Jan 18
Spirituality
I know the question I asked was a huge topic. Perhaps it is best to narrow our quest to know spirituality to the basics - which to many may not be so basic.
True Spirituality is confusing to many. The reason for this is that we tend to judge what is spiritual or not by various outward signs we see in others. We see someone who is calm and we may think they are spiritual. The same is true for anyone who might have a metaphysical approach to life or talk of unseen influences and we assume that they are spiritual. Lately there is a plethora of self-help guru’s of many differing beliefs that are touted as spiritual leaders. All of these may have knowledge and with self discipline they may appear to have a certain spirituality, but knowledge is not always truth, and self discipline is just that - discipline, which I’ll address later.
Knowledge changes with more knowledge, Spirit is constant and Eternal.
True Spirituality cannot be achieved without being connected to the Spiritual source or He who is pure SPIRIT. To connect to a created spiritual being, is to connect to a lesser spiritual side, and therefore at best have limited spirituality - or none. God is true Spirit, we are not. One might say we are in a tripartite conflict with ourselves. Regardless of our religious conviction, our spirit, soul, and body war against each other. Darkness wants our soul to rule and in doing so we follow darkness. God wants our spirit to rule and in doing so follow Him who is pure light.
Why is that important? Because if one does not believe in, and serve the pure, true, source of Spirit - God then they will be drawn toward that which is darkness and soul - not that which is spirit. This will always result in one being lead by soul rather than spirit. Thus by definition, the one who follows soul cannot follow spirit or be fully spiritual.
It is in the following of the Source of Spirit that one becomes spiritual. Now back to self discipline. Self discipline may be used by either the soul or the spirit to accomplish the intention of either, thus one can have self discipline and still be soulish.
This battle between the soul and the spirit is the age old battle depicted in the Garden of Eden. The soul, depicted by the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, has three parts - Mind, Will, and Emotions. The Spirit, depicted by the Tree of Life, has three parts - Wisdom, Communion, and Conscience.
All the modern guru’s espouse knowledge as being the way to spirituality, but that is eating from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. They tell us that by the gaining of certain knowledge we can become spiritual and like God. But how can that be if God is spirit? No matter how high we climb on that tree it will never become the Tree of Life. The wrong tree will never become the right tree. We have to change the perception of spirituality if the church is to have distinct relevance to a lost world.
We cannot follow that which is soulish and proclaim that we are spiritual. Even the world smells the stench of that line of thinking.
I’ll write more on True Spirituality in my next blog.
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I have always wondered what the difference between Spirit and Soul is. What is the difference? ie: What is Soul?
John Paul,thankyou for that lead in. I was thinking along those same lines but then as I got to thinking about “spirituality” the Lord whispered in my spirit that He rather have me come to Him for the answer because He is the author and finisher of all things, which includes my faith and prayer life. Now as I was pondering about how to answer the question, I had to ask myself and the Lord does John want me to answer the question in his way of thinking or teaching which can be challenging because of his status in leadership or should I answer the question based on what I am hearing from the Lord which is probaly the better way for me so here goes!
In my worship time the other day when I was driving my special needs bus worshiping to Misty Edwards CD “Always On My Mind”, I could not help but enter into dialogue with with my Lord and King, anyway as I was worshiping, the Lord tapped me on the shoulder in the spirit and then a word flashed in front of my face, like on a chalk board….it was the word “Spiri” the first part of the word Spirituality (I knew you knew that LOL)…and then He reminded me of a description of what St. Theresa of Avila said concerning the spiritual life in her teachings. She describe it as a spiral staircase going up with many twist and turns always going higher, outward, higher, and outward again, and higher , etc. and never feeling that you have arrived to a final destination but knowing that you are in a constant flow, heading in the right direction and in constant communion with the heavenly father as you are moving closer, and closer, deeper, and deeper into the eternal realms of the spirit and never being fully satisfied while entering into those realms while here on this earth. All because there is a vast supply of His Spirit which is His uncontainable Glory. There is so much more to Him than we can ever imagine in our finite minds. Just when we think we know, who God is and what who we think we are in HIM, the Lord pulls the rug from underneath us and catches us off guard, we stumble a bit, repent and HE shows us His Love in His unique way according to each person’s measure of faith and relationship in Him and it just blows the human mind that this God that we serve know and Love has the power to turn us upside down, right side up and spinning all around only to put us right back on level ground again.
“Spiri” is also in the word inspire, inspirational, respiration..
signifying that in order to begin an authentic spiritual journey, there needs to be a receiving of breath from something or someone that has been gifted with a divine spark that is truly life giving and of course that person, is the third person of the trinity, the Holy Spirit sent from God through Jesus to establish His Body on the earth.
The other thing that made me say aha! whoa God! Yea God! was the correlation between the way in which God made DNA(Deoxyribonucleic Acid) look like a spiral staircase with a double helix structure. Even the way in which the DNA is structured in the human cell is designed to ascend higher towards the greater realms of Glory. DNA, the very core and essence of our being is designed by God Himself to ascend to something higher than itself.
As far out as it seems, this is how the Lord wanted me to answer the question. I definitely think that too many people like Oprah and many others have been plague in their spirit by the spirit of the world that tendsto exalt the self as if it were a god. Too many celebrities are way too superficial when they try to talk about spiritual things. They get stuck at spiritual virtues/values without acknowledging the true source. But I guess they have to start somewhere like we all did.
Lord send down your heavenly army to transform this earthly realm! Thanks for sharing John Paul!
Blessings To You always!
Shirley C.
This was very interesting. I recently had an experience with a woman that is a reiki practitioner, which is a new age type of laying on of hands. She claimed that the reiki made her calm. It can be very deceiving for people that do not have an understanding of the truth. But, you say that self-discipline can be used by either the soul or the spirit. Would self-discipline be the same as resisting the sinful nature and yielding to the Spirit? Maybe you could explain more about this. I am finding this blog to be very interesting. I am looking forward to hearing more about true spirituality.
Very True. Thanks John Paul!
Love the blog!
After taking the 101 course my eyes start to see how often the word “heart” is used in the bible for intellect, will, feelings. The phrase, “Jesus come into my heart” could also be said, “Jesus come into my soul”!
I know the Word divides between soul and spirit but I often can not easily distinguish between the two.
I am excited about the 201 course coming up.
God bless
As we are born again we become spiritual beings, yet human, however doesn’t our personal level of spirituality depend on how much we interact with our Heavenly Father, our Lord Jesus and the Holy Spirit? And then there is Grace and Mercy. What an amazing God we have.
John Paul, after answering the question the way that the Lord wanted me to answer the question, I checked my e-mails and some
leader who watches our internet station from time to time was very accusatory of leader’s in the Body of Christ who move in signs and wonders, so I decided to follow the original plan for the Lord to address this issue publicly once and for all. Whn He first told me to do this around the last week of December 2007, I hesitated for a couple of weeks and as I hesitated the attacks just kept coming. And so last night as I was working on other topics for our show, “Faith Talks everything just kept messing up with audio everytime I thought we had a good show. The irony of thwe whole situation was that when I received the e-mail, I was not a happy camper, but that was the spark that I needed to stay on track with what the Lord was wanting to do with me concerning the addressing of leaders and believers who back bite each other in the Body of Christ for all to see. Here is the link to our show, it is only 10 minutes. I did this at about 2:00 a.m. this morning….http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mkMe969YFcQ - Faith Talks: Make Every Effort To Live In Peace!
Shirley C.
Massachusetts
Wau… That makes MUCH more sense than anything else I have heard or read about it. Thank you. Barbara
I am troubled by the emphasis that I see within the church on human thinking. I teach for a public school system. They have long lists of things they want to see in the schools. Then, I go to church and they also have formed long lists of what their church and their congregational life should look like. The focus is on looking like the list. I do not see that the church is experiencing any more power to change lives than the public school system is experiencing. It seems that the church does not know how to get in touch with their spirituality, so they are no different from secular systems. How is the church gong to reconnect with true spirituality like in the book of Acts?
Confusion is our natural work. It works ‘out’ our economy!!!
Joshua
Thank you so much for this entry. I have been dealing with questions from people on this subject, and your writing here was very timely. We must, must, must come to an understanding of this if we are ever to move on to the deeper and richer things of the Spirit (Hebrews 5:14). We must distinguish between knowledge and wisdom, happiness and joy, judgment and discernment, psyche and spirit…… I look forward to reading more…..
Thank you, Sir!
Thank you for clearly differentiating between spirituality and soulishness. It sheds light on why “spirituality” apart from God is so hollow and unsatisfying, and why it is so addicting to people. They pursue something that is empty calories and they aren’t satisfied by it. So they want more of it, not knowing they will never get enough of it to satisfy them because they’re not pursuing the right Spirit.
Your blog is a real blessing to me. May God bless you as you write it!
Thank you for the information about the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil and the Tree of Life. And being soul lead verses spirit lead. I have learned this before, but it did not even cross my mind when I was answering the question about spirituality. How can we discern when we are following the soul verses the spirit? I’d love to get some insight on that.
Thank You
Is “Wow!” a worthy comment? Thanking God for His Holy Spirit –
I really enjoy your stuff, though the one thing that I have trouble swallowing is this statement:: “Regardless of our religious conviction, our spirit, soul, and body war against each other.”
I beleive this is true by and large for most people, especially people in religious institutions that deny the power of salvation. But the truth is, when we are true and pure in our walk with God, we instantly have a war over. If we were in a video game, the words would flash across the screen “game over”
Our Spirit is always trying to break out into manifestation in our soul and flesh what God has intended for our spirit to live. I beleive the spirit itself is pure, and that all knowledge, truth, wisdom, light, life etc, was born into every human when they were created by God, ‘in his image.’
I beleive it is only when we allow ourselves to be subjected back under darkness that our soul and flesh war with spirit. Though I understand why you have said that, I do beleive there is a point at which a person lives a blameless and perfect life, especially since Christ dwells in us. Its something that is the age old battle of law versus spirit, but in essence, that Battle stems from us trying to find OUR way back to the garden instead of finding Gods way. Alot of people talk about Grace, but very few people actually liquify it and let the ‘word become flesh’ in themselves…
I am thankful that of all the people in the prophetic movement circles, you are one that addresses the issues of soul, spirit, and flesh. I find it vital because most of what I see as ‘prophetic’ right now really is ‘pathetic’ and very little God placed wisdom is really being taught. Certainly the whole
‘religious system’ in America is in a great shift. Maybe one day soon we will all awaken to our perfection in Christ, and we will allow the Holy Spirit to direct our spirit which will direct our soul and bring about heaven manifestations in our flesh.
blessings, thanks for getting me thinking….
I find it interesting how some today are ‘judging’ or ‘discerning’ Spirituality by the presence of physical manifestations and or the type of physical manifestations.
Someone once said” we are spirits having a short human experience ” and because Jesus was fully human we can embrace that experience with less anxiety and blessed comfort in Him in us and soar in the Holy Spirit expressing Him to those who are searching for the truth which will set them free to the one who Loves them and will satisfy their souls.
John Paul and the rest of this online community,
It seems so easy to fall back into the line of eating from the wrong tree. In the world of sales training much that I’ve seen (haven’t seen it all) that’s out there is from this tree. Even the good stuff purveys a character ethic (which is good) but it’s devoid of the Spirit, in that it conveys a message that you can develop your character on your own, apart from God. There is some wisdom in it (the sons of this age are sometimes wiser than the sons of the light)it seems,in rightly pointing to the need for character. The Bible seems to say that character is the result of our relationship with the Holy Spirit, i.e., the fruit of the Spirit (love, joy, peace, etc.).
I recently saw a video of one of the people you mentioned. The comment about this video was that it was one of this person’s best talks ever. This person I believe has helped people overcome issues in their lives at some level, unknowingly using Biblical principles. I watched it, and the beginning was good, but then after a while this person swore (not judging, just observing) and went down a line that I cringed at. I could also see (probably because I deal with this!) man-pleasing, etc. My point in writing this is that he did not exhibit the character of Christ which can only come from the Holy Spirit.
Also with these folks it seems that you have to keep coming to them, buying their books, tapes, etc. They are the supposed “masters” and only by following them can you find the way. It almost seems like Gnosticism, a secret knowledge. It also keeps one dependent on them (codependent) instead of pointing them to Jesus. Contrast this with true ministries that testify of Jesus, in right relation to the principle in John 5:39
“These are the Scriptures that testify of me and yet you are unwilling to come to me to have life.”
Pointing others to Jesus for life. We have this treasure in earthen vessels to show that the all-surpassing power is of God, and not ourselves. The administration of God’s grace in it’s various forms (stewarding God’s grace). I’ve also been thinking about the word transparency, which means you can see through and see in spirituality that what is true is of God.
I think this is a much bigger issue than we think. I believe it also is connected to the denigration of the term “born again,” which I believe came to a more public light with Jimmy Carter. Many began to throw the term around in the media and really cheapened it in many people’s eyes. I think this was a ploy of the enemy because the issue of being born again is so key to spirituality!!! If we are not connected to God’s spirit than we don’t have true spirituality. We can have all of the similar outward forms and even similar words and sometimes practices (metaphysical view of life, reading Scripture, praying, etc) but not have the Spirit!!
John Paul, I’m eager to hear more!!
Blessings,
Dennis
Maybe spirituality starts with a sense of knowing that there is something more than what we see around us. Maybe it starts there.
Maybe the next step in spirituality is realizing that without the existence of more than what we see there is no hope. Hope is essential to living. Without hope, eventually life ends as we know it. I think hope is the beginning of faith.
I think hope is the first little flicker a person gets in their heart that something good could happen in their life. That maybe, just maybe, there is something bigger outside their own life that is actually worth staying alive for.
I think that hope is strong. I think we ponder hope in something that exists that is outside our own lives and is bigger than ourselves.I think as we ponder this, we begin to search for spirituality.
If we choose to place our hope in something spiritual, then there will be choices to make in regard to that decision. I think spirituality might be one of the last things in many cases, that people put their hope in. But most eventually end up trying it, since nothing else has worked to bring hope back to them.
Spirituality can bring hope back to you. That is the growth or return of hope. It endorses our decisions because of the actual reality of the existence of the spirit realm.
It is hard beyond hard to imagine the spirit realm for alot of peopl. It is even harder to imagine that it is the real realm and not what we see around us. But as we seek spirituality we start finding things out. Like, everything in our world is a mirror of things in the spirit world. Just like there is light and darkness in our world, so there is in the spirit realm. Hence begins our pursuit if seeking what will we choose in this.
I think we start this pursuit by looking for what brings to us purpose in our lives. Hope is the start of that I think. Then we imagine and look for more and we seek to find out what is true, and then we decide with our will what we will choose. It is a startling and rough day when we find out that no person has all the answers you want and need.
It is also startling and rough, when you find out that no person is completely good. I think so many people find out that our life is a huge let down, and that to put your hope in anything in it will be a basic dead end.
One of the hard first steps in spirituality; I think; is finding a place of being okay with that. Finding a place that you are okay with something spiritual being more honest and real than anything else you have ever encountered before.Even being okay with being able to trust someone who is not flesh at all, but is spirit.
Some people like the idea of life on other planets, superior beings, that whole thing. Maybe it is the need for someone to keep us safe, an ongoing parent. Or maybe, we were made to be that way and to need that?
Maybe spirituality is the whole process of these things. Seeking, hoping, developing faith, choosing what you believe.
Dear Brother John Paul,
First I would like to thank you for sharing on TBN with Mark, Jim and the other gentlemen. It was a night my husband and I will not forget because the LORD was so strong with HIS HOLY SPIRIT there and it came through to us watching! WE ARE SO VERY HUNGRY FOR GOD!
Your question was a deep one and well worth thinking on. I was thinking that GOD is SPIRIT, the HOLY SPIRIT and the word of GOD says to worship HIM in SPIRIT and in truth, JESUS is the way the truth etc., so I would say we cannot make our selves that way unless we seek GOD’s SPIRIT with HIS desires and thoughts to change us spirit, soul and body. It is not earthly but heavenly unless of course it is the wrong evil spirit realm. We must remember the WORD of GOD says to try the spirits. I may be way off but I really want to learn. Thank you for being what God has called you to be for the body of CHRIST. And please keep sharing!
Blessings, Sharon from Oregon
I have thought about your question quite a bit. When I have been in the presence of people with obvious genuine spirituality it has been really apparent. Some have had reputations of spiritual gifting. Some have not. But the impact on me has been the real manifestation of the fruit (Gal 5: 22-23). I remember hugging a little old man who was above me in my ministry, but who’s humility and genuine care for me were so real that I was deeply moved just by the contact. Just from his hug I knew he loved me and my wife more that we realized, he had prayed for us much more that we knew, and God showed him more about us than we dared believe. His message to us was that he was there to serve us, whatever we needed. Physically he was small in stature and elderly. He walked in genuine humility. But his level of spirituality was so high that his presence impacted the room.
Mr Jackson,
Your obedience is changing the world.
Nicolas
I love the comments about disipline verses spirituality. I often relish in the disipline I have over my body, food, or way of thinking. However, I have found that in my most wreckless of times is when the Lord has lifted me into a deeper spiritual realm.
I believe disipline is good, even Paul states that he disciplines his body (1 corth. 9:27) however the grace of God surpasses our ability to think we can achieve something holy.
Communion is KEY.
I look forward to reading more!
Thank you,
Meagan McCrory
“I tell you the truth, the man who does not enter the sheep pen by the gate, but climbs in by some other way, is a thief and a robber. The man who enters by the gate is the shepherd of his sheep. The watchman opens the gate for him, and the sheep listen to his voice. He calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. When he has brought them out all his own, he goes on ahead of them, and his sheep follow him because they know his voice.” John 10:1-4
Jesus said, I AM the way, the truth and the life. No man comes to the Father but by me.
“Who is the liar? It is the man who denies the Jesus is the Christ. I John 2:22
Thank You for your obedience unto the Lord! What a Blessing this blog has become to not only myself but to all the others I have shared it with. May God fulfill all His promises to you and yours!
“No matter how high we climb on that tree it will never become the Tree of Life. ”
That is a great quote. I’m sure I’ll remember that for quite some time.
Well said my friend, every day we choose… Where will we feed today? From the Tree of the Knowledge of good and evil OR from the Tree of Life?
* Dialing, dialing…
* Ringing, ringing…
* “Hello, Eden Cafe how may I help you?”
* “I’d like to make a reservation, please”
* “I’m sorry sir but all our tables at the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil are booked for the evening”
* “Bummer”
* “But I have plenty of openings at our sister shop, the Tree of Life, would you like a table?
* “Hmmm, what will I do?
(Psst… here’s a hint…)
“This day I call heaven and earth as witnesses against you that I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Now choose life, so that you and your children may live” (Deut. 30:9)
Choose life!
I am currently taking a class on the History of Christian Spirituality. This post impressed me. I will be posting it on my e-college web page for others in my class to visit. I hope you don’t mind.
~Kate