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  • The Soul


    When I was a kid I went to a private school that was started by a church. Every Tuesday we would go to the Sanctuary for Bible study. In the Sanctuary was a banner that had Mark 8:36 on it. Every Tuesday when I would enter the chapel I would read that banner. So much that it didn’t take long for me to be able to recite it without looking at it. At the time I understood that it was a big question but I don’t think it was until adulthood that I realized the weight of the question. The older I get the more and more I see what a life outside of God does to people. When we choose to give our lives to anything or anyone but God we are forfeiting our soul to a cruel and unmerciful enemy whose ultimate goal is to destroy us. What in this life is worth more than your soul? Is anything really when you truly think about it? When you weigh what your choices will do to you and the people you love you start to realize how much the world and all of its ideas and opinions and empty promises don’t matter.

    Is anything in this life worth more than your soul? That is a question that God has been pressing on my heart to share with people. Whether they listen or not this world and the enemy are constantly trying to steal the souls of people through ideas and philosophies and material things because he knows that if he gets you to forfeit your soul than he’s got everything in you that’s worth anything.

    Satan got Adam and Eve to trade their souls in exchange for “the knowledge of good and evil” and for “power”. He told them they would be equal with God because they would know what God knows and so they traded their souls for an empty lie and thus the fall of man. Instead of being like God they lost communion with God, they lost the garden, and they lost their right standing with God.

    The enemy attacked Jesus in this way and so it would be unwise for us to think we will not be tested and tempted. In the Bible it tells us that there was a time when Satan tried to get Jesus to forfeit his soul in the desert just as he did to Adam and Eve in the garden. Jesus had fasted and prayed and the enemy came at him with every weakness he could think of: food, power, kingdoms of the world, he even tried to get Jesus to kill himself to prove the angels would protect him. He knew if he could get Jesus to forfeit his soul for any one of those temptations than Jesus could not defeat him. Jesus overcame and defeated the enemy. It makes the enemy angry that when we come and give our lives to Jesus and walk in him that he can’t have our souls. Everyday when the enemy tries to get you to forfeit your soul remind him that Jesus already has it and you’re not about to give it to him.

    To my brothers and sisters in Christ do not give up. Stand strong and do not fear.
    Do not trade your soul for anything this world has to offer. It’s not worth it. Today I want you to think about something around you that has tried to steal your soul and I want you to pray and ask God to give you the strength to help you overcome it just as Jesus did in the desert. Without God we can not overcome these temptations but with Him we can. Pray and ask for His strength today.