As believers in Christ, we need to reject the soul and turn to our spirit through prayer, for when we pray, we declare that it is not us but Christ.
We need to realize that the way to follow the Lord is to reject our soul and turn to our spirit; the real denial of the self is prayer, for when we pray even by simply calling on the name of the Lord, we declare, No longer I but Christ.
The secret to being a Christian is turning to the spirit.
Living the Christian life is not about obeying some rules and regulations outwardly; it is about turning to our spirit. We need to turn to our spirit again and again.
The mind set on the flesh is death, but the mind set on the spirit is life and peace.
When we set our mind on the flesh, when our mind is set on the things not of the Spirit, we remain in death.
But when our mind is set on our spirit, when our mind is set on the things above, we enjoy life and peace.
For us to follow the Lord and live in the reality of the Body, we need to continually exercise to reject our self and turn to our spirit.
We believers in Christ do not only have an organ to contact God, our spirit, but we have a regenerated spirit, for the Lord as the Spirit is one with our spirit.
If we want to worship God, we need to exercise our spirit.
If we want to enjoy the Lord’s riches, we need to turn to our spirit. If we want to live in the reality of the Body, we need to turn to our spirit.
If we want to function in the New Testament ministry we must continually exercise to lose our soul-life and turn to our spirit.
Day by day we need to exercise our spirit, contact the Lord, and reject the self.
We have a human spirit indwelt by the Holy Spirit for us to receive God and contact God.
We have a soul that is daily being renewed and saturated with God’s life for us to live out and express God.
May we learn not to allow our soul to indulge in the things of this world in order to enjoy them but deny its enjoyment in this age so that it may enjoy God as its happiness and amusement.
When we exercise our spirit, we experience the life of the Spirit and even the power of the Spirit working in us and empowering us to live Christ and express Him.
And we will flow out this Christ who lives in us and is our enjoyment. Christ is our real enjoyment, amusement, and entertainment.
When we turn to our spirit, reject the soul, and deny the self, we enjoy Christ in a real way.
Our soul delights in God and magnifies God. He is our joy, amusement, and entertainment, and our soul is happy in the Lord.
May we daily enjoy Christ as grace to us for our enjoyment and satisfaction.
We need to Reject the Soul and Turn to our Spirit to Follow the Lord and have His Presence
![From that time Jesus began to show to His disciples that He must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things from the elders and chief priests and scribes and be killed and on the third day be raised. And Peter took Him aside and began to rebuke Him, saying, [God] be merciful to You, Lord! This shall by no means happen to You! But He turned and said to Peter, Get behind Me, Satan! You are a stumbling block to Me, for you are not setting your mind on the things of God, but on the things of men. Then Jesus said to His disciples, If anyone wants to come after Me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow Me. For whoever wants to save his soul-life shall lose it; but whoever loses his soul-life for My sake shall find it. For what shall a man be profited if he gains the whole world, but forfeits his soul-life? Or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul-life? Matt. 16:21-26](https://i0.wp.com/www.agodman.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/From-that-time-Jesus-began-to-show-to-His-disciples-that-He-must-go-to-Jerusalem-jpg.webp?resize=400%2C600&ssl=1 "From that time Jesus began to show to His disciples that He must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things from the elders and chief priests and scribes and be killed and on the third day be raised. And Peter took Him aside and began to rebuke Him, saying, [God] be merciful to You, Lord! This shall by no means happen to You! But He turned and said to Peter, Get behind Me, Satan! You are a stumbling block to Me, for you are not setting your mind on the things of God, but on the things of men. Then Jesus said to His disciples, If anyone wants to come after Me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow Me. For whoever wants to save his soul-life shall lose it; but whoever loses his soul-life for My sake shall find it. For what shall a man be profited if he gains the whole world, but forfeits his soul-life? Or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul-life? Matt. 16:21-26")
As believers in Christ, we need to realize that Christ dwells in our spirit, but Satan is still linked to and dwells in our flesh.
Anything that comes out of our self (the mind, the emotion, and the will of our fallen soul) is connected to Satan and to demons (Matt. 16:21-27).
When Peter heard that the Lord was about to be killed by the Jewish people, he tried to hinder Him from doing this.
We could say that Peter had a natural good desire to help the Lord and stop Him from dying, which can be considered something good.
But the Lord said, Get behind Me, Satan! You are a stumbling block to Me, for you are not setting your mind on the things of God, but on the things of men (v. 23).
The Lord considers anything that comes of our soul which is not renewed and transformed as being linked to Satan and the demons. Wow.
In the Old Testament, Israel became evil because they were unchaste as the wife of Jehovah (Hosea 4:1).
We need to realize that, once we forsake God, we too can do any kinds of evil (Eph. 4:17-21).
May we no longer walk as the Gentiles also do, in the vanity of their mind; rather, may we learn Christ, for indeed we have heard Him and have been taught in Him as the reality is in Jesus.
We must realize that, if we do not remain in fellowship with God in our spirit, we lose God’s presence and are capable of being in the flesh and of behaving like the worldly people (Phil. 2:1-2; 1 John 1:3; Eph. 4:17-19; Gen. 20; cf. 12:11-13; 13:18).
This is why we need to reject the soul with its desires and preferences and exercise to turn to our spirit, so that we may follow the Lord and have His presence.
Anything that comes out of our self is connected to Satan and to demons.
In order for us to remain in fellowship with God in our spirit, we need to reject the soul and turn to our spirit.
If we don’t remain in fellowship with the Lord in spirit, even though we are believers in Christ, we lose God’s presence and are capable of being in the flesh, just like the worldly people.
We cannot afford to take a vacation from our fellowship with God in our spirit, for our protection is not our self but God’s presence (1 John 1:3; Psa. 31:20).
Again and again, we need to turn to our spirit.
The way for us to follow the Lord, the way to spirituality and victory, is to reject our soul and turn to our spirit.
The way to enjoy the Lord’s riches is to reject our soul and turn to our spirit.
The Lord has done everything for us; He has prepared an all-inclusive land, the all-inclusive Christ as the life-giving Spirit, and we simply need to turn to our spirit to enjoy Him.
Before we do anything, we must turn to our spirit. In our spirit, we have rest and peace.
But when we are not in our spirit, we will wander and be without rest.
God has prepared Christ to be our rest and peace, and this rest is in our spirit.
May we be diligent to enter into this rest by rejecting our soul and turning to our spirit.
Before we fellowship with the saints, before we read the Bible, and even before we pray, we must turn to our spirit.
We may plan to do this or that, go here or there, or speak to this or that person; before we do anything, we need to learn to turn to our spirit.
If we’re not in our spirit, we will be in our soul, and in our soul we are connected to Satan, being capable of doing anything that the worldly people also do. Oh Lord!
May we never take a vacation from our fellowship with God in our spirit!
May we learn to turn to our spirit again and again to enjoy all that the Lord is to us in spirit.
When we turn to our spirit, we have God’s presence, for His presence is with us in our spirit.
When we deny the self and enter into the spirit completely, we enjoy Christ as our everything.
Lord Jesus, we choose to turn to our spirit! We do not want to take a vacation from our fellowship with God in our spirit. Oh Lord, we treasure Your presence in our spirit. We want to remain in fellowship with God in spirit so that we may have God’s instant presence with us. Amen, Lord, we reject the soul and turn to our spirit right now. We are not here for the soul’s satisfaction or desires; we are here to live one with God so that Christ may live in us. Save us from doing anything apart from our fellowship with the Lord in spirit. We want to be diligent to enter into the rest in our spirit. May we be reminded again and again to turn to our spirit before doing anything and speaking anything! Amen, Lord, we are willing to learn to turn to our spirit and reject the soul so that we may follow the Lord and take the way of life!
Prayer is the Real Denial of the Self; when we pray, we declare “No longer I but Christ!”
The Lord Jesus told us that, if we want to follow Him, we need to deny the self, lose our soul life, and take up our cross to follow Him.
How do we deny the self? Can we put ourselves on the cross, or can we just reject and denigrate ourselves?
Our self seems to be what we are by constitution, apart from the Lord.
The real denial of the self is prayer. The only way for us to deal with the self and to deny the self is to pray.
The only way to cast the “demon” of the self out is through prayer.
Mark 9 shows us two matters: the transfiguration of the Lord on the mountain, and the casting out of a demon out of a young man.
When the Lord was transfigured on the mountain, He was conversing with Moses and Elijah; the voice of the Father was heard from the heavens, This is My Son, the Beloved; hear Him!
This was a response to Peter’s suggestion that they should make three tents – one for Moses, one for Elijah, and one for the Lord Jesus.
The Father’s response was, Just listen to Christ, He’s the only One.
Christ replaces the law and the prophets; He is the unique replacement of the entire Old Testament, for He fulfils the law and the prophets, and we should only hear Him.
When they came off the mountain, there was a dispute between a man and the Lord’s disciples, for the disciples could not cast out a demon from his son.
They may have watched the Lord for years casting out demons, but they could not cast this demon out.
The Lord came and cast the demon out, and everything was fine.
To His disciples’ question, Why were we not able to cast it out? the Lord answered, “This kind cannot come out by any means, except prayer” (Mark 9:29).
Because we are short of prayer, our self is still so strong, and we are not able to deny it.
Prayer is the real denial of the self.
To pray means that we realize we are nothing and we can do nothing, so we come to the Lord in prayer.
The way for us to reject our soul and turn to our spirit is to pray.
To pray is declare, Not I but Christ. To pray is to deny the self.
To pray is to be charged with the heavenly divine electricity and put the enemy to shame, causing him to flee and suffer loss.
The way for us to practice the revelation of Christ as our replacement is by applying the Lord’s death to our self through prayer.
His death terminates us, and in His resurrection, Christ is brought to us.
The way for us to cast out the demon of the “temper” for example is through prayer.
We may not be able to deal with our temper, and we may lose our temper all the time when something is said or a situation comes in.
How can we deal with our temper and deny the self? Only through prayer.
![For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek, for the same Lord [is] [Lord] of all [and] rich to all who call upon Him; For "whoever calls upon the name of the Lord shall be saved." Rom. 10:12-13 But flee youthful lusts, and pursue righteousness, faith, love, peace with those who call on the Lord out of a pure heart. 2 Tim. 2:22 Seek Jehovah while He may be found; / Call upon Him while He is near. Isa. 55:6](https://i0.wp.com/www.agodman.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/For-there-is-no-distinction-between-Jew-and-Greek-for-the-same-Lord-is-Lord-of-all-jpg.webp?resize=400%2C600&ssl=1 "For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek, for the same Lord [is] [Lord] of all [and] rich to all who call upon Him; For \"whoever calls upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.\" Rom. 10:12-13 But flee youthful lusts, and pursue righteousness, faith, love, peace with those who call on the Lord out of a pure heart. 2 Tim. 2:22 Seek Jehovah while He may be found; / Call upon Him while He is near. Isa. 55:6")
This doesn’t mean that we need to be on our knees all day long to pray; we do have to pray, but prayer is not just one kind of prayer, the one in our personal and private room before God.
Actually, don’t need to pray in a lengthy way; it is sufficient simply to call “O Lord Jesus”; even such a short prayer means “no longer I but Christ” (Rom. 10:12-13; Gal. 2:20).
The way for us to deny the self and cast out any demon that holds us down and hinders us from going on with the Lord, causing us to sin and fail, is to pray.
Our prayer testifies that we do not exercise our self-effort to deal with the situation; instead, we apply Christ.
We apply Him and we enjoy Him. We exercise our spirit to contact Him by calling on His name.
We may have a particular situation we have to deal with, and the circumstances around us may be quite challenging.
We simply need to turn to our spirit and pray.
Our prayer testifies that we don’t exercise our self-effort to deal with this situation but rather, we apply Christ.
We apply Christ through prayer.
To pray is to practice the vision concerning Christ with His death and resurrection being our replacement so that we may be fully “Christified” to satisfy the desire of God’s heart (Mark 9:2-13).
Lord Jesus, we want to learn to deny the self by prayer. O Lord Jesus! Keep us calling on Your name to contact You in prayer so that the self may be denied. Amen, Lord, we declare that it is no longer I but Christ! We put ourselves aside. We reject our soul and turn to our spirit. Amen, Lord, we love You! We turn to You. We call on Your name. We are not able to face the situation; we turn to our spirit! We are not able to deal with our temper: we simply turn to You in prayer! We are not able to deny the self: we exercise our spirit to pray and contact You! We do not exercise our self-effort to deal with this situation. We call on Your name, O Lord Jesus! Lord Jesus! Live in us today. We don’t want to live in the self to express the self. We don’t want to live in the soul to fulfil its preferences and desires. Lord Jesus! O Lord Jesus! Keep us turning to our spirit by calling on Your name today!
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 brother Minoru Chen in the message for this week, and portions from, Life-study of Mark (msg. 27) by Witness Lee, as quoted in the Holy Word for Morning Revival on, Knowing, Experiencing, and Enjoying Christ as Revealed in Philippians (2023 Memorial Day Weekend Conference), week 1, entitled, Taking Christ as our Everything to Gain Him by Denying our Self and Turning to our Spirit.
- Similar articles to read on this topic:
– Denying the soul and abiding in the Spirit, a portion from, The Economy of God, Chapter 11.
– The prayer and the subjective experience of Christ that we must have for God’s building, article by Ed Marks in, Affirmation and Critique.
– What is the Soul and How Does God Heal Soul Sickness? Read more via, Holding to Truth in Love.
– The key to experiencing Christ – the Human Spirit, a portion from, The Key to Experiencing Christ–the Human Spirit, Chapter 1.
– What Is the Difference between the Soul and the Spirit? Read more via, Bibles for America Blog. - Hymns on this topic:
– By the cross discern the spirit, / Put the soul to death alway; / Bear the cross, deny the self-life, / Walk in spirit day by day. / By the cross discern the spirit, / Through the living Word of God, / Separating soul from spirit, / That the right path may be trod. (Hymns #748 stanzas 1-2)
– Lord, teach us to discern the spirit / That we may never soulish be, / But truly spiritual, in spirit / To know all things discernibly. / Lord, teach us to discern the spirit / That subtle self exposed might be, / That by the cross to it applying / We’ll live not by ourselves but Thee. (Hymns #746 stanzas 4-5)
– Pray with one accord in spirit, / Not according to our thought, / But alone by the anointing, / As the Lord has ever sought. / Pray with one accord in spirit, / By the cross deny the soul; / All desires and all intentions / Let the Spirit now control. (Hymns #779 stanza 2 and chorus)
About aGodMan
Life-study of Mark, pp. 240-242, by Witness Lee
The way for us to follow the Lord is to reject our soul and turn to our spirit.
And the best way to deny the self is to pray. To pray is to declare, not I but Christ.
Amen! Oh Lord Jesus! We call on Your great name.
To deny the self and to follow You Lord, we call on Your name, Lord Jesus! Keep us turning to our spirit today!
Amen! When we call “O Lord Jesus!” we are turning to our spirit to apply Christ to each and every situation!
Ammmeen!!!
Thank You Lord for simplifying things for us and opening the way for us to enter into them practically.
The way to every positive thing mentioned in our morning revival today has two sides:
on one side is the denial of the self, then on the other side is to turn to our spirit.
This way is applied to us practically by prayer. And the simplest way for us to pray is by calling on the Lord’s name.
No wonder in Romans 10 calling on the name of the Lord is the secret not only to our salvation but also to our enjoyment of the Lord’s riches.
God selects us, redeems us, justifies us, sanctifies us, conforms us, and glorifies us in Christ in order that we may enjoy His unsearchable riches in Christ.
The secret to this enjoyment is to call on His name.
Amen Lord, denying and turning! Entering into rest in our spirit! Save us from all our wandering! Oh Lord Jesus we love You!
We need to reject our mind, emotion & will, and pray to apply Christ to all our demons.
In matters both small & great, we must first turn to our spirit before anything else.
We so much need Jesus with His death & resurrection to be our replacement.
Death terminates us and resurrection brings Christ to us.
Matt. 16:24 Then Jesus said to His disci- ples, If anyone wants to come after Me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow Me.
Rom. 10:13 For “whoever calls upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.”
Praise the Lord! 😃🙋🏽🙏.
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Prayer that is received by God can only be Jesus as the essence and content of our prayer. Our participation in prayer starts with Jesus’ blood dealing with our sin and fallen state ( bronze altar), being satisfied by receiving His Life (showbread), being guided by Him as our light in our daily life (lampstand). From this purification process we automatically are prompted to pray (incense altar). As we pray we should come to a point in our prayer that we don’t know who is praying, ourselves or Jesus. Only when our prayer is only Jesus we can eventually find ourselves before God bringing only Jesus (the ark of the covenant).
This is the only way we should come to God in prayer. The fire that lit the incense altar for prayer came from the bronze altar, the altar of judgement of sin. Also, the blood from the sacrifice for sin on the bronze altar was applied to the four horns of the incense altar. The sacrifice and blood for sin was fulfilled once for all by Jesus Christ’s crucifixion. The incense altar is the only item that is in two places in the temple, the holy place and the holy of holies. For us to pray properly and for God to receive our prayers, we need to see that prayer comes with a requirement. That is, to deal with our sin and anything that is of ourselves our fallen nature. We cannot apply anything of ourselves to our prayer. God only receives what is of Himself.
When we deal with our sin and receive Him as our food for satisfaction He will shine on us to expose what is of ourselves that keeps us from following Him and distracts ours eyes from only looking to and on Him. Dealing with sin deals and with any barriers realigns our focus on only Jesus and we can only pray Jesus as our prayer. Then as we pray our prayer will be received by the Father because we only bring what He receives, Jesus Christ.
This may seem simple. But it goes against everything we are. Prayer, through the cross, is not to make our outward lives easier, it is so we can become a purified vessel that can receive from God what is on His heart.
We so often try to come to Father in prayer as if He is santa claus rather than being concerned with what is on His heart. But, if we do not allow the Lord to deal with us by way of the Cross, we will stay immature Christians that God has no way of using because we are more concerned with ourselves.
Prayer exposes what in this world and in ourselves distracts us and has sway on us. Prayer brings us to a realization that being satisfied in our daily life and situations can only be Christ.
Paul could only write these verses from a place of prayer and in a position that came from allowing God to deal with his being through the cross.
2Co 12:9 And He has said to me, My grace is sufficient for you, for My power is perfected in weakness. Most gladly therefore I will rather boast in my weaknesses that the power of Christ might tabernacle over me.
2Co 12:10 Therefore I am well pleased in weaknesses, in insults, in necessities, in persecutions and distresses, on behalf of Christ; for when I am weak, then I am powerful.
I hope that one day I can experience what it means to say that His grace is sufficient for me in all situations.