AND WITH ALL YOUR SOUL

Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength. – Mark 12:30

When we talked about loving God with our heart we referenced our personality and passions. That’s pretty deep. When we talk about loving God with our soul, that’s deeper still because our soul is the innermost part of who we are. It is used as a synonym for life, our life, our essence. It’s the part God created to last for eternity. Sadly when sin entered the world it separated our soul, our life, from God’s presence. We are eternally dissatisfied until our soul finds rest in Him. Why? Because before we accepted Christ our soul was enslaved to sin. We were longing for Him, for a perfect leader in this Quest called life. After we know Jesus our souls can rest because we have “returned to the shepherd and guardian of our souls” (1 Peter 2:25).

King David was Israel’s Poet King. He often spoke about His soul, “my soul is greatly dismayed…I will lift up my soul…my soul may sing praise…my soul will rejoice…” King David knew there was more to him than his mind and body. My soul is my immaterial essence, my life breath. It is that part of me that can be separated from Him if I choose to put myself on the throne of my life. As a Christian I desire a makeover that will reform my soul so that I can love and put God at the center of everything in my life. God has promised this makeover in Romans 8:29. “For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the likeness of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers.” Everyday God is reshaping me to resemble Jesus and that includes my soul.

MEDITATING ON THE WORD:
Psalm 63:1-5
Matthew 10:28
Ezekiel 18:4
Luke 16:19-31
Mark 8:36
Matthew 16:26
3 John 1:2

(Excerpt from Extreme Makeover: Spiritual Edition, a curriculum by Michael J. Meyers)