My Soul Waits for the Lord

Jesus fills the hungry soul with His life, peace and joy. What is our soul? It is one entity in our triune make-up: our body, soul and spirit (1 Thessalonians 5:23). The soul is our thoughts, feelings and choices.

One word for soul in the Bible is ”pxyxe" and means to breathe, or to blow. God breathed His breath of life into us and our soul was born. We get our words psyche, psychology, etc. from this root word. The soul is our personality, our identity as an individual.

God justifies us in our spirit through salvation; He will glorify our body with immortality when we see Jesus face-to-face; but He sanctifies our soul in a life-long process to make us as holy as He is holy.

If we earnestly seek the Lord with our whole heart and soul, we shall find Him (Deuteronomy 4:29; Matthew 22:37). We thirst for Him in this desert of life; we long for Him with our entire being (Psalm 63:1).

If we do not seek Him, we may gain the whole world, but we will lose our soul to the fires of hell throughout eternity (John 3:18: Matthew 16:26). The better choice is to search for an intimate union with God with the entire focus of our heart (Jeremiah 29:13).

God created us as an awesome and wonderfully made body, soul and spirit and placed our soul in our innermost being. We find true rest for our soul in God through salvation (Psalm 62:1; Jeremiah 6:16).

When our soul is depressed and disturbed within us, we can put our hope in God, praising Him in the good times and the bad (Psalm 42:11). He works out even the most horrific details of our life for our good (Romans 8:28).

Prayer:

Father God, You created us so that we prosper in life in the same manner that our soul prospers (3 John 1:2). If our soul is overwhelmed and depressed, it affects our body and spirit as well. Help us to see that we will prosper only as we love You foremost in our heart, walk in obedience to Your precepts, keep Your commandments, hold fast to You and serve You with our whole heart and soul (Joshua 22:5).

We praise Your holy name from our innermost being, because You have delivered us from the destructive pathway of sin (Psalm 71:23, 103:1). Our whole being waits for You, and our hope is based on Your Word (Psalm 130:5). Your encouragement of us is sweeter than a honeycomb, feeds our soul and heals our body (Proverbs 16:24).

Thought for the Day:

In our final days on this earth, we will clearly see that God did not fail to deliver any of His promises to us; if we appreciate all that He does for us now and walk only in His will, we will reap the benefits of an eternal life blessed by His love. - Joshua 23:14

The Door to Freedom

 

It almost takes a lifetime for human beings to come to the realization that God is always right. Starting with the fact that there really is nothing good about our humanity (Romans 7:18, 8:7). Our personality and talents from God are so much more winsome and creative than those we develop through our training and natural abilities. If we look to our self or to this world for life, liberty and happiness, we are miserably disappointed.

Our flesh is despicable to God. That is why Christ died in our place (Romans 4:25; 2 Corinthians 11:18). Nothing less than absolute annihilation of our flesh will aid us in coming into perfect union with Christ in us. This is not our responsibility, however. We simply surrender to the Holy Spirit who perfects us by replacing our carnality with His fruit. Sometimes, it takes more than one trial to completely eradicate our flesh in one certain area.

Therefore, it may take a lifetime for Him to replace our carnality with each one of His fruit (Galatians 5:22-23). Through His death, Jesus gave us eternal life, which begins the moment we believe in Him and commit to walk away from our sins (John 3:16-18). It is only through our union with God that we attain eternal freedom and joy (Galatians 5:1; Psalm 27:5-7). We no longer hunger and thirst for what this world has to offer. We only want more of God (Matthew 5:6).

Seeking God with our whole heart is the only way we will find Him (Jeremiah 29:13). If we go without food for days, we are no longer hungry; and we will die a slow death. The same thing happens in the spiritual life. When we lose our hunger for God, we die spiritually as well. Fellowshipping with other Saints who also hunger for God will help to fill our hungry soul and spirit (Psalm 107:9).

When we comprehend the freedom, which is ours through Christ, who is our whole life, we realize that our humanity is already dead, because we are actually hidden with Christ in God (Colossians 3:3-4). Then, we cease from our human striving and stress and enter into His rest (Hebrews 4:10). Absolute surrender to God’s will for our individual life (Ephesians 2:8-10) is our only door to freedom.

Prayer:

Father God, You gave Jesus the power to save us to the most extreme measure of perfection (Hebrews 7:25; Romans 5:6-9). We are crucified with Him; and we can only successfully navigate the life, which we now live on this earth, by the power of Christ in us, who loves us and gave Himself for us (Galatians 2:20). Therefore, we voluntarily lay down our life and take up Your life by Your Spirit in us (1 Corinthians 3:16).

Thought for the Day:

Jesus is the only door to the throne room of God. – John 10:9

I Want My Own Way

Most people think that Satan is public enemy number one for the Christian. However, the will of man is actually the foremost enemy of our spiritual life. Our will has the power to submit to God or to the flesh and Satan. If we do not realize the benefits of surrendering to God and denying the flesh, our will always sides with our flesh, even if it is against our better judgment! We are able to prosper with a healthy life only to the extent to which our soul flourishes (3 John 1:2). Our soul is a very vital part of our existence. It is not the flesh, but is used by the flesh for sin’s expression.

Our will employs our motives, desires, goals and ambitions, which are driven either by our flesh or by God’s Spirit. The flesh preys upon the thoughts, choices and emotions of our soul. The first step to success is to request that our High Priest sacrifice our carnal flesh on the altar of God. Then, we are free to follow the leading of God’s Spirit moment by moment throughout the day. Once the Spirit of God takes control of our life, our soul is sanctified from one level of glory to the next. The flesh no longer uses our soul, because our will chooses to honor Christ instead (2 Corinthians 3:18).

We are dead to sin by the blood of the Lamb (Romans 6:11); therefore, we do not have to allow sin to use our body and soul any longer (Romans 6:12). As we read the Word of God, it shines a light on the areas in our life that the Holy Spirit wants to cleanse. He deals with these issues until He purifies that area of our life (1 Peter 1:22). His Word is sure and mighty and pulls down Satanic and fleshly strongholds in our soul (Hebrews 4:12). Our part is to refuse to give the flesh a moment of our attention. In this way, we do not encumber our spirit with the carnal demands of our flesh. 

Christ gradually corals our will, gives us His mind and replace our emotions with the fruit of His Spirit (1 Corinthians 2:16; Galatians 5:16-25). We do not return to the anxiety and grief of our former carnal life, because not only is our spirit regenerated, but also our soul is being saved by the faith of Christ within us (Matthew 6:25; Galatians 2:20; Hebrews 10:39). The more submissively we surrender our will to God’s will for our life, the more freedom, fulfillment and peace we experience (Ephesians 6:6). Even if He counts us worthy to partake of His suffering, Jesus fills our soul with His presence, which sees us through any hardship we ever encounter in the life (Philippians 3:10; 1 Peter 4:13,19).

Prayer:

Father God, we diligently search for You with a parched soul that desires no one but You. We see the miracles You perform daily in our life, things that many people overlook or account as coincidental. We long for Your love and we want nothing more than to dwell in Your courts forever. We give You praise and we glorify You with every waking breath and even in the night watches, because You meet our every need. We gladly claim You as our God. We cling to You as You carry us in Your everlasting arms (Psalm 63:1-9).

Thought for the Day:

The serene soul finds a place of deep rest by yoking up with Christ, Who carries our load and leads us to green pastures and still water (Matthew 11:29; Psalm 23:2-3).