THE SILVER CORD REMAINS UNBROKEN

  Honestly, as a Christian, do you not wonder about the Holy Spirit residing within you? Do you feel distant from God? When you sin, as a Christian, you are said to be FILLED with the Holy Ghost. First off, the very nomenclature offends some because Pentecostals use the term “Ghost” and other evangelicals oftener “Spirit.” They are two translations for the same Greek word, pneuma, but have entirely different meanings. Spirit is “the supernatural essence,” and ghost is “a disembodied soul.”. Soul is an immaterial essence, and thus it would seem that spirit and soul are more equivalent than spirit and ghost (Merriam-Webster Dict).
  Spirit and soul are “essences,” or “existences;” essence is reality. Spirit, although supernatural, is real. With all those definitions, it is still not clear what any of those words mean. Think of it as the spirit and soul must be experienced to understand. Why do people not understand God’s Holy Spirit? Perhaps they have yet to experience God. My own definition of spirit is “experiencing Existence,” meaning having “God in you,” as Paul wrote: “And by their prayer for you, which long after you for the exceeding grace of God in you. Thanks be unto God for his unspeakable gift” (2 Cor 9:14-15).
  When Adam (man) was created in body, God went unto him: “And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul” (Gen 2:7). Soul in the Hebrew therein is nephesh, and means “a breathing creature,” (Strong’s Dict.) but is that not what all animals are? Note that animals were merely created, but God did not breath unto them as he did with human animals. Hence, “living souls” are animated creatures with “God in them.” In stands to reason then that those without God in them are “dying souls.” The apostle John confirms that:

I receive not honour from men. But I know you, that ye have not the love of God in you. I am come in my Father's name, and ye receive me not: if another shall come in his own name, him ye will receive. (John 5:41-43)

  The animal kingdom did not receive God as Adam’s body did. The animating feature from God is love, from John above. Christians have the “love of God” within them. How can those who claim to be Christians perceive Christ in them? By the love they have for God and others! “He that loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love” (1 John 4:8). John thought that having God could be better understood by comparison to not having God. Before God comes into people, they do not love God. We all know that feeling because we were “shapen in iniquity” (Psalm 51:5).
  Adam knew God because he was “shapen in love.” Hence, because of sin that everyone has, everyone else but Christ was shapen without love, and are like the animals that God made. We are born brute beasts, and to become generated like Adam, must be regenerated from our natural state. Regeneration is not a return to childlike, but a return to Adam-like, as he was generated.
  Adam despised no one, not even Lucifer. He didn’t sin because he despised God, but because he dishonored God (John 5 above.) Adam dishonored God (that is hatred) because he did what he wanted to do despite God telling him what His Will was for him.
  Adam was credited with the sin, although Eve ate first, because God commanded Adam, not Eve. She was beguiled, but Adam dishonored God because he willed too. He elevated himself above God.  God had endowed Adam with love, and when he sinned, love flowed out of him, and he became a beast like the other animals, and apparently the animals mimicked Adam since they lost their docility.
  Virtue is the display of love, or love manifested. When God generated Adam, virtue would have flowed from Him. Solomon called that stream of virtue, the silver cord (Eccles 12:5-7) which is “loosened” and “then shall the dust return to the earth as it was: and the spirit shall return unto God who gave it.”
  The substance of the silver cord is love, and that “cord” bonds living souls with God. The “silver” description of the cord is virtue. Jesus felt that when others received his healing love: “And Jesus said, ‘Somebody hath touched me: for I perceive that virtue is gone out of me’” (Luke 8:46). Love heals all things, and when God heals, love flows from him unto those He has healed. When Adam was created (healing is repair of the creation), the breath of life from God was the silver cord and was a stream of love flowing from God unto Adam. Rebirth (John 3:7) is the beginning of the regenerating process and love flows from God to re-animate the beasts, and the silver cord is tightened again.
  The silver cord’s tension is perceived, therefore, to how much love Christians have for God and others. Love flows from the Christian to those around him or her, and if the love is not flowing the silver cord is loosened. It makes sense, that apostasy is breaking the silver cord by dishonoring God. It is Christians re-shaping themselves, not to the pattern of God, but the pattern of Satan, and his law of sin. The Law of God is the Law of love (John 14:15) so if love is not in a person, then they have not God in them.
  How then to detect the presence of the Holy Spirit;  by how much we love God and others. The Ten Commandments are metrics of how much we love God, and not by chance, the First Commandment is a measure of honor for God. The next three are the metrics for honoring God, and the last six are how to measure the tightness of the silver cord between ourselves and others. If we even sin once, it as if we broke all the commandments, but God is a graceful God. He knows the “tension” in the silver cord… “the spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak” (Mat 26:41). So long as the silver cord remains unbroken, then God maintains his grace. When Christians fail to endure to the end (Mat 10:22), rather than “be saved,” they shall perish. “Saved” is living and continuing to exist as Adam did in the beginning. The breath of life that defines living beings shall remain unbroken forever! Spiritual death is a breaking of the silver cord, and God leaving the souls to Satan to do with as he wishes.
  Thus, the soul is not a physical entity to be defined but an attitude that only people can have. The soul is an attitude of love, ironically like the docile creatures who love their masters just because they are there! Christians are regenerated fully in Heaven when they become glorified – which will be just as Adam was generated. Thus, the silver cord has come full-circle, and the loop is closed, the tension ceased, and love is fulfilled.
  Indicated before is that the Holy Spirit is known by experience. Those of us who have it know it because God’s love can be sensed. With sin covered, the tension on the cord (guilt) is relieved, and Satan’s choke-hold is removed. Relief is how the Holy Spirit is sensed, and gratitude is sent along the silver cord to God!
  What about the Holy Ghost? Since a ghost is a disembodied spirit, then the “Holy Ghost” is the loosening of Jesus’s “silver cord.” He did that on Calvary: “When Jesus therefore had received the vinegar, he said, ‘It is finished:’ and he bowed his head, and gave up the ghost” (John 19:30). So that Christians’ silver cord remains unbroken, Jesus allowed his to be loosened. He became sin on our behalf (1 Per 2:24). Jesus’s own “silver cord” was broken when His Holy Ghost left Him, and at that time God’s need for flesh (His Purpose) was finished. Our silver cord remains intact as His was broken, and that was God’s gift for mankind, who could not keep the silver cord intact themselves! Some think they can and are proud. Those who realize they cannot, are humble, and shall be saved.
  Before Jesus died, God’s Holy Spirit was in Him. As life was finished, Jesus gave up the “Ghost.” God’s Holy Spirit was transformed into Jesus’s Holy Ghost by the experience of death for us. Only God’s flesh experienced physical death, and He compared it to sleeping. God’s Spirit experienced death as well, but never died. Death transformed Jesus into a Ghost as John explained: “But this spake he of the Spirit, which they that believe on him should receive: for the Holy Ghost was not yet given; because that Jesus was not yet glorified” (John 7:39). What happened on the Holy Cross? The Holy Ghost left Jesus, and he was glorified upon His own regeneration. The “Resurrection” was Jesus’s regeneration and when Christians arise from the grave, they will be regenerated in the same manner!
  All the while Christians lie inanimate in the grave, their “ghost” is with Jesus. With the rapture, the soul will have life breathed back into it, recombined with the dust, and finally, the mortal Christian’s flesh is ultimately saved! The Holy Spirit is the Essence of God, which upon Jesus’s death is “God in us” and is essentially “Jesus in us” because He is the “Ghost” of Jesus.
  If that is complicated, don’t worry about it. The Holy Spirit can be detected by how much we love. Some love is caring about others. Much love is desiring that none should perish – the same way God loves us! The ultimate love is honoring God. For what? Generating us in the first place and the hope of regeneration. “Hope” is seeing the prize as if it is in hand. The reason “death is gain” is because the prize is obtained. The precursor to that is if, “Christ is in us” (Phil 1:21). It is finished when Christians endure to the end as the silver cord remains unbroken.
  How can Christians tell if Christ is in us? By honoring God. The “feeling” inside is how Christians sense God’s Presence, as we compare how we are to how we were. If we have not changed since we were born again, we are as we were, and people have a reason to be worried. At one time I hated God’s Church and would have rather been elsewhere. Now if I am not in God’s House, I feel desolate. I am Comforted when I am in sanctuary with God. If that Comfort is not felt, then the Holy Ghost of Jesus is not in us; God is not in us: “He (God) shall give you another Comforter, that he may abide with you forever” (John 14:6) after Jesus was to leave. The Comforter is the silver cord which will remain unbroken if Christ is in us, and forever!
  If you cannot feel the Presence of the Holy Ghost, is Christ in you? Are you indeed honoring God with your attitude and actions, or even behaviors? Are you honoring God by loving the other human creatures that God generated as He did you? Do you value others and God supreme to yourself? If that is not the case, the silver cord has loosened and is in danger of falling away.

Silver Cord (Credit: JesusFreakGeek Freak.com)