'Our Lengthy
Discussion as to the difference between spirit and soul and their respective
operations has been to lead us to this present point. For a believer who
strives after God the element to be apprehensive about is the inordinate
activity of the soul beyond the measure set by God.
The soul has been in
ascendancy for such long duration that in the matter of consecration it even
presumes to take upon itself the task of realizing that act to God’s
satisfaction. Many Christians are unaware how drastically the cross must work
so that ultimately their natural power for living may be denied.
They do not know the
reality of the indwelling Holy Spirit nor that His authority must extend to
gathering under His control the thoughts, desires and feelings of the entire
being.
Without their having
an inner appreciation of this, the Holy Spirit is unable to accomplish
everything He wishes to do.
The greatest
temptation for an earnest and zealous saint is to engage his own strength in
God’s service rather than to wait humbly for the Holy Spirit to will and to
perform.
The call of the
cross of the Lord Jesus is to beckon us to hate our natural life, to seek
opportunity to lose, not to keep, it.
Our Lord wants us to
sacrifice self and be yielded wholly to the working of His Spirit.
If we are to
experience afresh His true life in the power and guidance of the Holy Spirit,
we must be willing to present to death every opinion, labor and thought of the
soul life.
The Lord
additionally touches upon the issue of our hating or loving our self life. The
soul is invariably “self-loving.” Unless from the very depth of our heart we
abhor our natural life, we shall not be able to walk genuinely by the Holy
Spirit. Do we not realize that the basic condition for a spiritual walk is to
fear our self and its wisdom and to rely absolutely upon the Spirit? '
The Spiritual Man
- Watchman Nee
*******
Tomorrow we will
read and study this more in-depth. Please, read the above a few times, let it
sink in. Then take your Bible and look up the following verses-
1Jn 2:15-17
Gal. 6:8
Gal. 5:16,17
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