Where the Spirit Resides

The study of the human mind remains one of the world’s last great frontiers. Your brain makes up only 2% of your body weight, yet it consumes roughly 20% of your body’s energy when at rest. That means the human brain needs a whole lot of nutrition to stay alert and focused throughout the day. The mind is delicate, immeasurable and the most important organ in the body. Medicine, psychology, psychiatry have come a long way, but, have not scratched the surface of its boundaries. Neuroscience is a tricky endeavor. Are we clever enough to figure out ourselves? Sigmund Freud, Darwin, Michelangelo, even Aristotle all tried to unscramble what makes us tick. With limited success, we have discovered that we don’t know everything after all!

 
The Bible says that God created man, so it stands to reason that only God knows for sure what we’re made of. Not only what we’re made of, but how we’re made. The Bible says that the sinful mind is hostile to God in Romans 8:5. The Bible also says that our minds can be renewed in Romans 12:2. Our mind can be prepared for action, 1 Peter 1:13. Probably, most important is that God searches our hearts and minds, see Revelation 2:23. We can do some of these things ourselves. There’s a great example in Luke chapter 15.

The story of the prodigal son tells how one son asked for his inheritance, he then wasted it away until he was hungry and destitute. The King James Version says that after a period of desperation, “He came to himself”! Hardship has a way of focusing our attention on heavenly matters. God gives everyone the ability to reason with Him and choose their destiny. To be filled with the Holy Spirit and to have Christ’s Word dwell in you implies the same thing. God’s Spirit always works in and through His Word. The Holy Spirit united you to Christ the moment of conversion; He caused you to believe, “God chose you to be saved through the sanctifying work of the Holy Spirit and through belief in the truth”, 2 Thessalonians 2:13. He placed you in Christ’s body and he is the bond that makes you belong to Jesus “You, however, are controlled not by the sinful nature but by the Spirit, if the Spirit of God lives in you.” Romans 8:9. At present the Spirit resides within us, but one day we will give account.