2st Spirit, Soul, Body (4)
2004-02-22 | Pastor Dr. Jaerock Lee | 1 Thessalonians 5:23
Today, I would like to testify in detail about the things that are necessary to follow a person’s duty in the process of being born and growing up.
In the last lesson, we said that we must know why God created man and live according to man’s duty. Some people keep their responsibilities and duties well, but there are many who do not. This is because each person has a different conscience.
A person who has created a good conscience by himself has the ability to easily follow it by realizing that ‘this is man’s duty’.
Even in our religious life, those who have followed the voice of a good conscience can easily change into the truth, but those who do not change the speed of change in many cases. Conscience is formed differently from person to person because many factors work differently. Each person’s conscience is different depending on what kind of parents they were born in, what environment they grew up in, and how much effort they put into creating a good conscience.
1. Stages of human growth
A person is not born as a mature adult from the beginning, but passes through childhood, boyhood, and adolescence, and finally becomes a mature adult. There is a process that needs to be followed in order in the growth stages of these people, so they can grow properly when they undergo appropriate experiences and training, both mentally and physically, according to their age.
Therefore, infants cannot be given the experiences of juvenile, and boys cannot receive the same education as adults. On the other hand, it is not easy to acquire the experiences of infancy when you become a young man over time without acquiring what you should have learned in infancy.
In this way, during the growth stage of a person, the development of each field of the mind and body is determined, and it can be simply classified into three stages.
The first is the ‘seeing stage’. It is only instinctively and simply accepting all stimuli through the five senses, including what we see with our eyes. When you look at newborns, when a stimulus comes, they do not react by feeling or thinking about the stimulus, but simply reacting reflexively.
For example, if a newborn baby gets sick from an upset stomach, he thinks, ‘Oh, I’m sick because I ate spoiled milk, I’ll have to be more careful next time’ or ‘Why did my mother feed me spoiled milk, I’m upset’ and resent it. Are you crying? It is not, but simply because the pain comes, and we cry in response to the pain. In addition, we react instinctively by touching each of these things: hot and cold, discomfort and pain, hunger and thirst, coziness and comfort, and warmth.
The second is the ‘feeling stage’. Through the five senses, we have our own feelings about the things we experienced, and we put those experiences and feelings into our memories.
The third is ‘acting’. Based on what we saw, heard, experienced, and felt, we mobilize our thoughts and will to decide and do various things. For example, a child who is burned by a hot iron has the same memory and feeling that ‘it was hot when he touched something that looked like that’, so he avoids touching the iron next time.
However, these growth stages are not precisely separated. You can see it at the stage of feeling, and you can see and feel it at the stage of doing. It is the fact that you must experience what you need to see, feel, and do in accordance with the growth process of a person at the appropriate time because you decide how to see, feel, and act at each stage.
2. Problems resulting from lack of the body
There are times when a person abnormally skips the steps they ought to go through in their growth process. If you grew up without feeling what you should see and experience at the stage of seeing or feeling at the stage of feeling, problems will arise even if you become an adult. In other words, a person may lack the intellectual and physical abilities that are universally required, or may have an emotional state that is emotionally separated from those of ordinary people.
For example, people who are not at the age they should have been brought up in the love and tender care of their mothers are often emotionally nervous and unstable. People who grew up being abused in disadvantaged environments later abuse living things or even themselves.
In addition, while growing up with friends of the same age, social skills should be developed, but people who have not experienced proper experiences due to overprotection often do not have smooth relationships. A person who is hardened by egocentric thinking or selfishness, which leads to being ostracized by others, or inability to adjust to social life.
Moreover, due to excessive love, the child raised by the parents saying “Come on, come on” develops a weak and dependent personality, hoping that someone will do the work for them. People who grow up like this and develop a lack of body have a hard time succeeding or being recognized in the world. Even if they are a little tired and tired, they are easily late and often absent from school, and they do not have the ability to cope with evil people who try to deceive and harm them.
As such, a person who lacks the body feels that he lacks self-confidence, so he loses confidence in everything and loses his boldness, and it can lead to serious consequences in life. There are also unfortunate cases in which children who were superior to others when they were young grow up and lose their outstanding qualities due to lack of physical strength.
As I said before, there was a famous genius boy in Korea. At the age of one, he took off the Thousand Characters, began to speak English, and at the age of three, he studied university mathematics. Then my parents made me grow up with high school and college students. Rather than being brought up in an environment that must be experienced as a child, he was brought up in an environment suitable for adults. Contrary to expectations that he would become a global figure and glorify the country because he could not go through the steps he had to go through at his age, the memory of the genius boy disappeared from people’s minds. If the parents had knowledge of the physical order, they would have developed their child’s intelligence to the fullest and allowed them to go through the processes they had to go through during the growth stage.
When a person goes through the steps of seeing, feeling, and acting normally, he has the power to control himself according to right and wrong. As much as we lack the body, we will receive the work of Satan because we will not be able to do the things we need to do to achieve the spirit.
For example, even if you know you need to pray, a person who has been taking good care of himself and making it will say, “What time should I go to pray,” and as soon as he makes up his mind, he does it. Also, if you cry out and pray and try to gather your hearts, you can easily gather your hearts and pray in the deep spirit. However, a person who lacks a physical body does not want to go to pray even at the appointed time. The fact that I want to stop watching TV and want to lie down at home to rest for a while, even when the appointed time for prayer comes, I keep procrastinating and trying to gather my heart to pray, but it is difficult to control the thoughts that keep coming to my mind.
Other than that, it is relatively easy for those who do not lack the body to obey the Word. Do not hate, do not be proud, do not lose heart, love, be humble, rejoice and give thanks. On the other hand, people who lack the body want to live comfortably according to the old custom, so saying “Amen” feels difficult.
After meeting God, I did not find it difficult to obey God’s word. Because from an early age, they were well trained to control and obey themselves. When I was a student, I would go to my hometown during summer vacation to help with farming, but I make an appointment with my parents in advance. I’m telling you that I’ll do what I’m supposed to do after I set a day’s worth of work to help. And getting up earlier than others, diligently planting rice, and finishing the task as quickly as possible. Of course, my parents continued to work, so there were many cases where I continued to help, but once I set the amount of work I was going to do, I was sure to take care of it first.
Because of this habit, I naturally led a regular and planned life. Of course, I had a plan for the week and a month, of course, and if I didn’t keep the schedule I set, I was able to control myself even by punishing myself. Because I have made myself like this, it was so easy to live a life of faith even after I believed in God. As I was able to keep in mind and obey the words “forsake, do not do, keep, and do” as I was taught, I was able to quickly cast off my sins and my faith grew rapidly.
Dear saints,
In the meantime, what should you do if you have not been able to follow the word because of your lack of body? Even from now on, you have to fill in the missing parts of yourself. The most important thing is to pray fervently, receive God’s grace and power, and make every effort to follow the desires of the Holy Spirit and act in obedience, even in small things.
When we try like this, change may seem slow at first, but if we pray again and try again without becoming discouraged or giving up, we will eventually be changed and be able to do what God wants us to do (Mark 10:27). For example, in order for students to improve their grades, they need to know which subjects they are particularly weak in and focus on those subjects that are weak. If you raise the subjects you are good at as much as the subjects you are good at, your overall grade will go up.
If you find a part you lack spiritually, you can perfect that part with the power of God, so you can get a shortcut to enter your spirit and whole spirit. Therefore, I pray in the name of the Lord that you will discover even the smallest parts of yourself and ride the leading flow of the Spirit and quickly enter into spirit and whole spirit.
