Rightly Dividing Man: Spirit, Soul, and Bodythe spirit of man and the things of the Spirit of God.
Since man is a spirit being, the Body of Christ needs
to know what the Word has to say about man's spirit.
The Word of God is spirit food for recreated spirit
beings—believers.
I once held a meeting in California, and the pastor
and his wife were busy overseeing the planning and
construction of a beautiful, new church building. But
the pastor's wife became overworked and nervous and
finally had a physical and nervous breakdown. She
went to a doctor, and he suggested she go to a
psychiatrist.
This pastor's wife had been brought up in a
Pentecostal home where they didn't drink, smoke, or
dance. This psychiatrist decided that the woman's
problem was that she'd never done any of those things,
so he suggested that she start smoking, drinking, and
going to dances. This was his cure for this pastor's wife!
She took his advice and in the end she lost her mind
completely and had to be institutionalized. Actually,
this woman opened a door to the devil by dealing with
her problems as the world does when she was a new
creature in Christ.
That particular psychiatrist wasn't born again and
knew nothing about the spiritual realm. He didn't even
know that man is a spirit being. In that sense he knew
nothing about his own nature, so he couldn't help
himself, let alone this poor pastor's wife!
We need to be careful about mixing the wisdom of
man with the things of God. God told us what to do with
our natural mind and with our physical bodies. He said
to get our minds and emotions renewed with the Word
and to present our bodies as a living sacrifice to Him.