Winter 1981
Entering Spiritual Reality
Wade Taylor
Pinecrest President

Our spiritual hunger and knowledge of the things of God will fade away unless we stay in an active communion and fellowship with our Lord. As we wait in the presence of the Lord, we are, as it were, “recharged” or build up in spiritual things. Just as a battery that has been discharged through use must repeatedly be recharged, so we must hold ourselves up before the Lord and allow His life and power to flow back into our being. Waiting upon the Lord actively imparts to us the divine strength that can replace our human weakness. It is a flow of the life of the Lord into our being.

“It is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body. There is a natural body and there is a spiritual body” (I Corinthians 15:44). There must be operating in our lives a crucifixion of the “flesh,” of our own desires and ambitions. When the Greeks came to see Jesus, He said, “Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone” (John 12:24). Here Jesus died to the desire to be accepted on a human level but chose rather to fulfill the will of His Father in giving His life on the cross for us. Thus, there must be continual lifting up of our desires to the higher realm of God’s purpose and will for our lives. We must maintain our fellowship with Him in order to have the strength and desire to make the right choices.

Many in the Body of Christ today are saying, “If you wish to get close to Jesus, get closer to people and you will find Jesus in them.” This is good, but it is not enough. There must be a lifting up of our being into a vertical relationship, an intimate, personal coming to the Lord. We are to fellowship one with another. But Jesus said, “When you pray, enter into your closet and shut the door.” There must be times in our Christian walk when we are absolutely alone with the Lord. “I will come in to him and sup with him, and he with Me” (Revelation 3:20).

“There is a natural body and there is a spiritual body” (I Corinthians 15:44). We are a twofold being. We have a natural life, but it must go through a process of crucifixion before we can experience the release of spiritual life that God desires to make available to us. As we actively wait in His presence, He works out through this process of crucifixion all that would agitate and rebel against this quietness. “It is sown a natural body; (but) it is raised a spiritual body” (I Corinthians 15:44). “God is a Spirit, and they that worship God must worship Him in spirit and in truth” (John 4:24). As we wait in the presence of the Lord, our being is quickened and brought up into this realm of fellowship and union with Him. The Lord is working, re-orientating our being, bringing it all together and creating in us a sensitivity to this realm of the Spirit.

The Book of Hebrews tells us that it takes something sharper than a two-edged sword to divide between soul and spirit (Hebrews 4:12). The two are so intertwined and so close together that only the Lord can separate one from the other. This separation comes through spending time in His presence and waiting upon Him. Thus, as our spiritual senses are sharpened, we begin to better understand the mind of the Lord and enter into the fellowship of His sufferings (Philippians 3:10). However, it also causes us to become more sensitive to the natural realm. We must learn how to bear this without responding to it or retaliating.

“Who is blind but My servant? or deaf, as My Messenger that I sent? Who is blind as he that is perfect, and blind as the Lord’s servant? Seeing many things, but thou observest not; opening the ears, but he heareth not” (Isaiah 42:19-20). Because of the spiritual sensitivity that Jesus possessed, He knew what was in the hearts of men. (Matthew 9:4; 12:25; Mark 2:8, etc.) He knew what men were thinking, not because He was God, but because He was sensitive to the things of God. Jesus refused to react according to circumstances. He maintained His position in the heavenlies and was motivated according to what His Father was saying and doing, not man.

We are born into Christ as babes and our spiritual senses must be developed and grow (I Peter 2:2). In the garden of Eden, man had the best of everything. The Lord even came and walked with him. Of the tree of life man was told he could freely eat, but not of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Sometimes we think of it as being just evil, but it was the tree of “good and evil.” Eve said it was a tree to be desired, pleasant to look upon and its fruit was good for food. There was nothing wrong with it except that God had said, “Thou shalt not. . .” There was a word. When Adam died (sinner), his spiritual sensitivity died so that he hid from the presence of God. His outer senses, his physical senses, became alive. He recognized his nakedness. This has nothing to do with garments of clothing but refers to that level of anointing or spiritual perception, which he had lost.

“And so it is written, The fist man Adam was made a living soul; the last Adam was made a quickening (that is, ‘life-giving’) spirit” (I Corinthians 15:45). Thus, when we come into fellowship with the Lord, we touch Life, and life is imparted. When the woman with the issue of blood touched the hem of His garment, life came forth. Jesus the “last Adam,” was quickening Spirit. Something happened.

“Howbeit that was not first which is spiritual, but that which is natural; and afterward that which is spiritual” (I Corinthians 15:46). In other words, as we begin to respond in the natural, we are brought into the presence of God through song and worship. We are created to worship God; it is a function of the natural man. As we begin to move out and obey Him in the light that we have, all at once we will pass from the natural into the supernatural. First that which is natural, and afterwards . . . We move in what we have, and then all at once we pass from one realm to another and are lifted up into the heavenlies. This is what the Lord desires to do. The first man is of the earthly and the second man is the Lord from heaven (I Corinthians 15:47-49). We are part of the last Adam, and the Lord desires to bring us into the heavenlies.

Each word in our language carries a picture value. Jesus said the words that He spoke were spirit and life. To many, the Word is merely a collection of concepts and ideas, something that can be written in an outline or made into a doctrine. Words in themselves are not the important thing, but whether or not they are anointed. “But unto them which are called . . . Christ the power of God, and the wisdom of God” (I Corinthians 1:24). Each word is like a little dump truck carrying a cargo of spirit and life. The fuel that runs the dump truck is the anointing. Without the anointing, all we get is an intellectual concept. But if the word is anointed we receive spirit and life. That is why we can listen to a good message and not remember much of it, but still be fed: because it is not the word itself that ministers to our spirits, but the spirit and life it contains.

When we hear something about God with our natural ear it opens us toward the Lord. As we hear and understand, we respond and receive a revelation, the truth of God, into our spirits. In the same way, the quickened word of God comes into our spirits as we wait upon the Lord. Have you eve been reading your Bible or sitting in a meeting, when all of a sudden something jumps up at you and you understand it and wonder where it came from? As we wait upon the lord and worship the Lord, truth is imparted into our spirits. Then when we are reading, or meditating, or sitting in a service, all at once something out of our beings touches the Lord and is released and comes into our understanding. It is like the seed that falls into the fertile soul of our hearts. After it falls it is buried, out of sight. However, down the road, when it is needed, that thing will be released from within and come into our understanding; and we will be amazed at what we know about the Lord. God has much to impart to us, if our spirits are open. But we must be listening with our spiritual ears.

“Because the foolishness of God is wiser than men; and the weakness of God is stronger than men. For ye see your calling, brethren, how that not many wise men after the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble, are called: but God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise; and God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty” (I Corinthians 1:25-27). The principle is this; we learn that we truly are a spiritual being and that we receive and understand the things of God by a process of osmosis—that is—it is imparted by a process of assimilation. As we open our spirits to God, believing that He has made us spiritually sensitive, we can begin to receive the things of the kingdom. This is exactly what Jesus meant when He said, “Let him that hath an ear hear.” As long as people were receiving His words into their beings He was satisfied, because He knew that they were receiving spirit and life—by impartation.

As we wait upon the Lord, if we are open to Him and believe that by a principle of faith we are going to be changed, we shall be quickened and made to become like Him. Every cell of our being will come into alignment with the true spiritual being that we are. If we reach out and believe the Lord by faith, we will be changed. Making room in our being for the Lord by our own ambitions and desires for Him is not any big thing. But it is what we have right here, and it is adequate; it is sufficient. All we need is the power of God. And that is what we have right here in our midst.