Whatever we do, we must first reject our natural mind, emotion, and will. This means to reject ourselves and take the Lord Jesus as our life. This is done by returning to our inmost part to sense what is there in our spirit. While we are listening to a brother speaking to us, we must reject ourself with our natural thinking in order to take the Lord in that particular matter as our life. This is the way for us to act as a normal Christian. If we do this, our spirit in which the Holy Spirit is dwelling will have opportunity to express more of the Lord within us. We must continually learn to care for the inner anointing, the inner registration, the inner sense, deep within our spirit. If we go along with this sense, we will be those who are walking in the spirit. Then all the faculties of our soul will be renewed, enriched, and improved with the Lord. I do not say that the life of our soul will be improved—that will be put death. But all the faculties of our soul will be improved and transformed to express the Lord adequately and fully in our daily life.
In the way of His salvation, the Lord firstly regenerates us in our spirit that we may have Him within us as our life. Then He begins to transform us in our soul that He may saturate, fill, and possess our whole being. Thus, we may be transformed into His image to be His very expression even now while living on this earth. By His regeneration in our spirit we receive His divine life. By His transformation in our soul we grow in His life and eventually become mature in His life. Then at His coming back, He will transfigure us in our body.
Our spirit has been regenerated and our soul may be also fully transformed, yet our body still remains old. With all its physical weakness and illnesses, it is under the power of death. It is still mortal and subject to infirmity and death. Though it may be quickened today by the Lord’s Spirit that dwells in us (Rom. 8:11), yet it is a mortal body, subject to death and needing to be fully redeemed (Rom. 8:23). Today, by cooperating with Him in our spirit, we may experience the Lord’s Spirit spreading His life-power into our body to quicken and even to saturate it to a certain degree. But regardless of how much it may be quickened and even saturated by the Lord’s Spirit, it still requires the Lord’s full redemption. This is why we often groan within ourselves. But, praise the Lord, when He comes back, He will transfigure this "body of humiliation that it may be conformed to the body of His glory" (Phil. 3:21, ASV). Then "we shall be like Him" (1 John 3:2), not only in our spirit and in our soul, but also in our body. By that time we shall be in His full likeness both inwardly and outwardly, from the very center of our being to the full circumference, from our innermost spirit to our outermost body. That will be the ultimate consummation of the Lord’s salvation. Thus, we will enjoy the Lord’s redemption and salvation to the uttermost. Hallelujah! That is what we are now waiting and looking for (Rom. 8:23; Phil. 3:20).
(The Parts of Man, Chapter 2, by Witness Lee)