Review Soul Care 101:
Soul Care: 101
Thesis: The care of the soul is as important as taking care of our bodies physically. Our success spiritually this year is directly related to the health of our souls. Your soul is your inner life which manages your will, mind and body and impacts your spirit because it is linked to it.
Quote: John Orberg states this about our souls: “If your soul is healthy, no external circumstance can destroy your life. If your soul is unhealthy, no external circumstance can redeem your life (Pg 40, Soul Keeping).
Quote: Dallas Willard said, “The most important thing in your life, is not what you do; its who you become. That’s what you will take into eternity.”
Scriptures:
John 10:7- 11: NASB
7So Jesus said to them again, “Truly, truly, I say to you, I am the door of the sheep.
8“All who came before Me are thieves and robbers, but the sheep did not hear them.
9“I am the door; if anyone enters through Me, he will be saved, and will go in and out and find pasture.
10“The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly.
11“I am the good shepherd; the good shepherd lays down His life for the sheep.
To be able to live life abundantly today in this fast paced hurried, evil, and stress filled world requires that I take care of my body, my spirit and my soul.
Jesus said in Matthew 16:26:
“What good will it be for someone to gain the whole world, yet forfeit their soul? Or what can anyone give in exchange for their soul?”
Jesus said in Matthew 22:37:
“Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.”
The Pursuit of the Abundant Life means we need to focus on the three areas of us – the ones created in the image of God: Our us encompasses our Spirit/Soul/Body! We also need to know how they all function and interact with each other – remember these compose all of us!
Jesus emphasized the importance of your soul not just in eternity but it’s health in the here and now! Your success spiritually this year depends on the condition of your soul! Your soul is linked to your spirit and will impact your spirit if the soul is unhealthy. Yes, there is a link or a connection between your spirit, your soul and even your body.
Question: What do we need to know from last week’s message?
• The whole of us is that we are Spirit, Soul and Body: The Spirit part – encompasses our spirit – it is the God connection – the connection to the spiritual realm but it is also connected to our soul – which is our “Inner – Self – our personality,” It is our self-consciousness which includes mind, will, emotions and the soul is connected to the body and directs the body to connect with this material world our physical world.
• Quote from Bibles for America: “In the spirit, God as the Spirit dwells; in the soul, our self dwells; and in the body, the physical senses dwell. God sanctifies us, first, by taking possession of our spirit through regeneration (John 3:5-6); second, by spreading Himself as the life-giving Spirit from our spirit into our soul to saturate and transform our soul (Romans 12:2; 2 Cor. 3:18); and last, by enlightening our mortal body through our soul (Rom. 8;11,13) and transfiguring our body by His life power (Phil. 3:21).”
• 3 ways to care for your soul:
o Our soul needs to be connected to its Creator or it will find an idol to connect too.
? Ortberg notes: “Indeed, the soul lives in God.” The soul seeks God with its whole being. Because it is desperate to be whole, the soul is God-smitten and God-crazy and God-obsessed. My mind may be obsessed with idols; my will may be enslaved to habits; my body may be consumed with appetites. But my soul will never find rest until it rests in God.”
o Our soul longs for God and His presence and it will not be satisfied by a cheap imitation. If we are not attached to His presence, we will slowly die. Our soul was designed to seek after God’s presence.
? Jesus makes this staggering claim in John 15:5: “I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing.”
? I am the vine; you are the branch – Jesus tells us we have to be connected to the one who gives us life – who feeds our soul and nourishes our inner being.
o Our soul’s health is our responsibility. God gave us this responsibility to us to manage it and keep it healthy.
? Quote: “Our soul is like an inner stream of water, which gives strength, direction, and harmony to every other element of our life. When that stream is as it should be, we are constantly refreshed and exuberant in all we do, because our soul itself is then profusely rooted in the vastness of God and his kingdom, including nature; and all else within us is enlivened and directed by that stream. Therefore we are in harmony with God, reality, and the rest of human nature and nature at large.” DALLAS WILLARD, RENOVATION OF THE HEART
• Zondervan. Soul Keeping Bible Study Guide (p. 9). Harper Christian Resources. Kindle Edition.
Question: What do we need to do?
• So, we need to care for our souls and move into the new year healthy and whole with in our souls! It means we need to be intentional about soul care as much than just focusing on our physical dimension and spirit dimension.
Illustration: We have been talking about Soul Care last few weeks – I have been asking the question “How is you soul?” I actually once, had a person come up to me and say: “I sold my soul to the devil there is no hope for me! I then informed that troubled soul this truth, “Yes, you may have sold your soul to Devil, but Jesus has bought it back for you! Do you want it back from Him?”
Do you want your soul back – Good question right!
Soul Care 102:
Thesis: We are responsible for the care of our souls – not your parents or family – not your pastors or church – you are responsible for its health, and its well being!
Scripture:
Luke 10: 25-28:
25On one occasion an expert in the law stood up to test Jesus. “Teacher,” he asked, “what must I do to inherit eternal life?”
26“What is written in the Law?” he replied. “How do you read it?”
27He answered: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind’; and, ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’”
28“You have answered correctly,” Jesus replied. “Do this and you will live.”
This statement was used by Jesus too in summarizing the 10 Commandments and telling us what we need to be doing to find the Abundant Life promised by Him.
Matthew 22: 34-40: The Greatest Commandment
34Hearing that Jesus had silenced the Sadducees, the Pharisees got together.
35One of them, an expert in the law, tested him with this question:
36“Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?”
37Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’
38This is the first and greatest commandment.
39And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’
40All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”
Introduction:
Real Life Story from John Ortberg:
Over the recent centuries, every once in a while, a follower of Jesus gets a vision for this kind of intimate life with God. Centuries ago, a man named Nicolas Herman, who was an uneducated household servant from a poor family, got converted to the Christian faith by looking at a tree. It was winter, and the tree was barren, but it occurred to Nicolas that the tree would grow leaves again in the spring. This produced in him a deep sense of God’s care and power. It struck him that if God does that for trees, he would surely do it for a person. So this young man entered into a monastic community, spent his life in the kitchen as a cook and dishwasher, and all the while privately devoted his life to being with God. Today we know him as Brother Lawrence. When he died, friends gathered some of his letters together and turned them into a book. The book is called The Practice of the Presence of God.
One review of the book explains the book this way: This classic devotional literature was written sometime in the late seventeenth century. Its author, Brother Lawrence, was born Nicholas Herman, and served as a soldier before becoming a monk in his middle years, some time after receiving a severe wound that left him in lifelong chronic pain. Following a series of spiritual trials, Brother Lawrence discovered a system that allowed him to be conscious of the presence of God on a continual basis, throughout all of his daily life. In this book, (collated by Joseph de Beaufort, counsel to the Archbishop of Paris), this simple, holy man explains the means and practices by which anyone may learn to walk continually in the presence of the Almighty.
It was written in the seventeenth century and is now thought to be the most widely read book in the history of the human race other than the Bible — this, from an uneducated soldier/dishwasher. When the soul is with God it doesn’t matter if you are a dishwasher or a president. The soul thrives not through our accomplishments but through simply being with God.
Quotes: Brother Lawrence from Practicing The Presence of God
“I cannot imagine how religious persons can live satisfied without the practice of the presence of GOD. For my part I keep myself retired with Him in the depth of center of my soul as much as I can; and while I am so with Him I fear nothing; but the least turning from Him is insupportable.”
“That we should establish ourselves in a sense of GOD’s Presence, by continually conversing with Him. That it was a shameful thing to quit His conversation, to think of trifles and fooleries.”
“There is not in the world a kind of life more sweet and delightful, than that of a continual conversation with God; those only can comprehend it who practice and experience it.”
“We ought not to be weary of doing little things for the love of God, who regards not the greatness of the work, but the love with which it is performed.”
“We ought to propose to ourselves is to become, in this life, the most perfect worshippers of God we can possibly be, as we hope to be through all eternity.”
Question: Is your soul connected with God or are you disconnected with God? Does your life practice the presence of God or neglect the presence of God? Are Idols leading your life or the Spirit of God?
T.S. – It’s time we all took responsibility for our own souls!
1. Your soul needs a keeper – a maintainer of it’s health and it’s you!
a. You are responsible for your own soul? No one else is!
i. Your pastor is not responsible for your soul.
ii. Your spouse is not responsible for your soul.
iii. Your mom and dad are not responsible for your soul.
iv. Your church is not responsible for you soul.
v. Your school is not responsible for your soul.
vi. You are!
b. Apparently, we believe that by some magic, the law of consequences doesn’t apply to us.
i. I can spend without getting into debt.
ii. I can lie without getting caught.
iii. I can let my temper fly without damaging my relational life.
iv. I can have a bad attitude at work and get away with it.
v. I can avoid disciplining my children without their getting spoiled.
vi. I can cheat my work out of time and it does not matter.
vii. I can neglect the Bible and still know God.
viii. I can quit going to church and it will not impact my life or my families life.
1. Our capacity to live in denial about the law of consequences is huge and is damaging to the soul. In the Bible it takes God a long time to teach the human race about this!
a. But the human race has still not learned this lesson well!
2. Above from Ortberg, John (2014-04-22). Soul Keeping: Caring For the Most Important Part of You (pp. 90-91). Zondervan. Kindle Edition.
c. Can we do this today? How about his year and care for our souls? Can we seek each day to be in God’s presence and will? Can we do this like what we read about in Scripture and the stories of the heroes of the faith?
i. Ortberg adds, “Now it’s our turn. How do we — ordinary people living in our world of technology and economic challenges, huge moral debates, and rapidly changing beliefs — how do you and I find a Jesus-way to live? How do we discover the “With God” life that we saw in the lives of the disciples, the Acts 2 church, Brother Lawrence, and others before us?”
1. It’s as simple as a prayer away – a mending to our souls!
ii. Ortberg, “While there are no magic formulas for being with God, lately I have been conducting a little self-test that I call The Soul Experiment. It’s a simple way of focusing my soul on God throughout the day. I begin each day by challenging myself: How many moments of my life today can I fill with conscious awareness of and surrender to God’s presence? Then I try to deliberately imagine myself doing that at home, at work, in my car, when I’m online, when I’m watching the news, when I’m with others. Can I do the “with God” life all the time? I’ve been trying to make this the goal of my day as opposed to a list of things I have to get done. Can I just keep God in my mind today, regardless of what I’m doing?
1. Ortberg, John (2014-04-22). Soul Keeping: Caring For the Most Important Part of You (pp. 119-120). Zondervan. Kindle Edition.
d. Your soul is asking you to allow it to seek God and connect with Him so it can be whole and healthy! It knows it can only be made whole by having a connection with God the Father and Spirit.
i. Ortberg notes: “If you read through the Bible, you get the sense that the soul was designed to search for God. The Hebrew Scriptures — which might be thought of as the Great Soul-Book of human literature — are almost obsessed with this thought.”
ii. Listen to these few verses from the Bible:
1. The soul thirsts for the Mighty One (Ps. 63: 1).
2. It thirsts for him like parched land thirsts for water (Ps. 143: 6).
3. Like a laser it focuses the full intensity of its desire on him (Ps. 33: 20).
4. It lifts itself up to him (Ps. 25: 1)
5. It blesses him (Ps. 103: 1 – 2, 22)
6. It clings to him (Ps. 63: 8)
7. It waits for him in silence (Ps. 62: 1).
a. Ortberg notes: “Indeed, the soul lives in God.” The soul seeks God with its whole being. Because it is desperate to be whole, the soul is God-smitten and God-crazy and God-obsessed. My mind may be obsessed with idols; my will may be enslaved to habits; my body may be consumed with appetites. But my soul will never find rest until it rests in God.
i. Above from Ortberg, John (2014-04-22). Soul Keeping: Caring For the Most Important Part of You (p. 116). Zondervan. Kindle Edition.
T.S.- Your soul needs to be cared for and you are the designated person to do it! Yes, God will help you if you ask Him! But you have to be the one who decides to change! But yes, with the Help of the Holy Spirit!
2. Your soul needs rest!
a. What does it mean to have a rested soul? Just look at Jesus life and ministry – He reveals to us the importance of finding rest for the soul in life.
i. I shared last week how He did this!
ii. Jesus said: “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light” (Matthew 11:28-30)
iii. Psalm 23:
1. The LORD is my shepherd, I shall not be in want.
2. He makes me lie down in green pastures, he leads me beside quiet waters,
3. he restores my soul. He guides me in paths of righteousness for his name’s sake.
4. Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me.
5. You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies. You anoint my head with oil; my cup overflows.
6. Surely goodness and love will follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house of the LORD forever.
b. John Ortberg states this about the importance of soul care and soul rest:
i. “The soul was not made to run on empty. But the soul doesn’t come with a gauge. The indicators of soul-fatigue are more subtle:
1. Things seem to bother you more than they should. Your spouse’s gum-chewing suddenly reveals to you a massive character flaw.
2. It’s hard to make up your mind about even a simple decision.
3. Impulses to eat or drink or spend or crave are harder to resist than they otherwise would be.
4. You are more likely to favor short-term gains in ways that leave you with high long-term costs. Israel ended up worshiping a golden calf simply because they grew tired of having to wait on Moses and God..
5. Your judgment is suffering.
6. You have less courage.
a. He adds, “Fatigue makes cowards of us all” is a quote so common that it has been attributed to General Patton and Vince Lombardi and Shakespeare. The same disciples who fled in fear when Jesus was crucified eventually sacrificed their lives for him. What changed was not their bodies, but their souls (and Spirit). The soul is not well when we rush so much. If it does not get the rest it needs, it becomes fatigued. Ortberg, John (2014-04-22). Soul Keeping: Caring For the Most Important Part of You (pp. 131-132). Zondervan. Kindle Edition.
c. Our souls need scheduled times of rest: I went on a soul/spiritual care retreat in Oct which really opened my eyes to my need to find these times of rest. Places of rest need to be scheduled for the health of our soul.
i. John, “Your soul needs rest. It is not always the “world” that squeezes us into its mold. We all too often distract ourselves. Being completely alone with nothing but our thoughts can be frightening, so we will use anything to distract us from experiencing the soul-healing that comes in solitude.” Ortberg, John (2014-04-22). Soul Keeping: Caring For the Most Important Part of You (p. 137). Zondervan. Kindle Edition.
T.S. – Our souls need rest to be healthy and whole and if we can get our soul to understand soul freedom we will be able to meet any challenge that comes our way.
3. Your soul needs to be free!
a. So the statement or point here says our souls need to be free – free from what? Does it mean free to do whatever we want to do? Does this bring true freedom or does it mean something else? Free spirited souls – what does that look like?
i. Running around with flowers in our hair?
ii. Living in a commune?
iii. Not working and living at the beach in a VW bus?
iv. Meditating all day?
v. Going to India or another exotic place to find myself?
vi. Running around naked in the woods or on a beach?
1. Share about the National Geographic show you watched: The naked church in Appalachia – is that freedom? Handling rattle snacks in church is that freedom?
vii. Smoking Marijuana? Doing drugs? Partying?
viii. Living in the woods in cabin isolated from others?
b. The Bible says in 2 Cor. 3:17: Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.
i. Freedom does not come by me doing whatever I want to do! Instead this usually leads me into bondage. It takes away my freedom.
ii. Freedom comes from the Holy Spirit. It’s internal! It’s soul related!
iii. The Bible also reminds us what freedom is and is not in Gal. 5:13-17: You, my brothers, were called to be free. But do not use your freedom to indulge the sinful nature; rather, serve one another in love. The entire law is summed up in a single command: “Love your neighbor as yourself.” If you keep on biting and devouring each other, watch out or you will be destroyed by each other. So I say, live by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the sinful nature. For the sinful nature desires what is contrary to the Spirit, and the Spirit what is contrary to the sinful nature. They are in conflict with each other, so that you do not do what you want.
c. Many young people think that they will be free when they flee the rules of their parents – but they soon discover that freedom is not associated with doing whatever you want to do.
i. You are not free by external circumstances or lawless living – this brings bondage – freedom of the soul is an internal reality.
ii. I think of the underground Chinese church.
1. 1 Peter 2:16-17: Live as free men, but do not use your freedom as a cover-up for evil; live as servants of God. Show proper respect to everyone: Love the brotherhood of believers, fear God, honor the king.
d. The later verse hear describes for us what freedom looks like!
i. Romans 8:18-21: I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us. The creation waits in eager expectation for the sons of God to be revealed. For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the glorious freedom of the children of God.
ii. Freedom comes from being a child of God who is empowered by the Holy Spirit and living for Him.
1. John Ortberg states this about freedom of the soul: The old masters of the life of the soul used to warn about the dangers of dis-ordered attachment. Desire is good, but when you want something too much, it threatens to take God’s place in your life. It will lead you to make bad decisions. It will put you on an emotional roller coaster. The ability to have anything you want actually can cost you your freedom. Samson had an unquenchable desire for Delilah; the rich young ruler was consumed by his desire for money; Saul coveted the power that came with his throne; Cain gave in to his desire for revenge. How did that work for them? Ortberg, John (2014-04-22). Soul Keeping: Caring For the Most Important Part of You (p. 141). Zondervan. Kindle Edition.
e. The Bible is filled with stories of individuals who had freedom to choose but they choose the wrong things which actually took their freedoms away.
i. The cost of choosing unwisely with your freedom:
1. Like Samson
2. Like King Saul
3. Like King David
ii. Story from Ortberg: In the movie A Christmas Story, one of the kids is given a double-dog dare to touch his tongue to a frozen flagpole on a December morning. Instantly, his tongue is frozen fast to the icy metal, and from that moment he isn’t going anywhere. He is stuck. A slave to his tongue. Freedom will come, if it comes at all, only with enormous pain. We get double-dog dared all the time. Make it about sex. Make it about money. Make it about security. That tender object stuck frozen to the flagpole is your soul. It craves to be free, but we’re not sure what that means. Ortberg, John (2014-04-22). Soul Keeping: Caring For the Most Important Part of You (p. 142). Zondervan. Kindle Edition.
f. How free is really free? Some examples to think about!
i. What if anyone could choose for the sake of their freedom the speed limits in our society! What would happen? Would others be free because you go as fast or as slow as you want? You could make stop lights optional. Would that bring more freedom to our society?
ii. What if you could choose to pay your taxes or not – for the sake of freedom – would that bring a truly freed country to live in?
iii. What if for the sake of freedom a person who is married decides he wants to be married but sleep with whoever he wants – does that bring freedom?
iv. Our souls want to be free but an unhealthy soul – detached from God will choose what they think are freedoms but in actuality are bondages.
1. John Ortberg adds, “The soul cries out to be free, but the common perception is that Christianity stands in the way of freedom. It’s all about obeying someone or something that tries to tell you how to live your life. As a Christian, according to this perception, you’re not free at all, but submissive, dependent, and enslaved by your religion. So people wonder — does God infringe on your soul’s need for freedom? Does becoming a Christian mean somebody dictates what you do, what you think, how you live? Even Christians sometimes adopt this view. They may affirm their belief in Jesus as the Son of God and accept his gift of salvation, but retain their “freedom” to decide for themselves how they should live. The soul needs freedom, but what exactly does that mean? That I can do whatever I want? Ortberg, John (2014-04-22). Soul Keeping: Caring For the Most Important Part of You (p. 143). Zondervan. Kindle Edition.
g. Philip Yancey’s wonderful book: What’s So Amazing about Grace? Describes the pain he experienced over his church’s legalism: “I came out of a Southern fundamentalist culture that frowned on co-ed swimming, wearing shorts, jewelry or makeup, dancing, bowling, and reading the Sunday newspaper. Alcohol was a sin of a different order, with the sulfurous stench of hellfire about it. . . . No short skirts for women, no longer hair for men, no polka dots on dresses for women because they might draw attention to suggestive body parts, no kissing, no holding hands, no rock music, no facial hair . . . it all calls to mind the dog who thought his name was ‘No’ because that’s the only word he ever heard from his master.”
i. I read this book years ago and he reveals how Christianity in certain sects of it have missed the point of what true freedom is!
ii. Freedom comes from the Holy Spirit! From the spirit of God. A person who has a healthy soul and the Holy Spirit could even be free in prison – like the apostle was when he wrote the prison epistles.
h. I like what John says about the misperception of the Ten Commandments:
i. The Ten Commandments were never designed to be a stand-alone list of rules. They come within a relational context. They describe what living up to a certain value and a certain identity and a certain destiny looks like. In fact, in Judaism, they are not called the Ten Commandments. The Hebrew term is aseret hadevarim, which literally means “ten utterances” or “ten statements” because they were rooted in things that are meant to be in God’s kingdom. They flow out of how we were designed, who we were meant to be. We read them as “this is what you have to do,” but God was saying, “this is who you are.” That’s why we don’t so much break the Ten Commandments as we break ourselves when we violate them… When we bind ourselves to God, to a code of morality that transcends our own particular opinions, do we lose freedom, or do we gain freedom? If my soul needs freedom, what does the law have to do with it? I believe the soul is actually revived by law. Ortberg, John (2014-04-22). Soul Keeping: Caring For the Most Important Part of You (p. 145). Zondervan. Kindle Edition.
1. Did you hear what John said – wow how we have misperceived what freedom is and is not in our world!
i. John highlights more the misperception of what is freedom:
i. Freedom from external restraints appeals to all of us, but I do not believe that it’s the freedom the soul needs. For example, you generally can drink as much alcohol as you want, restricted only by laws prohibiting drinking and driving and public drunkenness. But if you want to get loaded every night in the privacy of your home, you’re free to have at it. Eventually, however, your drinking will begin to cause problems for you. It damages your health. It embarrasses your kids. It hurts your marriage. It threatens your job. You get to a point where you want to quit but you can’t. You discover that you are not free to enjoy sobriety. You’re free to drink as much as you want, but you’re not free to not drink. “I brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery.” Your freedom is not restricted simply by external constraints. There’s another odd kind of restriction. Your freedom gets limited by an internal reality that is a kind of brokenness or weakness or dividedness inside you. You want to stop drinking, but you can’t. You want to live with a happy, cheerful, optimistic attitude, but you don’t. You want to quit yelling at your kids, but you fail. You want to be the kind of person who manages anger really, really well, but you aren’t. You’d like to think you have become unselfish, but you haven’t. You are not free. The freedom you lack is an internal freedom, and this inner lack of freedom is much more dehumanizing, much more tragic than external constraints. This kind of freedom is internal, and it is precious. It is “soul-freedom.” Ortberg, John (2014-04-22). Soul Keeping: Caring For the Most Important Part of You (p. 146). Zondervan. Kindle Edition.
j. Our soul and its health is what dictates whether we are free or not.
i. John reminds us this, “Remember that the soul is what integrates our parts. If our will is enslaved to our appetites, if our thoughts are obsessed with unfulfilled desires, if our emotions are slaves to our circumstances, if our bodily habits contradict our professed values, the soul is not free. The only way for the soul to be free is for all the parts of our personhood to be rightly ordered.” Ortberg, John (2014-04-22). Soul Keeping: Caring For the Most Important Part of You (p. 146). Zondervan. Kindle Edition.
ii. He adds, “True freedom comes when you embrace God’s overall design for the world and your place in it. This is why in the Bible you see this strong connection between God’s law and soul-freedom.”
k. Quote Brother Lawrence “Do not be discouraged by the resistance you will encounter from your human nature; you must go against your human inclinations.”
i. Recall what Jesus said in Luke 9:23-25: 23And He was saying to them all, “If anyone wishes to come after Me, he must deny himself, and take up his cross daily and follow Me. 24“For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake, he is the one who will save it. 25“For what is a man profited if he gains the whole world, and loses or forfeits himself?
4. Your soul needs gratitude!
a. The health of your soul is attached to the attitude you carry each day.
i. Are you a complainer or are you a positive person?
1. Homework: Try an experiment this week when you meet others throughout the day say hi then go right into complaining about something – notice how it makes you feel by the end of the day. Then the next day when you meet others say hi then say positive things about the day and others and see how you feel by the end of the day.
2. Which day will be healthy for your soul and which day unhealthy?
a. Scripture exhorts to be thankful – to rejoice always – why because it good for our souls!
b. Christian are challenged through Scripture to practice the soul care of the soul by being filled with an attitude of gratitude.
b. John Ortberg notes, “More gratitude will not come from acquiring more things or experiences, but from more of an awareness of God’s presence and his goodness. It’s a way of looking at life, always perceiving the good. Gratitude is a by-product of a way of seeing things, and it always involves three factors:
i. First, the benefit. In order to be grateful, you have to receive and recognize a gift that you believe is good. God has given you all good things it says in James and we need to be thankful for these things.
1. James 1:16-17: Don’t be deceived, my dear brothers. Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows.
2. We need to have a heart of gratitude for all the good things that come our way each and every day
ii. Second, gratitude requires that there be a benefactor.
1. Ortberg states, A benefactor is one who does good, a little factory that produces good. To be truly grateful you must not only recognize the benefits or gifts that come your way, but that they are not just random acts; they are not accidents. They are coming from Someone who has good intentions for you. To be grateful as a Christian, you must believe that the good that is in your life comes from God. Not from your own efforts or merit.
iii. In addition to the benefit and the benefactor, there is the beneficiary: the one who receives the good gifts of God. And that’s you.
1. Ortberg states, “You are the beneficiary of the benefits of a God who has your best interests at heart, and this is going on all the time. When we take that for granted or believe we deserve his gifts, then we are no longer grateful; you can’t be grateful for something you believe you are entitled to, and without a grateful heart the soul suffers. Because the soul needs gratitude.”
2. John adds, “The default mode of the sinful human race is entitlement, the belief that this gift or that experience that God placed in my path is rightfully mine. I am owed. Here’s the deal: The more you think you’re entitled to, the less you will be grateful for. The bigger the sense of entitlement, the smaller the sense of gratitude… My sinful mind can convince me that anything I want I’m entitled to, and if I’m not getting something I want, somebody in the universe must be messing up, and they owe me, and they ought to pay for it. In fact, this has led to a proliferation of lawsuits, because when we don’t get something we really want, we want to sue somebody.”
a. Ortberg, John (2014-04-22). Soul Keeping: Caring For the Most Important Part of You (p. 172). Zondervan. Kindle Edition.
3. Paul says it’s the hallmark of a life opposed to God. “For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile . . .” This connection is so interesting. Their thinking was futile. They perceived themselves to be entitled, to be owed, not as grateful receivers of grace every moment. “. . . forget not all his benefits . . .”
a. Entitlement says “They owe me! The church owes me! God owes me! My wife owes me! My kids owe me!”
i. By the way this mindset of the soul is called sin!
1. It’s totally self-centered and self-consumed with pride of self!
ii. Ortberg adds, “Whatever I have, I deserve. Entitlement grows deep within us. This is why, for the soul, ingratitude is not just a psychological problem. It’s not just an impoverishment of our emotional experience. It’s a sin.” Ortberg, John (2014-04-22). Soul Keeping: Caring For the Most Important Part of You (p. 173). Zondervan. Kindle Edition.
4. I sometimes think we need to be intentional about showing gratitude to others.
a. Like writing others letters of gratitude and thanking people for what they do for you!
b. When you do you learn to be more thankful.
5. John Ortberg adds to this idea of doing gratitude experiments by doing the following:
a. The next gratitude experiment is to pray your own benedictions — brief statements that recognize the good that comes from God. You don’t have to start with eighteen. That might be overwhelming. The best way to do this is to first make a list of all that you are truly grateful to God for providing. Then go back through this list and begin with the words, “Blessed are you, O Lord.”
i. Blessed are you, O Lord, for giving me my children.
ii. Blessed are you, O Lord, who gave me life and good health today.
iii. Blessed are you, O Lord, for helping me get through this difficult day.
iv. Blessed are you, O Lord, who forgives me when I sin.
v. Blessed are you, O Lord, for the great sunset you let me enjoy.
1. “Is it really necessary to use those words, “Blessed are you”? While the point of this exercise is to feed your soul with gratitude, there really is something special about these words that is worth considering. To bless someone means to offer happiness or praise to them. When you say “Blessed are you, O Lord,” you are not only expressing gratitude, but you are saying, “I want to make you happy and praise you, God, with my gratitude for what you have done.” It’s a subtle reminder that gratitude is good for both the person expressing it and the one receiving it.”
2. The above from Ortberg, John (2014-04-22). Soul Keeping: Caring For the Most Important Part of You (p. 175). Zondervan. Kindle Edition.
b. Gratitude and the intentionally of it is a soul care practice that we do each and every day to keep our souls healthy and whole and in connection with the Holy Spirit.
We need to make sure we are doing soul care and part of soul care is to cultivate a soul with the attitude of gratitude – we are the ones that must do this because no one else will.
Conclusion:
What do we need to know from this message?
1. We are responsible to care for our souls no one else!
2. We are to care for our soul by getting adequate times of rest!
a. Hurried souls are sick souls which start pulling a part at the seams.
3. We need to die to our self, so our souls are free!
Answer:
Why do we need to know this truth?
Answer: So we have healthy and whole souls!
What do they need to do?
Answer: Care for our souls by connecting them with God, by scheduling time to be in His presence, by taking responsibility for our soul, by making sure our soul is rested and not hurried and busy all the time, and by finding the freedom that comes to the soul by dying to self.
Why do they need to do this?
Answer: If we do these things we will have healthy souls, healthy spirits and a healthy body!
