Will You Lose Your Soul This Year? (Santosh Poonen)

God cares about the complete preservation of your soul, as much as your spirit and body (I Thessalonians 5:23). And that happens by your “losing” your soul back into complete dependence on Him. The sin that you commit is not the problem. The problem is the independent over-development of your soul, which leads you into sin. You cannot maintain a healthy balance of the life of Christ and the life of “You”. “You” needs to die. The next time you see a crucifix, see “You” on it. Year by year you should be increasingly losing more of “You”, so that when Christ returns there will be none of “You” left. Then you will be completely like Him (I John 3:2-3). The message of death to Self will sound morbid and depressing to you if you aren’t sick of your “Self” and its choices. Otherwise, it’s the best possible news! You will always win a fight with a dead man. That ought to be how it is when people try to pick a fight with you! When you’re in a conflict, remember that the “pride” that the other person is trying to steal from you is the pride that you’re trying to lose anyway. So give it up! Your soul is manifested in: 1. Where your treasure is; 2. Whom you are attached to; 3. Whose interests you seek; 4. What empowers your life. In the 2 great disasters (the global flood and the fire over Sodom), what God judged was not specifically the sin, but the soul exalting itself in everyday activities (Luke 17:27-28). If you have “found” your soul in your relationship with your family or friends or others in the Church, you will lose it (Matthew 10:37-39). Despite how socially connected the world is today, people are still just as lonely. That’s because they are all “connected” individuals. Many churches, likewise, are merely congregations of grains of wheat neatly lined up in pews. The Body of Christ is bread made up of grains of wheat that have fallen into the ground and died. Self-preservation is the spirit of Satan (Mark 8:31-33). You hinder the power of the life of the Spirit when you confine it within the strengths or limitations of your soul (John 12:24-25). A naturally shy soul is just as much of a hindrance to the life of Christ as a naturally bold soul — both must fall into the ground and die. So, stop using your natural temperament as an excuse! The reason that so many are not filled with the Holy Spirit is because there’s no room for Him alongside the enlarged soul that has not been “lost”! The resurrection of your soul happens now, when you take up your cross daily. And our resurrected soul is not hindered by the strengths or limitations it had before its “death”, any more than our resurrected body will not be hindered by the strengths or limitations it had before it died. That’s the power of resurrection! At the end of your life you will either have been a “living soul” or a “life-giving spirit” (I Corinthians 15:45). Which will it be?