Have you ever stood in God’s presence? When our impurity meets His holiness, we begin to understand that touching the divine carries a cost. I confess, there are days I do not approach His holiness with the full reverence it deserves—and even in silence, my soul feels the weight of it.
Today’s Message
Today I want to turn our hearts toward the spiritual realm and how it operates.
I will not spend much time on the carnal realm, because we already know its effects.
We know what it is like to be limited by our own thinking.
We know what it is like to struggle with weakness.
We know what it is like for fear, worry, and confusion to trouble the mind.
That ground is familiar to all of us.
But today, I want us to look higher.
I want us to look beyond what can be seen, touched, and measured—and turn our attention to the unseen realm, where God rules, His Word stands, and His life flows.
Our Path Forward
So together, we will walk through three things:
First, we will define the carnal realm, so we can recognize it and refuse to be ruled by it.
Second, we will define the spiritual realm, so we can discern it and align ourselves with God’s truth.
Third, we will look at a simple, living example, so we can see how faith works in everyday life.
Carnal Realm
The carnal realm applies to both believers and unbelievers.
It is life lived from human nature apart from God.
It is governed by the soul—the desires of the flesh, pride, fear, and the influence of this world.
In the carnal realm, a person follows what seems right to them instead of being led by the Spirit of God.
Scripture says:
“There is a way which seemeth right unto a man, but the end thereof are the ways of death.”
Scripture also says:
“To be carnally minded is death.”
The carnal mind resists God’s authority.
It holds tightly to what can be seen, felt, understood, and controlled.
It may appear strong outwardly, but its end is weakness, corruption, and separation from God.
Spiritual Realm
The spiritual realm is life lived under the guidance of the Holy Spirit.
It is where faith, love, and obedience begin to grow.
It goes beyond what we can see, feel, or measure.
Scripture says:
“To be spiritually minded is life and peace.”
In the spiritual realm, the believer learns to:
- walk by faith, not by sight
- trust God’s Word above feelings
- seek what is eternal instead of what is temporary
Why This Matters
This matters because every believer stands between these two realities.
Each day, we choose whether we will yield to the flesh or yield to the Spirit of God.
If we ignore this battle, we drift with the world.
If we face it with God’s help, we grow in holiness, strength, and purpose.
The carnal realm promises pleasure, but it ends in bondage.
The spiritual realm may require sacrifice, but it produces true freedom now and eternal reward later.
This is not just a teaching to hear and forget.
It demands a response.
Scripture says:
“Walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfil the lust of the flesh.”
We are not called to live divided.
We are called to crucify the flesh and live fully alive in Christ.
The Demonstration
Let us begin at the very beginning.
Before God made the heavens and the earth, there was only God.
Scripture declares:
John 4:24
“God is a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth.”
Before anything was created, God already was.
And because God is Spirit, His existence is not limited by matter, space, time, or atmosphere as we know it.
From that eternal spiritual reality, God spoke the physical world into existence.
Scripture says:
Hebrews 11:3
“Through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear.”
This shows us something important:
Everything visible came from the invisible.
Everything seen came from God, who is Spirit.
What This Means
The physical world is not the beginning.
It is the result.
The spiritual realm came first and gave rise to what is seen.
The visible is temporary.
The unseen is what sustains it.
The physical world does not stand apart from God.
It exists within His greater reality.
What we see is only a limited expression of what already exists in the unseen.
Scripture confirms:
“The things which are seen are temporal; but the things which are not seen are eternal.”
In Summary
The spiritual realm came first—and gives rise to all we see.
The physical is temporary, dependent, and limited—a reflection within God’s greater reality.
A Simple Demonstration of Faith
One afternoon, my wife was not feeling well.
She asked me to pick up a few things that might help her feel better: some soup, apple juice, and water with electrolytes.
So I went to Panera Bread first and picked up the soup. After that, I stopped by Walmart to get the drinks.
When I turned down the water aisle, I noticed a woman sitting there. She was not just shopping casually. She looked like someone who had been looking for something and could not find it.
I greeted her and asked if she needed help reaching something from one of the shelves.
She said, “No, thank you,” but then explained that the water she wanted was sold out.
I asked her what kind of water she was looking for.
She said she wanted water with electrolytes, but specifically the generic Walmart brand. She had looked for it, but could not find it anywhere.
To her, it appeared to be gone.
As I began looking for water for my wife, I looked up toward the higher shelves. There, pushed far back on the top shelf, was the very water she wanted.
It was there all along, but it was hidden from her sight.
Someone had taken a few cases and pushed the rest so far back that anyone who was not tall enough, or not looking from the right angle, would never have seen it.
So I reached up and pulled one case forward.
The moment she saw it, her face changed.
She smiled and said, “That’s it! That’s the one!”
I asked her, “How many cases do you want?”
With joy in her voice, she said, “Gimme two!”
That moment was simple, but it revealed something powerful.
She needed the water.
The water existed.
The water was present.
But from where she sat, it was unseen.
To her natural sight, it looked unavailable.
But in reality, it was already there.
That is a picture of faith.
Final Truth
The woman’s water was real before she ever saw it.
Her not seeing it did not mean it was not there.
It only meant it had not yet come into her view.
In the same way, God’s promises are real before they appear in our natural circumstances.
What God has spoken is not made true when we finally see it.
It is true because God said it.
Faith reaches into what is real in God’s unseen realm and brings it into lived experience.
It brings into view what has been there all along in the heart and will of God.
Closing Statement
True faith does not deny what we see.
It simply refuses to let what we see have the final word.
Faith stands on what God has spoken.
It declares what God said
until what God said becomes visible.
In the matchless name of Jesus the Christ.
Amen.
