Summary: 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.

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).

Scriptures:

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.”

Introduction:

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 a connection between your spirit and your soul.

Hebrews 4:12: “For the word of God is alive and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart!”

The Word of God – by the way the Bible says Jesus is the “Word” – is active in your life and it knows the condition of your soul and it’s healthy or unhealthy connection to the spiritual realm of your life.

Definition of the Soul:

You could ask the question: "What is the soul?" How does the Bible describe our souls? What does the Bible say about our souls?

John Ortberg describes it this way, “We each have an outer life and an inner one. My outer self is the public, visible me. My accomplishments, my work, and my reputation lie there. But inside is my soul that part of me that speaks in silence to others but yells at me. It's the inside stuff of real life - what is your soul saying to you - how is your soul? (Is it connected to the breath of life the spirit or is it deflated by the things of this world and self?)… My inner life is where my secret thoughts and hopes and wishes live. Because my inner life is invisible, it is easy to neglect. No one has direct access to it, so it wins no applause (John Ortberg – Soul Keeping page 37-38).”

The Soul is also defined this way – “The soul is the immaterial part of a human being that can respond to other people. In Greek the word for “soul” is psyche from which we get the word psychology. The soul involves the mind and emotions. It gives us the capacity to relate to others and to form bonds (both physical and spiritually). It is our souls that respond to beauty and high ideals (spiritual concepts). People with healthy souls are capable of forming meaningful relationships, and people with unhealthy souls find it more difficult. Soul care is the attention given to healing a wounded soul or maintaining a healthy soul. In a Christian context, soul care is often linked to finding help to overcome temptations, fight addictions, and have peace (and a connection) with God. From What is soul care? What is care of the soul? | GotQuestions.org

Hebrews or the OT look at the soul this way: “In the Hebrew mind we are composed of multiple parts. The body is the flesh and bones, the vessel. The organs are viewed as the seats of thought (the heart), emotion (the kidneys), intuition (gut), etc. The breath is one’s character, what makes a person who they are. The soul is the whole of the person, the unity of the body, organs and breath (spirit). It is not some immaterial spiritual entity, it is you, all of you, your whole being or self.” Hebrew Word Definition: Soul | AHRC (ancient-hebrew.org)

How is that inner soul of yours doing – is it thriving and growing today or wilting and dying? Are you feeding your soul or starving it? Will you soul thrive this year or die more this year? Do you have soul fatigue?

John Ortberg highlights the indicators of soul-fatigue:

1. Things seem to bother you more than they should. Your spouse’s gum chewing suddenly reveals to your 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 worshipping 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. (Page 132, Soul Keeping)

Listen to some other Bible verses speaking of the soul:

• Deut. 4:29: “But if from there you seek the LORD your God, you will find him if you seek him with all your heart and with all your soul.”

• Deut. 10:12: “And now, Israel, what does the LORD your God ask of you but to fear the LORD your God, to walk in obedience to him, to love him, to serve the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul...”

• Psalm 23: 1-3: “The LORD is my shepherd, I lack nothing. He makes me lie down in green pastures, he leads me beside quiet waters, he refreshes my soul. He guides me along the right paths for his name's sake.”

• Psalm 42: 1: “As the deer pants for streams of water, so my soul pants for you, my God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. Where can I go and meet with God?”

The soul - your soul matters, and it is connected to your spiritual health and well-being! The soul and spirit are locked arm and arm, but they can be separated apart – the soul’s health or brokenness, or it’s fractures will determine what you become this year for the Lord. It will impact your spiritual and inner health.

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.”

The Big Question: “How is your soul moving into this new year?”

How is that inner soul of yours doing – is it thriving and growing or wilting and dying? Are you feeding your soul or starving it? Will you soul thrive this year or die more this year?

Back to what Jesus said: Luke 10: 27: He 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.'"

Jesus addresses the soul again – we need to love God with our soul – did you hear that – your soul – your entire inner being - does it love God! Does your soul love the Lord or is it torn apart – mad at Him – blaming Him – disengaged from Him- serves Him one day then sin the next?

Your choices will determine the health of your soul! Your giving determines the health of your soul! Your actions and inaction this year determine the health of your soul! Your busyness and hurried lifestyle will determine the health of your soul.

So, I am asking again "How is your soul going into the New Year of 2023?"

I look around and I see "soul" missing from a lot of people's lives. Or I look into their eyes and see a dark hole in their souls. I have heard it said, “That the eyes are the windows to the soul.” What do people see when they look into your eyes? Is your soul healthy and vibrant or is it sick and lost? Is their an emptiness when people look into your eyes?

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

1. The soul needs 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. Idolatry is still a huge problem in Christianity today!

1. An idol is anything that usurps God’s rightful place in my life.

a. It could be recreation

b. It could be self

c. It could be money

d. It could be career

e. It could be a house or cabin

f. It could be a friend

g. It could be a celebrity or sports athlete or musician

h. It could be your church

i. It could be your ministry

ii. Ortberg adds: “Idolatry is the most serious sin in the Old Testament, leading one scholar to conclude that the primary principle of the Old Testament is the refutation of idolatry. Idolatry, according to author Timothy Keller, is the sin beneath the sin. Anytime I sin, I am allowing some competing desire to have higher priority than God and God’s will for my life. That means that in that moment I have put something on a pedestal higher than God. That something is my idol. All sin involves idolatry. We all commit idolatry every day. It is the sin of the soul meeting its needs with anything that distances it from God.”

1. Ortberg, John (2014-04-22). Soul Keeping: Caring For the Most Important Part of You (pp. 82-83). Zondervan. Kindle Edition.

iii. If we do not connect our soul with God – hear this it will connect itself to something else as a counterfeit.

1. It’s the nature of the soul – it was designed to be in connection in adoration to God but if it cannot have God – hear this it will find something else to latch on too to worship and be devoted too.

2. This will create unhealthy soul ties to things that bring us down spiritually and in turn lead to our eternal demise.

b. Ortberg states: “Most people, especially religious people, would probably say their souls are devoted to God or a higher calling or an ideal. We want to believe that’s true even as we devote our souls to something else. “

i. The problem I see in the church is people do not give God what is rightfully his!

1. They skip church to relax.

2. They skip church to work.

3. They skip church for sports and recreation.

4. They take away time from God and replace it with something that should not be in front of God.

ii. Ortberg adds, “but consider as honestly as possible the following statements. If any of them even slightly resemble your thoughts, it is quite possible you have discovered the true devotion of your soul: It’s Soul check time!

1. I think about money a lot, as in getting more of it. Sometimes I fantasize about winning the lottery or coming into a big inheritance. I have a mental wish list of the things I’d like to buy if money were no object.

2. I wish I had more power and control over others. It seems as if my spouse and kids just don’t respect me enough. Ditto at work. I know I would handle it carefully — I would just like to be a more powerful person.

3. I have missed important family events in order to pursue my career. I justify it by telling myself and my family that this is what it takes to provide for them. I tell myself that if I keep working hard, I will reach a level where I will be able to relax a little and spend more time with the people I love.

4. I consider myself an honest person, someone with good values. But I would set those values aside to pursue something important to me if I knew no one else would know about it.

5. I have desires that I prefer not to have my spouse know about. If I am confronted by any of those desires, I become defensive and try to justify it.

6. I have secrets that I am willing to lie to protect.

7. More than once I have had arguments over something I wanted to do but my spouse did not want to do. Or over something I wanted to buy that my spouse didn’t think I should buy.

8. Aside from my family and others I love, there are things in my life that if they were lost or destroyed, it would crush me, devastate me.

9. If my doctor told me I had to give up (alcohol, cigarettes, red meat, salt/ sodium, sugar, caffeine, etc.) because it was seriously putting my health at risk, I would find it difficult to the point of being impossible. I likely would not tell anyone in order to avoid accountability.

10. If you asked my family what was most important to me, they would likely refer to my job, my favorite hobby, making money. . . They would probably not say it was them.

11. I love God, and I want to more closely follow him, but there is one thing that always seems to get in the way, and it’s.

a. Here is the warning:

i. If your soul is devoted to something that becomes more important to you than God, that is your idol.

b. From Ortberg, John (2014-04-22). Soul Keeping: Caring For the Most Important Part of You (pp. 83-84). Zondervan. Kindle Edition.

i. So how did your Soul Check go! Is something affecting the health of your soul with God.

c. Question: “Why do you think God addresses the issue of idolatry and places it as one of the Big Ten in the OT?

i. Exodus 20:2: 2 “I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery. 3 “You shall have no other gods before me. 4 “You shall not make for yourself an idol in the form of anything in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the waters below. 5 You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God, punishing the children for the sin of the fathers to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me, 6 but showing love to a thousand generations of those who love me and keep my commandments. 7 “You shall not misuse the name of the LORD your God, for the LORD will not hold anyone guiltless who misuses his name. 8 “Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy. 9 Six days you shall labor and do all your work, 10 but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the LORD your God. On it you shall not do any work, neither you, nor your son or daughter, nor your manservant or maidservant, nor your animals, nor the alien within your gates. 11 For in six days the LORD made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but he rested on the seventh day. Therefore, the LORD blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy.

ii. This is a big deal – idols will make your soul unhealthy and damaged. An idol will wilt and eventually kill your soul.

iii. The these first few commandments all deal with our relationship with God – that internal relationship and warn us not to allow our souls to be tied up with false idols which will lead to our destruction.

iv. So how is you soul looking? Are their idols choking out the Holy Spirit from your soul? From your life?

v. Do you need to cut these soul ties this year?

T.S. – We must be aware that idolatry will destroy our souls – our connection with God – our relationship with the creator of our soul. Our souls were designed to be in God’s presence!

2. The soul needs God’s presence to be healthy and whole!

a. Genesis opens up with the creation of Adam and Eve and God in the Garden of Eden.

i. But they sin and this causes separation between the two of them with God.

ii. Lesson of the soul: Our souls were created to be with God – this is why our souls search for Him - for connection with Him – for meaning from Him!

1. This is why an idol will never satisfy our souls – our inner being!

2. This is why some millionaires are miserable.

3. This is why people with fame and fortune commit suicide.

a. Here this: Their souls are unhealthy, broken, and fractured!

b. 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.”

i. 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.

ii. Our souls need to be connected to God and His presence – what changed and transformed the disciples in Acts 2 – a connection of their soul with the Spirit of God – let me say it again “The soul and spirit are linked” – it was an internal connection not and external one – it changed their perceptions – it drove out their fears of the future.

1. It made them bold and brave to speak the truth and pray for miracles for people.

2. It made them stand up for the Truth!

iii. The Acts 2 experience turned disciples who were afraid into courageous warriors for the Kingdom and even though they would be arrested and beaten for their message. They would not lose their joy – they would sing praises to God after beatings and while still in prison.

1. Healthy souls – infused with the Holy Spirit can do this!

2. They can thrive in any environment – even in hostile environments!

3. How is you soul?

c. Ortberg states, “For the soul to be well, it needs to be with God. One of the most intriguing phrases in the Bible is where Adam and Eve “. . . heard the sound of the LORD God as he was walking in the garden in the cool of the day.” God is Spirit, which means he doesn’t have a body, legs, or feet. What does it sound like when God goes for a walk? The point of this remarkable phrase is that walking is something you do with somebody you care about — a friend with a friend, a child with a parent. Two people in love would go for a walk. It’s not really about the walk; it’s about being with someone. This God — this God of the Bible — is a God who wants to “be with.” Our souls were made to walk with God.”

i. Ortberg, John (2014-04-22). Soul Keeping: Caring For the Most Important Part of You (p. 117). Zondervan. Kindle Edition.

ii. Is your soul walking into the New Year with God?

1. Or is your soul hiding from God?

2. Or is your soul running away from God?

3. Or is your soul aching for God?

4. Or is you soul seeking more of God?

d. 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. 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.

1. My soul is feed and nurtured by a connection to the Lord.

ii. Ortberg states, “Bearing fruit means that we will do wonderful things in our lives for God and His kingdom, but we don’t really have to try all that hard. Instead, we are to make sure we are “with God.” That’s what it means to “abide in the vine” — live intimately with Jesus from one moment to the next. “If you don’t do that,” Jesus says, “nothing much will come out of your life.”

1. Do you want to thrive this year – be attached to the vine – be in God’s presence!

iii. Ortberg adds, “It’s kind of like he invites his followers into an experiment because they’re just very ordinary people. How much can an ordinary person do in life on this earth with God in the ordinary moments? And how can I really make sure my soul is with God all the time?”

1. From Ortberg, John (2014-04-22). Soul Keeping: Caring For the Most Important Part of You (p. 118). Zondervan. Kindle Edition.

2. God wants to use your life for the Kingdom of Heaven – but to do so requires you to be connected and locked into Him and His presence.

e. Ortberg states, “Jesus began this grand experiment with his twelve followers. They’re like his pilot group. He appointed those twelve disciples so that they might be with him. One of them, Judas, chose not to be with him in the end and ended up killing himself. The other eleven change the world because they’re with God through Jesus. Then there is what has come to be called the Acts 2 community — the first attempt at church. Jesus has returned to be with his Father, but he is still present through his Holy Spirit. Though he is not present physically, his followers find another way of doing life. They devote themselves every day to what Jesus taught: to prayer, to fellowship, to breaking of bread together. They shared what they owned; they served each other’s needs. Ethnic barriers came down as they became known by the way they loved each other. It’s a different community, devoted to a Jesus way of life with God.”

i. Ortberg, John (2014-04-22). Soul Keeping: Caring For the Most Important Part of You (p. 119). Zondervan. Kindle Edition.

1. This is what we desire here at Christian Hills Church. To achieve this means we all must be connected and immersed in the presence and the power of the Spirit of the Lord.

2. This means we have to care for our souls!

f. Real Life Story from John Ortberg:

i. 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. 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 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.

1. Is your soul connected with God or are you disconnected with God? Does you life practice the presence of God or neglect the presence of God?

2. Can I challenge you to decide to practice the presence of God everyday – be intentional about it – ask the Lord to give you God moments, aha moments each day.

a. Can I challenge to say this prayer each morning: “Lord I invite you to be with me today – Please help me connect with your presence and heart today. Lord open my ears to hear your voice throughout my day!”

g. Can we do this today – be in God’s presence like we read about in Scripture and other stories of the past?

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.

a. Are you up to take on “The Soul Experiment?”

b. Do you want to change – to you want to strengthen your soul and it’s connection with God?

T.S. – Your soul needs the presence of God to keep it healthy and whole but you are the one who has to decide to let God in because you are the keeper of your own soul.

3. 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. Bible Story from John Ortberg:

i. One of the ways God tries to teach this concept is in an obscure and really bizarre little story that starts the book of Judges. As the book begins, Israel is fighting: “It was [at Bezek] that they found Adoni-Bezek and fought against him, putting to rout the Canaanites and the Perizzites. Adoni-Bezek fled, but they chased him and caught him, and cut off his thumbs and big toes.” I’m not making this up. When I grew up in Sunday school, our main educational technology was called the flannel graph. I don’t ever remember seeing this character named Adoni-Bezek with no thumbs, no big toes. Seems like a gory way to start off a book in the Bible. As I’ve learned from years of reading and studying and teaching the Bible, there’s always a good reason for whatever is in the Bible. In this case, if you learn about this story, it can actually save you a world of pain. Adoni-Bezek said, “Seventy kings with their thumbs and big toes cut off have picked up scraps under my table. Now God has paid me back for what I did to them.” Things were violent back then, but even then this was big-time torture. Adoni-Bezek does thumb and toe removal not once, but seventy times. It was his signature move. Then, to intensify the humiliation of these rival kings, he feeds them by having them eat scraps under the table. He was sowing terror and cruelty and getting away with it. Until one day . . . Now he’s the ex-king with no thumbs and no toes under the table. But notice — he doesn’t say, “Israel did this to me”; he says, “As I have done, so God has repaid me.” All those years, all that torture, all those victims — someone was watching the whole time. It’s not just that there is a Law of Consequences in the universe. There is a God of Justice in the universe. “Do not be deceived: God cannot be mocked. A man reaps what he sows.” And the primary arena in which this is true is that little plot of ground that has been assigned to your care — your soul. A soul that is not kept properly will surely die.

1. Ortberg, John (2014-04-22). Soul Keeping: Caring For the Most Important Part of You (pp. 91-92). Zondervan. Kindle Edition.

2. If you do not focus on your soul - then you will reap what you sow! You have to take care of your soul! Your life depends on it!

d. Bible Story from John Ortberg:

i. Once there were two brothers who could not get along. They had grown up together, played together, fought together, laughed together; perhaps they had been close. But when they grew up and their parents died, they had an argument about how to divvy up the estate. It grew severe enough that they couldn’t get along anymore; the money was more important than the love of one brother for another. One of them — the younger, who didn’t have any leverage — decided to get some outside help. He approached a rabbi: “Teacher, tell my brother to divide the inheritance with me.” That teacher was Jesus, but he didn’t play arbiter; instead, he gave a warning and told a story. The warning was that a person’s life does not consist in the abundance of their possessions. The story was about a wealthy farmer who harvested a bumper crop one year. He said to his soul, “Soul, you have many goods laid up for many years to come; take your ease, eat, drink and be merry.” His life became an upscale village filled with expensive homes. But God said to him, “You fool! This very night your soul is required of you.” When Jesus says the man’s soul will be required, he uses language from the business world; it’s a term that would describe a loan that had fallen due. Our souls are on loan to us. One day, God will review with us what our souls have become. That is what will matter from our lives. The stream is your soul. For it to flow freely, the keeper of the stream must clear it of anything that becomes more important than God. Ortberg, John (2014-04-22). Soul Keeping: Caring For the Most Important Part of You (p. 94). Zondervan. Kindle Edition.

e. YOUR SOUL IS FOREVER and you are responsible for it!

i. Jesus said, “Do not be afraid of those who kill the body . . . rather, be afraid of the One who can destroy both soul and body in hell.” A lot of people would be shocked to know Jesus said something like this because we think of him as always saying comforting words, especially “Fear not.” I have not counted them, but I have been told that there are more than 365 “fear nots” in the Bible. So why all of a sudden is he telling us to be afraid? Because the stakes are so high — the body eventually ages and wears out, but the soul lives forever. And how you live determines the destination of your soul. We don’t like to think about this, but the Bible teaches that we will one day stand before God who is the judge of our eternal destiny. If you live your life in deliberate violation of his will and his ways, your soul will eventually be destroyed by being completely separated from God. That was the essence of Jesus’ warning: Protect your soul. Guard it. Make room in your life to care for it.

f. Jesus cared for His own soul: We can learn from the life of Jesus how to care for our soul.

i. John Ortberg makes the following observations: The idea here is that Jesus engaged in certain practices that allowed God’s grace to keep replenishing his spirit and soul:

1. He prayed.

a. Jesus would even leave doing ministry stuff and walk away from thousands to pray – Yes, he walked away from healing people, delivering people, teaching people to get away with the Father to replenish His soul through times of prayer.

2. He had a circle of close friends — the twelve who went through life with him. He shared everything with them; people underestimate the role of friendship in Jesus’ life.

a. A good friendship with others is healthy for your soul!

i. FCA pastors and fellowship meetings. Bring times of soul-care.

3. He engaged in regular corporate worship at synagogue.

a. Worship always replenishes my soul – I have been known to just drive to get into times of worship to replenish my soul.

b. This why I like IHOP style worship places.

4. He fed his mind with Scripture.

a. I can think of many times I just read the Bible or a good book centered on Biblical truth and it brings healing and health to my soul.

5. He enjoyed God’s creation — mountain, garden, and lake.

a. This why I love hiking in the mountains, hunting it feeds my soul.

b. This why I loved boating on the lakes in Wisconsin and Minnesota.

6. He took long walks.

a. I like walking and praying – it replenishes my soul.

b. Walks with Brett Hollis – with Kathy!

7. He welcomed little children and hugged them and blessed them.

a. My grandchildren energize my soul – it’s hard to explain how that works but it does.

8. He enjoyed partying with non-religious types.

a. I am discovering this again through my exercise dance class – connecting with lost people – seeking people replenishes my soul.

b. Ortberg states, “Notice that the last one — one you might not have thought about — was so much the case that it actually gave rise to rumors about him: The Son of Man came eating and drinking, and people say, “Here is a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of immoral people.”

c. A common problem is that people think of spiritual practices as obligations that will actually drain them.

i. But for Jesus it replenished His soul and I agree with Ortberg these very same things Jesus did – I do and they help my soul to heal and be healthy.

1. Ortberg, John; Ortberg, John. Soul Keeping: Caring For the Most Important Part of You (p. 129). Zondervan. Kindle Edition.

Conclusion:

What do we need to know from this message?

• Our soul needs to be connected to its Creator or it will find an idol to connect too.

• 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’s health is our responsibility. God gave us this responsibility.

What do we need to do?

• So, we need to care for our souls and move into the new year healthy and whole in our souls!

Soul Care 101 exercise and discussion:

Read the following references to the soul and then seek to answer the following questions about “Soul-care 101.”

• Deut. 4:29: “But if from there you seek the LORD your God, you will find him if you seek him with all your heart and with all your soul.”

• Deut. 10:12: “And now, Israel, what does the LORD your God ask of you but to fear the LORD your God, to walk in obedience to him, to love him, to serve the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul...”

• Psalm 23: 1-3: “The LORD is my shepherd, I lack nothing. He makes me lie down in green pastures, he leads me beside quiet waters, he refreshes my soul. He guides me along the right paths for his name's sake.”

• Psalm 42: 1: “As the deer pants for streams of water, so my soul pants for you, my God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. Where can I go and meet with God?”

What did Jesus say about our souls?

Read Matthew 16:26 and Matthew 22:37 to answer:

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Define the term “Soul”?

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Describe what you think the soul does?

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Who is responsible for your soul?

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What does the soul need to healthy and whole?

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How is my soul going into 2023?

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What is my plan to do soul care in 2023?

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