The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it? (Jeremiah 17:9)

When our spirit is not one with God's Spirit we are spiritually dead. The human spirit apart from God is like a little pool of water that has been cut off from the ocean. It soon becomes stagnant and filled with uncleanness. There is no life or renewal in it.

Our soul is our identity as an individual person. Our reborn spiritual nature, which is in Christ at God's right hand, must control our decisions until our soul has been converted by the Virtue and power of the Divine redemption.

Our soul (heart) is deceitful and wicked. If we would possess our soul, if we would make it part of our reborn spiritual nature, we must endure patiently as God deals with us, testing all that is in our soul. Perhaps it is true that our spirit is our life while our soul is our character, and that our spirit must act as a referee until our soul is converted.

Our soul is troubled with the desire to satisfy the appetites and lusts of the body, the desire to possess the things of the world, and the desire to be someone of importance and power. As we take up our cross, deny ourselves, and follow Jesus, our soul dies to these strong desires and the Virtue and Life of the Lord Jesus then are able to transform the soul.

The Divine Seed of Christ is planted in our soul by the Spirit of God. It is a living Seed and will grow. It is our responsibility to pray, to read and meditate in the Scriptures, to have fellowship with fervent saints as much as possible, so that the Seed of Christ is nourished and grows in our soul.

As God reveals His Glory to us our soul is changed from the adamic nature into a tree of eternal life. As the transformation occurs we are able to receive increasing amounts of God's Glory, which in turn results in further transformation. The process of change from Adam's image into God's image takes place command upon command, rule upon rule, until the new creation comes into being.

But we all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord. (II Corinthians 3:18)

The Presence of Christ entering us causes our self-life to die and Divine Life and Character to take its place. If we abide in Christ, cooperating with the Holy Spirit as the transformation takes place, the old creation passes away. There is a new creation and all things of it are of God. Our soul is converted from our old nature to a new nature that is born of God in every aspect of its being.

This is what will happen to Jerusalem on the earth.

To be continued.