Programme: School of The Spirit
Date: Thursday, 20th April 2023
Transcript Summary
1. For one to be prophetic, such a person must have passed through the school of the Spirit. The school of the Spirit simply entails the subjective leading or the dealing of the Spirit. God will lead us in this manner so that our minds and hearts can be shaped such that we can see a way in the spirit, and learn the attitudes of the Spirit. Being prophetic is a configuration of the heart and the mind so that we can follow and walk with God. This walk is a learning of the Spirit and not letters.
2. The Pharisees, Sadducees and the scribes had learned the letters and that is what limited them from coming to our Lord Jesus (John 5:39-40). Coming to Jesus was a major requirement needed for them to become prophetic. To make a man prophetic, there are dealings that must be brought around him. The school of the Spirit is not for the learning of letters alone, but to also condition us by bringing a cloud around us that will tamper with our natural arrangement. This is how we learn the Spirit. To become more prophetic is to become more spiritual. No one can obey righteousness without being prophetic, of which the least of righteousness is Christ. This means that the least order of the prophetic is Christ.
3. Except we are a highly prophetic generation, we cannot have dominion over sin and disobedience. We mortify the deeds of the body by the Spirit. A man cannot obey the commandment of loving his wife except by the Spirit. In loving his wife, he is mortifying the deeds of the body. The old man is not dealt with when we take the letters of the epistles and attempt to obey them literally without the help of the Spirit. We must do it by the Spirit! This does not mean we should go to extremes by delaying our obedience to love commandments with the excuse of waiting on the Spirit.
4. The ways of the Spirit are hidden or intertwined within our natural undertakings. To learn the Spirit is to learn a behavioral pattern of the Spirit. Sons of prophets learn ways. One can have knowledge but not know the way of the Spirit. The way of the Spirit is hidden to a natural man. When we do not pay attention to the ways of the Spirit, we will relate with the epistles naturally. One of the heritages of this path is the acquisition of the ways of the Spirit. One may not know much but with the ways of the Spirit, such will eventually have knowledge.
5. Satan has re-arranged man on the inside against spiritual blessing. The work he did in us would not allow us to ever receive the inheritance or the blessing of the Lord. A person could be without obvious works of the flesh, but his inward configuration which determines what he would naturally gravitate towards would hinder him from receiving the inheritance. The essence of learning the Spirit is to scatter our natural inward human arrangements. Our human arrangements (that were wrought by Satan) cannot receive the blessing, because the natural man cannot receive the things of the Spirit (1 Cor. 2:14). Our inward soul arrangement that we fetched from the world must be disarranged before we can receive the blessings in Christ.
6. The things of the Spirit are the things of the spirit of Christ, the Father and God (Col. 2:2). The essence of the learning of the Spirit is to tamper with our natural frame. God does not wait for all of our natural frames to be touched before we start learning the things of Christ, but it must have been touched to a level before the things of Christ would start to make sense to us. We may not fully understand it at this level, but we would be able to relate with them. Naturally, we do not appreciate the advantage of a virtue like meekness because we cannot relate with it and neither do we know its value.
7. The natural arrangements are in our bodies, frames, flesh, mind and conscience. Though they are natural, they are not seen. As long as a man has his natural arrangements intact, he cannot receive the things of God because this inward configuration would always revolt against those things. The things of God are not such that a natural man will ordinarily desire. They would be cumbersome on him and would be an inconvenience to him. Therefore, the essence of the leading of the Spirit is to deal with our natural frame, so that we can receive the things of God.
8. There are different natural arrangements that Satan has worked in the souls of men so that men will not receive the things of the Spirit. Satan has no problem giving material things to men as long as they do not receive the things of the Spirit. Satan knows that a man who has received the things of the Spirit will become prophetic and God will be able to commit His testimony into his hand. This means that the man will have the capacity to overcome him (Rev. 12:11). Knowing that we would do terrible damage to his kingdom and overcome him if all of these happen, he prefers to keep men in a natural frame. As such, we need to receive enough of the things of the Spirit so that we will love not our lives unto death.
Blessing!