prayer, and intimacy are all elements of the true Christian practice and not the fulfillment of it. However, for the Church to be fully reformed back to first century values, it needed to understand those elements through practical experience. But none of those elements, individually, would or could lead us to a unified church of one heart, one mind and one voice, or to a state of being pure and spotless. In fact seeing any one of those elements as the fulfillment of the Christian practice will and does eventually lead to sin on the part of the individual. In fact that=s why there have been so many scandals with the men and woman of God who have ushered these movements into the church.
The real fulfillment, the focus, and at the center of the Christian practice is: spiritual union with Christ! When focused on this it is almost impossible to sin, get seduced into sinning, or to stumble over personal unholy desires.
The prayer movement is still important and must grow until the return of Christ. But its revelation of intimacy with God must give way to spiritual union. We must see the difference between the two with a clarity only the Holy Spirit can give us. I don=t mind saying this, because I believe with all my heart that the Prayer Movement would welcome this message and see it as the breakthrough it has been looking for.
To the Church Jesus has become real on the outside. Meaning, as a deity on a throne in Heaven we love and worship. It is time to return to the 1st century and Jesus must become real to us on the inside. Meaning, we must get a real sense of Jesus inside us. The Prayer Movement must provide a teaching that leads people to have a sense of God on the inside, and to have an awareness of the fact they are living for two and their lives are not their own anymore. Like when getting married they need to consider everything they do in a way that includes the feelings desires, honor, and concerns of their partner. Jesus is real inside us! So much so, that even our speech changes in a way that would (like James pointed out) reflect we are living in spiritual union.
Many people are envious and wish they could have been alive when Jesus walked the Earth. They think He would be easier to follow and understand. However, Jesus says the opposite; it is better for you I die and come back as a disembodied Spirit so you and I can be so close that we two can literally live out one life in one bodyCyour body. Then the two of us can become one flesh. He says this is the ultimate life experience and relationship. Think of it, James says our life is but a puff of smoke, and we only live once. However, only we who have a life in the body, in the world have the opportunity to be in such intimate relationship with the living God that we have the potential to become one with Him, and be the very embodiment of Him! And we only have that chance while we have a body in the world! How envious the patriarchs before Christ died must be who watch on from heaven, and all those who didn=t understand how to relate to Christ!
Listen to Paul who understood the joy of spiritual union with Christ:
Phil 3:4-16 Though for myself I have [at least grounds] to rely on the flesh. If any other man considers that he has or seems to have reason to rely on the flesh and his physical and outward advantages, I have still more! Circumcised when I was eight days old, of the race of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew [and the son] of Hebrews; as to the observance of the Law I was of [the party of] the Pharisees, As to my zeal, I was a persecutor of the church, and by the Law=s standard of righteousness (supposed justice, uprightness, and right standing with God) I was proven to be blameless and no fault was found with me. But whatever former things I had that might have been gains to me, I have come to consider as [ one combined] loss for Christ=s sake. Yes, furthermore, I count everything as loss compared to the possession of the priceless privilege (the overwhelming preciousness, the surpassing worth, and supreme advantage) of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord and of progressively becoming more deeply and intimately acquainted with Him [of perceiving and recognizing and understanding Him more fully and clearly]. For His sake I have lost everything and consider it all to be mere rubbish (refuse, dregs), in order that I may win (gain) Christ (the Anointed One), And that I may [actually] be found and known as in Him, not having any [self-achieved] righteousness that can be called my own, based on my obedience to the Law=s demands (ritualistic uprightness and supposed right standing with God thus acquired), but possessing that [genuine righteousness] which comes through faith in Christ (the Anointed One), the [truly] right standing with God, which comes from God by [saving] faith. [For my determined purpose is] that I may know Him [that I may progressively become more deeply and intimately acquainted with Him, perceiving and recognizing and understanding the wonders of His Person more strongly and more clearly], and that I may in that same way come to know the power outflowing from His resurrection [ which it exerts over believers], and that I may so share His sufferings as to be continually transformed [in spirit into His likeness even] to His death, [in the hope] That if possible I may attain to the [ spiritual and moral] resurrection [that lifts me] out from among the dead [even while in the body]. Not that I have now attained [this ideal], or have already been made perfect, but press on to lay hold of (grasp) and make my own, that for which Christ Jesus (the Messiah) has laid hold of me and made me His own. I do not consider, brethren, that I have captured and made it my own [yet]; but one thing I do [it is my one aspiration]: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the [supreme and heavenly] prize to which God in Christ Jesus is calling us upward. So let those [of us] who are spiritually mature and full-grown have this mind and hold these convictions; and if in any respect you have a different attitude of mind, God will make that clear to you also. Only let us hold true to what we have already attained and walk and order our lives by that.
The praise of our heart has to go from (as the songs go):
"I can only imagine what it will be like, when I walk by Your side...
I can only imagine, what my eyes will see, when Your Face is before me!
I can only imagine. I can only imagine.
Surrounded by Your Glory, what will my heart feel?
Will I dance for you, Jesus? Or in awe of You, be still?
Will I stand in Your presence, or to my knees will I fall?
Will I sing 'Hallelujah!'? Will I be able to speak at all?
I can only imagine! I can only imagine!
To what they are most recently singing at IHOP:
I finally found where I belong, in your presence
I am my beloved and He is mine.
Come into your garden, and take delight in me
take delight in me
here in your presence I find my rest
When people become part of our church we have them write a prayer that reflects their commitment to die to self and come alive in Christ. Then we have them read it to the whole congregation. In fact, as I write this our prayer room is being built. And one of the designs that will be part of the decor is to have the walls lined with these prayers framed for everyone to read. As it is, every church service begins with the reading of one of these prayers. The following is one of the prayers written. I display it here in the following prayer because it describes well the shift we have to make in our thought lifeCour inner manCin order to be in real spiritual union with Jesus and for Jesus to become real inside us.
I give up my agenda, and do not want to carry it out. I acknowledge that You have a plan and I want to do the work You give me, in order to carry out Your interests, and no longer my own. I don=t care anymore about my interests. Neither do I want to know or relate to my own desires. I don=t care how powerful or weak my own desires are. I don=t want to know them, ponder on them, or explore them. I want to know Your desires, I want to ponder, explore, and fulfill them. I do not want to consider what is right or wrong anymore, I do not want the responsibility of being self-righteous. Or as Paul says, I don=t want a righteousness that comes from trying to follow the law. Only You have seen the Father and know what is right according to His purposes. I want for You to be my righteousness. I want to instead consider what You are prompting me. I want to consider whether or not what I hear is from You and then quickly go off and do that. I don=t want to consult my own will but seek out Your=s. I only want to say what You want said and do what You want done. I want to be the embodiment of Your Spirit, doing whatever your Spirit compels and prompts me to do. I no longer want to live out my own life but consider myself dead to it and You alive as I carry out whatever You wish to be accomplished. I don=t want to know my own feelings, no matter how strong or weak they are, I instead want to know Your every emotions. I want to denounce any interest in or any exploring of my own will, desires, feelings, agenda, or understanding so I may create room in my heart for Your=s to enter in. I want to give no time to or expound any energy on the same so that I can give my strength, energies, and time seeking out what You are arranging, where I fit into that, and what You are asking of me, so I may swiftly carry out that, without concern of the outcome, or the effect on my person. I resolve to be sensitive to Your Spirit in me more than my own.
Lk 14:26-27AIf anyone comes to me and does not hate his father and mother, his wife and children, his brothers and sistersCyes, even his own lifeChe cannot be my disciple. And anyone who does not carry his cross and follow me cannot be my disciple.
Who is the Spiritual Man (Christian Mystic)?
The Spiritual Man:
The Spiritual Man (as Paul calls him) operates on a totally different level than a worldly person does. He concerns himself exclusively with being in spiritual union with Jesus. The big concerns that run through his mind are things that will not allow him to lose sight of Jesus in him. Or thinking or doing anything that would break spiritual union with Jesus. John tells us that to obey Jesus means to love Him. This makes perfect sense! The only thing that binds us to His Spirit, causing us to be one with Him, is if we obey every prompting that comes from Him. Then His Spirit has complete expression through our very bodies. In freedom, and out of love Jesus and I become one whole person when I do everything His Spirit inspires me to carry out. Jesus said:
Jn 14:23Jesus answered, If a person [really] loves Me, he will keep My word [obey My teaching]; and My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make Our home (abode, special dwelling place) with him
Jn 14:21 The person who has My commands and keeps them is the one who [really] loves Me; and whoever [really] loves Me will be loved by My Father, and I [too] will love him and will show (reveal, manifest) Myself to him. [I will let Myself be clearly seen by him and make Myself real to him.]
As a church we did a week long exercise so we could relate to how obedience keeps us bound to Christ in spiritual union. We understood that what keeps us bound as one in spiritual union is to obey out of freedom, with nothing compelling us to do so other than our love and desire to be one with Jesus, obeying His every prompting. The moment we do our own will, we break union with Him. To relate to this we took driving the speed limit. It is the law and we are bound to the law as long as we follow it. The second we break the speed limit even by one mile per hour, we then understood ourselves to go from law keeper to lawlessness. We equated that with being bound to the Spirit by obeying it and breaking free from union by disobeying it. We equated no radar or police present as nothing compelling us to go the speed limit except for our desire to be a lawful person and not lawless. This is the same as the fact that nothing compels us to obey Jesus except our own desire to be one with Him.
We also equated people behind us pressuring us to go faster than the speed limit by tailgating, or beeping their horn or flashing their lights as pressure from the world to do what it thinks is right and thereby break free from doing as the Spirit prompts. This is an important factor. In counseling, we find that so many people don't do as the Holy Spirit prompts because He doesn't pressure. If you don't want to show your love through obeying, then He figures you don't love Him and He lets you do what you want. However, in the world there are so many fears and pressures to do what the world dictates. So many do the easy thing by doing what they are pressured to do, instead of what they are free to do (God's prompting)
When we came back together a week later and asked how everybody did, they all broke out laughing. It was the hardest thing they ever tried to do. Most failed within minutes of leaving the parking lot. And the rest broke the speed limit several times just to get home. A couple just gave up after messing up the first couple days. Most were people that thought it would be easy and they considered themselves people who always drove the speed limit. What they found was trying their best to keep the speed limit made them aware of how often they break the speed limit unconsciously. Others caved under the pressure of people behind them to go faster. Others became so aware of how much pressure the world puts on us to sin against God and how easily we just cave into it. There were so many ways we were able to parallel driving the speed limit to following the Spirit's promptings.
Paul tells us these are the two measuring sticks he uses on himself; that he is under the control of the Holy Spirit and that his conscience is clear. Meaning he has obeyed everything God asked of him.
1Co 2:14-16 But the natural, nonspiritual man does not accept or welcome or admit into his heart the gifts and teachings and revelations of the Spirit of God, for they are folly (meaningless nonsense) to him; and he is incapable of knowing them [of progressively recognizing, understanding, and becoming better acquainted with them] because they are spiritually discerned and estimated and appreciated. But the spiritual man tries all things [he examines, investigates, inquires into, questions, and discerns all things], yet is himself to be put on trial and judged by no one [he can read the meaning of everything, but no one can properly discern or appraise or get an insight into him]. For who has known or understood the mind (the counsels and purposes) of the Lord so as to guide and instruct Him and give Him knowledge? But we have the mind of Christ (the Messiah) and do hold the thoughts (feelings and purposes) of His heart.
In addition to focusing on not breaking spiritual union with the Holy Spirit, the Spiritual Man always concerns himself with the spirit perception and spirit motives behind the person, his words, opinions, and ideas. If it is not the Spirit of God they reject them. They do not judge if it makes sense or seems right, if it is not out of the right spirit (the Holy spirit) then to them it is wrong. This is because each spirit has a wisdom, motives and perception that it unique to that spirit. That means in its own logic what it perceives makes sense, and what it sees to do seems right in its eyes. As much sense as one can make, if it is not according to the perception and motives of the Holy Spirit's logic they reject it. It is more accurate to discern spirit to reject or to accept on that bases than trying to sort out what is right and what is wrong. This is why Paul says that Jesus is for us our wisdom from God, and Jesus is our righteousness. We leave it to Jesus to interpret what is in line with the Father's will and what is right, then we follow His prompting. We no longer use our own intellect to decide what is right.
Ro 4:5 However, to the man who does not work but trusts God who justifies the wicked, his faith is credited as righteousness.
Phil 3:8-9 What is more, I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them rubbish, that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ and the righteousness that comes from God and is by faith
There are some very important differences between the Spiritual Man and a Natural Man. The Spiritual Man perceives life out of a totally different paradigm, the wisdom of the Holy Spirit. What he sees and hears when looking at the same thing as a Natural Man is totally different.
The next thing is, the Spiritual Man has totally different motives than the Natural Man. His are the same as the Holy Spirit's motives. Which is to please God and do His will. Since motives are unique to the spirit, no other spirit has that motive. Every spirit in the world has his own self-interest as his motives. That's what makes it true that: no one can properly discern or appraise or get an insight into him. The Natural Man can never make sense of why the Spiritual Man would do something or not do it. They assign self-interest motives to what the Spiritual Man does and motives they themselves would have and they are always wrong.
Just like having a totally different perception of life the motives of the Spiritual Man has a very dividing effect on the relationship between the man of the world (even if he is Christian) and the Spiritual Man. When people can't get insight into you or are unable to figure out your motives, they become very threaten by you. They don't trust you and because they can't size you up they feel unsafe around you, the Spiritual Man. I had one church member call up crying after visiting their family after becoming spiritual. She was upset because when she came in the house smiling and saying hello, everyone looked at her in an evil way and wanted to know what she meant by "hello". In her mind she had not changed but was the same old pleasant person. I told her she wasn't, I told her she has changed, she experiences everything differently and has different motives, that her family's generational spirits were picking up but not able to consciously put their finger on it. It's funny, the worldly mind will feel safer and trust an untrustworthy person who is a known thief and liar, before they will feel safe and trust the Spiritual Man. The reason is they can figure out the untrustworthy person but they can't figure out the Spiritual Man and that makes them feel unsafe. Another thing that can happen is people will throw accusations at you, attacking you until you (the Spiritual Man) reacts. Then when you react they feel like they have you figured out. This is needless cruelty but it is justified in their heart because they think it is just plain wrong that they feel unsafe because they can't figure you out.
The next thing that divides the Spiritual Man from the Worldly Man is agendas. This is a big one. In reality man lives in anarchy, each a law unto themselves. Everyone has their own agenda for their lives. None follow the will of God in their lives. And they see someone who interferes with their agendas as the enemy or the opposition. When the Spiritual Man involves themselves with an individual or group, including a worldly church group, he is again not trusted or fully embraced but kept at arms length. They are like spies in the group, not really one of them. And its easy to be seen by the others as one who does things that is detrimental to the group. Their perception is correct. This is because, every individual and group has their own common agenda why they are a part of that group. The Spiritual Man is never in the group for the same reasons. He is there after careful prayerful consideration. They are there because God instructed them to be there. Their agenda is to do God's will and they are not there under their own choice. Everyone else has a common agenda as to why they are a part of the group. You are a spy! The next thing is when you carry out the agenda of God, doing as He leads you, it is a sure thing that it will be in disharmony and even destructive to the common agenda of the group or the individual. (The Lord's ways are not our ways.) The Spiritual Man will find that he fits in nowhere, especially in the worldly church. And he will find out all he does ends up being counter productive to all worldly agendas. This is what makes us holy and set apart. Because we don't fit in.
Gal 5:17 For the desires of the flesh are opposed to the [Holy] Spirit, and the [desires of the] Spirit are opposed to the flesh (godless human nature); for these are antagonistic to each other [continually withstanding and in conflict with each other],
The last major thing that distinguishes the Spiritual Man from the worldly or natural man is his unwillingness to compromise. He will do exactly what the Spirit prompts him to do. However, in the world where everyone has their own idea of right and wrong, when it comes to coming to terms and unifying with others, it is only through forms of compromise of their own ideas and agenda can there be unity between two camps trying to harmonize. It is such a common method and the only effective method with the spirit of the world that people do it naturally and consider it a sign of a good person willing to make peace with the other. This does not hold true with the Spiritual Man. Compromise is never an option. We never compromise the will of God by dicing it up and discarding part of His words or promptings. We carry everything out to the letter in the Spirit it was meant to be carried out in. If there is disagreement the Spiritual Man will only do what the Lord tells him to do. If there is disagreement on what the Lord is saying to do, then he will stop and pray with the party until they both hear the same thing from God. This is what a jury is modeled after. There are 12 jurors because there were 12 apostles. No one can be convicted of a crime unless all 12 agree that he is guilty. If even just one disagrees they discuss the case until they all come into agreement. If that one can't agree, then it is considered a mistrial and the person is set free. If the 12 come into agreement that he is guilty, then he is condemned. The early church was set up this way under Jesus' instruction in order to be accurate in hearing the Holy Spirit for direction. The principal leaders (the elders) would pray together and they would talk until they came into agreement as to what the Lord was saying to do. This is when they leave their expertise at the door. They did not decide out of knowledge what to do, or what made sense, but prayed and did nothing, changed nothing until they came into agreement with what the Lord was saying on the matter. If they could not come into agreement they change nothing, even if it hurt.
The contemporary church loads its boards up and fills their leadership position with good Christians who are qualified in those fields. It is my belief that the first century church loaded its boards and leadership positions with people who were proven to hear clearly from God. Then used the help of experts to carry things out in the way God prescribed.
Both, the Spiritual Man and the Spiritual Church should operate this way. There are many people in the church that hear God's voice and do as he says, also prayerfully check with God before doing anything. Maybe 1 in this church, maybe 10 in the next. However, it is these people who comprise the body of Christ and not the churches they attend. Because the contemporary church does not follow the Spirit in this way. Yes, they might start the church out by fasting and praying getting direction from God to start, but after a time most churches rely on their own expertise and their own agendas to decide what to do. The board may say a prayer like grace before dinner asking God to guide, but they don't ask God nor do they come into agreement with what he is saying. (I am talking in general).
When a worldly minded church runs into a Spiritual Man they see him as stubborn, unyielding, prideful, outside authority, and thinks he knows it all. They see him as the one that is in disunity. The one who is in discord with the others. This is because the Spiritual Man uses agreement and doesn't use compromise to unify with others. Unless he is in a community of believers that are the same, the Spiritual Man will find himself outside everything. Not by his own designs or aggression but as he goes about his own business trying his best to keep his eyes on the Lord and do as the Lord instructs him. The Spiritual Man, disturbs and stirs up everything. Everyone who his life touches: complacency, indifference, denial, non-confrontation, avoidance, putting your head in the sand and indecision will all be forced into the valley of decision. Sin, and secret motives will be exposed. People will be forced to show themselves as lovers of the light, or lovers of the darkness. Every relationship will be strained, tested and proven.
Jn 3:8 The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit.
The movie Mary Poppens actually is a good prophetic representation of this. The children write a request (a prayer) the wind shifts and Mary Poppens comes in on the wind and supernaturally gets her position of influence. The ones (the children) who are the identified patients, are blessed and vindicated. The real source of the family problems are exposed and repented for. Then the wind shifts again and she is gone.
