Holding to Truth » Podcast

Welcome to this Holding to Truth Podcast! Hi. I’m Tom Smith and in this podcast we’ll be considering one of our favorite topics on this blog: “The Difference Between the Soul and Spirit in the Bible.”

Click the link to listen to this podcast.

First, I’ll give four reasons why knowing the difference between our soul and our spirit is so important to our Christian life.

Second, I’ll show how God created us with three parts—spirit, soul, and body and how the soul and the spirit are different.

Third, I’ll mention a couple of ways we can practice to discern our spirit from our soul in our daily lives.

These four reasons should impress us with our need to learn to discern the difference between the soul and the spirit. But to grasp this difference, we need to see from the Bible how God made us with three parts.

First Thessalonians 5:23 tells us that we’re made of three parts–spirit, soul and body. This verse says,

“The God of peace Himself sanctify you wholly, and may your spirit and soul and body be preserved complete, without blame, at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.”

We can illustrate our three parts with a bull’s-eye diagram of three circles:

Hebrews 4:12 says,

“For the word of God is living and operative and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the dividing of soul and spirit and of joints and marrow…”

From this verse we can pick up at least three points:

Hebrews 4:12 tells us that God’s living word is able to cut through our soul to divide it from our spirit. We should practice this every day by coming to the Bible in a prayerful way.

By reading a few verses or a chapter with prayer or pray-reading, God’s word will slay our troublesome thoughts and feelings enabling us to get to our spirit where we can enjoy fellowship with God. Try it every morning and evening.

Since the Spirit is the essence of God’s word, we should practice to contact the Scriptures with our spirit by means of prayer so that we touch its essence and receive the divine life contained in it.

First Corinthians 12:3 says, “No one can say “Jesus is Lord” except in the Holy Spirit. Since the Holy Spirit is now in our spirit, when we call on the Lord’s name we’re both in the Holy Spirit and in our spirit in which He dwells.

Whenever we feel inwardly dry or empty it’s good to call on His name–“Lord Jesus! Calling on the Lord will usher you into your spirit to enjoy fellowship with the Lord who lives there (2 Tim. 4:22).

“Lord Jesus, thank you for showing us that we were made with three parts–spirit, soul and body. Lord, teach us how to discern our spirit from our soul by praying with Your word and calling on Your name. Remind us to contact You in our spirit every day so that we enjoy You as our life and life supply and grow in our Christian life.”

If you’ve been helped to know the difference between your soul and spirit and discern the two in your experience, please confirm in a short comment. If you have questions about discerning soul and spirit, feel free to share that in a comment as well.

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“How can you know that you are saved?” This was the question that came up in my heart as a young Christian and one that I believe troubles many just like it troubled me.

I knew that the Bible says that if someone believes in the Lord Jesus they will be saved and have eternal life. But I still doubted if I was really saved.

Here are three proofs from the Bible that have given me the assurance that I am really saved.

The first way that you can know that you are saved is by God’s sure Word in the Bible. First John 5:13 says,

“I have written these things to you that you may know that you have eternal life, to you who believe in the name of the Son of God.”

This verse tells us that we can know that we are really saved.  It also tells us that the written words of the Bible are a proof to assure us who believe in the Lord so that we can know that we have eternal life

To illustrate, we can use, Romans 10:13 which says, For “whoever calls upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.” If even once  you have called on the name of the Lord  Jesus saying,

“O Lord Jesus! Lord Jesus! Lord, I believe into You! I believe that You died for my sins and rose from the dead!”

Have you called on the Lord Jesus? Yes? Then you can hold God to His word and say, “Thank you Lord, based on Your word in Romans 10:13, I know that I’m saved.”

There is nothing stronger than holding a person to their own word. How much more with our righteous and faithful God!

Not only do we have the proof by the Bible in our hands, but we also have the proof by the Holy Spirit’s witnessing with our spirit that we are God’s children. Romans 8:16 says,

“The Spirit Himself witnesses with our spirit that we are the children of God.”

This was the part that really sealed it for me. I believed the Bible, but I would question in my mind, “Did I really believe in the Lord? Am I really saved?”

But then one day, I discovered the deepest part of my being—my human spirit. It  is our spirit that was created with the special function of contacting God, receiving God, and containing God. But it is not until we receive Christ that we begin to realize its function.

It is when we open our mouth to confess our faith in Jesus Christ that something wonderful happened. We experience the witnessing of the Holy Spirit with our spirit, assuring us that we are children of God.

I expect the reason many Bible-believing Christians doubt their salvation is that they don’t experience such an inner witnessing of the Holy Spirit with their spirit. One verse that helped me in this regard was 1 Corinthians 12:3, which ends, “…no one can say, Jesus is Lord! except in the Holy Spirit.” So when I called on the Lord Jesus, I experienced being in the Holy Spirit and realized His witness deep within me that I was a child of God.

If you want to enjoy the Spirit’s witnessing, don’t be a silent Christian. Declare your faith in the Lord Jesus, to someone you love, and even to the creation. Tell the birds, the flowers and whoever you can,

“I believe in the Lord Jesus! I’m a child of God”

Then by the Holy Spirit’s inner witnessing with your spirit you will know that you are saved.

The third proof that helped me to know that I was really saved was the spontaneous love I felt for other believers in Christ. Sometimes, even without really knowing them, I would have a feeling within that certain people were also believers in Christ and sense such a sweet feeling toward them.

This was also a strong confirmation to me that I was genuinely saved. In 1 John 3:14, the apostle John said,

“We know that we have passed out of death into life because we love the brothers.”

By these three strong proofs:

1) the proof by God’s Word in the Bible,

2) the proof by the Holy Spirit’s witnessing with your spirit, and

3) the proof by your love for your fellow believers in Christ,

you can know that you are saved. When you know that you are really saved and are a child of God, you’ll have the necessary foundation to begin a joyful Christian life and to grow up in God’s salvation.

If you’ve enjoyed this post, I hope you’ll take a moment to leave a brief comment.

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One of the most important life practices for Christians is to spend time with the Lord Jesus first things in the morning. As born again believers, we’ve received the life of God, and our need is for this life to grow. Just as a newborn baby needs to be fed in order to grow, we need to be fed spiritually so we can grow in our Christian life, and the best time to do this is first thing in the morning.

This podcast explains our need to spend time with the Lord in the morning and what we can do in these times. It discusses principles presented in the Bible related to spending time with the Lord in the morning, and also specific people in the Bible and in church history who spent time to contact God early in the morning.

p.s. The Holding to Truth podcast is now available on iTunes. You can now listen to it on iTunes here.

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One of the best ways a Christian can contact and enjoy God is to pray-read His Word. In John 6:63, the Lord Jesus told us His words are spirit and are life. Thus, if we want to contact the Spirit and to receive life, we need to come to God’s Word. This is the best place to meet with God, to contact Him, to absorb Him, and to breathe Him in. When we do this, we’re nourished spiritually and receive the life supply for our Christian life.

George Mueller had this to say about pray-reading God’s Word (taken from a booklet titled Soul Nourishment First):

I began therefore to meditate on the New Testament from the beginning, early in the morning. The first thing I did, after having asked in a few words the Lord’s blessing upon his precious Word, was, to begin to meditate on the Word of God, searching as it were into every verse, to get blessing out of it; not for the sake of public ministry of the Word, not for the sake of preaching on what I had meditated upon, but for the sake of obtaining food for my own soul.

As you can see, pray-reading, or meditating, on God’s Word leads to our being supplied and nourished spiritually for our Christian life. George Mueller practiced this, not to find something to speak in a sermon, but so he could obtain “food for my own soul.” We can do the same by daily pray-reading God’s Word.

You can learn more about this practice by listening to the podcast below. The podcast discusses what pray-reading is and how we can experience it in our Christian life.

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The Bible clearly reveals that man has three parts—a body, a soul, and a spirit—yet many people, including many Christians, are unaware of this third part—the human spirit.

In this first ever podcast on Holding to Truth, we discuss verses from the Bible that reveal man has three parts and why it’s important to know about our deepest part—the human spirit. You’ll learn how the Bible clearly reveals that man’s spirit is distinct from his soul and how we can use our spirit to contact, receive, and contain God.

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