Spiritual Sensitivity

SPIRITUAL SENSITIVITY Crucial to controlling our spirits is the ability to understand the way that our spirit habitually operates. Some of us function almost totally in the realm of natural feeling or sensations. For example, in a quest for masculinity, men have lost touch with their feelings while women have wasted their feelings in a cycle of emotional self-indulgence. Moreover, people who are in recovery have experienced the pendulum sway of moods and feelings during the consistent cycle of seeking pleasure and avoiding pain. The real "power" in empowerment evolves from being able to face our weaknesses so that we can find our real strengths. However, this process is blocked if we attempt to avoid the pain that plowing and weeding brings. No real growth and self understanding comes without pain. If we are to function in the spiritual realm of feelings which I have called "spiritual sensitivity", we must overcome sensations that emanate from the soul and the flesh. Feelings of rejection, loneliness, unforgiveness and unresolved anger can lead to depression and negative attitudes. Ambivalence of this kind will attack our spirits and do it great harm and damage. At times, these sensations will feel like a heavy weight or an overshadowing dark cloud. As a heavy weight, negative feelings are an albatross around our necks, pulling us down each and every time. As a dark cloud, feelings can blocks us from the truth about ourselves, blinding us to those areas of our lives that work together to bring about our defeat. They can also give us false messages about people and situations. The more our natural feelings are broken, wisdom and discernment will increase, wherein spiritual sensitivity will encompass the cooperation of our natural feelings and emotions with God's purpose. Since natural feelings are both transitory and preferential. The Lord Jesus Christ's goal for our feelings is threefold:

1.

that we choose to act beyond the original level of our natural feelings and emotions, by doing what is RIGHT, in spite of how we FEEL;

2. that we are able to discern the "real" condition of others; and

3. that we are moved to care for others as He cares for them. Moreover, the Holy Spirit will use adversity to move us beyond the power of our natural feelings into the dimension of spiritual sensitivity. As a case in point, the emotional trauma of abusive relationships can destroy our feelings and block their accuracy. God's goal is that we learn to find comfort and rest in the midst of trials and tribulations. At times, He will keep us in situations that are impoverished, humiliating, and disappointing. Why? So that we who are broke, busted and disgusted will rise up to victory. Self indulgent "woe is me" pity

parties will continue until we submit to the Lord's instruction on how to develop emotional strength in the midst of adversity and unpleasant circumstances. The Holy Spirit will exercise our innermost resources within us so that we will grow stronger and stronger with each failure, with each rejection and with each mistake. Consequently, we will learn how to be victorious in the midst of every situation. An important element of spiritual sensitivity is the capacity to not only assess our own condition, but to spiritually discern the needs of others. For example, the Holy Spirit has gifted me to be able to place my hands upon a person, and feel within my own spirit those hidden feelings of the person touched. If my own natural feelings were not under control, I would not be able to distinguish my own feelings from those of the person in question. I have also acquired the ability to touch the Lord's heart and know how He feels about a particular matter, and in so doing, find that my own natural feelings have been dramatically changed.

I can still vividly recall the first time that my feelings were transformed. Shortly after Christ became my Lord and Savior in 1977, I had a supernatural experience of forgiveness and cleansing that is difficult to describe. In 1977, I counted several people as my enemies. Strong anger and bitterness were my soul's constant companions, and up until that time, I relished my hatred and my intense desire for vindication against my adversaries. But early one morning as I moved from sleep to consciousness, I felt like I was literally levitating about a few feet above the top of my bed. One by one, the faces of each of my enemies supernaturally traveled toward me on an invisible panoramic screen. As each face approached me, I could hear words which emanated from deep within my gut cry out, "I forgive you." My subsequent actions were totally incongruent with my former feelings of hatred, bitterness and vindictiveness. With an exhilaration that was beyond my normal state of being, I entered into a state of joy that motivated me to visit my worst enemy,---a woman that had seduced my first husband from me. The woman stared at me as though I was crazy. She knew the extent of my former rage because my husband had rejected my daughter for her two (2) sons. This experience taught me that the Lord can transform us from being a victim of abuse to an empowered survivor and overcomer.

Spiritual sensitivity is accurately defined in "Living in the Presence" by Tilden Edwards:

"The purest discernment is the simplest. Sometimes we are such open channels of grace that we spontaneously say or do something for others that is completely uncalculated. It is only afterward that we realize by the fruit of our actions that it was just what seemed called for. It may have been so uncalculated, so missing in any kind of self-image mediation, so self-forgetful, that we were not even aware that we had said or done anything of particular significance." (Tilden, 1994,p 99)

Sixteenth century Spanish mystic, St. John of the Cross poetically illustrates the renewal of feelings and emotions in his work entitled "Dark Night of the Soul", translated by E. Allison Peers:

In poverty, and without protection or support in all apprehensions of my soul---that is, in the darkness of my understanding and the constraint of my will, in affliction and anguish with respect to memory, remaining in the dark in pure faith, which is dark night for the said NATURAL faculties, the will alone being touched by grief and afflictions and yearnings for the love of God---I went forth myself---that is, from my low manner of understanding, from my weak mode of loving and from my poor and limited manner of experiencing God, without being hindered therein by sensuality or the devil. THIS WAS A GREAT HAPPINESS AND A GOOD CHANCE FOR ME for when the faculties had been perfectly annihilated and calmed, together with the passions, desires and affections of my soul, wherewith I had experienced and tasted God after a lowly manner, I went forth from my human dealings and operations to THE OPERATIONS AND DEALINGS OF GOD. (E.A. Peers, 1990)

Clearly, sixteenth century thought embraced as a truth the devil's obstructive role in the emotional and sensual realm. Demonic evil was not a mere archetypal image or a light fantasy of our present day Halloween, but a fundamental premise---a natural concept, firmly rooted in reality. The negative forces of demonic activity as hindrances to spiritual empowerment and recovery are referenced throughout this book. Where the emotions are concerned, It is obvious that negative feelings are conducive to demonic oppression. Such emotions can lead to addictive behavior, and other self-destructive acts. The mystery of the power of a negative emotion like hatred upon others is alluded to in the scriptures, for "whosoever hateth his brother is a murderer..." I John 3:15. A profound account of how a person's spirit can be used to harm another person without his conscious awareness is found in the book "He came to Set the Captives Free", by Dr. Rebecca Brown:

Hatred is a conscious sin. As such, it gives Satan legal ground in our lives if we permit it to dwell in our hearts. If you hate someone, Satan can step in and use your spirit body to attack the person you hate. Such an attack can produce all sorts of illness, accidents, emotional problems, and even physical death. The person doing the hating usually is never aware that Satan is using his spirit body. The person being hated usually has no idea where his trouble is really coming from. That is why we must be so careful to ask Jesus to cleanse and keep pure all three parts, body soul, and spirit. That is why the Lord Jesus gave us so many commands to forgive one another. Forgiveness puts a stop to hatred. We Christians should ask the Lord regularly to clean out our hearts of any sin. (Brown, pg, 177)

I can personally attest to the power of my own hatred. The supernatural forgiveness that I received from the Holy Spirit toward the woman previously mentioned who had seduced my first husband may have delivered me from being a spiritual murderer. However, two years before my spirit was cleansed and made new by the blood of Christ, I was probably a spiritual arsonist. For five long years, my hatred of this woman caused me to imagine her destruction by fire. Countless times I would repeat the same deadly image in my mind. I'd watch myself walk up her stairs with a vessel filled with gasoline in my hand. Methodically I would see myself pouring the gasoline along her steps and under her door. I'd light the match. I'd drop the match. Finally, I'd wait with anticipation for the screams. Upon this deadly vision, I meditated almost day and night for five years. During that fifth year, I was living in Hempstead New York and my enemy was in Springfield Massachusetts when I learned that she her house caught on fire, and she barely escaped with her life, while I was physically 200 miles away. As soon as I heard the news, I shouted with victory, "I DID IT!" Jumping from her window to safety, my enemy broke all the bones in her feet ---a condition requiring several operations, from which she still suffers even twenty years later. I believe that my hatred of this woman was so powerful that hatred gave Satan the authority to use my spirit body to attack her.

Notwithstanding, emotions and feelings come in a variety of expressions that are not always negative. Emotions can be both frustrating and exhilarating, bringing us from the mountain top to the valley in a quick, unexpected leap. At these times, there is a temptation to live by our feelings rather than by our spirit. When our emotions continually vacillate between positive and negative extremes, an open door is provided to the evil one to equip our sensory organs with physical sensations that counterfeit the true spiritual sensitivity that emanates in and through our spirits from God. In such cases, the devil will offer us sensual pleasures that cause us to lose control. If a believer remains ignorant of demonic devices and strategies, he may fall victim to a compulsive euphoria or similar elation and become deceived by false visions, dreams and revelations. These supernatural experiences will appear to be from the Holy Ghost but after the passing of time. will subsequently be proved to have been sent by the enemy. Satan's goal in this instance is to cause sincere believers to sink into a dark, gloomy depression, believing that their own lack of discernment is proof that they do not have the capacity to know the voice of the Lord. In spite of Satan's deception, there are seven (7) kinds of feelings in our spirits that we will be able to recognize when we become spiritually sensitive. They include: heaviness, blockage, zeal, hardness, urgency, joy and peace. It is apparent from this list that like natural feeling, spiritual feelings are not always joyous or jubilant, but can also be mournful or sorrowful. The Sermon on the Mount provides enlightenment on this subject. Blessed are those that mourn, for they shall be comforted, declared Jesus the Christ. (Matthew 5:4) Inherent in spiritual sensitivity are the blessings that come from the Lord when we sacrifice our emotions for the sake of those who are emotionally oppressed. In all cases, spiritual feelings have a divine purpose. In order to arouse our spiritually sensitivity, the Holy Spirit will break our natural feelings by using people and situations in our environment. His overall purpose is to keep our spirits continuously free and untrampled.