The Battle Between the Human Spirit and the Intellect
One of the greatest mistakes made in our intellectual culture has been the ignoring of the human spirit. We have not allowed our spirit to dominate our intellect. Instead, our knowledge has dominated our human spirit. In many instances, our intellect has taken the throne. Our human spirit—which should guide us—has been neglected or locked away in prison, so to speak.
When we shut away our spirit and don’t listen to it, we become crippled in life and easy prey to selfish and designing people. But when we allow our human spirit to gain mastery, it will influence us during a crisis, and we will climb to the top.
My wife and I knew a woman pastor who related the following story to me. An evangelist came to her town and got all the churches he could to cooperate in a citywide meeting. He rented an auditorium in the city.
It is sad to say, but not everyone in the ministry is honest. Because this man had a poor credit rating, the manager of the auditorium demanded payment in advance.
The evangelist asked the woman pastor for help. She was gullible and let her church be responsible for the $3,000 fee to rent the auditorium and the evangelist’s newspaper advertising costs.
What natural food is to your body, the Word of God is to your spirit.
Crowds of 2,000 to 3,000 attended the services every night. The evangelist received a lot of money in offerings, but he left town without paying one bill. This woman’s church had to take $5,000 out of their building fund to cover his expenses. (That was a lot of money in those days!)
The woman pastor eventually recovered her church’s money. But she told me, “Brother Hagin, if I had listened to my spirit, this never would have happened. I had a check in my spirit. If I had listened to it, I wouldn’t have had to pay his debts.”
If we had listened to our spirit, we would not have done some of the things we did. Remember, those whose spirit gains mastery can be influenced by it during a crisis. They are the ones who climb to the top.
Learning to Listen
How do we learn to listen to our spirit? We start by meditating on the written Word of God.
Jesus said in Matthew 4:4, “Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.” Bread in this verse means “food.”
You could say, “Man shall not live by natural food alone.” What will we live by? Every word that proceeds from God’s mouth.
I like to put it this way: What natural food is to your body, the Word of God is to your spirit. Or you could say, God’s Word is spirit food. The written Word of God was given to us by the Holy Spirit to develop our human spirit.
Meditate on the Word
The New Birth is the rebirth of the human spirit. It’s not the rebirth of our body or our mind. After we are born again, we must renew our mind (Rom. 12:1–2) and discipline our body (1 Cor. 9:27). The Holy Spirit uses God’s Word to impart His nature into our human spirit.
After the death of Moses, God told Joshua to meditate on His Word day and night. As Joshua did what was written in the scriptures, he made his way prosperous and had good success (Joshua 1:8). Today, we can meditate on God’s Word as Joshua did. We also have the Holy Spirit to guide us into all truth (John 16:13).
As we learn to quiet our mind, the Holy Spirit will communicate with our spirit through the Word of God and unveil truths to us. For many, it’s easier to get quiet physically than mentally. When we lie down at night, our body is quiet, but our mind is racing.
The more we quiet our mind and think on the Word, the more the Holy Spirit will speak to our human spirit. That is how He becomes the dominant force in our lives. We will seldom make mistakes when we give heed to our spirit.
We’ve learned how to develop our bodies and become athletes. And we’ve learned how to educate our intellect and become mental gymnasts. Now let’s learn how to enrich our human spirit by meditating on the Word of God.
Faith in Action
Developing the Human Spirit
You can take these steps to develop your human spirit. The first three are centered on God’s Word. The fourth will not work unless you have put the first three into practice.
- Meditate on God’s Word.
- Practice the Word. Be a doer of it, not a hearer only (James 1:22).
- Give the Word first place in your life.
- Instantly obey the voice of your spirit.
Author
Kenneth E. Hagin
Share this Post