The Word and The Spirit

"Walking in the Spirit, connected to His voice, is vital to living the fullest, blessed Christian life."

THE WORD OF GOD can only be understood through the Spirit of God who is in you. He is its author from Genesis to Revelation, both in actuality, the events of Scripture, and in writing, the words of Scripture. To read the Bible with the mind will lead you into error. The unsaved man or woman will not hear its truth, though they may have heard it. These were Jesus’ words to the listening crowd (Matthew 13:13-14). In another place, He said those who worship God must do so in spirit and in truth (John 4:24).

Now, there are two views of this remark. The word "spirit" or "Spirit" in the Greek (New Testament) is the same word. But the use of the capital letter S changes it from our human spirit to the Holy Spirit. These are sometimes interchangeable and can be understood with either meaning, but at all times they are specific. We can only have true revelation by being "in the Spirit," listening to His voice. His voice is the voice of the Scriptures. His voice is Jesus speaking.

This is another truth men must grasp hold of. John 1:14 tells us Jesus is the Word. Ephesians 6:17 tells us the Word of God is the sword of the Spirit. The Spirit of God, also called the Holy Spirit, is also the Spirit of Christ (1 Peter 1:11). He conceived Jesus in Mary’s womb. He made Jesus the Christ (“Christ” means "Anointed One"). The Spirit is the anointing of Christ. Jesus was eternal from everlasting, He was the Word of Creation and God who spoke the Word that the Spirit of God created. These truths must be known and understood by the children of God so that we can worship God in spirit and in the Spirit.

The truth is, once we are saved and washed in the blood of Christ (anointed blood), we cannot be separated from the Spirit. There is no place where He ends in the spirit of man and no place where He begins anew. We are completely united. And He is completely united with His Word, both the words written and the words spoken, and the Word which is Jesus. At no time has He ever been separated from His Word. Not one edition was authored without His Presence. This is where men have fallen into their mental reasoning because we have assumed there are errors in the script which became the Word of God.

In the King James Version, for instance, there are places of difficult English understanding, and we have reasoned them out without hearing the Spirit speak to our heart. Men who translated the Word of God to suit them (not speaking of King James specifically) were not absent of the Spirit of God. Did He approve of their translation? No. But did He love them? Yes. And it was His Word they were mishandling. Now, who do I speak of? Well, Thomas Jefferson made his own Bible, removing what he did not like. But the Spirit of God did not stop loving Thomas Jefferson. William Tyndale felt (of the Spirit) to put the Latin Bible into then everyday language, and the church world of that day went insane. We can reason this out until sundown, but politics and power caused men to elevate God’s Word to something unattainable to common folk. Tyndale was eventually killed for doing what God wanted. The devil in men caused them to approve of murder. Sounds familiar. King James simply wanted a Bible with his name on it, and His Bible version is now the most popular in existence. But do we turn aside from it because of his motives?

All of the Word of God from its conception to its revelation to its many translations must be read in the Spirit. Capital S. And in the spirit, lower case. It is not a work of the mind, although for men to write it required the use of their mind, else they were not human. The mind is how we think. But to reason out spiritual truths with what is called "carnal" thinking leads us into error. Many places in the Word of God give us understanding of God in more than one fashion. It is full of patterns revealed by the Spirit which give us great insight into the ways of God. I delight in discovering them. God is so vast, so amazing! But spiritual eyesight requires the renewing of our mind.

We must move past periods and commas into what the Holy Spirit would have us learn. Punctuation is of men, but it is also of the Spirit. He created man and so is not confused by us. He knows our sentences require capital letters, commas, and periods, and He knew what would happen from the ancient Hebrew into King James' English, and from the Greek of the New Testament into modern understanding. Though sometimes italics are used to aid our reading, sometimes they are wrong. And occasionally the commas create a break in thought that is not what God would have us see. But as I have said on repeat, until you get out of your mind and into the Spirit and the spirit, you will misinterpret at times and repeat untruth.

1 Corinthians 2:10 speaks to us of this, saying God has revealed to us the heart of God through the Spirit of God because God's Spirit, capital S, searches God's deepest things. Our mental reasoning asks why God would have to search God and so some have made that capital letter into lower case. And there is an understanding to be gained there, but there is a greater understanding when we leave it uppercase. Because that word "searcheth" comes from a word meaning "to speak" and how great that knowledge makes this truth. The Spirit of God speaks the deepest things of God. There is no error or failure or confusion found in Him. Walking in the Spirit, connected to His voice, is vital to living the fullest, blessed Christian life, and this is God's heart. In him, is no lack but overflowing abundance, more than we can ever think.

Which is the bottom line. Period.

PATTERN: Son of God, references in Matthew

• Matthew 4:3 — the devil demands proof of Jesus’ identity
• Matthew 4:6 — the devil demands proof of Jesus’ identity
• Matthew 8:29 — devils (demons) identify Him
• Matthew 14:33 — the disciples believe in His identity after Peter walks on water
• Matthew 16:16 — Peter’s revelation of His identity
• Matthew 26:63 — the High Priest demands He identify Himself
• Matthew 27:40 — the priests and elders mock His identity
• Matthew 27:43 — the centurion observing Jesus on the cross believes in His identity

(Philippians 3:10) "That I may know him, and the power of his resurrection, and the fellowship of his sufferings, being made conformable unto his death;"

• (MSG) "I gave up all that inferior stuff so I could know Christ personally, experience his resurrection power, be a partner in his suffering, and go all the way with him to death itself. If there was any way to get in on the resurrection from the dead, I wanted to do it."
• (Remedy) "My one and only goal is to be intimately connected with Christ in heart, mind, motive, character and sympathy, to genuinely know him and be known as his friend, to experience the eradication of selfishness and the growth of the life-giving power of his love within me, to die completely to self—"
• (TPT) "And I continually long to know the wonders of Jesus more fully and to experience the overflowing power of his resurrection working in me. I will be one with him in his sufferings and I will be one with him in his death."
• (VOICE) "I want to know Him inside and out. I want to experience the power of His resurrection and join in His suffering, shaped by His death,"

Image by Nhi NNhi from Pixabay


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Suzanne D. Williams, Author
www.suzannedwilliams.com
www.feelgoodromance.com