The Importance of Patience (Part III)
If we desire to become Christ-like, we should not resist developing patience but instead embrace it! …
Soul
Love the Lord Your God (Part III)
But when the Pharisees heard that He had silenced the Sadducees, they gathered together. Then one of them, a lawyer, asked Him a question, testing Him, and saying, “Teacher, which is the great commandment in the law?”
Jesus said to him, “‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ This is the first and great commandment. Matthew 22:34-40
I shared in the last devotional that Jesus’ commandment to love the Lord has different elements that we should slow down and meditate on. Last time, I wrote about loving the Lord with all our hearts. In this devotional, I will share about loving the Lord with all our souls.
How do we love the Lord with all our souls!? The more we allow our soul to come under the direction of the Holy Spirit, the more spiritual we become, which allows us to love the Lord genuinely rather than out of our fickle feelings or thoughts of the moment! Before we knew Christ, our soul was in charge, and it took its cues from the natural world and our five senses. We were carnal beings before we came to salvation. Carnality has to do with all the fleshly desires and operating only from a natural and visible perspective. After salvation, our spirit man should grow to become the one in charge and our soul should come under its control, otherwise we will love the Lord based on our natural senses and circumstances rather than our communion with God!
And I, brethren, could not speak to you as to spiritual people but as to carnal, as to babes in Christ. I fed you with milk and not with solid food; for until now you were not able to receive it, and even now you are still not able; for you are still carnal. For where there are envy, strife, and divisions among you, are you not carnal and behaving like mere men? For when one says, “I am of Paul,” and another, “I am of Apollos,” are you not carnal? 1 Corinthians 3:1-4
Paul told the Corinthian believers that they were carnal. One of the ways that we know someone is carnal is that they have remained childish in their faith and refuse to grow up. They cannot handle weighty things of God, and they are still in need of milk to be nourished and nurtured by someone else. Their spirit man has remained infantile!
If we are going to love the Lord with all our souls, we need to have a soul that is surrendered to our spirit man. The Bible directs to grow up and to put aside carnality. Paul gave us some of the symptoms that can help determine if we are fleshly and carnal or if we are spiritual. He told the Corinthian believers that they have factions, envy, strife, and division. These individuals were still controlled by their carnal nature, and they had not allowed the spirit of God to take control of their souls.
Unfortunately, carnality is prevalent in the body of Christ. We can see strife, division, and competition between different members or groups in the church. Generally, people claim that it is somebody else’s fault. Someone else is the problem or started the strife. The truth is that carnality begets carnality, and we don’t have to allow others to trap us in it.
A spirit-led life requires self-control, forgiveness, and trust in the Lord in order not to get engaged in carnality. We cannot control or correct others’ behavior. Our part is to not get into the ring of strife and avoid a carnality that would feed the flesh and cause more harm for us and others.
Jesus has commanded us to love Him with all our souls. We don’t have to allow anyone to pollute our souls. We can say “no” to our flesh. We have to continually subject the soul to be controlled by our spirit man rather than our fleshly tendencies. It is not an easy process, but the more we do it and see the fruit of the spirit developing in us, we grow in maturity. It also allows us to have more faith the next time when a situation comes up that tries to take over our souls and cause us to walk in carnality!
Thank you Lord for making us aware that many times we have been carnal and have not loved you with all our souls. Please forgive us for not obeying your first commandment. Give us the grace to remain alert and to allow the Holy Spirit to take control of our souls!
Image by silviarita from Pixabay
Fighting in the Spirit (Part II)
One of the main areas of spiritual battle is our internal being. This is also one of the hardest ones to fight. Generally, the main subject in preachings is our spiritual health, but the soul can get neglected in teachings. The soul was the strongest part of us prior to coming to Christ, and it tries to keep its supremacy after surrendering our lives to Christ. Therefore, it is important to tackle this part of our being, which can easily be manipulated by the enemy.
Our soul is made up of our thoughts, emotions, and will. What we see, hear, sense, and feel gets interpreted by our soul based on its prior experiences and worldview. This interpretation creates our perception of reality, which may or not be the truth. For example, if we see a friend at church who does not happen to acknowledge us, we can create one of several scenarios in our minds. Some may move on and forget about the exchange. Others will try to think about their last exchange with that friend and determine what went wrong. Some may confront the friend about the issue. Others might feel rejected and assume the worst.
A brother offended is harder to win than a strong city, and contentions are like the bars of a castle. Proverbs 18:19
Such an exchange as the above example seems benign and does not look like a spiritual battle. However, once we open the door to the enemy by believing the lie that something must be wrong, we strengthen the enemy’s power in our lives. Our soul loses its rest, and we are hurt over nothing. The lie leads to offense and intentional distance from those we care about. Furthermore, we are more prone to similar incidents, which can make us think that there must be something wrong with us. These kinds of situations happen frequently at work, church, or family gatherings, and misunderstandings wreak havoc in the person’s soul and their relationships.
We cannot interpret things based on our limited understanding. That’s why it is important to trust God with all our hearts. In the above example, instead of drawing conclusion based on a limited information, we can stop ourselves from going in the wrong direction. We don’t have to assume that the person is mad or intended to reject us. We can just ask the Lord to show us if there is something that we need to do. We submit the situation and the relationship to Him and allow the Lord to guide us. This approach aborts the enemy’s process from playing with our thoughts and emotions. We made the decision to overcome the situation and not allow ourselves to create scenarios based on our limited understanding.
We also choose intentionally to transform our minds based on what is pleasing to God and think of things that are pure, lovely, and praiseworthy. We choose to believe the best in others and fight the battle of feeling rejected or neglected. Whether the action was intentional or not, we can choose to forgive the person, so we can be in a position to remain in a relationship with them and not give a foothold to the enemy.
Is your soul at rest or do you easily get agitated in your mind, emotions, and will? Pay attention to the doors that you open to the enemy and choose the word of God to live differently. The spiritual battle is not always going to announce itself; sometimes it will come in ordinary ways to distract and derail us and cause our soul to lose its peace! Fighting in the spirit is sometimes as simple as rejecting a thought that will lead us down a wrong path!