We often wonder how we can reconcile the conflict between acting in an appropriate way towards people when we think or feel quite differently. For instance, there might be someone we don't really like, but the person wants to shake our hand and greet us. So we smile, shake their hand and greet them, and feel like a hypocrite inwardly. Or perhaps I've been having a rough day emotionally, but someone greets me, asking how I'm doing, someone not close enough for me to share my inner struggles. So, I say, "Fine," and feel like a hypocrite or liar.

On thinking about such situations, I realized that to think in this way is to act as if man only has two parts, a body and a soul. This kind of thinking is actually according to the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, that merely considers whether a situation is right or wrong according to my own reasoning, feeling, or assessment. This is contrary to the tree of life, which determines the rightness of things according to the principle of eating God, becoming one with God, and living out God--when we live out God, God is always right, and we are right in Him, not apart from Him.

How I might think or feel inwardly is according to my soul, that is, my mind and my emotions. To consider that this is what I am sincerely is to consider that my soul-life, my self, is the primary and real aspect of my being. But no! In addition to my body (actions, including my speech) and my soul (my inner thoughts, feelings, and decisions), I have a spirit! My spirit is the aspect of me that can be one with God and that can contact God.

Although the popular saying goes, "Be true to yourself," the Lord rather commands, "Deny your self!" My self, my soul-life, is not the real me; this is Satan's nature manipulating the faculties of my soul. The real me is Christ in my spirit expressing Himself through my crucified and resurrected soul. In the scenario of greeting someone I don't like, my not liking that person is something in my emotions. But my spirit, one with God, loves that person! Thus, I can reject my Satanic emotions, turn to my spirit, and sincerely greet this person with love. In the case of the question, "How are you?", I do not have to reply, "Fine," which would probably be understood as meaning that my soul feels fine—which is not the case—but I can answer something true according to my spirit. I can never predict what exactly the Lord might speak out from my spirit in a hypothetical situation (Mat 10:20—it is His instant speaking, not my ethical imagination), but it might be something about the joy and peace in my spirit despite the outward circumstances.

To speak out from my spirit is no hypocrisy. My true self is not my soul-life; it is my inner man, my spirit one with God expressing God through my transformed soul. The hypocrisy is actually to ignore my spirit and to act according to my soul-life. Whether I act with social nicety, or I act according to my emotional feeling or to my mental reasoning, anything that is not out from my spirit is hypocrisy—it is all out from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Only my spirit is life, according to the tree of life. Thus, I should not be true to my self, to my soul life; rather, I must deny my self and be true to my spirit!