The abundant life of
the soul
Text: 1Thessalonians 5:23: “… and I pray God that your whole spirit and soul and body be preserved
blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.”
The soul realm of the tridimensional man as we saw last week
is the realm of consciousness in man. It is made up of the mind, the will and
the emotions of man. It is the window through which man’s spirit sees the world
and the spirit realm. For a clearer understanding of the soul, let us break it
up into three parts namely the mind, the will and the emotions.
The mind
The human mind is the most complex computer in the entire
world. The brain which is the physical representation of the mind is referred
to in science as the magic trees of the mind because the neurons that make up
the brain are nerve cells that look like trees. The brain is said to process
four hundred billion actions per second. We have a hundred billion nerve cells
in our brains and each nerve cell can grow up to two hundred thousand branches.
This means we have around three million years’ worth plus of space in our
brains to build up memories. These trees like nerve cells of our brain take up
a beautiful form that can be likened to a well-watered green tree or an ugly
form which can be likened to a withered grey tree depending on the kind of
thoughts you dwell on because thoughts are actually things. In fact it is these
thoughts look like trees in the brain!
The mind is the part of man that thinks and reasons and
stores up information in the name of memories and data. It also has the ability
to process information and observations and eventually come up with a
conclusion known as judgments. This in turn influences our emotions and our
wills as we shall see later in this study. The judgments that the mind produce are
either sound or unsound depending on how much influence the Holy Spirit and the
word of God has over such a mind. In other words, depending on how spiritual
the mind is. This explains why several people can attend the same Church at the
same time and hear the same word of God but turn out differently. The extent to
which a person can benefit from the word of God is the extent to which they
have renewed their minds. Remember that at new birth, only our spirits are
saved; our souls and bodies remain the same (John 3:6; 2Cor.5:17; Rom.12:1-2
and Jas.1:21). The bible tells us what to do with a part of our soul known as
our mind to enable us save our souls from the spectacle colored by a wrong
belief system due to our traditions and natural experiences prior to our new
birth experience.
In Romans 12:2, we are told to renew our minds so that we can
see clearly. Until you see clearly or view things from God’s point of view, you
cannot rightly divide the word of truth and your knowledge of scriptures would
be tinted by traditions of men and unbelief which make the word of God of no
effect! The result would be your inability to make sound judgments in the
issues of life and therefore not being able to enjoy the abundant life the Lord
has already achieved for us. See Matthew
15:3-6; 22:29; Mark 12:24; 2Tim.2:15; Col.2:8, 16-23.
The importance of developing our souls to match up with our
spiritual upgrade to the class of God cannot be overstated. In Isaiah 55:8-11,
God was showing the distinction between His thought level and that of the
natural man and therefore, His ways and the ways of natural man. We can see
from this text that the ways of God are far higher than our ways and His
thoughts than our thoughts. He went on
to show that because of the high level of His thinking, His word never returns
unaccomplished. This is why the Apostle Paul says that no word of God is void
of power. If we are to operate successfully at this realm of abundant life to
which we have been called, we must of necessity upgrade our thinking pattern to
line up with that of God. The quality of your life therefore is determined by
the extent to which you are able to upgrade your thinking pattern to match up
with that of God. How do we get to do this? The bible tells us. We can renew
our minds with the word of God to enable us live up to this new life otherwise
known as the abundant life; the life lived in the realm of divinity. The process
of mind renewal can be achieved by taking the following steps.
1.
The New birth experience: The spiritual rebirth otherwise
known as the born again experience is the foundation for mind renewal
otherwise, we would merely experience a form of godliness that denies the power
of God. No matter how much a plastic seed looks like the original, it can never
germinate even when given all the right environment for it to do so. This is
why your membership of a Church without the new birth experience that initiates
you into the family of God does not grant you access to the abundant life. The
best you can get from operating the principles of the abundant life without
first laying this foundation is leanness to your soul in spite of the blessing
that robs off on you and you do not want that. This is what gave rise to men
like Hitler and Stalin whose lives could best be described as efforts in
futility resulting in colossal wastage of lives and property. Until God gives
you a heart of flesh which describes the New Creation Spirit, you cannot
experience mind renewal which results in God’s word being inscribed in your
heart by His Holy Spirit. Thus your soul cannot be saved. See John 3:3-6;
Romans 10:6-10; James 1:21; Ezek.36:26-27; Jer.31:31-34; Heb.10:15-17.
2.
Read
the word, meditate on it until understanding is hatched and share it until it
becomes a part of you, then study it until you can teach it. See 1Tim.4:13-16;
Joshua 1:8; Ps.1:1-3. Scientifically, we are made to understand that every
single thing we hear or everything that comes into our brains through our five
senses, we think about them and then we make choices and convert them into a
structural thing in our brain known as thoughts which look like trees. Scripturally,
we are wired for love – righteousness, peace, joy, kindness, longsuffering etc.
and not bitterness, unforgiveness or any form of carnality. If we believe what
we hear that conflicts with the truth of God’s word, we become prone to
deception and all the negative emotions that will cause the trees of our minds
(the tree like neurons that make up the nerve cells that constitute the brain)
which we talked about earlier to wither and look like grey withered trees. The result
would be all kinds of sicknesses and diseases. Medically, most incurable
illnesses like cancer, high blood pressure, diabetes, insanity etc. have been
associated with negative emotions. Recently, a Doctor was teaching at a service
I attended and he said there is a research going on now to prove that breast cancer
in women results from the negative emotion of unforgiveness. On the other hand,
if we open up to divine information, they build us up and enhance the value of
our souls. This makes the word of God indispensable in our quest for mind
renewal. See Gal.5:16, 17, 19-23; 1Cor.13:4-8 etc.
3.
Be
an addicted student of the word and other literature relevant to your needs. Read
books of great minds thoroughly influenced by God; listen to teachings that
edify and encourage godliness and attend seminars and conferences relevant to
your purpose and destiny. When you read resource materials of those who God has
enhanced their thinking in an area where you are ignorant, you rob minds with
the great and the result is an enhanced mind which helps to raise the lid on
your thinking capacity and makes you more prone to rightly dividing the word of
truth and less prone to wrong interpretation of scripture. Consequently your
life is enhanced because you cannot be greater than your thought life. See
2Tim.2:15; Prov.23:7a; 20:13. When Apostle Peter addressed the Sanhedrin when
they were called to question for preaching in the name of the Lord following
the miraculous healing of a crippled man at a gate of the temple, the elders
observed from the general demeanor of Peter and John that they had been thoroughly
influenced through their association with the Lord. Think about what your life
would be like when you are thoroughly influenced by the word and the Holy
Spirit! See Acts 4:13.
Next week, we shall continue on this topic by looking at the
will and the emotions and how to bring them to their potentially upgraded
state.
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