Preserve our Soul by Unclogging the Arteries of our Heart under the Lord’s Shining

In order for us to cooperate with God to preserve our soul in sanctification, we must clear the three main “arteries” of our psychological heart – our mind, emotion, and will – under the Lord’s light; we need to unclog the arteries of our heart so that the Lord’s life may flow freely in us and through us.

Oh Lord Jesus, keep us open to Your shining today! May Your living light scatter all our night and everything make bright! We say Amen to Your light. Flow freely in us! Amen!

Thank the Lord that He had mercy on us to regenerate us with His life; our spirit is life because of righteousness, and now He is transforming our soul by sanctifying it.

On one hand, the Lord gave us a new heart and a new spirit for us to love Him and seek Him; on the other hand, we need to cooperate with God to be renewed in our soul so that we may maintain our new heart.

We need to cooperate with the Lord to preserve our spirit, our soul, and our body in sanctification.

We have three parts: we have a spirit in the innermost part of our being, we have a soul with all kinds of inward parts, and we have a body that is outward.

All three parts of our being need to be preserved complete in sanctification; on His side, God is working to preserve our whole being complete at the Lord’s coming, and on our side, we need to cooperate with Him.

How can we cooperate with the Lord to preserve our being in sanctification? First, we need to exercise our spirit to keep it in a living condition so that we may preserve our spirit in sanctification.

Our spirit, in a sense, has no problem; but when our spirit is not exercised, when it is not kept in a living condition, our spirit is dormant, even though it is joined to the Lord.

We are so used to be in our soul, especially in our mind and in our emotion, that we often forget about the Lord in our spirit. Oh Lord!

We need to learn to fellowship with the Lord by exercising our spirit so that we would not leave our spirit in a dormant condition but rather, keep it in a living condition!

We need to keep our spirit from all defilement and contamination.

We all can testify that we enjoyed the Lord in our spirit for a while, but then simply by looking around or talking to some people, we were defiled; our spirit was deadened.

It’s not that we saw a lot of evil things, but simply the polluting and defiling things in the world cause our spirit to be deadened. Oh Lord!

How much we need to return to our spirit and exercise it to keep it living!

Cooperate with God to Preserve our Soul in Sanctification by Unclogging the Arteries of our Heart

On the one hand, we need to preserve our spirit in sanctification by keeping it exercised and living. On the other hand, we need to cooperate with God to preserve our soul in sanctification by unclogging the arteries of our heart (Phil. 2:2, 5; 1:8; 2:13).

We need to unclog the arteries of our psychological heart for the Lord’s life to flow freely in us.

In order for our soul to be sanctified, our mind needs to be renewed to be the mind of Christ (Rom. 12:2), our emotion must be touched and saturated with the love of Christ (Eph. 3:17, 19), our will must be subdued by and infused with the resurrected Christ (Phil. 2:13; cf. S. S. 4:4a; 7:4a), and we must love the Lord with our whole being (Mark 12:30).

Unless we deal with our heart, that is, unless we are willing to cooperate with the Lord by unclogging the arteries of our heart, the Lord’s life cannot freely flow through us.

May we learn to open to the Lord concerning our mind, emotion, and will, so that He may shine on us, expose anything that is unclean and impure, and we would confess for the Lord to remove it.

Our physical heart has arteries coming in and going out; if these arteries are clogged, we can suffer a heart attack. Oh Lord.

Spiritually speaking, we may suffer a spiritual heart attack if we don’t unclog the arteries of our heart regularly.

The way we can unclog the three main arteries of our psychological heart is to make a thorough confession to the Lord under His shining.

We need to come to the Lord and allow Him to shine on us, even shine within us to expose any problems in our being.

We need to remain in the Lord’s presence for a period of time, asking Him to bring us fully into His light.

In the light of the Lord’s shining, we confess what He exposes; we confess our defects, failures, defeats, mistakes, wrongdoings, and sins (1 John 1:5-9).

We confess, and He forgives. We confess under His shining, and He purifies us and purges those things away.

We need to learn to spend time with the Lord and allow Him to purify our heart; in this way, we are unclogging the arteries of our heart so that the Lord’s life may freely flow in us.

This cannot take place in five or ten minutes with the Lord; we need to remain in His presence and allow Him to shine on us until He breaks through!

We need to let His light shine on us and expose us and He has a way to judge the things in us that His light exposes.

Then, our confession will be real in so many things, and we will be unclogging the arteries of our heart in His light. It’s good to come to the Lord in this respect and tell Him,

Lord Jesus, we love You and we want Your life to flow freely in us and out of us. We turn our heart to You. We come under Your shining today. We want to cooperate with You to preserve our soul in sanctification. Amen, Lord, we want to learn to clear the three main arteries of our psychological heart – our mind, emotion, and will. Oh Lord, sanctify our soul! Renew our mind to make it the mind of Christ! Touch and saturate our emotion with the love of Christ! Subdue our will and infuse it with the resurrected Christ! May we be those who love You with our whole being! Shine on us, Lord, and expose anything that You need to expose. Expose any problems in our mind, emotion, and will. We want to remain under Your light and confess what Your light exposes. Amen, Lord, we want to dig away all the dirt in our mind, emotion, and will, so that Your life may flow freely in us!

Unclog the Artery of our Mind by Confessing what is Sinful in our Thoughts and Way of Thinking under the Lord’s Light

The key to unclogging the arteries of our heart is not our introspection or seeking to see what the problem is in our mind, emotion, and will; it is our coming to the Lord to be shined on by Him.

It is only in His light that we can see who we are. Only in His shining can we see the light, and only the divine light can expose and show us who we really are.

Apart from the Lord’s shining, we think we are ok; when He shines on us as we spend time with Him, we realise how impure our thoughts are.

When the Lord shines on us and in us, we realise that our mind is full of sinfulness and uncleanness.

Our mind is filled with dirt. We need to cooperate with the Lord’s light by unclogging the arteries of our heart, especially the artery of our mind.

This means that we need to confess everything that is sinful in our thoughts and in our way of thinking (Psa. 139:23-24).

We need to exercise our spirit to contact the Lord and remain under His shining, and He will expose how natural our understanding is concerning many matters.

We may think about our married life in a particular way, but when the Lord shines on us, we realise that our way of thinking is natural and wrong; we then confess this before the Lord.

May we ask the Lord to bring our mind into His light so that He may enlighten and expose our mind!

He needs to expose our thoughts and shine on the problems in our thinking, one by one.

When we are truly open to the Lord, He will shine and expose how wrong we are in thinking concerning people, things, and events; we simply need to say Amen and agree with His light.

His light shines, exposes, and if we cooperate, purifies and purges us.

There is so much dirt in our mind! There are so many problems in our way of thinking!

We don’t need to be introspective about it; we simply need to open to the Lord and remain under His shining so that He may expose us and we would confess our sinful thoughts, our wrong way of thinking, and our problems in our mind.

When we confess, He forgives, He cleanses, and He purifies us; in this way, we are unclogging the arteries of our mind so that the Lord’s divine life can flow.

His life can flow when we dig away all the dirt in our mind under the Lord’s shining light. May we come to Him and let Him shine on us!

Lord Jesus, enlighten us and expose our mind. Shine on us, Lord. We open to You. May Your living light scatter all our darkness and everything make bright! Amen, Lord, expose our thoughts. Expose our way of thinking. Expose our natural understanding of things, persons, and events. Oh Lord, bring our mind fully into Your light. We want to remain in Your presence to be under Your shining and be exposed. We say Amen to Your shining. We agree with Your shining. We just confess. Cleanse us. Wash us. Remove all the dirt in our mind. We want to cooperate with You to dig away anything in our mind that Your light exposes so that Your life may flow through our mind! Amen, life can flow, praise the Lord, life can flow in our mind when we dig away any dirt that the Lord’s light exposes!

Unclog the Artery of our Will by Confessing the Germs of Rebellion in our Will under the Lord’s Light

Another great artery of our psychological heart which needs to be unclogged is our will; we need to go to the Lord concerning our will.

If we truly open to the Lord concerning our will, He will expose it in a thorough and detailed way.

His light is not only general but specific; He will focus on the problems in our will and will expose the germs of rebellion in us (Isa. 1:2; Psa. 107:11; Ezek. 20:8, 13; Rom. 8:7; Dan. 9:9; Isa. 63:10; Num. 14:9).

Outwardly, we may be a docile or obedient person, but inwardly, rebellion is in our will, waiting to manifest itself.

May we allow the Lord to analyse us under His divine microscope through His shining to show us the germs of rebellion in our will.

He may shine on us to show us that we are not submissive toward Him; we are stiff-necked, and we don’t obey Him.

He may even show us that we are so wrong in relation to a brother or a sister.

As the Lord shines on us, as He exposes the problems in our will, we simply need to repent and confess, and He will cleanse us, wash us, and purify us. He will make our will submissive.

May we thank the Lord for shining on us and exposing the problems in our will. May we cooperate with Him to unclog the artery of our will, for in this way His life can flow.

It is one thing to be naturally submissive and it is something else when the Lord deals with our will, with our cooperation, and we submit to Him.

When we are submissive to the Lord in our will as a result of our cooperating with the Lord to unclog the artery of our will, the divine life flows in us and through us.

May we allow Him to shine on us and may we not argue with His light.

Lord Jesus, we open to You. Shine on us. We open to You concerning our will. Shine on our will and expose any germs of rebellion in our will. Oh Lord, we think we are ok, but we are not; we come to You and let You shine on us. May Your living light scatter all the night and cause us to see and confess the germs of rebellion in our will. May we see how unsubmissive we are to You. May we realise how rebellious we are toward God in our will. Oh Lord, shine on us! We give You the freedom to expose what needs to be exposed in our will. We confess what Your light exposes. Keep us in your light. We want to unclog the artery of our will so that Your life may flow in us and through us!

Unclog the Artery of our Emotion by Confessing how Natural and Fleshy we are in our Feelings and Emotions

What about our emotions? Maybe the brothers say that they don’t have a problem with their emotions, for they mainly live in their mind and according to their thinking, but we all have problems in our emotions.

The artery of our emotion needs to be unclogged. We need to be those cooperating iwth the Lord to keep our soul in sanctification by unclogging the artery of our emotion.

When we come to the Lord and ask Him to shine on us, He may expose our emotions and we may realise how serious is the problem with our emotions. Oh Lord!

Under His shining, we realise that we love what God hates and we hate what God loves.

For example, in the book of Jonah in the Bible we see that we don’t like what God wants us to do, so we run away from Him.

When He is sovereign to bring us back to do His will, we still do not like it and want others to be punished, because of our natural understanding.

Jonah rather loved the tree that grew suddenly to cover him from the sun and did not love the people of Nineveh, whom God loved and cared for, for He wanted them to repent.

In so many ways, we love what God does not like, and we hate what He loves.

Our emotions are twisted and wrong; the artery of our emotion needs to be unclogged.

When the Lord shines on our emotions, we will realise how natural and fallen our joy, happiness, and desires are.

We realise how ugly our emotions are, for both our joyfulness and our sorrow are so natural. May we let the Lord expose us. May He have a way to shine on us and within us to expose us.

Under His shining, we will feel ashamed of the way we have expressed joy and sorrow, for we were so fleshly, natural, and even fleshy.

May we take time to be with the Lord and let Him shine on us.

May we let Him search our heart, go deeper in our emotions, and shine on our feelings, desires, and yearnings.

We will then desire only the Lord, we will love what He loves (Psa. 97:10; Rom. 12:9; Mark 12:30), and we will have nothing and no one in heaven and earth but Him (Psa. 73:25-26).

We should not be introspective concerning our emotions; introspection is of no use in unclogging the arteries of our heart. We simply need to come to the Lord in prayer and let Him shine on us.

Dear Lord Jesus, we love You and we open to You concerning our emotions. Oh Lord, how do You feel about the way we express our emotions? How do You feel concerning what we love, what we hate, what we desire, and what we yearn for? We open to You, Lord. Shine on us. May Your living light penetrate in our emotions and expose us. Expose what needs to be exposed. We simply want to confess the natural and even fleshy way that we have expressed our joy and sorrow. Oh Lord, our feelings are all over the place, and we don’t love what You love! Dear Lord Jesus, cause our heart to be turned toward You to love You and love what You love. We want to cooperate with You to unclog the artery of our emotion so that Your life may flow freely in us!

References and Hymns on this Topic

• Inspiration for this article/sharing comes from the Word of God, the enjoyment in the ministry, a sharing by the brother Minoru Chen on this topic, and portions from, Life-study of 1 Thessalonians, pp. 209-211, by Witness Lee, as quoted in the Holy Word for Morning Revival on, Experiencing, Enjoying, and Expressing Christ (part 3 – 2025 Summer Training), week 29, The Cause of Our Blamelessness in Holiness and the Cause of Our Complete Sanctification in Our Spirit, Soul, and Body – day 5.
• Hymns on this topic:
  – Remove my covering, Lord, / That I may see Thy light, / And be deceived no more, / But all things see aright. / Oh, may Thy living light, Lord, / Scatter all my night, Lord, / And everything make bright, Lord, / For this I pray to Thee. / I hardly know myself; / Deceived so much by pride, / I often think I’m right / And am self-satisfied. (Hymns #426 stanzas 1-2 and chorus)
  – Dig away, dig away, dig away, / All my vain imaginations dig away! / Dig away, dig away, dig away, / All my vain imaginations dig away! / Dig away, dig away, dig away, / All my troublesome emotions dig away! / Dig away, dig away, dig away, / All my troublesome emotions dig away! / Dig away, dig away, dig away, / All resistance in my will dig away! / Dig away, dig away, dig away, / All resistance in my will dig away! (Hymns #1214 stanzas 2-4)
  – Oh, purify us, Lord, by speaking in our heart; / Thy living, spoken word this washing will impart. / Increase Thy speaking, Lord, and cleanse our every part. / Oh, purify us, Lord, we pray. / Oh, purify us, Lord, today; / Wash all our natural life away. / Speak now Thy words in us, / And make us glorious. / O Lord, do speak in us today. (Hymns #1135 stanza 2 and chorus)