Inner-Searching

May your whole spirit, soul, and body be preserved blameless.” 1 Thessalonians 5:23 “Your whole spirit . . .” The great, mysterious work of the Holy Spirit is in the deep recesses of our being which we cannot reach. Read Psalm 139. The psalmist implies—“ O Lord, You are the God of the early mornings, the God of the late nights, the God of the mountain peaks, and the God of the sea. But, my God, my soul has horizons further away than those of early mornings, deeper darkness than the nights of earth, higher peaks than any mountain peaks, greater depths than any sea in nature. You who are the God of all these, be my God. I cannot reach to the heights or to the depths; there are motives I cannot discover; dreams I cannot realize. My God, search me.” Do we believe that God can fortify and protect our thought processes far beyond where we can go? “The blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanses us from all sin” (1 John 1: 7). If this verse means cleansing only on our conscious level, may God have mercy on us. The man who has been dulled by sin will say that he is not even conscious of it. But the cleansing from sin we experience will reach to the heights and depths of our spirit if we will “walk in the light as He is in the light” (1:7). The same Spirit that fed the life of Jesus Christ will feed the life of our spirit. It is only when we are protected by God with the miraculous sacredness of the Holy Spirit that our spirit, soul, and body can be preserved in pure uprightness until the coming of Jesus—no longer condemned in God’s sight. We should more frequently allow our minds to meditate on these great, massive truths of God.” —Oswald Chambers, My Utmost for His Highest

There are vast places within us—depths of longing, shadows of motive, unreachable horizons of thought—that we ourselves cannot fully understand. Yet God, who knows every morning and midnight, every mountain and sea, is also Lord of the unseen terrain of the soul. Oswald Chambers reminds us that the Holy Spirit works in those hidden places, cleansing not just what we can name, but what lies far beyond our awareness. This is the miracle of grace: that we are preserved—spirit, soul, and body—not by our own insight or effort, but by the sacred work of God within us. To walk in the light is to trust that He is actively purifying even what we cannot see, making us ready for the day of Christ’s return. And we live, then, looking forward. —DH