What Does it Mean to be Spiritual?

What comes to mind when you think of the word spiritual? In scripture, we are exhorted to desire spiritual gifts, sing spiritual songs, and pray spiritual prayers. We are to walk in the spirit and live a spiritual life.

Sounds good. But what does it mean?

Here’s what spiritual does NOT mean: Spiritual does not mean religious. Or pious. Manmade religion may stimulate your intellect and feed your flesh, but that doesn’t make it spiritual.

To define spiritual, it will help to know what your spirit is.

Your spiritual antenna

Your spirit is that part of you that makes you spiritually aware or God-conscious.

For want of a better analogy, your spirit is like an antenna. Just as our physical bodies connect us to the physical realm, our spirits connect us to the spiritual realm. Just as we have natural senses (sight, smell, hearing, etc.), we have spiritual senses (e.g., intuition).

Think of a television. Just as a television can detect signals from both terrestrial transmitters and heavenly satellites, our souls can sense physical things via our bodies and spiritual things via our spirits.

Now we begin to understand why Watchman Nee, in his seminal book The Spiritual Man, referred to the soul as the medium or the middle bit between the spirit and the body. The spirit receives signals from the spiritual realm (e.g., the Holy Spirit) which it transmits to the soul, and the soul exercises the body in response to the spirit’s instruction.

What does it mean to be spiritual?

The generic definition of spiritual is “having to do with the spiritual realm as opposed to the physical realm.” The spiritual realm includes God, the heavenly host, fallen angels, and the spirit of every person who ever lived. (The physical realm includes your body, the food you put in it, the bed you slept on, and the clothes you are wearing.) In a general sense, spiritual simply means of the spirit.

Yet there is another meaning of spiritual:

He who is spiritual appraises all things… (1 Corinthian 2:15)

In this context, a spiritual person is someone who has been born of the Spirit, has the Spirit of God, and is led by the Spirit (John 3:5, Rom. 8:9, 14). In contrast, an unspiritual person is someone who remains in the flesh or is walking after the flesh (Rom. 7:5, 8:4).

Some teachers, including Nee, would describe the latter person as soulish or soulical, as though to live by the soul was the opposite of walking in the spirit. A better adjective would be fleshly (e.g., 1 Cor. 3:3) or worldly (Jude 1:19).

The soul is neither fleshly nor spiritual; it is the chooser that decides how we will live. This may come as a shock, but you can be in the spirit (i.e., born again, in spiritual union with the Lord), but still walk in the old ways of the flesh.

Two ways to live

But I say, walk by the spirit, and you will not carry out the desire of the flesh. (Galatians 5:16)

If you have not been born of the spirit, you cannot walk after the spirit. You can only walk after the flesh. But if you are in the spirit, you can choose to walk in the new way of the spirit or the old way of the flesh (Gal. 5:17).

For those who are according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who are according to the spirit, the things of the spirit. (Romans 8:5).

The choice between the flesh and the spirit is not like choosing between two flavors of ice cream. It is a choice of life or death.

The way of the flesh leads us down a cursed path to self-destruction, but the way of the Spirit leads to a blessed and everlasting life (John 6:63, Rom. 8:13, Gal. 6:8).

For the believer, walking in the spirit is the life-giving choice. But the problem is we are much better at walking after the flesh. We’ve been doing it all our lives.

Nearly every movie we watch, every song we hear, every book we read, and even some sermons reinforce the old message of self-reliance. “Work harder. Trust yourself. Follow these steps to a better life.”

Our flesh responds with zeal but the result is sin and death. We try to fly but fall short again and again. Our flesh is incapable of living the spiritual life.

But just as we learned to walk in the natural, we can learn to walk in the spiritual.

Sure, there will be a few stumbles along the way and missteps are to be expected. But God does not condemn us when we fall. Our loving Father comes alongside us to guide us and help us soar.

Be encouraged. God is for you and by his grace you will learn how to walk in newness of life. And when you do – when you learn to rely on the spirit and distrust the flesh – you will have a good and blessed life.

The spiritual life is the life you were made for.

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Source: Spirit, Soul & Body: How to Walk in the Spirit, available now on Patreon.

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