By Pastor Chinedu Emmanuel

Jesus answered and said to him, “Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jonah, for flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but My Father who is in heaven. Matthew 16:17

God desires to see us grow and mature in Him because that way we won’t be easily swayed by every wind of doctrine. When we run after what is not the truth, we waste our time. The truth will remain the truth and you can’t benefit from what is not the truth. We need to grow spiritually, especially in these last days where the devil is churning out all manner of deceit. Even the elect can be deceived.

What is the role of the Holy Spirit in helping believers grow? One of the ways we can mature is to learn to work with the Holy Spirit. The things of God are not carnal, so you cannot understand the ways of God with your natural senses. This means by how you feel or see. These natural senses are very useful when relating and dealing with natural things like walking, driving and all other natural activities. The truth that reveals the things of God are spiritual truths and spiritual realities more real than the natural world. Jesus Christ said the words I speak are life and spirit. When people try to figure out the things of God with their carnal minds, they fail. He gave us the Holy Spirit to help us discern the mind of God spiritually. We tend to forget that the spiritual world that we cannot see is more real than the physical world that we can see, and the spiritual is far more powerful than the natural and even controls the physical.

THIS IS HOW IT WORKS

Man has a body, the physical body which is full of life. With this he contacts the physical world. You cannot engage the physical world any other way. You use your eyes to find your way and where you are. You use your intellect to process information and decide on your responses.

Man also has a spirit part of him which is as a living being as the natural being is. When he dies, this living being leaves the body. The Bible says that the body without the spirit is dead. Once your spirit leaves your body, your body dies. This reveals to us that the spirit realm is superior to the natural realm and derives its existence from it.  This spirit man is the one that is born again when we come to Christ Jesus. This man becomes a new man created to be like God in true holiness and righteousness. Then the Spirit of God called the Spirit of Christ for Christ is also God and there is only one Spirit of God that now lives in the spirit of this man. Actually the Scripture describes it like this.“Romans 8:9 But you are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God dwells in you. Now if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he is not His.” NKJV

THE PRESENCE OF THIS SPIRIT OF CHRIST IN YOU IDENTIFIES YOU AS ONE OF HE’S OR AS A CHRISTIAN

Now this truth cannot be discerned by our intellect or human reasoning. It will never make sense intellectually. The truth of Scriptures are not for intellectual discourse like Philosophy or Biology. God’s ways are not our ways. His ways are far higher than ours. He does spiritual things that finally manifest in the natural realm. Therefore, the Biblical truths are only understood by this new man that lives inside of you. He prays and talks and has a mind of his own as the Scriptures reveal.1 Corinthians 14:15 “Then what am I to do? I will pray with my spirit [by the Holy Spirit that is within me], but I will also pray [intelligently] with my mind and understanding; I will sing with my spirit [by the Holy Spirit that is within me], but I will sing [intelligently] with my mind and understanding also.” AMPC

 Peter calls him the hidden man of the heart. Those who are not yet ,made alive by Christ Jesus find these truths very foolish. This includes some of the intellectuals with several degrees, accolades and many books to their credit. God said He chose to make all their wisdom foolish. So, they are walking in total spiritual blindness to spiritual truths and wonder where God is. As expected, they have all manner of hypothetical questions. The Scriptures say it is foolishness to such people. They are blind. The things of God are spiritually discerned or understood.

REVELATION

Only the Holy Spirit can reveal the truth to your spirit and your spirit can make it known to your mind. You now believe what you have not seen. What you have not seen makes real sense and yet you have not seen it. It is because The Holy Spirit revealed it to your inner man who makes it known to your mind. Your head can be in turmoil and even fighting you but deep down inside you, you know that this is true without any physical proof except that the Scriptures says so. This is how the Lord Jesus put it to Peter in Matthew 16:17 “Jesus replied, “You are blessed, Simon son of John, because my Father in heaven has revealed this to you. You did not learn this from any human being. “NLT

 We still have teachers in Church that The Lord has appointed by giving them the ability to teach like our Pastors and Sunday School teachers, Life center teachers. But what the Lord is saying is that the ultimate revelation is given not by man but by the Holy Spirit who will open your inner mind to see it. And to understand beyond your reasoning ability what you are reading or hearing. It becomes so real to you to the point that you see it.

Here is another example where people were being taught but the Lord had to open their understanding and give them the revealed insight into these verses. The teachers teach, but the Lord opens our spiritual understanding.

Luke 24:45 “And He opened their understanding, that they might comprehend the Scriptures. 46 Then He said to them, “Thus it is written, and thus it was necessary for the Christ to suffer and to rise from the dead the third day,  47 and that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in His name to all nations, beginning at Jerusalem.  48 And you are witnesses of these things.” NKJV

This revelation is given to those who already have Christ in them and who desire to know the truth. They pray about it and ask God to open their understanding so they too can see what the Scriptures are saying. These ones grow spiritually and their faith becomes stronger and deeper. Their lives reflect the life of Christ in their faith work, love walk, boldness against evil and Satan. Their understanding of the truth that is in Christ manifests in all they do. They are guided by this truth in all their ways. They love what God loves and hate what God hates. The Spirit of Christ is taking over their entire life and controlling it. This is the Lordship of Jesus. It means to present our bodies to Him as a living sacrifice, giving Him our lives and yielding our control to He’s by his love not by compulsion but by us willingly giving our entire love and heart to him and trusting that regardless of what we experience in life, His life will be seen flowing out of us as rivers of living water. His glory is now revealed as we talk, forgive others, ask to be forgiven when we are at fault and as we let Him be the Lord over all of our life and all He gave us. WE MAKE OURSELVES OF NO REPUTATION!!The more we hand over to Him the more spiritual we are, the less we hand over to him the more carnal and unspiritual we are. Being spiritual doesn’t mean being weird and talking funny just to impress others. That is actually the flesh acting out its true nature. BEING SPIRITUAL MEANS LIVING THE NEW LIFE OF THE NEW MAN. THE BORN-AGAIN LIFE. THE LIFE CHRIST GAVE US; HIS LIFE!!!

One of the main ministry of the Holy Spirit to believers is to testify about Christ to the church so they can know Him. Many people in the church are simply ‘anointing-seekers’ not Jesus-seekers. Pay attention to how you hear, so you can hear right. The Spirit will give you revelation when you listen in humility. The meek He will guide but, He will resist the proud.