Who’s in Charge?

The Battle Between the Human Spirit and the Intellect

// Kenneth E. Hagin

One of the greatest mistakes that has been made in our intellectual culture is the ignoring of the human spirit. Instead of allowing our spirit to dominate our intellect, we have allowed our knowledge, or intellect, to dominate our human spirit. In many instances, our intellect has taken the throne, and our human spirit, which should guide us, has been neglected or locked away in prison, so to speak.

When we shut away our spirit and never listen to it, we become crippled in life and easy prey to selfish and designing people. But when we allow our human spirit to gain the mastery and influence us during a crisis, we will climb to the top.

My wife and I knew a certain woman pastor who related the following story to me: An evangelist came to her town and got all the churches he could to cooperate in a citywide meeting. He rented the city auditorium. It is a sorry thing to have to say, but everyone in the ministry is not honest. Because this man had a poor credit rating, the city auditorium demanded payment in advance. So he went through this woman pastor. She was gullible enough to say her church would stand responsible for $3,000 rent and all newspaper advertising. Crowds of 2,000 to 3,000 attended every night. He took up a lot of money, but he left town without paying one bill. This woman's church had to take $5,000 out of their building fund to cover this evangelist's expenses. (That was a lot of money in those days!)

This woman pastor eventually recovered her church's money. But she told me, "Brother Hagin, if I had listened to my spirit, this never would have happened. I had a check in my spirit. If I had listened to it, I wouldn't have had to cover his debts."

Learn to Listen

In our own lives, if we had listened to our spirit, we probably would not have done some of the things we did. Remember, it's the person who lets his spirit gain the mastery and influence him in crisis times who climbs to the top.

How do we learn to listen to our spirit? We start by meditating on the written Word of God. Jesus said in Matthew 4:4, "Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God." Bread in this verse stands for "food." You could say, "Man shall not live by natural food alone." What will man live by? Every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.

I like to put it this way: What natural food is to your body, the Word of God is to your spirit. Or you could say God's Word is spirit food. So, the Word (the written Word of God) was given to us by the Holy Spirit for the purpose of developing our human spirit.

The New Birth is the rebirth of the human spirit. It's not the rebirth of our body or our mind. After we are born again, we must renew our minds (Rom. 12:1-2) and discipline our bodies (1 Cor. 9:27). The Holy Spirit through the Word of God imparts God's nature into our human spirit.

After the death of Moses, God told Joshua that to meditate on the Word of God day and night and do what was written in it, by doing this he would make his way prosperous and have good success (Josh. 1:8). Today, we can meditate on God's Word as Joshua did, and we also have the Holy Spirit Who will guide us into all truth (John 16:13).

Get Quiet!

As we learn to quiet our minds, the Holy Spirit will communicate with our spirit through the Word of God and unveil truths to us. For many people, it's much easier to get quiet physically than it is to get quiet mentally. We lie down at night and our body is quiet, but our mind is racing.

The more we quiet our minds and think on the Word of God, the more the Holy Spirit will speak to our human spirit. This is how He becomes the dominant force in our lives. Then we will almost never make mistakes when we give heed to our spirits.

We've learned how to cultivate our bodies and become athletes. And we've learned how to cultivate our intellect and become mental gymnasts. Now let's learn how to cultivate our human spirit by meditating on the Word of God.

(Editor's Note: This article was adapted from a Spiritology class Brother Hagin taught at Rhema Bible Training College in 1983 and from his book How You Can Be Led by the Spirit of God.)