Jesus told Nicodemus, a religious leader, “Most assuredly, I say to you, We speak what We know and testify what We have seen, and you do not receive Our witness. If I have told you earthly things and you do not believe, how will you believe if I tell you heavenly things?” -John 3:11-12.
Jesus was showing Nicodemus that you must believe with your heart (spirit), not your head. Nicodemus was trying to use his brain knowledge to figure out physically how Jesus could work miracles. He did not understand that what happens in the physical realm first begins in the spiritual realm.
Everything we see first existed in the spiritual realm
Hebrews 11:3 states “By faith we understand that the worlds were prepared by the Word of God, so that what is seen was not made out of things which are visible.” Anything and everything that happens in this physical world first happened in the spiritual world.
In Genesis 1 God spoke everything He wanted and it came to pass. God is a Spirit and His words are spirit and life (John 6:63). He created everything with His spoken words. So, we can see that He created the physical realm from the spirit realm. We are made in His image and likeness (Gen. 1:26) thus, our words also are spirits. However, because we are born into a fallen world, our words can be either life or death (Proverbs 18:21). We can call forth what we want with our spoken words. If we speak negatively we can also call forth what we don’t want. Be careful to speak words that bring life.
We are spirit, soul and body
We are made up of a spirit, soul, and body (1 Thessalonians 5:23). These three things are listed by importance. The first, our spirit, is the most important of the three. Our soul is next in line with our body being the least; yet most people are more focused on their physical body rather than their spirit. Paul said in 1 Timothy 4:7-8 “reject profane and old wives’ fables, and exercise yourself toward godliness. For bodily exercise profits a little, but godliness is profitable for all things, having promise of the life that now is and of that which is to come.”
In order for us to live on the physical earth we must have a physical body for our spirit to live in. Because God is a spirit, when He came into the natural world He had to come in a physical body, as His Son Jesus, to redeem mankind back unto Him. When our bodies perish, our spirit must go back to the spirit realm. It is important to take care of our bodies in order to remain on earth as long as possible, yet our spirit is much more important.
The purpose for our spirit, soul, and body
We communicate with our Father God through our spirit. Our spirit is how we receive salvation and all He has for us. It is our spirit that we yield to Him as we operate in the spiritual gifts He has given us to use for His glory. The next important part of us is our souls because it is through our soul (mind or intellect, will, and emotions) that we make decisions. Our soul contains all that we have learned from data or experience throughout our years on earth. Our personality and character is what makes up our soul. Now, it should be obvious why our bodies are the least of the three. What takes place in the dash of our lives, which is defined by our spirit and soul, from our birth date to our death date, determines where and how we will spend our eternity.
We were spirits first
God told Jeremiah in 1:5 “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you.” We existed in the spirit realm before we were born. The spirit realm is what creates the physical realm, yet most people only consider the physical world they live in. What I’m trying to show you is that there is much more going on in our lives and around us than what we can see. Jesus said we are in this world, but not of this world (John 17:11-16). As spirits we live in this physical world in our body, but we were sent here by Him and for His purpose.
Paul said in 2 Corinthians 5:7 “We [Christians] walk by faith, not by sight.” God demonstrated this in Genesis 17 when He instructed Abraham to call those things which be not as though they were. God changed their names to Abraham and Sarah, which means father and mother of many nations. Speaking their new names caused their old and barren bodies to wake up. Isaac, their son, was brought into existence by faith from the spirit realm into the physical realm. Through Isaac, Abraham’s heirs were born.
Faith is a spirit
Faith is a spirit (2 Cor. 4:13) and it is with our spirit that we operate in faith. We are saved by faith in His Word and we will be reunited with our heavenly Father when we leave this body. By faith we receive all the promises in His Word that He has for us. By faith we are led by Him to live out our lives according to HIs purpose for us. This is why faith is so important and why without faith it is impossible to please God (Hebrews 1:6). We cannot figure it out in our natural mind. We must spiritually discern it. Everything comes from the spirit world into the tangible world by faith.