Spiritual Substance

Substance is the underlying reality of a thing. Without substance, a thing does not exist. The underlying reality of the universe is spiritual in nature. God, who created the heavens and the earth, is spirit. The natural realm comes forth from the spiritual. Without the spiritual, the physical realm would cease to be. Spiritual substance is the underlying reality of everything. Understanding this helps us begin to grasp how Jesus was able to do the things He did:

• When Jesus turned water into wine, He was dealing with spiritual substance, the underlying reality of both water and wine.
• When He multiplied the loaves and the fish to feed the five thousand, He was working with the spiritual substance underlying the bread and meat.
• When He walked on water, He was walking on spiritual substance, the underlying reality of water.
• When the woman with the issue of blood touched the hem of Jesus’ garment, she was laying hold of the spiritual substance, the underlying reality of her wholeness. It manifest in the natural, for Jesus felt power go out of Him and the woman immediately experienced her healing.
  

Let’s go a little further. The spiritual substance which forms the foundation for everything is actually the Word of God. The Bible says, “By faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the Word of God, so that the things which are seen were not made of things which are visible” (Hebrews 11:3). Now we can understand more of how Jesus did what He did:

• When He commanded the waves and the wind, He was speaking the Word of God, which causes things to be.
• When He commanded the fig tree, He was speaking the Word, dealing with the spiritual substance which was the underlying reality of that tree.
• When He commanded demons to go, He was exercising the spiritual substance of the Word of God.
• When He taught the disciples to speak to the mountain, He was instructing them in how to lay hold of the spiritual substance, the underlying reality of the mountain.
  

We need to change our thinking to realize that everything that exists is spiritual at its foundation — or else it could not exist at all. Food, money, houses, cars, the human body — these may all be physical concerns, but they are also spiritually-based.

Now, we can deal with all these things in the natural, but then we are only approaching them at a superficial level. We may have a little success this way, but it is limited, because we are only dealing with symptoms.

Because these things are all spiritually-based, the most effective way to deal with them, at the foundational level, is with the Word of God, the spiritual reality which lays under everything in the universe.

What does the Word of God say about all these things? That’s the real question we need to ask, and then line ourselves up with that. Listen to the Word of God, which cause faith to come, then proclaim it to the circumstances in your life. That’s getting down to the root of things, where true change can happen. For the facts of the world must line up with the truth of the Word.