Reflection on Chapter 1&2 by Ayokunle Olagoke
Thank you, the Ancient of days, You've been here a long time. You've seen it all, You know it all, You can do it all. Thank you for choosing to be our Father and loving us. This love is what keeps us secure, this is what gives us hope and comfort, that the King of the universe calls us beloved. We receive insight from you tonight.
I will be reflecting on Chapter 1 &2 of our study book: How you can be led by the Spirit by Kenneth Hagin.
The Lamp of the Lord (Chapter 1) and Man: An Eternal Spirit (Chapter 2)
There are 3 anchor texts here.
1. For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God. —Romans 8:14
2. The Spirit itself [Himself] beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God. —Romans 8:16
3. The spirit of man is the candle of the Lord, searching all the inward parts of the belly —Proverbs 20:27.
These scriptures emphasize that the way God leads us is through our Spirit. This reminds me of what someone once said that we do not see with our eyes but through our eyes, and that is why some people may see the same thing you see and give it a different interpretation. We hear through the ears, but anatomists tell us that the brain/Central Nervous System (CNS) is what provides interpretation for what we hear. So, the ear collects the sound waves, but the brain provides meaning to it. This emphasizes that, we may read a scripture, hear different things about that scripture in our spirit. This book chapter teaches me that God speaks through a billion ways but we only hear Him with our Spirit. He can speak through the Bible, nature (e.g go to the ants), people, donkey, dreams but we can ONLY hear Him with our Spirit.
The scriptures also reiterate that: man is a spirit, he has a soul, and that he lives in a body. This is why when people die, we still have their bodies with us, but we are crying that "oh! he's gone". The real man is a Spirit. This is further explained in
PHILIPPIANS 1:23,24
23 For I am in a strait betwixt two, having a desire to depart, and to be with Christ; which is far better: 24 Nevertheless to abide in the flesh is more needful for you.
The use of "I" by Paul showed that the real Him is not the body but the Spirit. It is the Spirit that will depart.
2 CORINTHIANS 4:16
16 ...but though our outward man perishes, yet the inward man is renewed day by day.
Our spirit is the inward man and our body is the outward man.
What then is our spirit? Prov 20:27 says our spirit is the candle that searches the belly of God. It is that part of us that is created in the image and likeness of God. It is that part of us that gets born again. If you were bald before getting born again, you will still be bald after being born again i.e. your body will not change but then your Spirit is born again. Jesus said to Nicodemus, "... Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God" (John 3:3). It is the spirit of man that is born again. It is therefore important that we feed our spirit, exercise our spirit, train our spirit, let our spirit have unhindered access to God’s Spirit. Comments and your insights from the book chapters (1&2) are welcome.