The Heart is the Switch of Life: we need to have an Active Heart & an Exercised Spirit

As believers in Christ, we need to both exercise our spirit to contact God and turn our heart to the Lord to love Him, for when our spirit is exercised and our heart is active, we enjoy the living flow of life and we can live a holy life for the church life.

Amen, Lord, establish our heart blameless in holiness today! We want to live a holy life for the church life! We turn our heart to You! We exercise our spirit to touch You! Amen, Lord, we love You! Amen!

This week we come to the book of 1 Thessalonians to see one of the most wonderful ways for us to experience, enjoy, and express Christ. Our focus this week is, The Cause of Our Blamelessness in Holiness and the Cause of our Complete Sanctification in our Spirit, Soul, and Body.

Here we see the matter of sanctification, which is crucial in our Christian life. Sanctification is interwoven with the matter of God’s full salvation, God’s organic salvation.

God’s organic salvation is a matter of our sanctification. As we are preparing for the Lord’s coming so that we may be qualified to meet Him, we need to be sanctified.

We can say there are seven aspects or steps of sanctification. First, there’s the seeking sanctification, which is the initial sanctification; then there’s the redeeming sanctification, the positional sanctification.

Then, there’s the regenerating sanctification, which is the beginning of dispositional sanctification. Through God’s dispositional sanctification, we are being sanctified in our very nature to be made as holy as God is holy. Amen!

The fourth aspect of sanctification is the renewing sanctification, and then the transforming sanctification, which we call the daily sanctification.

Sixth, there’s the conforming sanctification, also called the shaping sanctification, and finally, there’s the glorifying sanctification, the consummating sanctification.

There’s a fine process from our spirit to our soul and even to our body eventually, by which the God of peace is going to sanctify us holy. Hallelujah!

Because we are in this process of being sanctified, the Bible calls us saints; we are not “saints” as the Catholic church calls some as saints, but we are those who are redeemed, regenerated, and called saints.

This means that we are fundamentally separated and set apart from anything of the world unto God, and even more, we are being daily saturated with God’s holy life and nature to make us the same as He is!

God’s element of holiness is being wrought into us to make us the same as God in every possible way. He is making us as holy as He is holy. Praise the Lord!

Our Heart and its Condition before God are Related to the Condition of our Spirit, Soul, and Body before God

In order for us to live a holy life for the church life, we need the Lord to establish our heart blameless in holiness, that is, with no fault found in our holiness (1 Thes. 3:13).

God is establishing our heart, and we need to cooperate with Him. What is our heart and why is our heart so important?

The heart is the conglomerate of man’s inward parts, man’s chief representative, his acting agent.

The more we dig into God’s word to see what is our heart and what is God’s view and desire regarding our heart, the more we realise that our heart has a strategic importance in God’s sanctifying process.

Everything starts from the heart. Our soul is our person, our personality, but our heart is our person in action. All our doings and all our behaviour starts from our heart.

The heart is the source; it represents us, being us in action. When we think, we think in our heart.

When we feel, we feel with our heart. When we make a judgment or decision, it is our heart that does it. Before we do something, our heart considers it and desires it and then does it.

According to the Bible, our heart is a composition of all the parts of our soul – our mind, emotion, and will (Matt. 9:4; Heb. 4:12; John 14:1; 16:22; Acts 11:23)—plus one part of our spirit—the conscience (Heb. 10:22; 1 John 3:20).

The heart is almost like a bridge between our spirit and our soul, like a window between these two.

God’s work is entirely in our inward parts, our inward faculties. His sanctifying work, His renewing work, and His transforming work is mainly in our inward being; therefore, these inward parts are critical and important.

Also, the heart includes the conscience; this is the bridge, the connection between the heart and the spirit.

God in Christ as the Spirit as life is in our spirit, but for Christ to spread from our spirit to our soul, He has to go through the heart.

The condition of our heart determines how much Christ can spread in us. How much the divine life in our spirit can spread in our mind depends on our heart, the condition of our heart.

How much the Spirit can work to saturate us from our spirit to our soul and even our body depends on our heart and its condition.

If we are pure in heart, if we guard our heart, the divine life will flow; but if our heart is not well-conditioned or healthy, there may be a blockage, and the Lord’s life may not be able to flow.

Our heart and its condition before God are organically, intrinsically, and inseparably related to the condition of our spirit, soul, and body before God.

We need to realise this from the very beginning of our Christian life, that our heart and its condition are related to the condition of our spirit.

If our heart is not right, if we do not open to the Lord or love Him, the Lord cannot advance in us, and He cannot renew us, sanctify us, or transform us.

This is why the Lord Jesus said, Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God (Matt. 5:8).

When we are pure in heart, when our heart seeks the Lord in purity, we can see God and enjoy God. Paul also exhorted Timothy to be with those who call on the Lord out of a pure heart (2 Tim. 2:22).

David in the Old testament prayed that the Lord would create in him a pure heart, a clean heart (Psa. 51:10).

And Paul told us that, for us to live a holy life for the church life, we need the Lord to establish our heart blameless in holiness (1 Thes. 3:13).

If our heart is not right, if we don’t set our heart right, neither is our spirit faithful to God (Psa. 78:8). Our heart and its condition affects our spirit and even our body.

May we come to the Lord regarding this and turn our heart to Him in prayer, telling Him,

Lord Jesus, we turn our heart to You. We exercise our spirit to contact You and we also turn our heart to love You! Amen, Lord, may we be those who are pure in heart so that we may see God. May we be with those who call on the Lord out of a pure heart. Create in us, dear Lord, a clean and pure heart. Establish our heart blameless in holiness before our God and Father! Oh Lord Jesus, we give our heart to You! May our heart be set right and may our spirit be exercised so that You may spread as life from our spirit into every part of our inner being! Amen, Lord, we give You permission to renew our mind, subdue our will, and attune our emotions. We want to live a holy life for the church life today; we open to Your establishing of our heart in holiness a little more today! May Your divine life have a free way to spread from our spirit into our mind, emotion and will! Keep our heart turned to You today, dear Lord! May we take care of our heart and its condition so that we may enjoy You and express You!

The Heart is the Switch of Life: we need to have an Active Heart and an Exercised Spirit

In the church life in the Lord’s recovery, we have discovered the secret of our human spirit; we love to exercise our spirit and touch the Lord in spirit. Our spirit is truly wonderful!

However, we need to realise that the exercise of our spirit works only when our heart is active (Matt. 5:3, 8; Psa. 78:8; Eph. 3:16-17).

In other words, if our heart is indifferent, our spirit is imprisoned within and is unable to show forth its capability. Wow!

Oh Lord, we give You our heart! May we have an active heart! Save us from having a passive or dormant heart. We turn our heart to You! We want to have both an active heart and an exercised spirit today!

We need to realise that even the exercise of our spirit depends on our heart. Sometimes we are in the meetings of the church but our heart is somewhere else; we may call on the name of the Lord, we may exercise our spirit, but with no heart. Our heart is not in it.

It’s like going to a nice restaurant and eating this lovely food, even the top dish, but our heart is not in it, so we don’t really enjoy the food, for it is to us like any other food.

The problem is nto the food; the problem is our heart. Our heart is not inclined to eat that food; our heart has no appetite or desire to enjoy that food, for our heart is not working, it is not active. Our heart needs to be active.

We need to have an active heart and an exercised spirit. We are not just a spirit; we have a soul and a heart.

Our heart is made by God for His use, for Him to work Himself into us. We cooperate with the Lord by conditioning our heart in a way that He can do whatever He wants, whenever He wants, and however He wants in us.

Our heart is not something we’re born with; our heart comes from development, dealing, and a lot of exercise.

The condition of our heart can be evil, unclean, defiled, etc and many things such as adultery, fornication, and uncleanness, can come from our heart.

Our soul is our person but our heart is our person in action; our heart is our acting agent, our acting commissioner, of our entire being.

Even before we set foot in a place, our heart is already there. Before we say a word to a brother, we say it in our heart. Before we do something, we desire it or dream it in our heart. Oh Lord!

Physically, the activities and movements of our physical body depend on our physical heart.

Similarly, our daily living, the way we act and behave, depends on what kind of psychological heart we have.

Thank the Lord that our physical heart is still working, still pumping blood; we still have a pulse. Similarly, in the spiritual realm, our heart needs to be proper.

In the world today, no matter how advanced medicine and therapy is, heart disease is still the top killer.

Spiritually, no matter how much we exercise our spirit, unless we deal with our heart and have an active heart along with an exercised spirit, there’s no flow of life or growth of God in us.

We need to see that our heart is the switch of life; our heart is the entrance and exit of life, so we need to guard our heart with all vigilance (Prov. 4:23).

If our heart is not right, life in the spirit is hindered, and the law of life cannot work freely and without obstruction to reach every part of our being (Matt. 12:33-37; cf. Ezek. 36:26-27).

The divine life we have received has a great power, even the power to raise us from the dead and seat us with Christ in the heavenlies; however, this great power is controlled by our small heart.

We pray that the Lord would spread in our mind, emotion, and will; but our heart may hinder that prayer if it is not switched on in a proper way.

We need to have a heart that is active and a spirit that is exercised. The powerful law of life can free us from the law of sin and of death; however, this most powerful law cannot work very well in our being if our heart is not turned to the Lord.

But thank the Lord, in the new covenant, He is writing His law into our mind and in our heart, for He wants to infuse Himself with all that He is in His economy into all our inward parts.

He even gives us a new heart and a new spirit; whenever we turn our heart to the Lord, we enjoy the new heart and the new spirit.

If our heart is dormant or sleepy, the Lord cannot have a way in us. If our mind is not renewed but rather filled with worldly things, it may not be saturated with the Lord and occupied with Him.

We may outwardly say, Praise the Lord, or, O Lord Jesus, but this exercise will not work to make us living.

The exercise of our spirit works only when our heart is active.

May we learn to deal thoroughly with our heart so that our mind may be the mind of Christ, our emotion may be saturated with the love of Christ, and our will may be one with His will. Then, our heart will be active and functioning. When we exercise our spirit at this time, we will be filled with life.

Lord Jesus, ahve mercy on us. We want to have our mind renewed. We want to have our emotion filled with Your love. We want to have a will that is truly one with Your will. Amen, Lord, we turn our heart to You. Cause our heart to turn to You today. May we see the importance of our heart in our enjoyment and experience of Christ as life. May we not only have an exercised spirit but also an active heart. Amen, Lord, we love You! We want to deal with anything that causes our heart to be dormant, inactive, and impure. Shine on us. We want to deal with anything that Your light exposes in our heart. May our heart be active and functioning. May our spirit be exercised. Oh Lord Jesus, we want to guard our heart with all vigilance, for from it are the issues of life! Oh Lord, our heart! May Your law of life have a free way to operate in our being without any obstruction. May our heart not hinder the flow of life but rather, release it! Amen, Lord, we love You!

References and Hymns on this Topic

• Inspiration for this article/sharing comes from the Word of God, the enjoyment in the ministry, a sharing by the brother Minoru Chen on this topic, and portions from, Life-study of 1 Thessalonians, msgs. 18-24, by Witness Lee, as quoted in the Holy Word for Morning Revival on, Experiencing, Enjoying, and Expressing Christ (part 3 – 2025 Summer Training), week 29, The Cause of Our Blamelessness in Holiness and the Cause of Our Complete Sanctification in Our Spirit, Soul, and Body – day 1.
• Hymns on this topic:
  – In dealings with the Lord as life / We need a proper heart, / That of His riches, in His grace, / We fully may take part. / We need a heart in all things pure, / With mind both sound and clear, / To understand His mind and heart / In trembling and in fear. (Hymns #744 stanzas 1-2)
  – Bless’d are the pure in heart, / For they shall see our God; / The secret of the Lord is theirs, / Their heart is Christ’s abode. (Hymns #411 stanza 1)
  – Whenever the heart shall turn to the Lord, / The veil shall be taken away. / So turn your heart to the Lord all the day, / And the veil shall be taken away. / Now the Lord is that Spirit, / And where the Spirit of the Lord is, / There is liberty—such liberty! / Whenever the heart shall turn to the Lord, / The veil shall be taken away. (Hymns #1345)