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First Read ⇾ (Genesis 1:26-28) and (1 Thessalonians 5:16-23) ⇽

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In today’s discussion we are going to look at how God made us and why it is important that once we are born again we understand this and what we must do for the whole of our being.

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Listen :

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As born-again ones from Heaven through Christ, we are body, soul and a regenerated spirit, however this order is backwards as far at its rightful hierarchy was before sin entered mankind.

In a right understanding, we are really spirit, soul and body with the lowest standing of our 3-part being being our physical body. That is not to say that we can abuse it or not take care of it but that our spirit and soul need as much or more care and attention than the natural body because our spirit and soul live-on after the physical body dies.

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⊳ So a question that I ask myself is ...

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“What must I do to nourish my spirit and my soul while keeping my body and what it wants in its rightful place as I live my life in this earthly domain?”

ℂonsider what Paul wrote in these places:

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† 1 Corinthians 9:24 Know ye not that they which run in a race run all, but one receiveth the prize? So run, that ye may obtain. 25 And every man that striveth for the mastery is temperate in all things. Now they do it to obtain a corruptible crown; but we an incorruptible. 26 I therefore so run, not as uncertainly; so fight I, not as one that beateth the air: 27 But I keep under (subdue [its passions]) my body, and bring it into subjection: lest that by any means, when I have preached to others, I myself should be a castaway.

† Hebrews 12:1 Wherefore seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us, 2 Looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith; who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God. 3 For consider him that endured such contradiction of sinners against himself, lest ye be wearied and faint in your minds.

You well understand that we have things that we must do and things we should do to keep our physical body functioning. We need air to breath, clean water to drink, food as fuel for the body; we need to work its muscles and joints and ligaments (called exercise), and we must give our bodies and our brains rest each day—or the body and mind begin to break down and die prematurely.

Many of us do a fair job on most of these things but there are elements of these physical needs that we often neglect or completely fail at, which leads to sickness and disease, unnatural weakness or fatigue, and the inability to live each day fully.

Now here is the point of what we must hear and understand and act-on for our remaining days: Your regenerated human spirit (that which God purposely created you and me to have originally and then healed through Jesus) has many similar needs in order to function as it is intended to by God—as does our soul have certain needs.

If we do not provide our spirit and our soul what they each need, we will be developmentally disabled; we will not grow to become all that we are capable of and that God desires of each of His children.

𝕃et me begin to define these two parts of our being. ⊳ Our “soul” is defined by some as our personality as it becomes evident through its components—our mind, emotions, and our will (our “will” is what we take action by as a result of what the mind and the emotions decide they want or believe they need)

As an example of how this typically works: The purchase of a new car is done when our emotions say, “I like that car, color, features, and how it will make me feel or look driving it.” Then our emotions look to the mind to provide the rationale to buy it (justify the price, how to pay make its payments, and how to convincingly explain it to our spouse)—and then when the emotions and mind have worked out the details, we turn it over to our will to make it happen.

But the soul of a wise and maturing man or woman, a person that has helped the soul to properly grow and develop through knowledge and life’s trials-and-errors has gained experience, that person has acquired certain disciplines by which more and more emotional and poorer choices are usually avoided the older we get.

Increasing knowledge and the experiences we have in life helps us to grow wise in our thoughts, our words and wants, and the actions we take (the function of the soul’s will) if we do not neglect what our mind needs, which is knowledge, training and practice, and discipline.

Discipline is useful to carefully over-watch what selfish emotions often come forth on an issue that may not be good for us or in our best interest, and without the mind and the emotions agreeing usually the will is not driven to actions that we should not take.

Now take what I have just said about the soul and introduce those thoughts to having been born again from Heaven but now having a new contributor to the mix of our lives (a living human spirit before God).

You and I still have the old mindset and most of the old wants and desires, and without certain knowledge and experiences we continue to do things the way we used to and often according to what the nature of sin wants and wills.

𝕎HAT DO WE NEED ??? ⊳ We need new and perfect knowledge to develop wisdom and know-how that is in-line with our relationship with God and the discipline to live that way moving forward. We must grow in our knowledge of God and His ways. We must!

Just as your body will suffer at first and eventually die if you do not give it water and feed it so will your relationship with God be without the Bread of the Life of Christ and the Water of Word of God.

The New Testament writers constantly remind us of how important ‘knowledge of God” is to our born again life and for victory.

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† 2 Peter 1:2 Grace and peace be multiplied unto you through the knowledge of God, and of Jesus our Lord...

† Colossians 1:9 For this cause we also, since the day we heard it, do not cease to pray for you, and to desire that ye might be filled with the knowledge (able to recognize, discern, acknowledge) of his will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding; 10 That ye might walk worthy of the Lord unto all pleasing, being fruitful in every good work, and increasing in the knowledge of God;

† 1 Corinthians 15:34 Awake to righteousness, and sin not; for some have not the knowledge of God [do not know God nor His ways, Paul says]: I speak this to your shame.

† 2 Corinthians 10:3 For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war after the flesh: 4 (For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strong holds;) 5 Casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ;

I am making the case for what we must do and have as followers of Jesus in order that you and I will not be spiritually barren or in danger of falling away as the Bible says many will do in our day. We must regularly provide our mind that which affects our personality and behaviors, and the main part of that diet is being a student of the written Word of God.

It is hydration and nourishment for your mind that affects your emotions and regulates your will and it also gives your regenerated human spirit that which it needs to do what it is created to do: Provide direct input to our minds and hearts from the Spirit of God.

𝕆ur spirit needs spiritual nourishment & training ⊳ Our spirit needs spiritual nourishment and training also for it to effectively help us live for God and walk according to His will for our lives each day (more on the subject of our human spirit in our second part of this discussion).

There is nothing available to you and me that is better to feed, teach and renew our minds (that which needs to rule our emotions and will) then the blessed Word of God. It is literally (in my opinion) the only perfect physical gift on the earth today given by Heaven to be used by the human gifts raised up by God’s Spirit for our edification through certain offices in the true church.

It is by both our individual study of the Bible and what God inspires His truly called church officers to do and say that we will grow in our needed knowledge of God and His ways wherein we are to faithfully walk.

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† Ephesians 4:11 And he gave (“gifts to men”) some, apostles; and some, prophets; and some, evangelists; and some, pastors and teachers; 12 For the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ: 13 Till we all come in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ: 14 That we henceforth be no more children, tossed to and fro, and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the sleight of men, and cunning craftiness, whereby they lie in wait to deceive; 15 But speaking the truth in love, may grow up into him in all things, which is the head, even Christ: 16 From whom the whole body fitly joined together and compacted by that which every joint supplieth, according to the effectual working in the measure of every part, maketh increase of the body unto the edifying of itself in love.

A critical thing that must happen for the believer is for God’s Word to get a hold of and affect the mind of the true follower of Jesus. His and her mind must be stripped of its wrong ways and its “stinkin’ thinkin’” and be taught and affected by a healthy spiritual life or we will not be set free of our old ways—ways that are lazy toward God and sinful. Understand this about your mind and mine:

Mind: That part of us that enables us to perceive, think and reason, understand things, imagine, and remember, which things result in behaviors expressed through our emotions and our will. It includes both the conscious processes, through which an individual is aware of external and internal circumstances, and [includes] the unconscious processes, which can influence an individual without intention or awareness.

Now understand that when we become born again we still have the old mind and its perspectives and ways seriously influenced by the nature of sin. By the whole of this definition of our mind’s natural and automatic functions, we can come to understand why our minds must be renewed in its knowledge of how things really are in light of the new birth, what the answers and responses to life’s issues are to be through Christ, and how to apply God’s mind and ways to our everyday living.

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† Romans 12:1 I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service. 2 And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing (renovation) of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God.

† Ephesians 4:17 This I say therefore, and testify in the Lord, that ye henceforth walk not as other Gentiles walk, in the vanity of their mind, 18 Having the understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of God through the ignorance that is in them, because of the blindness of their heart: 19 Who being past feeling have given themselves over unto lasciviousness, to work all uncleanness with greediness. 20 But ye have not so learned Christ; 21 If so be that ye have heard him, and have been taught by him, as the truth is in Jesus: 22 That ye put off concerning the former conversation the old man, which is corrupt according to the deceitful lusts; 23 And be renewed (to renovate, reform) in the spirit of your mind; 24 And that ye put on the new man, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness. 25 Wherefore putting away lying, speak every man truth with his neighbour: for we are members one of another. 26 Be ye angry, and sin not: let not the sun go down upon your wrath: 27 Neither give place to the devil. 28 Let him that stole steal no more: but rather let him labour, working with his hands the thing which is good, that he may have to give to him that needeth. 29 Let no corrupt communication proceed out of your mouth, but that which is good to the use of edifying, that it may minister grace unto the hearers. 30 And grieve not the holy Spirit of God, whereby ye are sealed unto the day of redemption. 31 Let all bitterness, and wrath, and anger, and clamour, and evil speaking, be put away from you, with all malice: 32 And be ye kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ's sake hath forgiven you.

† Colossians 3:8 But now ye also put off all these; anger, wrath, malice, blasphemy, filthy communication out of your mouth. 9 Lie not one to another, seeing that ye have put off the old man with his deeds; 10 And have put on the new (fresh, regenerated) man, which is renewed (up + new, fresh; [upgrade to new operating system]) in knowledge after the image of him that created him...

These discussions today and at least next we meet are about “Our Needed Spiritual Diet” for our souls and spirits. Once we are brought into the Family of God, if we do not individually participate in the available School of the Holy Spirit, progressing from spiritual kindergarten (in a fashion) and proceed to methodically work through the primary, secondary, junior and senior high levels of our faith, we will not be educated nor taking and passing the tests of our life’s spiritual instructions as the disciples of Jesus Christ.

Our minds must be made new in order for us to increasingly live a godly life by the knowledge and experience of the Word of God—if we will read it and also apply the weekly lessons provided by the truly called ministers God has placed in our lives to teach us other specialty areas needed for our development.

Our physical body must have water and food and exercise and rest or it will grow weak and eventually die; the eternal body of our spiritual existence, the spirit and its soul must also have these things from the spiritual realm as well—else we will wither and die away from a saving faith that is true before God and the Savior.

𝕎e conclude today with this question: ⊳ That of your present whole (spirit, soul and body), ⅔'s of it which will live-on after the body dies (the eternal part that is you that also has needs for its continuing life)—are you on Heaven’s prescribed diet? You need to be!

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~ Brother Scott ... With ... The Right Word^© ... For Today~

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