Soul Love

Today, we begin a ten-part series on learning to love the Lord (and our neighbor) with all our soul.  

What's a soul?  Let's look at science, R&B, and take a trip to the Sinai Peninsula to find some answers.

This series is a part of a broader goal this year to learn to love with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength.  Jesus says that learning to love God and our neighbor with these four parts of us are the two greatest commandments.  There is no better way to love better than to try and figure out how to best fulfill the first and second commandments.

"Remember, you are loved, so go, love better!"

New episodes drop on Tuesdays.

Transcript

         Today, we begin a ten-part series on learning to love the Lord (and our neighbor) with all our soul.  This series is a part of a broader goal this year to learn to love with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength.  Jesus says that learning to love God and our neighbor with these four parts of us are the two greatest commandments.  There is no better way to love better than to try and figure out how to best fulfill the first and second commandments.

         Yet, as we begin this series on the soul, we have a problem.  I know what my heart is.  I know what my mind is, and I know what it means to use my strength… but what on earth is my soul?

I’m not entirely sure what a soul is, and I suspect, most of us, couldn’t clearly describe it.  I think I have one.  I even thought I had one before I realized God told me I had one.  And I suspect I’m not alone – most people I talk to believe they have a soul.  We tell people things like, “Have you no soul?” when we believe they are being unkind or merciless.  Romantics talk about finding their soul’s mate, and when you are struggling to know your place in this world, we talk about doing some soul-searching.  Those who make moral compromises are “selling their souls” and when a beautiful song or lyric hits just right we talk about it reaching our souls.  For crying out loud, we even have soul food and soul music.  When the food is so good that you feel like it didn’t just feed your belly, it fed something deeper.  We talk about the soul like we all understand it, but try and describe it and well… good luck.

How can I love with all my soul if I’m not even able to clearly explain what it is?  That’s the question we are going to deal with today, and I will tell you right now, it is both a harder and an easier subject than you think.  We need a way of understanding a spiritual subject like the soul, but in a context that is a little more earthly.  Which means we need to look at two-thirds of a legendary American Band.

Brothers, Maurice & Verdine White along with their friend Philip Bailey won seven Grammys in late 1970’s and early 1980’s.  Most of those awards were won in the category of R&B or Rhythm and Blues, but fans and experts alike agree that they weren’t really an R&B band, they combined other genres like funk, jazz, disco, pop, Latin and African music, and yes, soul to make a sound distinctly their own.  The name of the band?  Earth, Wind, and Fire.

If you don’t know who that band is it may be time for some soul searching… but likely you’ve at least heard their hit September.  If you haven’t, I’ll wait while you go look it up.  Seriously.

*pause for effect*

Yeah, that’s Earth, Wind, and Fire – and for the record, their most popular song, September, includes the lyric.  “Our hearts were ringing in the key that our souls were singing…”  So, there’s another example of using the word soul in a beautiful way that we all get, but none of us can explain.

         Now, when I said we need to look at two-thirds of Earth, Wind, and Fire… I didn’t mean two thirds of the musicians… I meant two thirds of the name.

         I know what Earth is – you can touch it, taste it (probably best not to), and feel it between your toes.  It is solid and sturdy and can be dissected down to its basic atomic elements if need be.  We can store it in bottles, flatten it with bulldozers, and buy and sell it by the acre.  Earth is completely tangible… but what about wind and fire?

         Everybody knows what wind is and we all agree that fire exists, but scientifically… what are they?  You can’t bottle them or hold them.  You can’t even see wind!  Fire is ephemeral at best and can’t be quantified.  Wind and fire are neither solid, liquid, gas, or plasma… they are intangible, yet unarguably real.  They are the sort of thing that exist without substance.  And in science, we have to use a different word for them – we call them ‘phenomena’.

         A phenomenon is an observable event or occurrence in the natural world.  The word comes from a Greek root, meaning “to appear” or “to show”.  In science, and in philosophy, phenomenon are those aspects of the world that can be observed or experienced, either through direct perception or through the use of instruments.  You may not be able to bottle the wind or quantify the substance of a flame or find the end of a rainbow, but they definitely exist and you know it because you have experienced them.  You’ve felt the wind upon your face, been burnt by fire, and stood in awe of the beauty of a rainbow.  All of these phenomena are real, and just because they are intangible doesn’t mean they are any less real.

         These phenomena are a good way to understand the soul.  Do you know how I know that?  Because Jesus explained the soul using the same example.  In a conversation with Nicodemus, Jesus is asked to explain the rebirth of the soul that happens at baptism.

Nicodemus said to him, "How can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter a second time into his mother's womb and be born?"

Jesus answered, "Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. Do not marvel that I said to you, 'You must be born again.' The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear its sound, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit." (John 3:4-8) 

         In addition to this, when describing the Holy Spirit, the book of Revelation uses the symbolism of fire to give us an image of the Spirit as seven torches ever-burning before the throne of God.

         Even the Hebrew word for the soul, nephesh, comes from the idea of life – which is definitely a real thing, but hard to quantify.  What’s the difference between a living body and a dead one?  All the parts are there, but there is no life… because it turns out a living human is more than just a combination of bones, skin, muscle, and organ.

         James, in his letter to the church, even goes so far as to say, the closest you will ever get to understanding the importance of the soul is found in the process of death.  His words?

“For as the body apart from the spirit is dead, so also faith apart from works is dead.” (James 2:26)

         When the soul leaves the body, life is gone.  Life is a phenomenon that science has a really hard time quantifying… but it would be ridiculous to say life isn’t real just because we can’t put it in a neat little box. 

         Okay, so forget about wind, fire, rainbows, and life for a second.  Here is what you need to know.  Even in the natural world there are things that exist that we can’t tangibly grasp, weigh, or quantify – how much more must that be true in the spiritual realm?

         The spiritual realm is the great unknown, the uncharted territory of the human experience.  Even the words in the Bible used to describe that realm, Sheol and Hades mean the asking place and the unknown place.  We ask and wonder what the spiritual realm is, but at least on this side of eternity, the details remain unknown.  What the soul looks like is just as difficult of a question as what heaven looks like or what the angels sound like.

         But what your soul looks like isn’t the important part, anyways.  What is important is the way you use it.  If you had been born blind, you wouldn’t know what your body looked like, but you would still learn to use it properly.  Souls are for using, and if we are going to love the Lord and our neighbor with our whole soul, we better figure out how to use them properly.

         And to understand what that means, we need to travel in our mind’s eye to the barren wastelands of the Sinai Peninsula.  Standing before a Jewish nation that barely knew what it meant to be a nation, Moses recounted to them the series of events that had led them out of hundreds of years of Egyptian bondage.  Generations of slaves now stood as free men and women at the cusp of a bright new era of liberty.  Moses was to lead them into the promised land.  After all, God had already crippled their Egyptian overlords with ten devastating plagues, parted the depths of the Red Sea, led them through on dry ground and fed them with bread that miraculously appeared each morning like dew upon the ground.  These people had seen the seas crash back down on Pharaoh’s army, had tasted the manna from heaven, and drank the sweet waters God had poured forth from the rocks of the desert.  So, what does Moses say to this fledgling nation as they step toward the Promised Land?

Deuteronomy 4:7 For what great nation is there that has a god so near to it as the LORD our God is to us, whenever we call upon him? And what great nation is there, that has statutes and rules so righteous as all this law that I set before you today? "Only take care, and keep your soul diligently, lest you forget the things that your eyes have seen, and lest they depart from your heart all the days of your life. (Deuteronomy 4:7-9)

         Moses understood what we must learn – you have a body, but you are a soul… and you are your soul’s keeper.  It didn’t matter what they achieved, how far they had come, or what their external world looked like if they didn’t master their own souls.

         You are your soul’s keeper.  The most important thing in your life is not what you do, but who you become.  If the Israelites thought of themselves as slaves, longed for Egyptian luxuries, and failed to become faithful conquerors, it didn’t matter where they were.

         Your soul is the one thing you take with you.  A corrupt soul, a cowardly soul, or a depraved soul will not be repaired with more money or better living conditions.  If your soul is healthy, no external circumstance can destroy your life. If your soul is unhealthy, no external circumstance can redeem your life.

         Jesus alludes to this idea when He says, “If anyone would come after Me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow Me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it. For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and forfeits his soul? Or what shall a man give in return for his soul? (Matthew 16:24-26)

         There is no external gain that can replace a healthy internal soul.  Your soul is you.  It is the one thing you will carry with you into your eternal destiny.  Perhaps that is what Jesus is pointing toward when He tells us to store up treasures for ourselves in heaven.  Invest in your soul and you can take it with you, invest in this life only and moth and rust will destroy and thieves will break in and steal.

         Your soul isn’t just the part of you that lives on after death – it is the most important part of you.  It is you, and in a very real sense it is your moral compass.  Your human soul isn’t meant to be controlled by instinct like wild beasts where desire, appetite, lust, and other base emotions drive behavior.  Your soul is meant to be elevated to higher ethical plains.  Your soul is designed by God to love like God – love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control emanate from the soul that has fed upon the Spirit of God.

         Ask yourself – if my soul were unhindered by the boundaries of my circumstances, if my earthly body didn’t constrain my influence – would I do good or evil with that freedom?  If I had the resources would I make the world a better place or bask in selfish amusement?  If I had the power to change the world would I rule with an iron fist or do good to all men?  The answers to these questions all focus on the soul.  Your soul is who you are when everything else slips away.  

         When Jesus prayed in the garden of Gethsemane, His closest friends, Peter, James, and John tried to stay awake and stand watch… but their fatigue and sorrow got the better of them and they fell asleep.  Jesus told them, “The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.”  Jesus recognized that they wanted to do the right thing, but their strength failed.

         For many others, it is the exact opposite – they have the strength to do good, but their spirit isn’t willing.  Power is nothing without a willing soul.

         So, here’s what you need to know.  If you want to love better from the soul – you are going to have to invest in your soul because even though you can’t see it, you know that it is.  Long after your body is in a pine box six feet under, your soul will live on.

         In this episode, we’ve touched on a whole variety of topic, but in the weeks ahead, we will get into the details.  From soulmates to soul-searching to dark souls – we’ll look at all of it.  I’m excited and I hope you are, too.

So, let’s learn to love better – learn to love with all our soul.

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And until next time, “Remember, you are loved, so go… love better.”