VICTORIOUS LIVING

The spiritual has precedence over the natural or material. This is the order in which things have been made, the spiritual first and then the natural.

Jesus came so that we may again be made alive to God and be able to operate in the spirit successfully, by His authority and power (John 10:10). Descending from Adam, we inherited the sin nature, which alienates our spirits from God once we grow to be able to discern between good and evil, hence the need for Him to restore and give us access to God again so we can have the opportunity to learn and exercise dominion from our spirits like Adam did before the fall. You must take cognizance of the fact that you are a spirit (1 Thessalonians 5:23), you have a soul and reside in a body.

God is a Spirit (John 4:24) and in making us after His likeness (Genesis 1:26a), He made us spirit beings. He deals with us through our spirit, not our mind or body. The mind and body enable us to function here on earth, relating to the intellectual and material world. God’s dealings with us are however through our spirit.

Our mind takes what it is fed, either the things of God through our spirit or the things of this world through our five senses. For the unbeliever who has an unregenerate spirit, the mind is condemned to not only receiving the things of the world (of which Satan is God – 2 Corinthians 4:4a) through his/her senses, but also things borne out of selfishness towards man and God from their spirits which are devoid of the life of God. For him/her, it is double jeopardy until such a time that they heed God’s call to salvation and get born again. For this reason, the bible admonishes believers (those that have been made alive in their spirits) to walk in the Spirit (Galatians 5: 16a, 25). If we do not walk in the spirit, our spirits do not feed or compel our minds but our flesh does and we end up doing things as though we do not have the life of God in us, living in defeat and sin.

We walk in the spirit when we mind the things of the spirit, filling our minds and compelling it with the things of the spirit (Romans 8:5). To feed our minds with the things of the spirit, we must first know these things. The things of the spirit are the things of God which the Holy Spirit reveals to our spirits.

SPIRITUAL GROWTH

We must understand that living our lives victoriously as Christians depends on us developing our spirits. The mind cannot lay hold on or take in the things of God because they do not make sense to it or ‘add up’. The believer’s spirit however can, because it has been re-created after God, it has been given the life of God by God’s spirit (Ephesians 4:24). 1 Corinthians 2:14 says But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned. The natural man is the man devoid of God’s Spirit, and thus attempts to grasp the things of God with his mind (through his senses) but he can’t. We will not fare better as believers if we remain sense ruled and try to grasp the things of God with our minds. We must be spirit ruled, our minds were not born again, our spirits were. The mind cannot reason out or understand the things of God, it can only be made to accept it as compelled to by our spirits. This is what is called renewing of the mind (Romans 12:1). Whatever is revealed to the believer’s spirit is the only thing that the believer can renew his/her mind with, hence the believer must seek the revelation of the things of God to his spirit so the mind can be renewed with such revealed truth.

What the Holy Spirit reveals to you personally as a believer is what you will renew your mind with. Though it is the same truth, it must be revealed to each person for it to be useful to them personally. The Christian walk is a personal walk with God in which each person walks the walk with God. The collective (Church) provides all the support and means for each believer to walk with God successfully by learning from Him and growing spiritually. Without the collective, the individual is undone. We must all of necessity learn from others but the revelation others have in their spirit cannot lead to your own spiritual growth. They give you the message but you must sit down with God personally and let Him reveal Himself to you in it by His Spirit. Every believer has to study God’s word, meditate and pray for us to grow spiritually.

GOD DEALS WITH OUR SPIRITS

You will notice that in Romans 8:16 it says The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God. He does not bear witness with our mind/reasoning or sight, smell, touch/taste/feeling or physical hearing. God deals with our spirits because God is a Spirit. It had earlier said in the fourteenth verse that as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God. This leading is from our spirits, not from our mind or senses, for the Holy Spirit bears witness from within our spirits. This witness that he bears with our spirits is a revelation of one thing about God, that when we get born again we become the sons of God (John 1:12). There is no physical proof for this, no natural proof, no sense knowledge, scientific or psychological proof. The proof is the witness of the Holy Spirit to our spirits. That is why it is by faith, we believe in our spirits (hearts) and we act accordingly. As seeing is to the physical eyes so is ‘knowing’ or revelation to the spirit. It does not take time however for what happened in our spirits to be seen on the outside though, most especially when we develop our spirit and grow. This development and growth comes by learning, knowing the things of God and doing them.

WHAT ARE THE THINGS OF GOD?

In 1 Corinthians 2:14, apostle Paul talked about the things of God, which he started out with earlier in the chapter. He clarified that they were not man’s wisdom (not a product of the mind’s thoughts or reasoning or common sense – verses 1,4,5), nor the wisdom of Satan or demons (anything referred to as wisdom of spiritual nature like magic, esoteric teachings, uncommon sense, hidden knowledge etc) but the testimony of God. The testimony of God is what God has to say, which he also referred to as the wisdom of God that he (and the other apostles and prophets of God in the bible) spoke in a mystery. What did they speak? They spoke the word of God.

In the seventh verse, apostle Paul said they spoke the wisdom (word) of God in a mystery, mystery indeed to the human mind but not a mystery to the human spirit when revealed by the Holy Spirit (verse 10). He concluded in the twelfth and thirteenth verses that Now we (believers) have received, not the spirit of the world, but the spirit which is of God; that we might know the things that are freely given to us of God Which things also we (apostle Paul, the other apostles and prophet in the bible) speak, not in the words which man's wisdom teacheth, but which the Holy Ghost teacheth; comparing spiritual things with spiritual.

The things of God are the word of God as presented in the bible. The Holy Spirit reveals them to us through our spirit (not our mind) and by this revelation we know and understand them. When we feed this revelation knowledge to our minds and act on them, it brings spiritual growth and the exercise of dominion in life as God intends. This is the key to overcoming all what Satan may bring against the believer in life.

Take notice though that knowing the things of God is beyond mental assent to the bible as though it is a story book, history book, science or art book or anything else written by men. Otherwise, what you will know will not be beyond what the bible calls letter of the word which does not produce life (spiritual development/growth). 2 Corinthians 3:6 says for the letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life. It is the revelation that the Holy Spirit gives you that contains the life giving/ life transforming power of God that makes the difference. This is what the psalmist saw in the Old Testament when he prophesied that The entrance of thy words giveth light; it giveth understanding unto the simple (Psalm 119:130). Who is the simple? The simple is that man or woman that will humble himself/herself before God, respect God enough to take His word as revealed by His Spirit. It is this revealed word of God that is the wisdom of God. And it is amazing to know that there is nothing that has to do with man in this life that the bible does not have covered and yes, I mean everything! For the believer therefore, this is where the buck stops, this is where the solution and the answer lay.

Are you a believer? Are you tired of living in defeat and running helter skelter without the guarantee of a lasting victory? Do you want to walk in the fullness of the benefits of your redemption? Then develop your spirit, grow up spiritually, this is the key to exercising the dominion that is yours in Christ.

Meditate upon these things; give thyself wholly to them; that thy profiting may appear to all (1 Timothy 4:15).


Pastor Gboye Omolayo is the Resident Pastor of Church@Allen, Allen TX, USA. He is a prolific writer and preacher who believes the efficacy of the word of God and the potency of the works of the Holy Spirit are still available to the Church today, as were at the Church’s infancy. He is the publisher of this blog.