P.P.S Note: The overall idea and thoughts are all present for the most part. The article still needs to be cleaned up a little. I had dedicated this day to God and asked Him to put on my hurt what He’d like me to write about. And this is what was put on my heart and I began writing about it. I’ve been writing for about 7-8 hours today. Until 1:58 AM.
There are 3 aspects to life. The internal, the external, and you. The internal is how you perceive and react, the lens which you view the world, the things that occur on the inside. The external is the world itself and all things on the outside. And you, well you are you. You are the one that goes through and experiences life and makes decisions on it based on the other two factors, the internal and external.
The Bible covers these ideas and has known them for a few millennia. But it is referred to as the soul, the spirit and the flesh.
The soul is you, the spirit is the driving force and the flesh is your body. And all three are linked and have great influence on each other.
This is how it’s possible for us to know something is wrong and not want to do it, and yet at the same time want desperately to do that thing.
I used to think I was two different people
For the longest time, before I had come to Christ, I’d call myself, “Switch”, because it seemed as if I was multiple different people. One part of me would desperately want to do something evil and wicked and yet, another part of me knew it was evil and would try stop it, would be against it. And it always confused me as to how I could be for and against something at the same exact time. It didn’t make sense to me so I would always think I was two different people in one.
But, as soon as I read the Bible, specifically the New Testament, it all made sense to me. We are three parts all layered together to form one thing, one person, one being. Three parts that work together—or more often don’t—to form one entire, whole being.
At least… to form the being that is us, here on earth as we know it.
We can understand it with an analogy.
The Analogy To Easily Understand The Dynamic Between The Different Parts
Imagine a car with a driver and a passenger.
Your soul is the driver. The spirit is the passenger. The body or flesh is the car.
The car interacts with the outside world. If you’re driving in the desert, it feels the wind. It gets attacked by an elephant. It hits a cactus. It is what moves across the desert in the physical realm.
The driver is inside of the car. It doesn’t interact with the desert directly but indirectly through the steering of the car. It sees and experiences all that the car does because it is in the car. It is the captain of the ship.
The passenger sits inside of the car as well, but it doesn’t drive. It has an influence on the driver though. It influences the driver by telling them things. When the car hits a puddle a water, both the driver and passenger are influenced by it.
The driver is influenced because it is connected with the car, for the sake of the car analogy, this connection can be the hands on the steering wheel and sitting within the car. The puddle may cause the wheels of the car to turn another direction—which turns the hands of the driver which are on the steering wheel. The car may go up, and then down in response to the water which will cause the driver to fly up and then down.
The passenger is also influenced by the water puddle. It may react by screaming and yelling in response to the sounds and sight of water splashing up and the impact.
Then, the driver and passenger also influence each other. The passenger screams which changes how the driver makes decisions. Now, the driver may avoid hitting a puddle of water. The decision of the driver may change to avoid puddles of water from now on.
And the driver may tell the passenger to calm down, influencing the passenger. The driver may tell the passenger, “It was just a water puddle there is no need for the screaming. Stop screaming that is not an appropriate response.” Which influences the passenger and may cause a change in the passenger. The driver may even just change passengers completely by kicking it or them out and getting a different passenger.
Many times we hear in the Bible that God sent an evil spirit to someone. And that spirit influences that person’s decisions significantly to do the things God wants.
The Soul
The soul is you. It is the thing which has free will. It is the thing which has the ability to make decisions. To choose good or evil. It is the thing which is capable of sinning against God or not. It is the thing that is eternal. It is the thing that is judged and sent to Heaven or to hell. It is the driver of the body, the car. It is you, the life of the body. It is the life of the vessel which is your body.
The soul is ultimately you. It is the head of the form that is you. It is tied into and linked to the spirit and flesh on earth. The soul is immaterial. The make up of the soul is not physical, it is immaterial. Whatever realm or world or dimension or plane it resides, is not the physical one. It can be displayed in the physical realm but it transcends, it goes beyond, the physical world we see.
When you’re soul leaves you’re body, your body is dead. You’re soul does not die when we “die.” When we “die”, our soul leaves our body. However, we are still alive. We still exist. I wish I could tell you more but I am not God. I did not create us and I don’t have the wisdom or knowledge to explain it to you.
There are many examples in the Bible:
We see many descriptions where the soul leaves the body. Times where people just drop dead out of no where because their soul leaves their body. In the New Testament, this happens with Paul who confronts a man and a woman who held back a portion of the money they were to dedicate to God from having sold their land to give to God. Their souls left their body which resulted in them dying on the spot while standing and their bodies collapsing to the ground.
You also have many examples where people die and their souls are brought back and put back into their bodies. Then they come back to life. They are resurrected when their souls are placed back into their bodies.
NOTE: Mediums, people who “talk to the dead”, witches, sorcerers, diviners are all condemned and prohibited by God. See below:
9 “When you enter the land which the Lord your God is giving you, you shall not learn to [f]imitate the detestable things of those nations. 10 There shall not be found among you anyone who makes his son or his daughter pass through the fire, one who uses divination, a soothsayer, one who interprets omens, or a sorcerer, 11 or one who casts a spell, or a medium, or a spiritist, or one who consults the dead. 12 For whoever does these things is detestable to the Lord; and because of these detestable things the Lord your God is going to drive them out before you. 13 You are to be blameless before the Lord your God. 14 For these nations, which you are going to dispossess, listen to soothsayers and diviners, but as for you, the Lord your God has not allowed you to do so.
Deuteronomy 18:9-14 NASB
This is prohibited because they are not God. They are therefore corrupted and evil. Works of the devil and evil spirits. Not from God. By doing so, you turn these powerless people into your “god” instead of worshipping and following the one true God. The God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. God, the Father. Now that that was all said, back to our regularly scheduled writing…
And you also have examples like Saul and the medium who called up Samuel the prophet who was dead. The Old Testament describes how Saul went to a medium, a person who contacts the dead, and asked for Samuel the prophet to be brought. Then the medium sees Samuel and he asks, “Why have you disturbed me by bringing me up?” to Saul. (This can be found in 1 Samuel 28) Which goes to show that our souls continue to exist but are brought somewhere else.
And, in Revelations, Jesus Christ says His people, the saints will be given “incorruptible”, “glorified” bodies. The people, their souls, who’ve been granted eternal life and who’ve been saved by Jesus Christ, will be taken and new bodies that are glorified and incorruptible will be given to them. Their souls will be put into those new bodies to dwell in New Jerusalem which is Heaven on earth. Where God will dwell among His people! Glory be to God!
Now onto the spirit!
The Spirit
The spirit is your emotions. Just as your emotions are the driving force behind life, they can also change drastically. In one moment you can be sad and another very happy. God can send you an evil spirit or a joyful spirit. You can have a spirit of mourning or a spirit of anger. You can be motivated to do something or completely unmotivated to do something.
Spirits can be passed along by people. They can be cast out and let in. You can have multiple spirits at once. There are unclean and wicked spirits.
You often hear people say things like, “Spirit of Anxiety, leave! Spirit of Depression, leave!” Anxiety and depression are feelings, emotions. They are spirits that influence how we behave, see the world, and make decisions.
Spirits have a heavy influence on your mental state. Which is why…
Spirits Are The Cause Of Mental Illnesses
And when you understand spirits, “mental health” becomes easy to understand. You begin to realize that schizophrenia is many wicked and unclean spirits dwelling in one person.
For example, the man near the cave who was seen as insane and could not be contained. He went from absolutely out of his mind, schizophrenic you could say, to completely sane—After Jesus Christ had cast out the “legion”, or huge army typically consisting of three to six thousand soldiers, of unclean spirits out of the man.
You can understand that depression is a spirit, or multiple, that are dwelling in a person, constantly telling them saddening and depressing things. Things that make the person not want to get up or do anything, or even live. Painting a dim, dark, sad and miserable portrait of their life and eventually, they start to believe it. You can understand that anxiety is a spirit that overexaggerates and makes things bigger than they are to make the person fearful and afraid. To scare them. To leave them in a perpetual state of fear.
Spirits can speak to you
These spirits can speak and influence you. They are like a passenger in your car. They can scream and yell and persuade you to do things. A spirit of lust will push you to cheat on your husband or wife, or commit adultery. A spirit of anger can drive you to destroy a TV. And some are temporary or conditional, like the spirit of lust or anger, they will leave after they are satisfied, when the conditions are met. And when they leave, you are left in your normal state, regretting what you just did. You think to yourself, “What just came over me? Why did I do that? Oh no… I’m such an idiot. WHY!?” Others aren’t so easy to please and are stubborn.
Now here is the issue… there is always going to be empty seats in your car—aka, a place for the spirit to reside—which means even if you get them to leave… They’ll come back. Because that’s how cars were made to be! We were always made to have a spirit but it was suppose to be the Spirit of God. But when adam and eve fell, they removed the Spirit of God from themselves because God cannot be amongst sin for He is holy.
Now here is what God did for us in His abundant mercy and love. He gave His Son Jesus Christ, to die on the cross for our sins. To make an atonement, that is to make right what we did wrong. To pay for what we did.
This is the importance of Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit seals you by filling up all the spots and protecting evil and wicked spirits from entering into you.
Jesus Christ is God, in the flesh, that came down to make it all possible. To interact directly with us. To teach us of and about the Father, and give us faith. To purify us by His blood so that the Holy Spirit could dwell within us. And through acceptance of Jesus Christ into our hearts, we can be purified, born again and made new. And once purified, we can be given the Holy Spirit. And by faith, we surrender ourselves to God and do His will, guided by the Holy Spirit.
And this has always been the case, even in the Old Testament. Through and by faith in God, Moses, Abraham, Jacob, Isaac, David, Samuel, etc. were given the Holy Spirit to influence them. That is why many times, the Bible will talk about how the spirit of—Moses, for example—was put on another, like Joshua. Or how Elijah was taken up and a “double portion” of his spirit was put upon Elisha.
This would also explain why God can speak to people without anyone around them hearing. Like speaking to prophets or answering inquiries which were answered to individuals, not to groups. The individuals would then tell everyone else. And, the times where God was heard by everyone else, He truly came down. Like at Mount Sinai, where He came down in thick clouds and great thunderstorms, and when He spoke, all heard Him. The entire congregation quaked in fear at the sound of His voice and demanded that they not hear God and for Moses to speak with them instead or they’ll die.
The Significance of the Holy Spirit
This would also explain why it’s so important to receive the Holy Spirit and to be baptized with fire by Jesus Christ. Without the Holy Spirit, there is no influence from God pushing and pulling you in the ways, He wants you to go. It also explains why the Bible says not to grieve the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is an influence to us and a guiding light to our soul, but you, the soul, can still fight it. So, when you have the Holy Spirit, do not resist and fight it. Follow God’s guidance and influence. That is what faith is—Having complete trust and confidence in God, and that shows by completely letting yourself go to God’s influence and direction. To not fight and resist His Holy Spirit. To be in obedience to God is to obey what He says, so when the Holy Spirit speaks to do something you are in obedience by listening.
Imagine the Holy Spirit is like the current of a river, you should not resist and swim against it. But you should allow it to take you where it will. Let it flow and guide you where it wants you to go. And if you trust in God in end up in the most amazing and perfect places, what feels like effortlessly, because God did all of it for you.
Oftentimes, the spirits can be overcome by the soul but the stubborn ones are stronger. Stubborn spirits can be fought with the soul and body in a joint effort. This is proved by Jesus Christ when He said, these do not come out but by fasting and prayer. (Can be found in Matthew 17:21 and Mark 9:29) The soul prays. The body fasts. Together, the soul and body are joined to overcome the evil spirits. Fasting strengthens one’s faith in God by weakening the flesh. The flesh influences against God, so by fasting, you weaken the flesh. And the weaker the flesh, the weaker it’s influence and the quieter it gets. Prayer asks for God’s help but prayers are nothing without faith. God favors those who have faith in Him and answers their prayers. Together, they bring you closer to God which results in His help in removing evil spirits from you. But more importantly, removing those evil spirits and replacing it with His Holy Spirit.
Now, speaking of the flesh…
The Body
The body coincides with the external. It is all things which happen outside of you. It is the interface or vessel which interacts with the rest of the world. It is also the door through which everyone else, and the external may interact and influence you. By influencing your body through sight, touch, hearing, smell, and taste.
What you do with your body is extraordinarily important because it’s linked to the soul and spirit.
But much research, and many experiments have been done on the physical body which give us the impression that we are controlled by our bodies. That we are ruled by our bodies and have no say in anything that we do. We are just some “habitual, instinctual beasts.”
Scientists make a mistake by calling us animals
They only study what they can see, the body. So, it’s no wonder why scientists always call us “animals” and “beasts.” Because the only thing they’re “studying” is the flesh. And the one thing that differentiates us from animals is the soul. An animal has flesh and may even have a spirit, but it has no soul. And so, to a scientist who completely leaves out the soul, we look like nothing else but animals.
You can manipulate someone through their body.
In neuroscience, this is all that they study. How the chemicals and different neural processes affect our body and us, how we think and behave. They’ve done studies on rats where they take away all their dopamine.
In reality, they are physically manipulating the body into a neurochemical state that is typically influenced by the spirit or soul. Thereby, mimicking a physical, neurochemical state that would have been triggered by a spirit, but wasn
This works both ways. God can send us a spirit of peace when we are panicking and it can immediately trigger a physical, neurochemical state of peace.
This also explains how scientists can “do away” with or reduce mental illnesses with medication
The medications manipulate the neurochemical state of the body which is linked to the spirit. It has an influence on the spirit. It quiets the spirit or reduces the strength it has on the body. Or, more likely, completely numbs the person.
There are many schizophrenic people who take medication and report still hearing voices. Some say they hear less, or it is quieter. Others say the voices are completely removed. And others, the voices do not go away even with medication.
What is happening in detail? Not just in the body but beyond to the interaction with the spirit and soul is beyond me.
I have not taken those medications personally. However, by the sounds of it from reports of people who do take it and have witnessed those who do take it. They are heavily sedated. And, if they get off the medications, all of it comes right back. Which tells me they haven’t gotten rid of anything but hidden it. They’ve swept it under the rug. They have cancelled out the noise by filling the room with more noise to drown it all out. They have cancelled out the noise by eliminating your ability to hear, spiritually, of course.
P.S. I’ve been doing searches for people with schizophrenia and how they experience it. There is a comment on Reddit, “The majority of the time, it sounds like I’m in a crowd of 1000 people and they are all talking at once…” Sounds oddly similar to what Jesus Christ described about the insane man who had a legion of devils in him, doesn’t it? I came across it while trying to find out whether schizophrenic people hear voices in their sleep. I can’t seem to find anything about it other than it happening when they are going to sleep which means they are still awake. This reinforces the idea that they are spirits. When we fall asleep, our bodies are deactivated in a way.
The Triangle Is A Perfect Representation
The soul is at the top of the triangle connected to the spirit and the flesh. It is above both the spirit and the flesh. It holds supreme authority and dominion over the two. It ultimately controls both of them.
However, the spirit and the flesh are both on the same level, under the soul, connected to it and each other. If they join forces, together against the soul, they can pull the soul down and overthrow it.
This is the balance of which we are, but with the corruption of the world, the flesh is turned against the soul. It has been corrupted. The spirit becomes the pivotal point of whether we are good or bad.
This is why Jesus Christ is good. He restores the Holy Spirit, God’s good Spirit, to us, to guide us and to fight for us. He brings our soul together with the Holy Spirit to fight against both the corrupted, evil spirit(s) and the flesh.
By the grace of God and the salvation which is given to us through Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit He sends down to us, the passenger in our car becomes the Spirit of God. Our influence becomes the Spirit of God who pushes and pulls us in the right direction with influence. This can be known by the saying that the Holy Spirit dwells within us. It does. The Holy Spirit also fights with and for us, against the evil spirits, or passengers, that try to get into our body, or car.
This can also be seen as Jesus Christ says He dwells within us and us in Him. This can be depicted with the car analogy. We, our soul, or the driver, are in Jesus Christ’s car. So when we come before God, we arrive in Jesus Christ’s car which is all of His perfection. Which is how we are allowed to enter into the kingdom of God. Not because we deserve it or have done anything ourselves which is good, but because Jesus Christ is good.
And His Spirit, the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of God, is in our car while we drive. It sits as a passenger in our car directing us in His way and teaching us where to go. Giving us knowledge and wisdom and direction and guiding our decisions in life.