Soul Care Too Series

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Series: Acts Too – Soul Care

We need to approach the New Year of 2015 with healthy souls.

This is why we are stressing - Soul Care this month:

I asked you in December: “How is your soul moving into this new year?”

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.”

Jesus emphasized the importance of your soul not just in eternity but it’s health in the here and now! Your success this year depends on the condition of your soul!

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).

We titled our series: Acts Too (Soul Care)

Purpose of the Series:

Acts Too – The book of Acts is filled with the outpouring of the Holy Spirit in Chapter 2 on the first disciples and signifies the birth of the church. The churches early years are filled with miracles and hardships! It’s filled with salvations and rejections of Jesus! It’s filled with people embracing Jesus and others fighting against Jesus and his disciples. It’s filled with hope and death. It reveals the struggle between good and evil in this world. It highlights the good and the bad of church. But most importantly it shows what can happen in the church if the souls in the church are healthy and connected with the Holy Spirit! It did not matter that they were rejected and persecuted, chased out of towns, stoned, abused and imprisoned. We read story after story of the disciples sharing the good news to receive beatings and arrests but yet even while imprisoned they can sing and praise the Lord. It was because they had healthy souls which were connected and empowered by the Holy Spirit. We want a church filled with Christians like Acts too! A church filled with people who are being the church and have healthy souls no matter what is happening around them or too them.

Acts 2: 42-47: 42 They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer. 43 Everyone was filled with awe, and many wonders and miraculous signs were done by the apostles. 44 All the believers were together and had everything in common. 45 Selling their possessions and goods, they gave to anyone as he had need. 46 Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts, 47 praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people. And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved.

My vision for 2015 is to have a church like Acts Too with souls that are fired up for the Kingdom and hungry for a move of the Holy Spirit. Souls which are healthy and whole and following the direction of the Holy Spirit for their lives. But for us to get their will require us to do some soul searching and soul care!

Question: “What does the soul need to be healthy and whole this year?”

1. Our souls need a connection to its creator God or it will find another god (idol) to connect too.

a. Orberg states: Our soul’s problem, however, is not its neediness; it’s our fallenness. Our need was meant to point us to God. Instead, we fasten our minds and bodies and wills on other sources of ultimate devotion, which the Bible calls idolatry.

i. The OT repeatedly warns and reveals to us when we disconnect from God and connect to idols.

ii. It brings death and cursing’s not life and blessings.

b. John 15:5-8: 5“I am the vine; you are the branches. If a man remains in me and I in him, he will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing. 6If anyone does not remain in me, he is like a branch that is thrown away and withers; such branches are picked up, thrown into the fire and burned. 7If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be given you. 8This is to my Father’s glory, that you bear much fruit, showing yourselves to be my disciples.

i. Jesus remind us in this teaching that our connection to the life giving vine is essential or we will die! This teaching describes how people’s souls die – they disconnect from the Lord and all the vital nutrients and minerals are lost and they start a slow death.