Taming the soul – what a title! You’re probably thinking “what does that mean?” When we have a soul that’s in control, it stops the flow of what God has for us. It’s that plain and that simple.
For quite some time, I’ve been cleaning out the soul and body gateways. The spirit gateways involve opening them up and exercising them by allowing the life, light, and glory of God to flow through them into the soul and body gates. Huh? If you’re not familiar with your gateways, I suggest that you get Ian Clayton’s Book, “Gateways of the Three-fold Nature of Man.”
Our goal as kingdom-minded believers is to function out of who we are meant to be by developing an intimate relationship with the Father, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit. There’s only one problem… we all have junk to deal with. And, that junk clouds our ability to function “in Him.” This is where dealing with the gateways comes in. Think of a gate as an opening that allows things in and out. Look at all the scriptural references in the Old Testament about the purpose of each gate in the city. Remember that everything in the natural is a mirror of what’s in the supernatural so by studying the gateways in and out of the city of Jerusalem, we can learn a lot about our own gateways.
I’ll give a quick synopsis so I can introduce you to the gateways concept. Basically, we have four sets of gates: First love, spirit, soul, and body. First love is our direct communion with the Father where we truly function in Him. We allow the life, light, and glory of the Father to come into us from the Throne of Grace. It’s in the first love gate that we are infused with all that we need to function as a spirit being.
The next set of gates are our spirit gates: prayer, reverence, faith, hope, intuition, revelation, fear of God, and worship. We are to allow the life, light, and glory of the Father to flow from the position of first love into our spirit gates. In reality, we are to be governed by our spirit instead of our soul. However, for most of us, it’s the other way around. And, that’s why we run into issues.
The soul gates are: conscience, reason, imagination, mind, will, emotions, and choice. Notice that our emotions are a soul gateway instead of a spirit gate? When we let our imaginations and emotions run wild, we are functioning out of our soul. The soul is to bow down to the dictates of the spirit. In other words, the soul has to take orders from the spirit once we are “born again.”
The final set of gateways are the body gates: seeing, hearing, tasting, touching, and smelling. I see the gates like a mountain with First Love being at the top where I sit in my seat of rest and rule my life from that position. As I function out of my spirit, those gates open and the life, light, and glory of the Father flows down the mountain into the spirit gates, then to the soul gates, and finally to the body gates at the bottom of the mountain. Everything is governed from the top down. Or, from inside out since we are spirit beings first.
Houston! We have a problem!!! This is where it gets very tricky. We are too often ruled by our emotions, the imagination, our mind where we reason everything out (oh how busy the mind can be), our choices, and our will. The conscience feeds into all the others. We have these things called “familiar spirits” that whisper sweet nothings into our ears. Many times, we don’t even realize it’s a familiar spirit talking and we actually think it’s God.
Time out! Yes, familiar spirits are even around Christians. What renders those nasty little familiars useless is our unwillingness to listen to them and heed their whisperings. It’s a choice despite how you feel. When we allow our soul to rule, we entertain familiar spirits on a regular basis. The mind of Christ comes directly from Father, into our place of first love with Him and then through prayer, reverence, worship, faith, hope, intuition, revelation, and the fear of God. As we allow the spirit gates to govern the soul, our emotions and thought life begin to line up with who we are in Christ.
Need an example of a soul in control? You’re at a social event. Everyone is talking and having a great time but it appears as though people are leaving you out of the conversation or… you make eye contact with someone who quickly glances the other direction. You have a choice here… If you start thinking “why are people ignoring me?,” you’re actually entertaining a familiar spirit. Or, how about one of my favorite examples… You’re talking with friends and joking around with one another when someone pipes up with a comment such as “You might look better in that outfit if you were twenty years younger.” Again, you have a choice. Will you be offended? Trust me, the moment those words hit the atmosphere, we are given the opportunity whether to listen to a familiar spirit that sits by the soul gates just waiting for us to engage it or, turn into our spirit and let it make the decision on how to respond.
Hear me out for a minute. I’m willing to put my neck out on a limb to say that many of the issues we face with our emotional state could be rectified IF we allow the spirit gates to rule over the soul gates. What do I mean by this? Another example should help explain. As many who’ve read my blogs know, I left an abusive marriage. There were some physical ramifications from that marriage that lasted for nearly 20 years. In all honesty, it was easier to stay in that place because it was more comfortable. And, I didn’t know a way out. The unknown was scary. I was fearful and didn’t know how to move forward, especially since the physical issues lingered for so long. For that to change, I had to make some conscious decisions and then then practice (yep… PRACTICE) a new way of thinking. I also had to carefully watch the words out of my mouth. Words are a huge creative force. It was with words (and possibly song) that God created the universe. But, that’s a topic for another blog post.
Kingdom Principle break! I really believe that there are many physical illnesses that are directly caused by our emotional state of mind. Check out the “Emotional Roots of Physical Symptoms” chart that I assembled with my friends Alice and Seneca. Once we deal with our emotions, our bodies tend to line up. We should be under the governance of the spirit gates. That in turn trickles down through the soul and into our body. What does that mean? When you have a symptom on your body, don’t immediately bow down to it. Watch what comes out of your mouth and don’t immediately go into Facebook and say “Please pray for me! I woke up this morning feeling ______” In a sense, that’s bowing down to it and acknowledging that it has a place in your body. Instead, step into the presence of God and allow Papa to speak to you on what needs to be done to bring your body back into health.
Please note, I do ask people to pray for me. I see no problem with that and we should come alongside those we consider to be part of our inner circle. Outside of my circle, I tend not to tell everyone else what’s going on in my personal life. Why not? Because words ARE a creative force, I want prayers to be brought from heaven to earth and not the other way around. I want people praying for and with me that know how to function in the kingdom realms. And, I need to be able to take care of my junk on my own, seeking Father for answers. Often times when we ask others to pray for us, we rely on those prayers more than our own. In order to grow out of the baby Christian mentality, we need to learn how to take care of our own stuff. This has been a huge lesson for me. I wasn’t called “motor mouth” for nothing. Ask my dad. He’ll enlighten you on that subject. Just saying…
Back to my example… I eventually figured out how to put my emotions and imagination into their proper place. First off, I had to make a conscious decision not to live out of the fatigue that seemed to plague my body. It was a mindset that I needed to change. When a familiar spirit would come and whisper “But, you know how tired you feel? It’s OK to ________,” I had to get onto my seat of rest and imagine being in that place of intimacy with Father. I then focused on letting the life, light, and glory of the Father flow through a spirit gateway (it differed from time to time), and into my emotions or another soul gateway (also depended on what Father was showing me at the time). I asked Jesus to show me where I needed healing (emotionally). I then spent a lot of time repenting for wrong mindsets and emotional traumas that I “fed” and hung on to. In case you’re not aware, fear is almost always going to be feeding an emotional trauma.
News flash!!! Things didn’t change right away! I had to practice and practice and practice new thought patterns despite how I physically felt. At first, the more I practiced, the more familiar spirits would try to entice me with some new and twisted theory of staying stuck in that place of emotional pain, which led to physical pain. I hated spending many years of my life so fatigued that I could barely function. They say when you’re sick and tired of being sick and tired, you finally do something about it. As I become whole emotionally, my body is healing.
I went through a lot of Inner healing, which may be necessary to help get over the issues that we tend to have. That being said, I think it’s also important that we don’t get stuck there. Look to see if you’re doing what you’ve been asked. To me, emotional healing should start with making sure we’re functioning out of our spirit first. We aren’t supposed to be led by our emotions or how we physically feel. What does that look like? Have you ever said, “That’s just the way I am…” or “I’ve had ______ happen to me” or “All my parts and pieces aren’t liking this.” We’re told that we have the mind of Christ and that we are a new creation. Well, in order to function as a new creation IN HIM, we must put our focus on Him instead of what negative thoughts and emotions run rampant in our minds.
The hardest part of not having dinner with the familiar spirits? They are ever-so-willing to whisper if I give them a sliver of a listen. They can be like vultures waiting to pounce on their prey. I had to look past the physical symptoms and see myself soaking in the River of Life where I allowed the very essence of God to flow through me, changing me into His image. I will also note here that worshiping, praying in tongues, and spending quality time with Father is making a HUGE difference with everything in my life. It starts from the inside out.
What HAS changed through this is my attitude. What other people think should have no affect on what I do or don’t do. Really, it all began with me stepping into who I am in Christ. Out of that I am learning to function as a spirit being first. Then, my spirit governs the soul which in turn pounds out “Yankee Doodle” on my body. And you know what? My body eventually gave up the extreme fatigue. But, it required me governing my life from heaven down to earth. Everything takes time and PRACTICE in learning new mindsets.
For those dealing with mental/emotional issues, I encourage you to get Ian Clayton’s book on the gateways and start working through them on a daily basis as he instructs in the book. It will take several months of daily practice but if you don’t give up, you should see results in your physical body. Marinate in the gateway of first love by allowing the light, life and glory of the Father to flow from the Throne of Grace. Then, let it flow into the spirit gates, then into the soul gates, and finally into and through the body gates.
As the familiar spirits try to tempt your ears and eyes, focus on being in Him and choose a response that comes directly from your place of rest in Christ, even if your body continues to be in physical and/or emotional pain. Things that stop the flow are constant complaining/whining, being pessimistic, doing the hypochondriac bit (where you always have to tell others what’s wrong with you), dwelling on the past horrible things that happened to you, unforgiveness, fear, anxiety, and lack of hope. The list could go on but you get the idea.
As I often share, I’m speaking out of experience here because I’ve done every negative item on the list above. It wasn’t until I chose to change my mindset and then practice the new mindset before things started to change. And, I took every small change as a step in the right direction. Little changes are better than no changes.
Does what I’m saying resonate with you? Do you need some assistance? I recommend that you get on a healing protocol and stick with it. CLICK HERE to learn more about healing protocols and CLICK HERE for helpful resources.
My declaration over anyone who reads this… May you come into that intimate relationship with the Father, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit. May you be healed in your soul and body as you function out of who you are in Christ. I speak blessings over and above all that you could ask or think! May you be physically pain free, emotionally whole, and spiritually sensitive to all the Father has for you. May you walk here on earth in what you’ve been called to do and that’s mandated for you life! In the Mighty Name of Jeshua – AMEN!
Blessings!
Del