There is a movie that came out in 1999 called “The Sixth Sense.”

In it we see a young boy who carries on conversations with people who are dead.

These people have died some violent death and are on a mission to right the wrong done to them before they can go off to their final rest, whatever that may be.

This film is Biblically or theologically wrong, of course. To begin with, when you die, your spirit leaves your body. It does not, however, remain on the earth to do things. It either goes to be with the Lord, as Paul said, “to be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord,” or it goes to hell and waits for the Great White Throne Judgment.

People talk about the ghost of Uncle Bob returning to haunt his house. That is not so. There may be demons in that house – and they will try to deceive some gullible people into thinking that they are Uncle Bob’s ghost, but they are just “deceiving spirits.” Demons are liars just like their father the devil.

Uncle Bob is gone – he’s not coming back to seek revenge, right wrongs, earn his way to heaven, or anything else Hollywood.

Movies would like to show him doing.

I liked the movie’s title, “The Sixth Sense,” and the fact that this young boy could function in that realm so easily – it seemed natural for him to talk to these spirit beings.

“I see dead people”

As believers, we have a sixth sense that has to do with the spirit realm, and we can operate in and with that realm.

We are not dealing with the spirits of dead people but with demons, angels, and the spirit and person of God.

Jesus was a great model of this kind of living. Being so aware of His Father and the realm of the spirit and yet simultaneously being very connected to this earthly realm.

His life ended by saying that “some folks are just so heavenly minded they are no earthly good.” Show me one person in that condition. If they are no earthly good, they have not touched spiritual reality.

No one was more aware of spiritual things than Jesus, and no one was more earthly good.

When you come alive “in the spirit,” your life takes on new value.

To the spiritually mature, spiritual things are natural, and natural things are spiritual.

Spiritual things will fill every moment of their day with richness and joy.

We have segregated the natural away from the spiritual in a way that has left people with great misconceptions about this walk in the spirit.

Those who have developed spiritually have integrated spiritual things into every area of their earthly walk. That’s what we call living daily in the spirit realm.

Living and walking “in the spirit” is in that sixth sense realm.

Many things try to distract us from living in that realm.

Let me show you an example of this.

My wife likes to wear perfumes and cologne. She has had various favorites over the years. When we were younger, she used to wear lemon-scented colognes. Her cologne was lemon, her soaps were lemon. It smelled nice and fresh, and whenever I smelled lemon, it made me think of her.

Then came other fragrances; some made me sneeze, some choked, and others were just great.

Now how do I know she is wearing cologne or perfume? My eyes can’t see it, so they say – “No perfume here.” My ears can’t hear it – my fingers can’t feel it, and my taste buds can’t taste it.

Four out of five of my natural senses say that there is no perfume. But my nose says there is. Now my eyes, ears, fingers, and taste buds all work fine, but they say there is no evidence of cologne or perfume. They are not defective. They just aren’t designed to smell things.

Our physical senses may deny that anything is going on in the spirit realm, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t. Just because my eyes don’t see the wind doesn’t mean it isn’t there.

We have these five physical senses to contact the environment around us. They give information to our body so that it can guide itself around and so that we can enjoy things.

If I had to give up one of these senses, I would find it very hard to do.

Not being able to see would drastically affect my life. I couldn’t read how I do or drive or see the beauties of nature or the smile on the faces of the people I know and love.

If I couldn’t hear, I’d miss that. I enjoy music. I listen to all kinds of it. I like classical, country, bluegrass, southern gospel, and jazz. I’d miss that if I couldn’t hear.

Most of all I think, if I lost my hearing, I’d miss the sound of my wife’s voice. I’ve listened to her since we met in 1965, and I never tire of hearing her. I also enjoy the voices of my children and grandchildren. Their voices are a kind of music to me!

If I couldn’t smell – one thing I’d miss is that wonderful smell of coffee when I first pour it.

I’d miss that sweet smell of a newborn baby. Or that warm scent on my sweaters when my wife has borrowed them. I can smell her all day – and I like it when she does.

Not being able to taste – coffee and a donut would be like bland porridge.

No sense of touch could make a kiss very dull.

So in the natural realm, our eyes are used for vision, our ears for the hearing senses, our nose for smelling, our nerve endings for touching, and our taste buds for tasting.

In that sixth sense, we also have sensory devices with which to live in the spirit realm.

Faith is our sensory device for the sixth sense realm of the spirit.

We walk by faith in that realm. We live by faith. We please the Father with faith. We receive everything from the heavenly and spirit realms – using our faith.

We enjoy a set-free life of grace by using our faith.

We are saved by the grace of God, but we enjoy it using our faith. The word “saved” used here in its context isn’t necessarily talking about the new birth of our spirit. Saved means preserved, kept, set apart. We are saved people by grace and through our faith. Living the life of a saved person is living it by faith.

The things that we hope for, we receive using our faith.

We hope for something, and that is the blueprint of the thing we desire. Faith is that substance that the spiritual realm manufactures that item out of, and it then becomes a physical item.

Everything that comes to us comes to us from the spirit realm first.

To operate in the spirit realm we need to use our faith. We cannot function in the spirit realm without faith any more than we can see without eyes or hear without ears.

Question:

Can we operate with the same efficiency in that realm of the spirit – in that sixth sense realm – as we do in the physical sense realm?

The answer is yes!

Earlier I said that Jesus operated in it all the time. By operating in it he could affect the natural realm by using the powers of the sixth sense realm, the spirit realm.

One example of this was in Mark 8 when He fed the 4,000 with seven loaves of bread.

The power of compassion (the power of God’s love) flowed into the spirit realm and brought this about.

That power of faith and compassion went into the sixth sense realm and produced the bread needed to feed the 4,000. We know several other situations where Jesus called on the spirit realm to produce in the physical realm.

Let’s take this into another area where we can operate in the spirit realm.

In the area of prayer: according to Ephesians 6:18, we are to pray always “in the spirit”. Prayer is a sixth sense activity. It requires faith to operate in it as well. To sit down and talk to an unseen God, who is in the physical sense, light years away – takes faith.

The great thing about this

is God has given us all the faith we need. All that we need to do is use it.

Here are some other areas in which prayer operates in the spirit realm. I’m going to take you to a couple of passages, that as we look into them, you may say to yourself – “wow, I never really noticed that before.”

In the context of this passage, Paul is talking about a matter concerning a man that needed to be dealt with in the church, but right in the middle of his instructions, he throws in this.

“I am present in spirit … as if I am present”. He doesn’t just mean in the spirit or attitude of what is going on. He says it again, “when you and my own spirit are met together.”

Now before I comment further, let’s read another one.

“I am with you in the spirit”

Paul was in jail in Rome when he wrote these letters. His spirit was in his body, it never left it, or he would die. He didn’t have an out-of-body experience. But his spirit was there with them.

How can that be?

Right now your lungs are full of air. That same air is all over the globe. The air you are breathing is the same air that someone in Australia is breathing. The air is connected.

In the same way, your spirit is connected with the Spirit of God that is in the Father in heaven, in the Son who is seated next to him, in me, in the person next to you, and in a believer in South Africa. He, the Spirit of God, is omnipresent.

We can be served with our body in this physical realm, and we can be served in the spiritual realm with our spirit.

Paul talks about that in:

“I serve with my spirit”

How was he serving? He was doing it by praying for others.

Let’s go back to what Paul said in that letter to the Colossians.

In the physical realm: When your toe hurts, your hand tries to comfort it.

When your mouth tastes something good and warm, you respond with comfort throughout your body. When you see something you like – the feet will start to head toward it.

In the same way our physical body interconnects, we who are a part of the Body of Christ interconnect. We are one body. We are in joint fellowship with other believers in the spirit.

In the spiritual realm: You can live in your body here on earth and be connected to the throne of heaven at the same time. That’s walking in two realms, the physical and the spiritual.

That’s operating in the sixth sense.

As you become aware of all of this and start to think in these terms and then act on this – you will be living in two realms. We have that freedom to be in our earth suit body

and with our omnipresent spirit simultaneously. We are not bound to function in only five senses; we are set free to live in that sixth sense, the realm of the spirit.

Summary.

1. Uncle Bob’s ghost can’t come back to haunt you. Those are just deceiving demons making all that racket. As believers, we can cast them out.

• We have five physical senses. Each one has a job to do. Just because your eyes can’t hear that doesn’t mean there is no sound occurring.

Just because your five physical senses don’t sense something in the spirit that doesn’t mean it’s not happening either.

• The sensory device we use to be aware of the spirit realm is our faith.

Like we use our nose to smell, we use our faith to navigate and operate that sixth sense.

We need to exercise our faith by using it in the sixth sense realm.

• We must become aware that we are operating in two realms, the physical and the spiritual. To the spiritually mature, spiritual things are natural, and natural things are spiritual.

Let’s enjoy that freedom to be sensitive to that sixth sense and develop it.

After all, why stop at five senses when you are free to enjoy a sixth?