The Heart of Man !

The Heart of Man: (1 Thessalonians 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." Paul went on to say, "what is it then ? I will pray with the spirit, and I will pray with the understanding also. . ." (v. 15). The following beautiful passage speaks of "the spirits of just men made perfect." (Hebrews 12:18--24) "For you are not come unto the amount that might be touch, and that burned with fire, nor unto blackness, and darkness, and tempest's, and the sound of a trumpet, and the voice of words; which was the day that heard intreated that the word should not be spoken to them anymore: for they could not endure that which was commanded, and if so much as a beast touch the mountain, it shall be stoned, or thrust through with a dart: and so terrible was the sight, that Moses said, I exceedingly fear and quake: But you are come unto mount Sion, and unto the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to an innumerable company of angels, to the general assembly and church of the first born, which are written in heaven, and to God the judge of all, and to the spirits of just men made perfect, and to Jesus the mediator of the new covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling. . . As we look into God's Word I want you to become conscious of this fact: you are a spirit; you have a soul; and you live in a body. THE INWARD MAN : (2 Corinthians 4:16) "For which cause we faint not; but though our outward man perish, yet the inward man is renewed day by day." There is an inward man and an outward man. The outward man is the body. The inward man is the spirit--- and the spirit has a soul. (1 Corinthians 9:27) "But I keep under my body, and bring it into subjection: lest that by any means, when I have preached to others, I myself should be a castaway." Now notice something here. If the body were the real man, [you] Paul would have said, "I keep myself under; and bring myself into subjection." But Paul refers to his body as "it." "I" is the man on the inside, the inward man who has been reborn. And Paul said in effect, "I do something with my body. I bring it into subjection." You see, the outward man which we look at is not the real man or woman, but only the house the real man lives in. We can now more easily understand Paul's writings to the saints at Rome: (Romans 12:1--2) "I beseech you therefore brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service. And be not conformed to this world: but be you transform by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God." I preached for more than 15 years before I saw something in this Scripture which astounded me. Paul is not writing this to unbelievers, but to Christians. The letter was addressed, "To all that be in Rome, beloved of God, called to be saints. . ." (Romans 1:7). He is writing to man and women who have been born again and filled with the Holy Spirit, yet he says to them, "you need to do something with your bodies and your minds." It came as a shock to me when I saw that here where people who were saved and filled with the Holy Spirit, yet their bodies and minds had not been affected. The new birth is not a rebirth of the human body, but a rebirth of the human spirit. And the new birth is not a rebirth of the soul which is the makeup of your will ,emotions and your intellect. The infilling of the Holy Spirit is not a physical experience, but a spiritual experience. According to these verses of Scripture, we have to do something with our bodies as well as our minds. We have to present them to God a living sacrifice. And we have to do something with our minds. We have to get them renewed with the Word of righteousness.