05.22.03

These things we also speak, not in words which man's wisdom teaches but which the Holy Spirit teaches, comparing spiritual things with spiritual. But the natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; nor can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned. - 1 Corinthians 2:13-14.

Caroll Spinney is Big Bird or at least he is the man inside Big Bird. Caroll says, “I’ll have people meet me on the street with their 3-year-old and they’ll say, ‘Do you know who this is? There’s a man inside Big Bird and this is the man.’ This is bad news to a child.” Spinney has been the man inside Big Bird for 30 years.

I’m sure it is shocking to a little child to suddenly realize there is not actually a “Big Bird” i.e. a species of big bird; but it is only a man made thing. When I was four years old I saw a talking tree on TV and I was convinced for months that some trees could talk even though my mother and sister tried to change my mind.

There is an amazing spiritual fact that at first I found hard to believe. Every person has another person inside of them. There is the “natural man” and there is the Holy Spirit. Now the “natural man” is not an actual spiritual person as is the Holy Spirit but represents the fleshly worldly nature that controls us before we have salvation through Jesus. As the apostle says in 1 Corinthians, “the natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him.”

Compare the “natural man” to the person of the Holy Spirit which indwells/abides within all true believers. Paul says of the Holy Spirit, “But God has revealed them to us through His Spirit. For the Spirit searches all things, yes, the deep things of God. For what man knows the things of a man except the spirit of the man which is in him? Even so no one knows the things of God except the Spirit of God. Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might know the things that have been freely given to us by God (1 Corinthians 2:10-12).”

If you find it hard to understand the truths of the Kingdom of God it may be that you are still groping in darkness and that the “natural man” is still in charge. Even after salvation we have a choice to make as to whether we will allow our natural nature to control us or whether we will seek the things of the Spirit (Romans 8:5-6). Is the “natural man” making your life miserable? If so kick him out! Invite the Holy Spirit in through Jesus and live in “accordance with the Spirit” and you will have “life and peace.” Then you will be able to see and understand clearly the “things that have been freely given to us by God.”