27 ¶ The spirit of man is the candle of the LORD, searching all the inward parts of the belly.
A human being is composed of three parts; body, soul, and spirit.
1Thessalonians 5:23 And the very God of peace sanctify you wholly; and I pray God your whole spirit and soul and body be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.
The physical body is your vessel that carries you around in the world. It’s how you identify with the physical world: your physical reality identity.
1 Thessalonians 4:3 For this is the will of God, even your sanctification, that ye should abstain from fornication: 4 That every one of you should know how to possess his vessel in sanctification and honour;
1Peter 3:7 Likewise, ye husbands, dwell with them according to knowledge, giving honour unto the wife, as unto the weaker vessel, and as being heirs together of the grace of life; that your prayers be not hindered.
It includes the functionings and thoughts of your brain; those functionings and thoughts called the mind.
Romans 8:7 Because the carnal mind is enmity against God: for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be.
Ephesians 2:3 Among whom also we all had our conversation in times past in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind; and were by nature the children of wrath, even as others.
Your soul is your self identity. It allows you to be distinct as “I” from others.
1Corinthians 15:45 And so it is written, The first man Adam was made a living soul; the last Adam was made a quickening spirit. (see how by the phrasing that living is synonymous with quickening.)
Your spirit is your God identity. It’s the vehicle through which a human being knows and is known by God.
Philippians 3:12 Not as though I had already attained (understood, arrived at an understanding – see verse 24 and explanation), either were already perfect(complete): but I follow after, if that I may apprehend (know) that for which also I am apprehended (known) of Christ Jesus. (Remember that “of” can mean “by” in context as in “tempted of the devil”.)
But, because of Adam’s sin, your spirit was dead the day you were born in the flesh, the water birth as mentioned of in John 3:5. You have to be born again by the Spirit of God in order to know the God who created you, the God of the Bible. So, all mankind’s natural destination is an eternal lake of fire by virtue of a dead spirit that cannot know the God who created them, because of sin. You radio has a broken receiver and you can’t hear the things of God with a dead spirit (Genesis 3:3 noting that Adam did not physically die for several hundred years as this was a reference to his spirit. Contrast with 1 Corinthians 15:45).
Now, I don’t want to go into detail about how the body and soul was tied together in the Old Testament under the Law (Ezekiel 18:20) or how by the new birth, being born again, the soul is separated from the sins of the flesh by an operation performed by God alone (Colossians 2:11). Nor do I want to get into detail here about how higher animals also have souls (Numbers 31:28) and spirits that have a different destination than your own (Ecclesiastes 3:21).
So, to narrow the focus down, this Proverb shows how the spirit of man is a light that illuminates every secret thought, every physical operation, and every part of a person for God. He doesn’t stand outside of you and look you up and down. He sees from inside. In the unsaved person he uses the spirit to examine him and in the saved person God’s Spirit, capital S, lives in him or her, making their formerly dead spirit alive. Our carnal religion has God coming down on the congregation while, in fact, He’s already inside you. Our carnal religion has God seeing everything you do like some kind of cosmic Santa Claus from above. Most of us Christians want that ‘Old Time Religion’ as in Old Testament and I can’t help but wonder if we’re annoying the daylights out of a God who has given us something much more special than the Hebrews ever received, but that Adam once knew and the prophets enjoyed.
For the Christian, God sees every thought and every action. He knows your most inward goings and desires. He knows your intentions. Satan doesn’t have this power. There is nowhere in the Bible where it says Satan can read your mind. Satan has to view your behavior and what you say. He’s the ultimate psychologist who correctly, 99 out of 100 times, knows what a man is going to do by what all men do and by what you’ve done before. He’s smarter than you are but predictable.
God uses your living spirit to not only search you as He would any Hell bound person, but because of the new birth God’s Spirit communicates with your spirit and your spirit can receive the things of God. David pleaded;
Psalm 139:23 Search me, O God, and know my heart: try me, and know my thoughts: 24 And see if there be any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.
When Adam’s spirit died he no longer could know God intimately or receive the things of God intimately. So, men had to create religion and call on God’s name (Genesis 4:26). With the new birth we have the opportunity to know God again, on a personal level, intimately. We accomplish this by believing, believing in, and trusting God the Son by the vehicle of the Holy Spirit inside of us which we were given when we first believed, hearing God speak to us through God’s words in a Book, capital B, not your imagination or by some meaningless ritual or piece of wood or stone, which are all things the heathen man makes up to try to recapture that lost intimacy with the God who created him and her.
Our faith is a spiritual faith and is not connected to nations, armies, navies, groves, temples, cathedrals, councils, physical altars or thrones or anything of this temporary reality we live in. If you think that baptism, the mass, going into a church building every time its open, or doing anything, anything of a physical nature that glories in your flesh, and feeling spiritual by an emotional high or going from emotional/spiritual fix to fix like someone going from rock concert to rock concert or sporting event to sporting event, then you and I have a different religion. I respect your right to have it. But, don’t tell me it’s the same thing. I’m not looking for a self satisfying emotional drug. I’m looking for truth. I believe the only truth is the God of the Bible (John 14:6) who we know as the Lord Jesus Christ, and we are to know intimately every day 24/7 not just a couple of times a week in a special ceremony.
I love meeting with the church, don’t get me wrong. I love all the people. I love hearing the singing and the sermons and having the fellowship, worshipping God as the body of Christ, and, if I feel compelled, led by the Spirit of God, coming down to the front to deal with something God has placed on my heart. But, I don’t know God by any of that. I could do all that and still not know God. I know God because I am born again and have His Spirit living in me along with my spirit who He has raised from the dead and He speaks to me, does business with me every day (sometimes many times a day), whatever you want to call it, by His words. That’s how He speaks to me. I don’t trust my conscience or my good intentions. God cleanses me with His word, not any ritualistic act of devotion.
Ephesians 5:25 Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it; 26 That he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word, 27 That he might present it to himself a glorious church, not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing; but that it should be holy and without blemish.
Yes, the words are in a Book. Yes, it’s precious. Yes, it’s a physical thing as well as a spiritual. But you could take my physical Bible and rip it from my hands and burn it and I’d pick up another one and if you burned every Bible on earth, God’s word is still forever settled in heaven. You could burn down every church building on earth and the church would still exist. Let’s get with the spirit, folks, by which God knows us and by which we can know God, and worship Him in spirit and truth.
John 4:24 God is a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth.
I can’t help but wonder if there will be people who call themselves Christians, who were tired of something burdening them, or idealizing a childhood in church they had walked away from, and said a 1-2-3 repeat after me prayer they didn’t really believe deep in their heart, joined a church organization, never missed a day, went door knocking at every opportunity, passed out tracts, and used all kinds of churchspeak to identify themselves as Christians, but didn’t have the love Christ speaks of in John 13:34,35, Paul speaks of in 1 Corinthians 13, or have the fruit of, the results of having the Spirit of God inside them, in Galatians 5:22, if those people won’t experience this from Jesus;
Matthew 7:21 ¶ Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven. 22 Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name? and in thy name have cast out devils? and in thy name done many wonderful works? 23 And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you: depart from me, ye that work iniquity.
God knows your spirit, Christian. You’re not fooling Him with the dog and pony show that is modern Christianity. Get real. It’s not about us. It’s about Him. Quit making it about us and how we feel. God has a light shining IN you. Get real.
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