Our soul consists of our mind, our will and our emotions. A mind to think, a will to choose and emotions to feel. What we think will determine our choices and what we choose will affect our feelings. Something I said recently revolved itself into this little poem:
I know that I could not manage
Without the constant goodness of God
And without His continual Sovereign control;
But because God never fails,
I can manage every day - -
Worry-free with perfect peace in my soul.
How can I manage to live the Christian life? Definitely, I can’t! But the Holy Spirit is working in me the process of sanctifying me. My sanctification (1 Thessalonians 4:3) is God’s will for me, so that I will be separated, consecrated and set apart for holy living. Sanctification is not the power for me to be like Jesus, it is Jesus being Himself in me. (Oswald Chambers) “Sanctification is not something Jesus puts into me, (1 Corinthians 1:30) it is Jesus Himself in me.” If the life I’m living is (Colossians 3:3) the life, that is hidden with Christ in God, the sanctified life, then I will be concealed in Jesus and Jesus will be revealed in me. Not I but Christ in every look and action, in every thought and word, not I but Christ be seen, be known, be heard. I am not still here on earth just to endure the painful consequences of an aging body in a fallen world. The truth about my every thought is that God has a purpose for every aspect of the life He has given me. I don’t want to appear at (1 Corinthians 3:12-15, 2 Corinthians 5:10) the Judgement Seat of Christ with only wood, hay and stubble, I want to fulfil God’s purposes.
How can a person manage to become part of the family of God? When Jesus was told (Mark 3:31-35) that members of his family were looking for Him, He replied, “Who is my brother, my sister and my mother?” He was not referring to natural family relationships but to a spiritual relationship we have to be born into. We were born physically into our own human families. We must be born spiritually, born again, into the family of God. Any person who obeys the will of God by receiving Jesus as their personal Saviour, immediately, he is part of the family of God in a forever relationship which continually deepens as we grow in intimacy with Jesus our Master and Lord. We cannot receive Him only as Saviour, we must receive Him as the absolute Lord of our lives as new creations (2 Corinthians 5:17) we are in a new Kingdom, a Kingdom of righteousness and under new holy authority.
When our sins are forgiven, we have a Home in heaven. So, the world-wide family of God is working together to fulfill the world-wide purpose of God. Jesus will not be with us ‘to the end.’ He is with us (Hebrews 13:5) ‘without end’ because Jesus will never leave us, there is no end to our loving relationship with Him. (Lines from a hymn).
It took a miracle to set the stars in place,
It took a miracle to hang the earth in space,
But when God saved my soul and made me whole,
It took a miracle of Love and Grace.
Could we manage to even begin to comprehend the wonder, security and glorious future because we have been (Romans 8:23) adopted as God’s own children into His own family?
God knows everything that has ever happened everywhere, everything that is happening everywhere, and everything that will happen everywhere. This is beyond my comprehension but not beyond my believing.
God carved a gift out of eternity and He called it TIME. As the centuries became history and as time passes, time flows back into eternity. So all humans on earth, past, present or future, all our lives, even as we count the minutes and hours, we are living in the perpetual NOW of Almighty God. When God speaks, His words are completed history, whether for the past, present or future. Past, present, future exist only in TIME. They are not part of the mystery of God’s eternal NOW. The love, wisdom and beauty of the Lord our God is beyond description.