Walking After the Spirit

loolalooh

Well-Known Member
Someone (can't remember who :() shared this online book a few years back. I'm reading it again today and thought I'd share an excerpt from the chapter "Walking After the Spirit":

There are countless Christians who consider the occasional working of the Holy Spirit in their spirit to be the most sublime of their life experiences. They do not expect to have such an experience daily because they surmise that such a special event could happen but a few times in life. Were they to live by the spirit according to its law, however, they would discover that these are everyday occurrences. What they deem extraordinary—something one cannot permanently sustain—is actually the ordinary daily experiences of believers. “Extraordinary” indeed if believers should desert this ordinary life experience and abide in darkness.

Suppose we have received a certain thought. Are we able to discern whether this comes from our spirit or from our soul? Some thoughts burn in the spirit while others blaze in the soul. Believers ought to understand how the various parts of their being operate or they shall not be able to distinguish the spiritual from the soulical. When thinking, they should recognize the source of their thought; in feeling, they should detect the direction from which such feeling comes; and in working, they should be clear as to what strength they use. Only thus can they follow the spirit.

We know our soul provides us with self-consciousness. One aspect of self-consciousness is self-examination. This is most harmful since it causes us to focus upon ourselves and thereby enhance the growth of self life. How often self-exaltation and pride are the consequences of such self-examination. But there is a kind of analysis of incalculable help to the spiritual pilgrimage. Without it we are incompetent to know who we really are and what we are following. Harmful self-examination revolves around one’s own success or defeat, stimulating attitudes of self-pride or self-pity. Profitable analysis searches only the source of one’s thought, feeling or desire. God wishes us to be delivered from self-consciousness, but at the same time He certainly does not intend for us to live on earth as people without intelligent awareness. We must not be overly self-conscious, yet we must apprehend the true condition of all our inward parts through the knowledge accorded us by the Holy Spirit. It is positively necessary for us to search out our activities with our heart.

.....

Soulish Christians generally bend to certain directions. Most of them lean either towards emotion or towards reason. Now when these people become spiritual they tend to fall towards the opposite extreme from what they formerly were. Emotional persons will then be tempted to adopt their own cold reason as the leading of the spirit. Because they appreciate how soulish their former passionate life was, they now mistake their own reasoning to be spiritual. Likewise those who were rational believers may subsequently accept their passionate feeling to be the leading of the Holy Spirit. They too are conscious of the soulish cast of their hitherto cold and quiet life; consequently they now interpret their emotion to be of the spirit. These are equally ignorant of the fact that the reversal of position between emotion and reason does not render them a shade less soulish. Let us therefore remember the functions of the spirit. To be led by the spirit is to follow its intuition. All spiritual knowledge, communion and conscience come via the intuition. The Holy Spirit leads the saints by this intuition. They need not themselves figure out what possibly is spiritual; all that is required is to abide by their intuition. In order to listen to the Spirit we must apprehend His mind intuitively.

.....

For the full chapter: Walking After the Spirit

For the full book: "The Spiritual Man"
 

MrsHaseeb

Well-Known Member
I got the book as well and another one called "War on the Saints". I have read that her books are powerful and I love reading Christian books in my spare time.

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Iwanthealthyhair67

Well-Known Member
who is the author of this book

QUOTE=MrsHaseeb;17449755]I got the book as well and another one called "War on the Saints". I have read that her books are powerful and I love reading Christian books in my spare time.

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MrsHaseeb

Well-Known Member
who is the author of this book

QUOTE=MrsHaseeb;17449755]I got the book as well and another one called "War on the Saints". I have read that her books are powerful and I love reading Christian books in my spare time.

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Morning sis. The same woman is the author. I think her name is Jessie Penn-Lewis. I got it for $.99 on Kindle.

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MrsHaseeb

Well-Known Member
The Spiritual Man is by Watchman Nee.
Another work of his that would be relevant to this topic is The Latent Power of the Soul.

There must be several books with his name by different authors. The one I found was written by a woman. Ill check this one out as well.

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aribell

formerly nicola.kirwan
I meant the quote in the op--it's from Watchman Nee's book. He and Jessie Penn Lewis are often mentioned together, though, as she was influential in his writings.
 

Laela

Sidestepping the "lynch mob"
This hits home for me...striving to maintain balance at all times. I've read it before but I'm always glad that God has the patience that we don't have for ourselves and for others, because of the absence of "self" in God.


God wishes us to be delivered from self-consciousness, but at the same time He certainly does not intend for us to live on earth as people without intelligent awareness. We must not be overly self-conscious, yet we must apprehend the true condition of all our inward parts through the knowledge accorded us by the Holy Spirit. It is positively necessary for us to search out our activities with our heart.
 

loolalooh

Well-Known Member
This hits home for me...striving to maintain balance at all times. I've read it before but I'm always glad that God has the patience that we don't have for ourselves and for others, because of the absence of "self" in God.

Amen. (10 char)
 

MrsHaseeb

Well-Known Member
I meant the quote in the op--it's from Watchman Nee's book. He and Jessie Penn Lewis are often mentioned together, though, as she was influential in his writings.

I think that is the case because I scanned her book and much of the wording and the general message is the same.

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Iwanthealthyhair67

Well-Known Member
loolalooh I'm a huge fan of Watchman Nee and have several of his books Let us Pray, Spiritual Authority, changed into his likeness, the Latent power of the soul and a few others...

My pastor preached a powerful message yesterday on the soul and spirit of man then I came on the board last night and followed the link you posted and found more on the soul and spirit of man and I was weeping ...when the truth of what she taught and what nee wrote hit me, I couldn't catch msyelf I was crying again and forgot I was at work...from last night the message just stayed with me I barely slept prolly got about two hours sleep if all that ...the long and short of it is, I realize that we have many emotional experiences with God and no spiritual experiences and that half the time our soul leads and we allow it to only surrender so much but not all, so that REAL change can be made in us...thanks so much for this...
 

loolalooh

Well-Known Member
loolalooh I'm a huge fan of Watchman Nee and have several of his books Let us Pray, Spiritual Authority, changed into his likeness, the Latent power of the soul and a few others...

My pastor preached a powerful message yesterday on the soul and spirit of man then I came on the board last night and followed the link you posted and found more on the soul and spirit of man and I was weeping ...when the truth of what she taught and what nee wrote hit me, I couldn't catch msyelf I was crying again and forgot I was at work...from last night the message just stayed with me I barely slept prolly got about two hours sleep if all that ...the long and short of it is, I realize that we have many emotional experiences with God and no spiritual experiences and that half the time our soul leads and we allow it to only surrender so much but not all, so that REAL change can be made in us...thanks so much for this...

Profound words. Amen. Thank YOU, Iwanthealthyhair67!
 
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