Picture a hurricane lamp globe.
If we take it in hand and hold it horizontally, we would have an opening on the left side and one on the right.
Let’s say that the hurricane represents our soul, the hub of our personality filled with emotions and thoughts. On one side, it is open and connected to our spirit – on the other, open and connected to our physical body.
Before Christ enters our spirit, that part of us is dark, without the enlightenment of Divine Truth. Kinda like putting a black-out curtain between the opening of spirit and soul. Yet, when we invite Jesus to dwell within our spirit, He accesses our spirit and removes the curtain separating our soul and spirit.
Not sure about this?
Let’s look into the Old Testament.
The tabernacle and the temple was a shadow of heavenly realities, remember? Moses caught a glimpse of this blueprint on Mount Sinai. You see, receiving the Ten Commandments was only a part of what happened on that hill. In exact duplication of what he saw while on Mount Sinai, Moses returned back to the foot of the mountain and erected a copy of this heavenly set-up (Hebrews 8:5).
This tabernacle consisted of three parts – much like we do.
When we look at the courtyard, the holy place and the holy of holies, we are struck with the similarities between this physical structure and our own body, soul and spirit.
And just think….that curtain that partitioned the holy place from the holy of holies (Exodus 26:33) is a great symbol of the veil that covered our hearts until we came to know Christ.
“But whenever a man turns to the Lord, the veil is taken away.” (2 Corinthians 3:16)
Cool, huh?
When Jesus submitted His Spirit to death, the veil of the temple was torn in two (Luke 23:45). Jesus literally opened the way for the emotions and thoughts of our soul to have access to His Spirit. Our mind and feelings can now freely approach the Spirit of God because the partition has been removed.
“We have confidence to enter the holy place…by a new and living way which He inaugurated for us through the veil.” (Hebrews 10:19-20)
But remember, our hurricane lamp globe has two sides.
Yes, the veil that blocked our thoughts and emotions from the Spirit is now removed. We can boldly gain our influence from the Holy Spirit. But, if we want, we can also access our belief system through the outside world that touches our physical bodies. We now have the “right to become children of God” (John 1:12), but we also retain the right to walk by sight and not by faith (2 Corinthians 5:7).
The reason that we aren’t automatically “nice” when we become Christians is that we still have the alternative to choose what the world is saying rather than what God says. We can fall back on what our sense of sight, sound and touch tell us rather than the Truth of His Word.
Joshua confronted the Israelites with a challenge to “choose today whom you will serve” (Joshua 24:15). We have the same choice every single day. Will we believe Truth or will be believe what we can see?
What will you do?
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