SPIRIT AWARENESS
When we hear the word spirit, the Holy Spirit comes to mind immediately. This is so because a good percentage of believers do not have the faintest idea of their own spirit. The breath of life that God breathed into Adam was his spirit; it was not the Holy Spirit. We are baptized by the Holy Spirit who comes to live in our regenerated spirit at the New Birth.
The Holy Spirit can only work through our spirit, so if we have no knowledge of our spirit, there is bound to be confusion or at best, a mixture in the church life. According to Hebrews 4:12, the spirit must be severed from the soul in order to avoid a mixture; and so that the spirit will be free to be joined to the Lord (1 Corinthians 6:17)
The human spirit has a mighty potential. It is the breath of the Eternal God, hence Ecclesiastes 3:11 says, He has put eternity in our hearts.
MATURITY BEGINS AND CONTINUES WITH AWARENESS
Spiritual awareness results in seeing, hearing and discerning the Lord. Developing awareness enables one to bridge the gap between the seen and the unseen, bringing us into living in two realms. God created us to be dual-dimensional persons, but most of us do not live that way. By default, we live in the physical ‘body’ dimension, and we take our directions from our minds and emotions, which represent the dimension we call the ‘soul’ and we pay only limited attention to our spirits, which limits our daily life to the material world.
Your human spirit is your connection with God. His Spirit communicates with your spirit. Therefore, it is important to learn about the three-part nature of human life -spirit, soul, and body, if you have a desire to walk with a supernatural God.
To hear from God and act on it requires the use of your spirit. The spirit relates to the spirit realm and gives us God consciousness. Since most believers do not even know they have a spirit, they have no contact with it. That is why most believers think they cannot contact God. God cannot be apprehended by our thoughts, our feelings, or by our intentions.
In the tabernacle in the wilderness, there was a veil between the Holy Place and the Holiest. This veil separated the two realms. The Tabernacle was a picture of the tri-partite nature of man, spirit, soul and body; the outer court representing our body, the holy place our soul, and the Holiest, our spirit. It is evident that the veil is between the soul and the spirit.
The apostle Paul said in 2 Corinthians 3:18 that the veil is over the heart but it is taken away in Christ. When we turn our heart to the Lord; we can behold the unseen realm, the glory of the Lord. There the Lord is not veiled.
THE PRACTICE THE PRESENCE OF GOD
This is the key to virtually everything spiritual. You must believe that you can come at any time into the presence of God. The more time you spend in the presence of God, the more conscious you become of your spirit. The more conscious you become of your spirit, the more conscious you become of God in your spirit.
Your unworthiness does not handicap God. Learn to stand in the presence of God knowing that He loves you, that you are accepted and welcome. We are told to come boldly into His presence. Let us therefore come boldly to the throne of grace that we may obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time of need (Hebrews 4:16). We obtain mercy and grace. Mercy is not receiving what we deserve and grace is receiving what we don’t deserve. This is a good reason for going into His Presence more often.
To many believers this is difficult, because we are dealing with and developing a relationship with someone who is invisible. This is why it is very important to know your own spirit and develop it. Hebrews 11:6 says that ‘he who comes to God must believe that He is’. Nothing can behold anything else except there is a likeness. God appears to and fellowships with that which is like Himself. Man has something in him that can see God and that must see God. We are created in the image and likeness of God.
The Apostle Paul also said that we can see or look into the invisible world. While we do not look at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen for the things which are seen are temporal; but the things which are not seen are eternal (2 Corinthians 4:18)
Of Moses’ faith, Hebrews 11:27 tells us that ‘he forsook Egypt, not fearing the wrath of the king for he endured, as seeing him who is invisible.
David also said in Psalms 16:8 ‘I have set the LORD always before me: because He is at my right hand, I shall not be moved.
The ability to use one’s imagination to transcend the natural realm has been given to us by God. We have five senses that enable us to go beyond the veil. We must exercise our senses to enable us to access the unseen realm.
But solid food belongs to those who are of full age, that is those who by reason of use have their senses exercised to discern both good and evil (Hebrews 5:14)
Taste, sight, touch, smell and hear; these senses can be trained and exercised to enable us to connect with the spiritual realm of God. What these senses pick up beyond the natural is important for the development of spiritual awareness.
We need to develop an awareness of the Lord’s presence. He said He would never leave us nor forsake us. God is everywhere and in everything. However there is a difference between the omnipresence and the manifest Presence of God. His manifest Presence is activated by our awareness of Him. This is picked up by one or more of our five spiritual senses. The Israelites referred to the manifest Presence of God as the Shekinah glory of God.
God is everywhere, but He does not turn His face and favor everywhere; that is why Bible tells us to seek His face. That is why King David said in Psalm 16:8 ‘I have set the LORD always before me.’ Psalm 24:6 speaks of the Jacob generation as those who ‘seek His face’.
True ministry flows out of awareness. Jesus ministry was an example for all of us. You must become aware of the Christ in you. You must be God conscious. You must be aware of who God is in you. As I said previously, if you do not know your God, you will not know yourself; if you do not believe in yourself, you are not going to believe in the God in you.
BELIEVE AND SEE
We must lay scriptural foundation for everything we do so that Satan does deceive us. Picture in your mind everything that is yours in Christ Jesus. Visualize the Lord. Picture in your mind the will of God for you. See it; believe it, live it. When based on God’s Word, or on a given word, your imagination is not an illusion; it is a reality. Use your imagination to break through the natural barriers to reality. You are made to walk in the spirit with the Lord. Read the word, meditate on it; visualize it and see yourself being or doing it. Believe that God is more powerful to protect you than the devil to deceive you. Use your sanctified imagination as a means of experiencing God.
(Please read Genesis Chapter 28 – Jacob’s Ladder)
What we desperately need in our cities today is more than one or two churches experiencing visitations. We need to establish habitations, or places of open heavens. The church needs to rise up and become ‘Bethels’ – places where God can be found, the places of His manifest Presence.
