Releasing Holy Spirit’s Power
In Tuesday’s post, I spoke about the power of God’s words and the power we can release by speaking them. I want to continue that theme today. It is difficult to convince many believers that we can and must release God’s power by speaking. They struggle with making spiritual decrees and declarations, and with releasing spiritual commands such as binding and loosing. Today, we will look at why people struggle with this. It is a fairly in-depth teaching from my book Becoming Who You Are and might be more easily processed when undistracted. “Study to show yourself approved…” (2 Timothy 2:15) is a good verse for us today! I’m going to address the subjects of soul and spirit. Though many people use these two words interchangeably, they are completely different.
SPIRIT, SOUL, AND BODY
God created humans as tri-part beings: spirit (pneuma),(1) soul (psuche),(2) and body (1 Thessalonians 5:23). Our soul (psuche)—the mind, will, and emotions—is the part of us God created to relate to the natural realm/world around us through our intellect, knowledge, wisdom, logic, feelings, our five senses, etc. Our psuche is our psyche.
Our spirit (pneuma) was made to house God’s Spirit and life, and relate to the invisible, spiritual realm. This is where we discern, hear God‘s voice, and where faith resides. Before the Fall, this part of Adam and Eve was dominant; they were led and influenced first by their spirits, not the soul.
THE REVERSAL
When Adam and Eve ate of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, spiritual death came to their spirits (pneuma), and dominance was transferred to their souls, their psuches. At that point, rather than being led and guided in life spiritually – by the influence of God in their spirits, they would now be led by their souls – by what they could see, hear, learn, and discover naturally. They would be led by themselves, not by the Spirit of God.
When we are saved and our spirits come alive, once again receiving God’s Spirit and life, He begins teaching us how to again be led by and manifest the fruit of the spirit (pneuma). This is what it means to be “spiritual” (a pneumatikos)(3).
And when we are saved or born again, our spirits are given life and transformed instantly (2 Corinthians 5:17). Our souls, however, are transformed progressively; they must be renewed and transformed (Romans 12:1-2; James 1:21). This means that after the new birth, we have the potential to become pneumatikos’s, spiritual people, led and motivated by our spirits; but for the most part we are still psuchikos’s, soulish people, motivated from our souls. An internal power struggle begins.
The soul, again, created to connect with the natural realm and operate based on what it can see, understand, prove, etc., - not with the spiritual, invisible world - will continue to struggle with accepting what it cannot see or explain, such as faith, miracles, hearing God speak, the power of speaking God’s words, sowing and reaping, heaven, hell, needing to be born again, etc. This natural, soulish weakness must be overcome if we are to operate in the supernatural, spiritual realm and according to spiritual principles.
There is a force of life in us we cannot see or explain. There is a power in us we cannot see or explain. There is a power in God‘s Word we cannot see or explain. There is an authority we have that we cannot see or explain. There are demons and angels operating in the world around us that we cannot see or explain. Do not allow your propensity to operate from your soul keep you from being led by your spirit. If you do allow it, you will always be limited to natural solutions - a natural life (being led by your soul) - and be excluded from the supernatural realm you were also intended to operate in (being led by the spirit).
THE LAWS OF THE SPIRIT
We must also learn the principles and laws governing various aspects of this spiritual realm, including authority, power, faith, and God’s Word. In Matthew 21 Jesus used a fig tree to teach his disciples. He cursed the tree, and it died immediately. When His amazed disciples asked Him about this, He said, “Truly I say to you, if you have faith and do not doubt, you will not only do what was done to the fig tree, but even if you say to this mountain, ‘Be taken up and cast into the sea,’ it will happen. And whatever you ask in prayer, believing, you will receive it all”
(Matthew 21: 21-22 NASB).
Jesus wasn’t teaching his disciples how to kill trees; He was using this act as an example of how to deal with mountains of adversity. They would need to have faith in their hearts, based on God’s Word, and they would have to release that faith by speaking. Most Christians’ psuches keep their faith locked up in their pneumas. Romans 10:8 says God’s “word of faith” is in our hearts AND our mouths. The passage then says that’s how we were born again, by believing God’s Word in our hearts and declaring it with our mouths. Second Corinthians 4:13 mentions “the spirit of faith” and describes it as “we believe, therefore we speak.” This is how faith operates.
Jesus spoke not only to the fig tree, but also to a storm (Mark 4:39) and a dead body (John 11:43). After rebuking the storm in Mark 4, He challenged the disciples regarding their lack of faith and asked why they were timid/intimidated (deilia)(4) by the storm. In other words, they could have rebuked the storm. Like Him, they could have and should have released faith and authority by rebuking the storm themselves.
On another occasion, Jesus was amazed at the faith of a Roman centurion. His servant was paralyzed and in great torment, and the soldier asked Jesus to heal him. Jesus said yes, He would go to the man’s house and heal his servant. The centurion responded by saying, “Lord, I am not worthy for You to come under my roof, but just say the word, and my servant will be healed. For I also am a man under authority, with soldiers under me; and I say to this one, ‘Go!’ and he goes, and to another, ‘Come!’ and he comes, and to my slave, ‘Do this!’ and he does it” (Matthew 8:8-9 NASB).
Jesus was amazed at the centurion’s “great faith” (Verse 10). This man’s military training had enabled him to understand how the unseen spiritual principles of authority and faith were released: by verbal commands. “Just say the word, and my servant will be healed.”
We must also understand this. The authority we’ve been given and the faith in our hearts are released in the spiritual realm from our mouths. Don’t allow your logic-focused psuche to shut down the faith in your pneuma. Release it!
Pray with me:
Father, if the Ekklesia is to become the full extension of Your Kingdom rule, we must understand the spiritual realm and how to operate in it. We must understand spiritual power, authority, faith, and how to release them. If we are going to successfully bind and loose demonic activity, open and close spiritual doors with Your keys of authority, we will do so from that which is in our spirits, not our souls; from our hearts, not our minds.
Give us eyes to see what cannot be seen and ears to hear what cannot be heard. Jesus said the words He spoke were spirit and life (John 6:63). Teach us to release “spirit words,” words originating from our spirits and therefore carrying Your life. He prefaced this by saying the Spirit quickens or gives life, “the natural realm is of no help” (TPT). We want to walk in the life-giving realm, the spirit realm.
We want to be spiritual! We want to move mountains, calm storms, and release life. Move us into this higher realm of revelation, we ask in Jesus’ name.
Our decree:
We declare that we will be spirit-led, not soul-led, and will therefore be Spirit-led.
Click on the link below to watch the full video.
Once again, this teaching can be found in my book Becoming Who You Are. It is available in our bookstore at DutchSheets.org.
______________________________________
James Strong, The New Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible (Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson Publishers, 1990), ref. no. 4151.
Ibid., ref. no. 5590.
Ibid., ref. no. 4152.
Ibid., ref. no. 1167.