“Man’s spirit is his inward organ for him to contact God, receive God, contain God, and assimilate God into His entire being as his life and his everything.”
Our human spirit is very important to God because God desires to fill us with Himself. He wants us to receive Him, and our spirit is the unique “receiver.” Our Christian life begins with our human spirit.
Regeneration is accomplished in the human spirit by the Holy Spirit of God with God’s life, the uncreated eternal life. Thus, to be regenerated is to have the divine, eternal life (in addition to the human, natural life) as the new source and new element of a new person.”
This means that from the moment we believe in God’s Son, Jesus, His Spirit enters into our human spirit and we are reborn! We’re born of God, we receive His divine, eternal life in our spirit, and we become His children.
Our human spirit is the unique place for God’s Spirit to enter into us to make us His children, and it is also the place from which He goes on to fill our entire being. Our human spirit has the capacity to house so much more of the presence and knowledge of God.
In order for us to receive food, we have to exercise our mouth. Likewise, to receive God it is crucial that we exercise our spirit. Finally, our spirit functions to contain God. Second (Timothy 4:22) says precisely, “The Lord be with your spirit.”
This word clearly designates our human spirit as the place where God makes His abode in us. Since the Lord lives within our spirit, we can accurately describe our spirit as a container of God.
What the apostle means is that because believers are the temple of God, the Holy Spirit dwelling in us is just like God dwelling in the holy temple in the old days.
If a believer does not know that the dwelling place of the Holy Spirit is in the deepest part of his whole being, which is deeper than his mind, emotion, and will, he will surely seek the guidance of the Holy Spirit in his mind, emotion, and will.
If we understand this, then we will know that we were deceived before and were wrong in looking outward, outside the spirit in the soul, or inside or outside the body for guidance. The Holy Spirit is indeed dwelling in the deepest part of our being.
Our prayer is toward the “heavenly Father,” but the heavenly Father is within us leading us. Our Comforter is within our spirit. Therefore, His guidance also issues from there. If we seek a sign from a dream, vision, voice, or feeling outside of our spirit, then we will be deceived.
After seeing this, we know what is the real spiritual life. It is not many thoughts and visions in the mind; neither is it many enthusiastic, joyful, and happy feelings in the emotion; nor is it sudden shakings, penetrations, and contacts brought by outward forces upon the body. Rather, it is a life issuing from the Spirit which is in the deepest part of a man. A real spiritual life is deeper than the mind, the feelings, and the consciousness of the body.