It’s ironic then that somehow when we speak Soul, to those who follow Christ, it can be unnerving, or speaking to something that is either counterfeit, or worse, of the false light. In actual fact, the soul is owned by our creator, Lord God, Heavenly Father. And it always will be. We can refer to this outlined in Ezekiel 28. When He created us, God created our souls. Ezekiel 18:4 says ‘Behold, all souls are mine; the soul of the father as well as the soul of the son is mine: the soul who sins shall die”
So what is it? The soul is our mind, our emotions and our will: it is who we are as humans. We express our soul through our humanity and we magnify His power and presence through the soul as well. It is merely a channel. The body is the outer level, followed by the soul and the spirit which is the core.
The body, the soul and the spirit work together to help create our experience here on Earth. The body is the makeup of our physical functioning: our physical senses being sight, taste, smell, hear and touch. The soul is the house of the emotional realm and is how we can magnify God through our very human limitations.
The deeper connection we truly yearn for, is the spiritual and deeper connection we have with the Lord, it is one of the gifts Christ gave us when he became human and died for us, thus the only way to utilise the Spirit is if we believe in God, and follow the ways of the Spirit. When we receive Jesus into our hearts as our Saviour, Jesus resides within us, and we are drawn to a personal relationship with him.
When God made man, he made us with three parts: he formed the body with the dust from the ground, breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and thus man become a living soul which is made up of the mind, the emotion and the will.
The Spirit is the deepest part of our being, and was created by God purely for the purpose of having connection and receiving Him. While our body and our soul have their own specific functions, only our spirit is designed to connect with God and we can see this in various verses: John 4:24 . When I learned of this, I thought immediately of a radio antennae or a signal that receives Jesus exclusively. How cool is that? What’s more, God wants us to receive him and wants to fill us with Himself, and receive him. The moment we believe in Jesus, His spirit enters our spirit and we are regenerated and thus we become His children.
This is why I say “I am a daughter of God” because I am.
I remember the night this happened with me, sitting alone on the couch and I had this sensation of divine enmeshment, I felt the dance of the Spirit the recognition of Christ moving through me was scintillating, overwhelming and incredibly beautiful, I felt love beyond measure. This powerfully beautiful love that was indescribable. When we believe in Jesus, His Spirit enters into our spirit and interwines with us, its deeply personal and I’m finding it hard to write about, being that it is so sacred.
Knowing our spirit is foundational to our life with Christ, using His name: “Lord, Jesus Christ; Father God, Heavenly Father”. Tune into the spirit and connect. There doesn’t need to be anything fancy, just a conversation, connect to him and express your heartfelt gratitude, sorrows, hopes and fears. And wait for a response. If you find that’s too abstract, ask him to give you a sign that He is talking with you. He will. Just do it regularly and have faith. He always responds. No fancy words needed, but if you are feeling overwhelmed, then the Our Father is the way to pray as outlined in Matthew 6:9-13
As a result of our natural inherent inclination towards sin, since the fall, is that every soul is destined to die – a sin is a transgression against Divine Law. Therefore, except for Jesus who never sinned, every single person’s soul on Earth is destined to die along with the body purely because our natural and inherent tendency is sin. We can’t make it to heaven, by ourselves, no matter what we do on our own to reverse this reality. But all is not lost: God loved us so much he decided to create a pathway around satan’s antics, and ensure a fail safe path to Heaven via what is known as either redemption or salvation so that we may join . So he sent Jesus Christ his only begotten son to die instead as a substitute for sinners, so that we may have eternal life in Christ our Lord. This was effectively what is known as the atonement or the at-one-ment, and is the central message of the Bible. This is a substitute, Jesus put himself in place of all of us, and suffered the wrath of the Heavenly father in order that we may be free. Jesus was the blood sacrifice of the world, substituting his body to take the payment for all of the sins of the world, giving souls a chance at returning to heaven. It’s known as substitutionary atonement and you can find out more about that here.
It is amazing the lengths God goes to, in order to protect his own, don’t you think?
Many Blessings
PJ