THE LIVING SOUL

A LIVING SOUL

                “Then the Lord God formed man of the dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.” Gen. 2:7

                The Lord has been teaching me some things lately that are absolutely essential to understand as we head into the final days of earth’s history. If you will bear with me through the technical part, you will begin to see why this is so important.

                The question is what is the Bible’s definition of a living soul? A living soul is a soul into which God has breathed His Spirit so that the soul and Spirit always act in unison and never apart. So by extension then, death is when the soul is separated from the Spirit of God.

                There may be other ways to express this definition, but in essence, God breathed His Spirit into man and that perfect union of flesh and Spirit is what made Adam a complete being in union with God and in the image of God.

                So then; what was Satan’s objective in tempting Adam and Eve? It was to get Adam to act apart from God and thus to break that perfect union. So when Adam acted apart from God his soul and spirit were separated. A veil was erected between soul and spirit that veil can only be removed in Christ.

                This, of course, is the same trick that Satan tried on Jesus in the wilderness. He tried to get Jesus to act on His own to prove that He was the Son of God. But Jesus succeeded where Adam failed. He refused to take any action apart from God… not even to prove that He was the Son of God.

                Friends, here is where this becomes crucial to our understanding. Every day and perhaps every hour of every day, we are tempted to act apart from God. It doesn’t matter much whether we are doing good things or bad things; in fact it is more dangerous to do good things because we then think that we are pleasing God.

                Satan forever wants to separate our soul from God’s Holy Spirit so that he can use our souls for his own purposes. He doesn’t much care whether we are religious or secular as long as operate apart from the Spirit of God.

                When we are born again, God enters our spirit by His Spirit and quickens it and gives it a new life. From then on we can serve the Spirit rather than the flesh. And in breathing His Spirit into our spirit, He imparts His life into us so that our born again spirit cannot sin and it cannot die.

                As for not sinning 1 John 5:18 says, “We know that no one who is born of God sins; but He who was born of God keeps him and the evil one does not touch him.
                As for not dying Jesus said in John 11:25, “I am the resurrection and the life; he who believes in Me shall live even if he dies and everyone who lives and believes in Me shall never die.

                So, Adam had a soul that had never sinned and it was in perfect union with God. That was his condition until he acted apart from God and thus broke the perfect union of soul and spirit. This is why the Tabernacle of Moses showed man as having veils between spirit, soul and body. The spirit and soul of man was separated by a veil and that veil remained until Jesus died to the flesh on the cross. When Jesus had made an utter death of self and of the flesh on the cross, the veil in the temple was rent in two from top to bottom. By doing this Jesus opened a way for soul and spirit to once again operate in perfect union. Likewise in us the power of the soul must be laid down completely in order for the resurrection power of the Spirit to be released through our lives.

                Jesus said that of Himself He could do nothing. Jesus had a sinless soul and yet, He laid aside all of his human power in order that His life might be one of the Spirit and of complete dependence upon His Father. Likewise Jesus told us that apart from Him, we can do nothing. We too must lay down our soul power, our mind, will and emotions, in order that the Spirit of God might minister through us.

                There are essentially two kinds of churches in the world today. One is the intellectual church. They pride themselves in having “The Truth.” Then there is the emotional church. These pride themselves in having “The Spirit.” The have revival after revival to keep the “Spirit alive” and it takes a lot of revving up to keep “feeling” the Spirit emotionally.

                Unfortunately, both our intellect and our emotions come from the soul and our soul is of the flesh. Most of what we see going on in both the intellectual and the emotional churches today stems from the power of the soul, rather than from the resurrection life of the Spirit.

                It is this soul power that deludes us into thinking that we are doing God’s work. So in many cases if not all cases the pressure that we are exerting upon others, whether intellectual or emotional stems from the psychic power of the soul rather than the living power of the Spirit. So we engage in this soul power with all of its talents and abilities and we use these things to win others to Christ where they too begin to operate in their own soul power.

                Satan loves it when we depend upon the power of our soul for ministry. He is then able to sneak into even our best intentions and replace Holy Spirit power with psychic power and by it the church is led astray. Today, a vast majority of what we see on Christian TV and in church is psychic power rather than true Holy Spirit power. We are being ministered to by people that have not truly been crucified. They are still operating out of the flesh… the soul power. And whether they are converting people intellectually, or converting them emotionally, the deep inner man is not being reached or reborn by the Holy Spirit.

                When Paul said that he died daily, he was laying down his soul life, his outer man in order that the true life of the Spirit could be manifested through Him. Likewise Jesus, even though His soul was perfect and sinless, never operated out of His soul, but rather in complete helplessness and hopelessness and dependence upon His Father. He did only what He saw His Father doing.

                If there is to be a breakthrough in our true power for witnessing and in breathing life into others in this final harvest, we too must learn to lay down the powers of the soul. In fact we must ask God to bind the powers of our soul with its intellect, its mind, will and emotions and talents. We must lay it all down and ask God to bring forth the sweet perfume of His Spirit in and through us so that we can breathe life into others.

                As Watchman Nee puts it, our soul has a life of its own, but it is unable to impart life to others. But our spirit also has a life of its own through the Holy Spirit and it is in the Holy Spirit that we are able to breathe life into the spirits of others. The Spirit brings life. The flesh profits nothing.

                In a sense, all of these flashy meetings, the lighting, the emotional flailing and the excellent worship bands are all aimed at the soul and coming from the soul. We have built our entire worship structure around the soul. It sounds good and it feels good, or else it tickles our logic, but the spirit man is left to hunger after righteousness and holiness and completeness in Christ.

                We have largely failed to die to the flesh and so our prayers are weak and largely ineffective. Have we not all felt the urge to push our prayers with mental power? There is an urgent need and we pray and we then try to push that prayer with the power of our soul, or with positive thinking, or with positive confession or with our intellect… telling God what to do and how to do it. Isn’t that true? Or we are praying for someone and we are telling God how this person has served Him faithfully and that they deserve to receive His touch.  This is psychic energy that we are pushing with and not the helpless cry of the spirit that can do nothing apart from Christ.

                Jesus said in John 6:63: “It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh profits nothing; the words that I have spoken to you are spirit and are life.”

                Friends, I hunger for this dying of the flesh so that I may minister the life-giving Spirit to others. I know that God has called me to do what I do and He is using me to reach others through my writing, but we can never be satisfied with talent, or even the desires of the soul. My soul cannot impart life to you, but my spirit can impart life to your spirit if indeed the flesh is dead and the Spirit is alive in Christ Jesus.

                It is to this end that I lay down my life daily in order that the true life of Christ may be manifested in and through me. But we all have a lot to learn and we all have a lot of dying to do and we need discernment in these last days. Much of what we see in Christianity today operates in the psychic realm of the soul and not in the untarnished realm of the Spirit. And it is for this reason that much of the church is now falling away from the faith and giving heed to seducing spirits and doctrines of devils. They have not discerned the difference between the work of the soul and the work of the Holy Spirit.

                The antichrist is alive and well in the church today. He is masquerading as Christ and we must diligently pray that God will open our eyes and ears so that we can hear what the Spirit is saying to the churches. Unless a grain of wheat is planted in the ground it cannot produce more fruit. The way to resurrection power is through the cross. All that we are is laid down in order that we might receive Him. If we are united with Christ in His death, then we will also be united with Him in His resurrection.

                Here is my prayer and one that you can pray as well.  Our Father, who is in heaven… Hallowed be Your name. I come to you today in the name of Your Son Yeshua asking that you will bind the powers of my soul with its mind, will and emotions and even my good intentions, in order that the life of Christ may be manifested in this mortal body. Without You I can do nothing. Today I die to all that I am in order that Christ may be seen in me. Today I trade in the limited abilities of my soul and ask that you operate through me with Your life-giving Spirit. In Yeshua’s name. Amen