We are three-part beings, experiencing life simultaneously on three different planes: the physical, mental, and spiritual. We live in our bodies; we have minds, and we are spirits. The only part of our beings that we can see is our bodies.  Consequently, we often mistakenly decide that we are our bodies… for that is all we can see! Yet we have two more parts that are very real, although we can’t see them.  We can’t see our minds, but we all have them. We can’t see our spirits, but our spirits are actually the very core of our beings.

So, What Part of Us is Mind and Where are Our Spirits?
Actually, all three parts of the being are very closely connected and influence one another. You have a body, which is the most obvious part of your being. It is like a house you live in. You have a mind that you can think with. Connected to your mind are five senses— sight, hearing, smell, taste, and touch—that allow you to connect with the surrounding physical realm. And then you have a spirit, which is the core part of your being. With your spirit you are connected to the unseen realm around you. With your spirit you are connected to God.

Unfortunately, in our western thinking we have become so civilized that we have elevated our bodies and/or minds to a place of great honour while ignoring the core part of our beings.  I believe this is the main cause of an array of mental problems: insecurity, confusion, fear, doubt, competition, and lack of fulfilment.  Mental problems in turn are one of the main causes of physical diseases.  It seems like we are stuck in a vicious circle, unable to get out.  Fortunately there is an answer.  Just like we can train our bodies and minds, so too can we train our spirit.

Caring for Your Spirit
The Bible talks about our spirits, referring to this part of our beings also as the heart and the human personality. A little note: I acquire the information I use from the Bible because it makes sense to me. When I listen to teachers and mentors, I always go to the Bible to find out whether what they say is actually the Truth or their own theory. It doesn’t make sense to me to follow people’s theories. There are too many of them. One person says one thing and another person says something completely different. If I follow one person’s theory one day, the next day some other theory might make sense to me, and I might switch my beliefs. This would bring confusion into my life. So, I choose to believe the Bible, which is inspired by the Spirit of God. It makes sense to me to believe the One Who has created me rather than the theories of His creation. I believe the Creator knows what He is talking about. Therefore, I back up my thoughts with scripture.

Now, back to the discussion of our spirits/hearts/human personalities. Some people refer to this part of the being as a subconscious mind. It is still the same thing. We cannot see our spirits, and yet they are the core of our beings. Our spirits are where our personalities are  recorded. Your spirit is the part of you that has no ability to reject ideas. Everything that your mind accepts, your spirit must accept. That is why so often people do not change! They grow up, but they do not change. They do not change because they have accepted a certain way of thinking since their childhood...and because they do not change their way of thinking, they themselves can't change! Yet we all have the ability to change by changing our thoughts and beliefs.

How Was Our Personality Formed?
When a child is born into this world, it has no ability to think. The child is totally open to everything that is happening around it. It is like a sponge, absorbing everything until it learns to think. But until a child learns to think, it receives everything and records it in its spirit/heart as the truth. That is how its human personality is developed. What a child sees happening in his home, what he hears his parents and other people around him talking about, whether he is encouraged or discouraged, whether he is loved or unloved is all recorded in his spirit. The first six years of a child’s life are the years of true learning. He asks many questions and the answers he receives from the grown-ups in his life he records in his spirit/heart. He then perceives those answers as the truth. In reality what he hears and sees is often far from the truth, but he perceives those things as the truth, and out of those “truths” his personality is formed. When a child learns to think, he starts viewing everything through the truth that has been recorded in his spirit.  By the time a child learns to think, his personality has already been formed, and now it can only be changed through changing the recording in his spirit.  Proverbs 23:7 says: “For as he thinks in his heart, so is he.”

So, when a child learns to think for himself, he starts drawing his wisdom out of what has been recorded in his heart during those early years, and his life is shaped accordingly. Psalm 16:7 says: “My heart instructs me in the night seasons.” Whatever is in a person’s heart comes out especially during hard times. That is WHY so many people get depressed when things are not going their way. The recordings in their hearts are saying:  “Things are bad, and I can do nothing about it!”  “My parents were not rich enough to afford to send me to a good college, and now I am having difficulty finding a decent job.”  “No one would hire me with the education I have.”  “My grandfather died of cancer; my father died of cancer, and I am going to die of cancer too! It runs in my family!”  “My grandparents were on welfare; my parents were on welfare; so it is my destiny too! I was born into it!”  “I am not living in abundance, but at least I am happy. Christians shouldn’t want to be wealthy; we should be content with what we have.”   And so it goes.  We perceive those recordings as the truth when the Truth is actually far from them!

So, What is the Truth and Where Can we Find the Truth in Order to Shape Our Human Personalities Accordingly? 
In order to change our lives, in order to change our circumstances, we need to change our thinking.  The Bible says that the Word of God is the Truth.  When we start reading the Bible, we start noticing, little by little, the wrong ways of thinking we have.  When we take the time to meditate upon the scriptures about abundance and answered prayer and perfect health of mind, spirit, and body…the real Truth starts to flow into our spirit and push the wrong recordings out.  When we learn to think according to the Truth, our whole life changes!  For “as he thinks in his heart, so is he.”

Change Your Thinking and Your Circumstances Will Change!
Often when we are in circumstances that we do not like, we rush to change the circumstances without first changing our thinking, and the result is that we stay where we are!  Our circumstances cannot change without us first changing our thinking.  For instance, often when a person is poor, he tries to earn more money by getting a second and even a third job. But this is not an answer. There are ways of earning money that do not bring us to an early grave. But we can’t find those ways of earning money UNTIL we change the wrong recordings in our hearts/spirits.  Your spirit is where you are in real prison.  Your circumstances are only an outward manifestation of what is in your spirit.

Proverbs 3:13,14 says, “Happy (blessed, fortunate, enviable) is the man who finds skilful and godly Wisdom, and the man who gets understanding [drawing it forth from God’s Word and life’s experiences], for the gaining of it is better than the gaining of silver, and the profit of it better than fine gold.” EVERYTHING in our lives depends on our thinking! When we invest time and money to train ourselves to think right, that right thinking brings better profits than fine gold. Gold is great—and it too is acquired through first of all right thinking—but gold is not worth much when we are miserable. And why not draw from the life experiences of those who have already gone through the experiences that you are going through? That would speed your forward movement.

Spirit – the Power Centre of Our Lives
The spirit within you is the power centre of your life, for what is stored in your spirit influences everything in and around you.  And yet our spirits have NO ability to reject any thought or idea that is impressed upon them over and over again.  The spirit has no ability to discern between good and evil, between big and small.  Whatever our minds choose to dwell on over and over again is received by our spirits as the truth.  Whatever registers in our spirits moves us to action!

Proverbs 3:15 continues, “Skilful and godly Wisdom is more precious than rubies; and nothing you can wish for is to be compared to her. Length of days is in her right hand, and in her left hand are riches and honour. Her (Wisdom’s) ways are highways of pleasantness, and all her paths are peace. She is a tree of life to those who lay hold on her; and happy (blessed, fortunate, to be envied) is everyone who holds her fast. The Lord by skilful and godly Wisdom has founded the earth; by understanding He has established the heavens. By His knowledge the deeps were broken up, and the skies distil the dew. My son, let them not escape from your sight, but keep sound and godly Wisdom and discretion, and they will be life to your inner self, and gracious ornament to your neck (your outer self). Then you will walk in your way securely and in confident trust, and you shall not dash your foot or stumble. When you lie down, you shall not be afraid; yes, you shall lie down, and your sleep shall be sweet.” Proverbs 4:8, 9 continues, “Prize Wisdom highly and exalt her, and she will exalt and promote you; she will bring you to honour when you embrace her. She shall give to your head a wreath of gracefulness; a crown of beauty and glory will she deliver to you.”

There is a lot in this scripture.  It requires a bit of meditation to understand what God is telling us.  It is very interesting to notice what exactly godly wisdom will do for us.  First of all, this scripture says that godly wisdom will lengthen our life-spans. It will bring us riches and honour.  It will fill us with peace.  It will make us happy, blessed, fortunate, and envied. It will bring life to our inner selves. Godly wisdom will even make us attractive.  It will make us bold. It will keep us from making mistakes that we would have made without it.  It will rid us from all fear. It will bring us promotion. It will bring us honour. It will make us graceful. It will make us beautiful (give us inner beauty).  This is a pretty impressive list of qualities and benefits that will result from acquiring godly wisdom.  Who wouldn’t want to have all this in her life?  I believe we all would want these things!  And you know what? These things are  available to all of us!

God never said that some of us can have wealth and others will have to remain poor.  God never said that some of us can have perfect health, but most of us will have to suffer at least some sickness and disease.  God never created some people to be attractive while making others ugly.  God never said that only some people can achieve success while others have to struggle all their lives to get only a little acknowledgement, if even that.  God never determined which of us should be happy and which of us would have to remain miserable.  God left those decisions upon us.  We ourselves decide what we will have in our lives and what we won’t have.  God said to us in Deuteronomy 30:15, "See, I have set before you today life and prosperity, and death and adversity” (NASB). YOU choose!

God does not make choices for us.  He has given us free wills.  He has given each and every one of us the choice of life and prosperity or death and adversity.  When we have either of those in our lives, it is not because God has put them into our lives; it is because we have chosen them, consciously or unconsciously.

God is actually willing to share the very same Wisdom with us that He founded the earth and the heavens with.  It is all available to us when we take the time to learn and replace the wrong recordings in our hearts with the Truth!  It is SO simple, and yet so few people have grabbed this Truth and changed their lives and situations.  We are a fast-food, fast-everything generation, and when something takes more time, we discard it. Yet the things that take more time to develop and evolve are the ones that stick.

When we take time to renew our minds with the Truth, the Truth will one day sink into our hearts.  When the Truth sinks into our hearts, it becomes part of our new personalities.  That is when it has the power to change our lives and circumstances.  Mark 11:23 says, “Whoever says to this mountain, Be lifted up and thrown into the sea!  and does not doubt at all in his heart but believes that what he says will take place, it will be done for him.”  The Truth, the beliefs in our heart, will change our circumstances even when those circumstances seem to be as big as mountains in our lives.  That is what kind of power-centre our spirit/heart is.  That is why Proverbs 4:23 says, “Keep and guard your heart with all vigilance and above all that you guard, for out of it flow the springs of life.”   We need to keep and guard our hearts/spirits above everything else, for it is easy to drop back to old ways of thinking and thus drop back to failure.  And here is WHY it is important to change the recordings in our heart: whatever is stored in our heart makes or breaks us!

From Healing Plants & Healing Promises

If this article was helpful to You and You would like to share it with someone else, You are more than welcome to copy it.  But You are requested to add my name - Eve Juurik- and my website address - http://www.TheSpringOfLife.net - to the article.  All the material is copyrighted.  Thank You!

Many blessings & success to You,

Eve