The Connection Between the Natural and the Spiritual Realms
Do you wake up sometimes with a clarity and peace that you don’t have throughout most of the day? In that early, awakening stillness, you can hear God’s quiet voice so clearly if you direct your thoughts to Him.
But once we wake up, if we’re not directing our thoughts, and we don’t make the time to focus on Him, our thoughts direct us, which then breeds our emotional response. We can trail along behind these responses all day. We can get caught up in them. But it’s not our thoughts that should be dictating our day and it’s not our emotions. It’s our spirit.
If God’s Spirit is in us, our spirit can listen to Him. We can cultivate our senses to follow His voice. We understand that our body may be in this earthly space but our spirit is in the spiritual space – so our minds need to be able to function in both and understand the tangible difference. The spirit is designed to overcome the soul.
I recently read a journal entry of mine from a couple of years ago and I’d like to share it. This thought impacts me with fresh awe every time I reflect on it, although it's hard for me to define. But I'm going to try because I want to keep meditating on it and understanding it better.
The thought is the realisation, the knowledge of the reality between the natural and spiritual realms and the direct impact they have on each other that we can be dismally and sadly unaware of.
For the believer in Jesus Christ, the natural-to-spiritual convergence can be clearly seen by Jesus Christ’s physical sacrifice on the cross in exchange for the spiritual transaction that took place in the process, with the result of everlasting spiritual life and freedom from sin.
I think I can say it this way: Christ’s death was a physical transaction overcoming spiritual laws. As was His resurrection. As was His ascension where He took His seat of authority over all.
I think how that transaction covers salvation from sin, deliverance from demons, healing from sickness, life after death, and the power that our words have regarding life or death to the soul (Proverbs 18:21 and James 3:10).
Proverbs 18:21 (NLT)
The tongue can bring death or life; those who love to talk will reap the consequences.
James 3:10 (EB)
Praises and curses come from the same mouth! My ·brothers and sisters [fellow believers], this should not happen.
Even our thoughts carry power over ourselves.
Proverbs 4:23 (ERV)
Above all, be careful what you think because your thoughts control your life.
Christ's transaction on the cross, and His resurrection and ascension illustrates that physical-spiritual transactions are taking place in our lives every day. We make legal transactions every day, mostly without even realising it. We really need to know what we’re doing! We really need to take the consequences of our ignorance seriously.
When we learn to allow Him to work through us, what we say and do carries the same power, the same authority and the same weight of His glory. It doesn’t come from our own cognisant belief so much as it comes from our spiritual surrender, allegiance and understanding of who He is in us and who we are in Him. The Spirit of God is transformative. He transforms the natural.
Sin itself is a negative spiritual effect in the earthly dimension. It’s a natural vs spiritual cause and effect. Even all of creation groans under its weight. Read Romans 8 that reveals this life through the spirit in detail.
This reality is a door we can keep open, leave shut or ajar. If we don’t understand the spiritual laws that define the connection between the physical and spiritual worlds – the power and transcendence of the spiritual over the natural/earthly realm – we are as limited in both worlds as if our limbs were cut off. We are dis-abled.
Romans 12:2 (NIV)
Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.
John 15:7 (NLV)
If you get your life from Me and My Words live in you, ask whatever you want. It will be done for you.
If you get your life from Him, not your soulish desires. Our spirit-filled life on earth is to be connected with His Spirit-filled Kingdom plan. There is a manifestation that we can see in the believer's life and countenance that is undeniably from the Spirit of God. We cannot manifest something into being ourselves. (If we manifest something in our life without God, then we are manifesting from a spirit that is not from God.)
God cannot be separated from His creation. The spirit realm is real. It intricately impacts on our physical lives every day in every way. How aware of it we become will help us discover who God really wants us to be and what He can do through us. It impacts the world around us.
The Spirit of God is greater than the natural order and all other spiritual power because He carries authority over all. He can transform what is natural into the supernatural. Calamity of mind doesn't have to take place. That still, quiet space when we awaken each morning can be a transformative moment for our entire day - if we take that time to reflect on what's happening and allow God to speak to us.
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