I recieved this from Assistant Pastor of COTH Plymouth Gary Leary and thought you might enjoy Herb
Gary Leary wrote; I am revisiting a spiritual landmark that I was challenged to study way back in 1997. It is called the “Gateways”, and the Lord has challenged me to revisit this area again.
I was blessed to have a friend and evangelist from Hastings, New Zealand bring this teaching to the church I pastured in Torrance California. Ian Clayton broke this teaching during a conference we were hosting, and it struck a resounding chord in us all.
I took several days away to really study this out, so I made a mini retreat for myself, and for three days, it was just me and the Lord and Ian’s teaching notes. And I came away from that retreat time a changed person.Like everything else, if we do not guard our spirit, some things tend to slip from the forefront of our attention, without us even realizing that we have drifted in our focus. So, the Lord has gently reminded me that I need to once again take the time to make this an integral part of me.
The difference this time around is that I feel directed to embellish the Gateways with a in-depth study of the basic fundamentals behind each gateway. So, this is what I will do.
Simply put, we are a tripartite being, like God in His trinity. The difference is where He is Father, Son and Holy Spirit, we are body, soul and spirit. Each one of these aspects have gates through which we perceive the world and God. If our perception is wrong, then our view and understanding of God is wrong. If we start from the body, our senses mess up our knowledge of Who and what God is. It also confuses our soul, and skews how God can work in and through us, minimizing our impact with those around us.
If we start with the Spiritual Gateways, then we can see things more from God’s perspective than from a worldly perspective.Our body (soma) gates are the five senses. Our soul (psueche) gates are such as our conscience, our mind, our emotions, and so forth, and are more geared toward how we think and respond. The Spiritual gates are such things as our revelation, our faith, our hope and prayerfulness, and have an influence on how our spiritual sensitivity to God and people is tuned.
So, I am excited about what the Lord is again leading me into. I hope that He is leading you to drink anew of Him and that it excites you as much as this excites me.
Thanks Gary for some good insight. Herb
