It is fairly simple to understand that Christ took my place legally, so that I could be acquitted by God.

It is less simple to understand how I can both no longer live and still live at the same time.

I think that one way it makes sense is in terms of love that ‘seeketh not its own’, or ‘does not insist on its own way’ (1 Cor.13). There is a revelation of self and its death that is essential for a disciple. The little tyrant ‘I’ that does seek its own way, is shown up for what it is, and becomes repellent. At the same time, others who project a self life that has not accepted crucifixion also come across as  rather repellent.

Another way of putting it is that when Christ really lives in the heart, self has to shrink and die in his presence. Of course it is work in progress, but the initial insight is a watershed, and life follows in a different direction from them on.

When you know that the very Son of God loved you enough to die for you, then there is no need to fight your corner, and you can rely on his resources more than tyrant I’s machinations.

No-longer-I can take it or leave it. Pleasure or hardship, it does not have to grasp at what it wants or cringe at pain. It’s not robotic, just free from tyrant I.

What is your spirit? Your connection with God, your sixth sense, your conduit of God’s life within, your ‘knower’.

What can you do with your spirit? Your conscience and intuition are faculties of your spirit knowing directly – as Watchman Nee explained, the mind knows about spiritual things but the spirit apprehends directly. And life and power are conveyed via your spirit.

Regeneration or new birth occur when God replaces your dead human spirit with a new perfect one. Dead means unresponsive to God, not inanimate.

Your spirit is connected to the Holy Spirit by your faith, which is itself a function of your spirit. The Holy Spirit is in and alongside you but never robotises you. He is always other, transcendant, not you.

What can hinder your spirit’s function? Noise of natural life in thought or feeling or confusion, noise of reverberation from past or present trauma or stress or sickness, demonic interference, passivity.

What is a defiled spirit? It is like a headlight with mud on it, and the dirt may come from bitterness, or refusal to obey God, holding on to sin, or being deceived.

What is the heart? The deepest part of your soul, closest to your spirit. Whatever state you are in emotionally, mentally or motivationally, you are able to observe and be objective, knowing what is right and wrong. This comes from the new heart and spirit (new heart? spiritually infused and renewed inner motivation, thought and feeling).

The issue of life for a Christian is which way the soul and heart are orientated. If they are turned towards the outward man, that is the body that feeds by nature on the world, and the outer parts of the soul most occupied with natural things, such as reason or emotion moved by worldly and early matters. This constitutes the flesh,  the unspiritual soul, the self centered soul, the carnal man, the being orientated away from God. ‘To set the mind on the flesh is death’ – Romans 8.

The spiritual man (person, to sound PC) is orientated towards God, primarily via the spirit and thence the Holy Spirit. And as God’s life is channelled through your spirit, it quickens, or enlivens the soul and body also. When first baptised in the Holy Spirit, this is a flood of life that later subsides so that one must thereafter seek the flow with the will and heart. The will is the primary faculty of the soul and the lead faculty of the heart, by which the orientation of the person its effected.

To walk in the Spirit is to set the mind, meaning soul led by will and thought, on the Holy Spirit via the human spirit, as opposed to walking in the flesh by pointing the other way.

We can claim cleansing for sin by repentance (turning of the soul) and faith in the power and gift of the blood of Jesus to cleanse the heart and spirit of defilement. We can stir up our spirit and soul to receive God’s life, and we can also stir up gifts and ministry by which we pour out life from our spirit, received intuitively and interpreted and articulated mentally, plus communicated physically. That way your spiritual heart and will command your soul and body, rather than your outer man calling the tune. This is overcoming, victory and the normal condition of a child if God.

This will contain inaccuracies, for which I take responsibility.

P.S. I copied this: According to the Oxford English Dictionary “orientate=orient”. So they are the same. ‘Orient’ is older, being from the C18. ‘Orientate’ is from the C19. The Dictionary says that ‘orientate’ may be a back-formation from ‘orientation’. The past participle of ‘orient’ is ‘oriented’ and of ‘orientate’ it is ‘orientated’.
That said, surely in everyday speech in Britain we use ‘orientate’ to mean , literally or figuratively, ‘to turn in or towards a certain direction’. We don’t use ‘orient’ to mean that here. Both words originally meant ‘to turn to face the East’ but later meant to turn something to a certain point on the compass, before acquiring the meaning of ‘to turn oneself in the requisite direction’ .

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I sought God over many months and concluded the need to make space for the Holy Spirit. What that means practically is not my subject here.

This winter I have a theme of sitting by the sea, usually in the cellar. What I mean is, being present to God, aware of his presence, like an ocean that I sit beside. Everything comes from that.

Then we reached the year’s end and progress nationally has been patchy. Blessing has been where households have sought and heard God, and applied the word together.

The word for 2012 is Courageous Faith And Action, which is certainly better than Action And Hope For The Best, which has sometimes been my approach. But I faltered as the plans and pump-up were rolled out at our national event. I’ve turned sixty and can I keep this up, plug on at everything and still not see great progress?

Then a smaller meeting reminded me that it’s all about bringing God’s power to people at ground level, and my spirit stirred again.

This morning in the cellar I worried away at why we don’t have God’s distinct direction enough, but seem to do the stuff half sure of his leading. I checked Acts on how they did it, and I hit fire. Of course. As Samuel Chadwick said,  Destitute of the Fire of God, nothing else counts; possessing Fire, nothing else matters. So here I am. Deal with things that quench fire, drink fire, run with fire. Make space for fire. Sit by the fire. Stir fire with faith and act with it. It’s that conclusion again. Yes I can keep that up.

Maybe it’s the dark time of year – ‘seasonally adjusted disorder’, or the end of a year that has not been especially fruitful. My house family is getting a bit elderly in the main, and without faith looks a bit unattractive to new acolytes.
Maybe it’s facing some challenges of personal obedience that I’ve faced before with mixed success, and needing to talk about it too.
Maybe it’s some weariness at demands that normally require you to hit the ground running, and I didn’t.
Maybe all of those.

It’ll pass, and I can enjoy having the Holy Spirit alongside inside (imagine living inside me; only such love would do that), enjoy still having good mobility and health, enjoy the sunlight on the canal. I can enjoy friendship, which is sharing this experience of being on the inside of a particular person (Why on earth am I this very person, and not you?). Many things of course, but just now the energy is a bit low.
In the cellar, sitting beside the sea of God’s presence, there’s much more hope. Back there tomorrow morning, so I’ll look forward to that.

- Peoples’ stories are fascinating.

- I love the way every person responds to love and friendship.

- Everyone is gifted in different ways.

- Other people understand the world differently to you. That helps me understand myself better.

- I love the endless variety of people.

- People have such depths inside.

- Everyone is beautiful when they smile.

- When someone is open with me and trusts me I find it great.

- I enjoy peoples’ different walks.

- We are all the same in our humanity. We feel the same things, experience life the same.

- It is interesting to see the similarities of children with their parents, even as babies.

- We were made in God’s image or likeness. You can see God in everyone, because they all have his stamp on them.

Poured out or wrung out?

Like Paul the apostle we are to be ready to be poured out like a drink offering on the altar of the saints’ faith. Meaning, I think, that every Christian, and especially leaders, are to be spent in serving God’s people to help them in their faith and life. Spent, poured out: a continual giving, even to the extent of having nothing much left to give. I can relate to that, going to bed pretty tired after a day in the vineyard of the church and its needs.

But are we supposed to be wrung out? Isn’t that what spent means? Maybe, but is there a difference between being weary but able to replenish and start again the next day, and being so done in and nerve-wracked as to find it unsustainable?
In my experience this work does take you there sometimes, and in that case you will need some respite and/or healing pretty soon, in order to get back to normal.

Sometimes you get the impression that Christians are supposed to float along, able to avoid stress and maintain a placid life with time in prayer and quietness and sufficient rest, because ‘God doesn’t want you to overdo it’. People who can do that tend to have the luxury of not working full time or having much responsibility. One brother told me long ago ‘I always make sure I’m never tired’ and I wondered what planet he inhabited. That’s not faith, it’s selfishness.

Still, it is important to get time aside with God, and even to rest up sometimes. If you’re getting ratty and wish everyone would push off, if your health is failing and you dread tomorrow, then it’s time to get off the treadmill for a time. Jesus told his disci0ples once ‘Come aside and rest a while’ (Mark 6.31+).
But of course even then the crowds found them and once more he was poured out.

I don’t believe the universe came out of nothing (with due respect to Hawking etc), or that the inflation hypothesis is convincing.

I don’t believe that life arose by chance – it is too complex in its simplest self replicating form. And I don’t believe that there is extra-terrestrial life despite the number of stars, for the same reason.

I don’t believe that random mutations produce extra information and thereby increase in complexity and creative novelty in biological systems. I do believe in natural selection and a limited scale of evolution, but not macro evolution of new more complex forms of life.

I do find the beauty of the earth and universe breath-taking.

I do believe in the fall of man into blindness and hostility to God as an actual spiritual event.

I do believe that Jesus Christ is an historical figure, that he said what is recorded, that he rose from the dead, and is who he said he was, God’s Son.

I do believe that God is able to make himself known to us in many ways, that the bible was written under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, that evil and suffering have answers in the life and death of Jesus.

I do believe that the church has demonstrated the truth of the gospel and the bible through the centuries – including defending the weak, despite many evils attributed to it as well.

I do believe that God answers prayer today and that I know him in my experience in countless ways.

I have grown up over the last 40 years as a Christian confirming all this.

And I believe that unselfish God-given love is the highest force in life, which can be found by receiving Christ as Lord and Saviour.