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 Purpose of God's Spirit in Us

Jesus died once for anyone who believes in Him. We will eventually be raised with Christ into immortality, because death no longer has any mastery over Christ in us.

We used to be slaves to sin, but now we owe our allegiance to Christ as slaves to righteousness (Romans 6:1-18). Each moment of our life, we submit our plans to God's direction (Proverbs 3:5-6).

Through the sanctification process by His Spirit, the carnality in our body and soul decrease and He increases within us (John 3:30). Even our physical life is His.

Through His life within us, although our body may go to the grave, our spirit and soul live forever with God. We are filled with the Holy Spirit and are part of Christ’s Body (Romans 8:9).

The Spirit transforms our life by giving us His fruit (Galatians 5:22-23). We exhibit fewer carnal characteristics in exchange for the nature of God.

We have more love, joy, peace, patience, gentleness, goodness, meekness, self-control and faith. We have less greed, anxiety, deception, evil thoughts and actions, pride, rebellion, impatience and intolerance for others.

God's Spirit calls us to a life of faith and obedience, and we respond by relinquishing the depravity in our life in exchange for the holiness of God (Romans 12:1-2).

Our life is hidden with Christ in God through the Holy Spirit (1 Corinthians 6:17; 2 Peter 1:4; Hebrews 3:14, 6:4; Romans 6:11). As we realize that we are already dead in Christ (Colossians 3:3), we no longer control our life; He does.

God's Spirit is more and more able to express Himself through our body, spirit and soul – our mind, will and emotions – as we live a surrendered life to Him.

Prayer:

Father God, You are waiting for us in Heaven (Matthew 6:9), but You are always with us through Christ and Your Holy Spirit, even to the end of the age of grace (Matthew 28:20). We give You all of the praise and glory due to Your name. We cry "worthy" to the Lamb who gave Himself to be slain for us before You even created the world (1 Peter 1:20).

Thank You that Jesus sent the Spirit of truth to come and guide us into all truth. The Spirit speaks Your words to us and reveals to us what is yet to come (John 16:13). As our triune God, You come to make Your home in everyone who obeys Your Word and the teachings of Christ (John 14:23).

Thought for the Day:

The purpose of God's Spirit within us is to sanctify our carnality, to transform us into the nature of Christ, to guide us into all truth and to comfort us in every affliction.

The Perfect Balance

Have you ever wondered if this world is the only stage on which our life plays out? Our body is a temporary dwelling place, such as a tent (2 Corinthians 5:1). We live in it only during our time on this earth.

Within our body is our soul and spirit. Until we surrender to Christ, our spirit is dead in Adam’s sin. Once we walk away from our sinful lifestyle and dedicate our life to Christ, our spirit finally comes to life (Ephesians 2:1, 5).

Our body’s health is affected by our emotional, mental and physical decisions. Our spiritual decision or indecision in this life determines our eternal destination (John 3:18; Luke 6:45).

When we die physically, our body goes to the grave and turns to dust. Yet, our spirit and soul go on to eternity in either heaven or hell, depending on our belief or unbelief in Jesus Christ (Romans 10:9-10).

Our moral decisions in this life are based on whether we allow our soul - our thoughts, decisions and emotions - or our spirit to direct our paths.

We can choose to walk according to the dictates of the world, the devil and the desires of our flesh, or we can walk in the Spirit of God (Galatians 5:15-25).

Through sanctification, our soul is transformed and we have the mind of Christ and the fruit of God’s Spirit (Galatians 5:22-23; Romans 12:2, 1 Corinthians 2:16).

As the redeemed of the Lord (Psalm 107:2-8), we talk about the incidents of God’s blessings in our life with anyone who is interested in listening.

Some of these people may decide they want this same blessed life and ask us how to get it. We simply share the gospel with them: “Repent and believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and you shall be saved” (Mark 1:15).

Prayer:

Father God, Your Word, the Bible, tells us that when we see Jesus, we shall be changed, because we shall be like him (1 John 2:2-3). Jesus is in an immortal body, which never ages or gets sick. Your Saints shall have an immortal body for eternity too (1 Corinthians 15:53).

Remind us that, while we dwell on earth, You have a specific purpose for our life. We should not clutter our days with endless activity, but we do not sit passively either, as life passes us by. Instead, we walk in the Spirit and fulfill Your will for our life (Ephesians 2:10).

Thought for the Day:

Satan will try to tempt us to walk in immorality or to detrimentally occupy all of our time with busywork, rather than walking in obedient devotion to God.