A strong spirit is a major key to a productive life in the Kingdom of God.  As a Christian, the condition of your spirit will determine the quality of your life.  If a person gets born-again and makes Jesus the Lord of their life but fails to develop and maintain their spirit, they will fall short of everything that God has called them to do.  Therefore, as believers, it is imperative that we do everything necessary to make sure that our spirits are strong.  As believers, we should be endeavoring to develop The Champion Spirit in our lives.  A Champion is one who wins, one who fights, one who has defeated and surpassed all rivals, one who is superior and has all the attributes of a winner.  Our spirits should be fighting the good fight of faith and experiencing victory over the adversary.  Our spirits should be superior to our minds and bodies rather than being controlled by them.  Our spirits should possess all the attributes of a winner.  Our spirits should perfectly embody all that our Master was when He walked the Earth and all that He still is today. This is The Champion Spirit.

In developing a strong spirit, The Champion Spirit, you must understand the “make up of man.” 1 Thessalonians 5:23 says, “And the very God of peace sanctify you wholly: and I pray God your wholespirit and soul and body be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.” You don’thave a spirit, but rather you are a spirit.  Your spirit man is the real you.  When you made Jesus the Lord of your life, your spirit is the part of you that was born again and recreated in God’s image.  Every person who walks the face of the Earth is a spirit-being.  When a person’s body dies their body gets buried, but their spirit still exists.  If they made Jesus the Lord of their life, they (their spirit) will spend eternity in Heaven.  If a person died and had refused to make Jesus the Lord of their life, they (their spirit) will spend eternity in Hell.  The spirit-man is the real man that will exist for all of eternity.  If you are going to develop your spirit into The Champion Spirit, then it’s imperative that you recognize the reality that you are a spirit.  

As a spirit-being you have a soul, which consists of your mind, your will, and your emotions.  You are not your soul.  You are a spirit-being and you possess a soul, and you live in a physical body.  Your body is not you.  It is simply the flesh that clothes your spirit.  Your physical body can be likened to the clothing that you wear.  Your clothes are to your physical body what your physical body is to your spirit. Romans 12:1 says, “I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service.” According to this scripture, you (the spirit) have to present your body.  Your body is a thing that you (the spirit) must present.  In Philippians 1:22, the Apostle Paul writes, “21For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain.22If I am to go on living in the body, this will mean fruitful labor for me. Yet what shall I choose? I do not know! 23I am torn between the two: I desire to depart and be with Christ, which is better by far; 24but it is more necessary for you that I remain in the body.”  The Apostle Paul is revealing to us that he (the spirit) was having a hard time deciding whether he (the spirit) should stay in his physical body or go to Heaven. He was not his physical body!  He was a spirit-being.  Everything that you do as a born-again child of God, whether it is praying, standing in faith, or walking in love, you do as a spirit-being operating through a physical body. 

The moment you were born again and made Jesus the Lord of your life, old things passed away, and your spirit became brand new.  However, your mind and body did not change.  The Bible tells us that our minds must be renewed to the Word of God, and our body has to be retrained to act in line with the Word of God.  Before you were saved, your way of thinking was shaped by the words you were exposed to the most.  Your mind told your body what to do based on the way of thinking that you had developed.  For example, if you spent time with words that told you not to forgive people, then that way of thinking was established in your mind.  Over time, your mind then trained your body to become an unforgiving person.  When you get born again, you still have that old way of thinking and that old way of doing. Therefore, your mind has to be renewed and your body has to be retrained.  If you fail to renew your mind to the Word of God and to retrain your body to act in line with the Word of God, you will not be successful in life.  If you continue to think and act the way you did before you got saved, you’ll get the same results in life that the world gets.  To live in victory and walk in God’s best, you must renew your mind and retrain your body according to the Word of God.

It is the job of your spirit to receive the Word of God from the Holy Spirit and then partner with the Holy Spirit to renew your mind and retrain your body.  Your recreated spirit is the personal trainer of your mind and your body.  If you allow your life to be governed by your unrenewed mind and untrained body, you will live a miserable life of defeat.  However, if you (the spirit), under the direction of the Word of God and with the help of the Holy Spirit, will take control over your mind and body, you will live a life where you experience God’s best in every area. 

Your unrenewed mind and untrained body, which indicate a weak spirit, are going to want to sin, walk in fear, and to do all kinds of things that are outside of a lifestyle of love and faith.  If your spirit is weak, you won’t have the strength to rule over your mind and reign over your body when they want to think and act in opposition to the Word of God.  A weak spirit will get run over by the unrenewed mind and poorly trained body.  However, a person with a strong spirit (The Champion Spirit), can renew their mind and retrain their body to think and act in line with the Word of God.  2 Corinthians 10:3-5 says, “For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war after the flesh: (For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strong holds;) Casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ.”  This scripture is addressing your spirit.  You, the spirit-being, are responsible for keeping your thoughts in line with the Word of God and for bringing every thought you have into subjection to the Word of God.  The unrenewed mind has thought patterns that are not in line with the Word.  If you get born again and just let your mind think whatever it wants to think, it will control your life and keep you from God’s best.  When thoughts arise in your mind that aren’t in line with the Word of God, you need your spirit to be strong so that you can rise up and cast those thoughts down.  A weak spirit will let ungodly thoughts fester in the mind, but the strong spirit, The Champion Spirit, will cast down the wrong thought the moment it arises. 

It is also the job of your spirit (the real you) to control your physical body.  In 1 Corinthians 9:27 the Apostle Paul writes, “But I keep under my body, and bring it into subjection.”  I, the spirit-being, keep my body under and bring it into subjection (author paraphrase).  Before you were saved, your body was used to doing things a certain way.  Many of the things it was used to doing were in disobedience to the Word of God.  When you get saved, that same body and those same habits come with you.  It is the responsibility of your recreated spirit to retrain your body to do things that are in line with the Word of God.  Your spirit needs to be strong so that when your body wants to do the wrong thing; your spirit won’t allow it to do so, and when your body doesn’t want to do the right thing; your spirit will make it do so.  Your mind cannot be renewed, and your body cannot be retrained by a weak spirit-being.  Yourunrenewed mind and untrained body will just laugh at you and keep doing what they’ve always done. However, if you’ll develop a Champion Spirit, you can bring the mind and body into subjection to the Word.  There will be times when your unrenewed mind and untrained body will want to rebel against the Word of God.  For example, there will be times when you do not feel like walking in love, times when you do not feel like fighting the good fight of faith, and times when you do not feel like reading your Bible.  However, it’s in those times that you need The Champion Spirit to rise up on the inside of you and take control of your life and do what the Word of God says.  Christians with weak spirits will always struggle to obey God because they will be dominated by an unrenewed nature.  A Christian with a weak spirit often times knows what the Word of God says to do, but their spirit is so weak, they cannot execute it in their lives.  Consequently, those very same people experience a very low level of God’s blessing in their lives because all blessings from God are the result of obeying God.  On the other hand, the Christian who commits to do the things necessary to develop The Champion Spirit will find themselves dominating the mind and body and obeying God on every turn.  It is those people who see God’s blessing overtake them in every area of their lives. 

All spiritual defeats in life can be traced back to a weak spirit.  Any area of your life where you’ve experienced defeat was an area where your mind thought in disagreement or your body acted in disagreement with the Word of God.  Let’s take a closer look at how defeat manifests in the life of a believer.  Galatians 6:9 says, “And let us not be weary in well doing: for in due season we will reap, if we faint not.  According to that verse, the only way the believer will not see a harvest is if they faint. The word faint means to grow weak or tired out.  If the believer does not grow weak and tired, he will see the harvest he desires.  The weariness that leads to defeat begins in the mind.  Hebrews 12:3 says,“For consider him that endured such contradiction of sinners against himself, lest ye be wearied and faint in your minds.” The weariness that works in your mind will trickle down to your body.  In other words, when people get weary in their mind and start thinking they can’t go on or that they are not going to win, that weariness will trickle down to their body and discouragement will resonate in everything that they do.

Why are believers fainting in their minds?  Proverbs 24:10 says, “If you faint in the day of adversity, your strength is small.” It is very clear that people faint in their minds because their spirits are weak. Their spirits are not strong enough to cast down thoughts of failure and giving up.  Proverbs 18:14 says,“The Spirit of a man will sustain his infirmity (weakness).”  Your spirit is supposed to be strong and support the weakness of your mind and body.  When your mind and body are telling you they can’t go on, it is the job of your spirit to pull them along.  A strong spirit will keep your mind and body from fainting.  In Psalm 103:1 the psalmist writes, “Bless the LORD, O my soul: and all that is within me, bless his holy name.  Bless the LORD, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits.” The Psalmist is talking to his own mind. His soul must not feel like blessing the Lord, but his spirit rises up and supports the weakness of his soul. This is a time where his mind is struggling a bit so He (the spirit) talks to his mind and pulls it along.  This is a picture of what The Champion Spirit will do.  In the darkest hour when your mind feels like giving up and your body feels like it can’t go on, The Champion Spirit will get up on the inside of you and say I’m not quitting!  If you are going to be victorious in life, your spirit must be strong.  Even though your spirit has been made new and is created in the image of God, it has the potential to get weak.  Ephesians 3:16 says, “…to be strengthened with might by his Spirit in the inner man.”  The Apostle Paul is praying that God would grant them strength in the inner man.  The inner man is your spirit.  If your spirit was strong by default when it was created in the image of God, then the Apostle Paul would not have prayed this.  According to this verse you can be born again and have a weak spirit.  2 Corinthians 4:16 says, “For which cause we faint not; but though our outward man perish, yet the inward man is renewed day by day.”  Once again the inward man is referring to your spirit.  The wordrenewed means to be new in strength.  Our inward man needs new strength each day.  The fact that the strength of your spirit needs to be renewed each day reveals to us that your spirit has the potential to get weak. 

As a believer you are supposed to be strong.  I think some believers get the idea that God and Jesus are supposed to be strong, but they are just helpless little Christians.   Ephesians 6:10 says, “Be strong in the Lord and in the power of His might.”  This is not a suggestion.  It is a commandment.  You have been commanded to be strong.  You could flip that verse around and say it like this, “Don’t be weak!”  1 Corinthians 16:13 says, “Watch ye, stand fast in faith, act like men, be strong.”  These verses make it very clear that God does not want you weak, and in fact, He has commanded you to be strong.   Religion has tried to attach weakness and humility together.  Many believers have the idea that we are supposed to be little, weak, helpless, and feeble beings, and they call that humility.  Weakness and humility do not go together.  Jesus was the most humble man that ever walked the Earth, and at the same time He was the strongest man to ever walk the Earth.  Weakness is not a sign of humility; it is a sign of carnality.  If you are weak, it’s because you are engaging in carnal activities rather than being led by the Holy Spirit. However, if you are obeying God and being led by the Holy Spirit, your strength will be renewed and you are going to be strong.

Ephesians 5:1 says, “Be ye therefore imitators of God.” This verse reveals to us that we are supposed to be like God.  We are supposed to copy Him.  You cannot copy God if you do not know what He looks like.  To copy God you first must see how He truly is, and you do that by looking at Jesus.  Colossians 1:15 says, “…(Jesus) who is the image of the invisible God.” Psalm 24:8 gives us a picture of what Jesus looks like.  It says, “Who is this King of glory? The LORD strong and mighty, the LORD mighty in battle.”  Jesus is not weak, God is not weak, and you are not supposed to be weak.  You are supposed to be strong and mighty like the King of glory!  

In Luke 22 we get a closer look into how strong Jesus was.  In verse 41 it says, “And he was withdrawn from them about a stone’s cast, and kneeled down, and prayed, 42 Saying, Father, if thou be willing, remove this cup from me: nevertheless not my will, but thine, be done. 43 And there appeared an angel unto him from heaven, strengthening him. 44 And being in agony he prayed more earnestly: and his sweat was as it were great drops of blood falling down to the ground.”  This takes place just prior to Jesus being crucified on the cross.  The word agony in verse 44 reveals to us that Jesus was under severe mental and emotional pressure.  He knows He has to go to the cross, but His flesh does not want to go and the enemy is attacking Him in His mind.  The pressure was so great that as Jesus resisted, He sweat blood out of the pores of His skin.  Being under this extreme pressure the scripture said that the angel of the Lord strengthened Jesus, and He prayed more earnestly.  He did not give up, He did not cave in, and He did not quit.  He pushed forward.  He was strong.  He was The Champion Spirit.  He rose up against pressure and overcame it.  As Christians, we are supposed to be the very same way.  Christians should not be giving up, caving in, or quitting when pressure shows up.  Pressure should bring out the best in us the way it brought out the best in Jesus.  The believer with The Champion Spirit will rise up in the hour of darkness and triumph. 

The reality is that God needs you strong.  When you get born again you’re not only born into a new family, but you are also enlisted in the army of God.  God does not want His army weak.  In the Old Testament King David had mighty men.  That word mighty is also translated champion.  King David did not have an army made up of weaklings and sissies.  He had champions.  King David had one man in his army named Adino who killed 800 Philistines at one time.  King David had another man in his army named Eleazar.  One day when the Philistines attacked, Eleazor single-handedly defeated their entire army.  Shammah was also in King David’s army. The Philistines came to town to attack and trampled his bean patch.  The scripture says the people fled, but Shammah stood his ground and defended it, and he experienced a great victory.  Everybody else was fleeing, but Shammah stood his ground.  That’s The Champion Spirit.  That’s the type of men that King Jesus needs in His army.  Jesus needs you strong, He needs you ready, and He needs you fit for battle.  If your spirit is weak, you’re not fit for battle.  One of the biggest problems that many believers have is that they go into battle with a weak spirit.  A weak spirit cannot win.  1 Chronicles 12:8 says that David’s mighty men were men of war and they were fit for battle (paraphrase).  The way that we can get fit for battle, is to do the things that will develop The Champion Spirit.  It is vital that the believer engage in daily activities that are necessary to develop The Champion Spirit so that when it’s time to fight the good fight of faith they are ready. 

We need to be fanatical about the condition of our spirit the same way a body builder is about his or her body.  After all, the condition of our spirits will determine the quality of our lives.  We need to be devoted and dedicated to do whatever is necessary to keep our spirits strong.  1 Timothy 4:7-8 says, “But refuse profane and old wives’ fables, and exercise yourself rather unto godliness.  For bodily exercise profits little: but godliness is profitable unto all things.”  The word exercise in this verse means to train rigorously.  This scripture reveals to us that there is a physical training and exercise that one can engage in, but there is also spiritual training and exercise.  Spiritual exercise is more profitable and this verse commands us to engage this spiritual training.  The Amplified Bible in verse eight says, “(Spiritual training) is useful and of value in everything and in every way.” 

You will find that as you make the development of your spirit priority number one in your life, everything else in your life will fall into place.  If your spirit is strong, you will be well equipped to overcome anything that you may face.  You will overcome fear, worry, unbelief, strife, and bondage of any kind.  If you have a strong spirit you will be faithful, you’ll press on, and you will not quit.  A person with a strong spirit will win the battle in the mind.  They will cast down every thought that is contrary to the Word of God and force every thought that they have into subjection to the Word of God. A person with a strong spirit will love the unlovely, will believe when it looks impossible, and obey God at every turn.  It is the person with the weak spirit who will cave in and quit under pressure.  This person will be moved off the Word of God because of their present circumstances.  The believer whose spirit is weak will yield to the wrong thoughts and give into the desires of the flesh.  They will yield to strife and hold unforgiveness.  When thoughts of fear and failure come, they will yield to those thoughts rather than cast them down.  There is truly no hope for a Christian with a weak spirit (Proverbs 18:14). 

Having The Champion Spirit is essential.  What must we do to develop that type of spirit in our lives? What you’ll see is that the same principles that keep your physical body strong will keep your spirit strong.  There are three main things that will help you develop a strong spirit.

The first thing that you must do to develop a strong spirit is to have the right diet.  Your spirit feeds on words the way your body feeds on physical food.  Job 34:3 says, “For the ear tries words, as the mouth tastes meat.”  Hearing words is the way that you eat spiritually.  Just like in the natural realm, there is good food and junk food in the spiritual realm.  There are good words that will nourish you and keep you strong, and then there are words that will have a negative impact on the condition of your spirit.  1 Timothy 4:6-7 says, “If you instruct the brethren in these things, you will be a good minister of Jesus Christ, nourished in the words of faith and of the good doctrine which you have carefully followed. But reject profane and old wives’ fables, and exercise yourself toward godliness.” According to this verse, words of faith that are in line with the word of God will give your spirit nourishment.  If you feed your body junk food and never give it the proper nutrients, then it won’t be as strong as it should be.   The same thing applies to your spirit.  If all you do is feed on the words of the world through television, the Internet, and radio, your spirit will be weak.  Those words are spiritual junk food that feel good to the flesh, but produce no strength in your spirit.  Your “word-diet” must be full of the Word of God.  A spirit that is fed on the nutrition of the Word of God will be strong.

The second thing that you must do to develop a strong spirit is exercise spiritually.  1 Timothy 4:7says, “Exercise yourself towards godliness.”  To exercise spiritually you simply do what the Word of God says.  As you engage the Word of God by applying it in your life, your spirit will be exercised.  When a person exercises physically, pressure is applied to their physical body.  Under that pressure they exercise their body and then strength develops.  Spiritually it is exactly the same way.  For example, if a person is very hard for you to love, but under that pressure you love them with the love of God, you are exercising yourself spiritually and you will get stronger in your love towards other people.  For exercise to be effective and for strength to be developed, pressure and resistance to that pressure is necessary.  When pressure is being put on you, it is an opportunity for you to do what the Word of God says.  If you exercise yourself spiritually, you will get stronger.  If you give into pressure every time it shows up, you will never develop spiritually. People who do not do the Word of God will never encounter the pressure necessary to develop.  It’s when you love the unlovely that you’ll encounter pressure.  It’s when you believe God when it doesn’t look good that you’ll encounter pressure.  It’s when you rejoice, when you feel discouraged that you’ll encounter pressure.  As you encounter this pressure and do the Word of God in the midst of it, you will get stronger spiritually.  The reality is that when you begin to exercise spiritually by being a doer of the Word of God, your flesh (the unrenewed mind and poorly trained body) is not going to want to do it.  Galatians 5:17 says, “The flesh lusts against the spirit, and the spirit against the flesh.”  The word lust in that verse means to desire.  The flesh, which is the unrenewed part of you, has desires that are contrary to your spirit, which is the new part of you.  This is where the pressure comes in because you will feel the pressure of your flesh not wanting to do what the Word of God says. However, if you will engage the Word of God in those times and exercise spiritually, your spirit will get stronger.  1 Peter 5:10 says, “But the God of all grace, who hath called us unto his eternal glory by Christ Jesus, after that you have suffered a while, make you perfect, stablish, strengthen, settle you.  The suffering that this verse is referring to is the suffering of the flesh not getting its way.  When your flesh doesn’t get its way because you’re busy doing what the Word of God says, your spirit is becoming The Champion Spirit.

The third thing that we must do to develop a strong spirit is we must rest spiritually.  Hebrews 4:9-10 says, “There remains therefore a rest to the people of God.  For he that is entered into his rest, he also hath ceased from his own works, as God did from his.”  The way that we rest is that we cease from our own works.  Our own works are simply things that neither God nor the Holy Spirit told us to do.  Doing those types of things is taxing on your spirit, and it will drain you spiritually.  Things like sin and disobedience will drain every ounce of spiritual strength that you have.  When you get outside of God and His plan for you and get over into your own works, you are not resting and without rest your spirit will become weak.  When God tells us to do something, He gives us the grace and the strength to do it.  There is a refreshing and a renewing that is built into the plan of God.  Paul said in 2 Corinthians 4:16, “For which cause we faint not; but though our outward man perish, yet the inward man is renewed day by day.”  They were obeying God, and because they were obeying God their spirits were getting renewed with strength every day.  God does not give you grace to do things that He didn’t command you to do, and that is why disobeying Him is so taxing on our spirit.  God will not give you grace to worry, and that is why worrying is so wearisome.  God will not give you grace to hold unforgiveness, and that’s why holding unforgiveness is so exhausting.  When you engage these activities, it’s like pulling the drain on a tub full of water.  The way the water begins to drain out of the tub is the way the strength begins to drain out of your spirit.  If you are going to be spiritually strong, it is a must that you only do what God told you to do and enter into His rest. 

Victory awaits the believer who will develop The Champion Spirit.  It is time for every Christian to develop The Champion Spirit.  No longer are the days when you will be pulled around by the flesh.  No longer are the days that you will be moved off of the Word of God by an evil report.  God is looking for Champions.  He is looking for people who are strong and equipped for battle.  God needs people who will believe His Word and be led of His Spirit.  The army of God will no longer be made up of weak and defeated soldiers, but it will be made of Champions. It is time for the Champion to rise up on the inside of you!