Joe: Hi, welcome back.
In the last segment we discussed the purpose of man's existence, which is to contain God.
And now in this segment we will go on further to talk about how man can receive God and contain Him.
Mark, can you share with us now this point about how man can receive God and contain Him?
Mark: First of all, we need to see in the Scriptures
the basis for our saying that man was made to contain God.
Actually, in Roman 9:23, the apostle Paul refers to man as vessels of mercy.
Vessels are objects that are obviously intended to contain something,
just like a pitcher or a cup. All these are vessels.
Man, according to the Bible, was created as a vessel,
vessel of mercy no less, but a vessel to contain something.
And we find out in our last segment that this vessel was made to contain God.
Well, how this vessel of mercy can contain God is found in another verse.
The key is in 1 Thessalonians 5:23,
where it refers to the three parts of man, how man was created.
Man was created with a body, that's our physical part.
Man was created with a soul, that's our psychological part.
And man was created with a spirit, and that's our spiritual part.
These three parts of man, some refer to man as a tripartite vessel,
these three parts of man demonstrate how man ascertains things of the various realms.
There's a physical real, there's a psychological realms, and there's a spiritual realm.
So just as the man uses the body to ascertain things in the physical realm,
just as man uses the soul to ascertain things of the psychological realm,
man has a spirit in which, he must exercise,
he must use in order to contact things of the spiritual realm.
You pair that verse with John 4:24, which says,
"God is Spirit and those who worship Him must worship Him in spirit."
So, "God is Spirit he must worship Him in spirit."
The first Spirit is the big "S" Spirit: "God is Spirit."
"And those who worship Him must worship Him in spirit", that's little "s" spirit.
Shows us that in order for us to contact God,
in order for us to be filled with God, in order for us to contain God,
we actually have to use that third part of man, that is the spirit.
We have to use our human spirit
in order to ascertain, contact, realize, and receive God into our being.
Joe: So this has been very helpful fellowship on the way to contact God and to receive Him,
which is with man's deepest part, his human spirit.
Thank you all for joining us.
And in the next segment, we will discuss more about how specifically to contact God and receive Him.