A few weeks ago, a friend and I were discussing the spirit and the soul. It was a simple discussion, pondering and wondering the distinctions of the two.
It was good conversation. There are definitely convictions that come up when we talk, but mostly there’s a relaxed nature to our conversations: discussing nuggets we come across, wondering the inflection Jesus may have used when saying things, seeing beyond the black and white on the pages…
Prior to and since that discussion, one of the recurring issues stirring deeply within me has been the kneejerk nature and emotionalism which seems to saturate American society.
There is also, sadly, a strong vein of this in the American Body.
It's everywhere. And it bothers me. It has bothered me. It continues to bother me.
••pursuit and portrayal••
And as I think about it, there is something else that seems to be right alongside this penchant to be blown about by the emotion of the moment.
I don’t know how well this describes it, but part of this “thing” is the vast number of people who are fixated on achieving happiness. Or, for some, fixated relentlessly on pursuing happiness.
There is likewise an obsession with the PORTRAYAL of an image of happiness, or as I read recently, an image of “all togetherness”.
The attainment of happiness and the portrayal of an image of happiness/togetherness are close cousins, yet distinct.
Neither one satisfies. People who obtain the things they seek, the happiness soon wanes and they begin to pursue the next thing.
To those obsessed with putting on a mask and portraying happiness/all-togetherness to others, it is amazing the number who stay on this endless treadmill of attempting to portray strength, portray stability, portray happiness—when the truth is they are angry or depressed or tired or dying on the inside while projecting their OKness to the world.
I know. I have lived this.
The pursuit and portrayal of this stuff is widespread. Both outside and within the Body.
We see many fruits of the happiness trail: spouses leaving spouses (Christians included, in large numbers). Spoiling kids with things and comfort. Live for the moment mentality. The pursuit of pleasure and ripple-free living. The accumulation of things. The pride and false humility of status. The pride and false humility of knowledge. The pride and false humility of possessions.
We see the fruits of the all togetherness masking: anywhere we go it’s “I’m fine”, “doing great”, “doing good”, etc.
Within the Body it might drift over to “I’m blessed”, “I’m anointed”, “walking in the blessings”, “walking in victory”, “strong in the Lord”, etc.
It's rampant.
(Let’s pause and obviously acknowledge that if someone is actually strong in the Lord that’s great. But how often is that jargoned out of the mouth when not really the case? Surely I’m not the only Follower who has done that. Well, if I am, my apologies. I’m trying to become transparent like everybody else already is.)
Part of the bent toward emotionalism and image in the Body is the emergence of Christiandom’s own set of "rock star" preachers. Glitz, glamour, name recognition, worshipped by adorers, big money.
I read of one preacher who recently took delivery of a $20 million private plane. The website for this "dream" prominently boasts "Spreading the Word around the world--at 600 mph!"
In watching a video clip from that same website, the preacher's wife told supporters and contributors "Thank you for helping make our dream come true. Our prayer is that God will now make your dreams come true, because you sowed a seed that made ours come true."
I won't say here what I thought about that.
••image and identity••
Intertwined within both emotion and image is identity.
Emotional appeal is used to introduce identity with a bang. Identity grows from the acceptance and affirmation of the desired image. Emotional appeal is used once again, to promote identity and to perpetuate attraction to the now-accepted image.
Marketing 101.
As the Body is concerned, identity and emotion are players in how movements and paradigms get started. It’s how churches and ministries grow.
Identity of itself is a neutral thing, neither inherently good or bad.
The warping begins and continues when image (whether it be the establishment, growth and/or maintaining of it) becomes bigger than the message.
It is common today in talking with church-attending Followers to hear them talk of membership numbers, their facilities, sound systems, worship productions, headline artists or members, etc. And often it’s not just the fact that they mention these things, it’s that they talk of them in an “ooh ahh” way.
This seems to be “the way” in 21st Century American church today. The question is, are we going to stand before God and justify $20,000 sound system purchases when several people in church can’t pay their rent?
I wonder how much of our justifications and growth initiatives pass God’s muster. He’s the judge of all that, I just want to prick our thinking.
What’s most alarming is, very few are pondering this. The great majority is on the church growth and entertainment bandwagon, and no one seems to be pausing to question the structural soundness of the wagon.
I am. And I do it out of fear, concerned that some of this may be wood, hay and straw in a 1 Corinthians 3:10-15 kind of way.
“But each one should be careful how he builds. 11For no one can lay any foundation other than the one already laid, which is Jesus Christ. 12If any man builds on this foundation using gold, silver, costly stones, wood, hay or straw, 13his work will be shown for what it is, because the Day will bring it to light. It will be revealed with fire, and the fire will test the quality of each man's work. 14If what he has built survives, he will receive his reward. 15If it is burned up, he will suffer loss; he himself will be saved, but only as one escaping through the flames.”
••obsession with image••
When I go to the local mall, when I watch television commercials, everything is geared around image. There is widespread obsession by both genders toward certain looks, certain appearances, certain attitudes, certain glossaries, certain competencies, certain attainments...the list goes on.
American women do all they can to portray themselves as fun, positive, extroverted, spunky, flexible, understanding, sweet and adventurous. If they actually have these characteristics naturally or ingrained, wonderful! What grates me is when women are not like this, and put on a front/mask/show to portray themselves as what they are not.
Same thing goes for men. American men do all they can to portray themselves as financially successful, confident, stable, in command of their temper and circumstances, witty and dynamic. Again, for men who are this, great! But how often do men spend money they don't have on things they can't afford to portray a certain image? How often do men portray what they are not?
The corporate American Body has an image it strives toward, too. Many churches are focused on numbers, attractive buildings, growth, productions and entertainment, "life-impacting" sermons, "dynamic marriage seminars", "biblical principle" sessions on debt or wealth, the image of wisdom, the image of integrity, tips, studies, x-step programs to (fill in the blank here with some Christian growth or gift jargon). The list goes on.
Churches compete on whose marquee has a cuter, wittier, wiser or more profound message.
Church attenders compare fish stories on how great their preaching is, how dynamic their worship music is, how much integrity their pastor has, how loving their members are, how great a worship experience their church is, blah blah blah.
It's about image. The better the image, the more people will come. The more who come, the more money comes in. The more money comes in, the more building and equipment can be afforded. The more building and equipment can be afforded, the bigger productions and more entertainment and more creature comforts can be provided. The bigger productions and more entertainment and more creature comforts can be provided, the better the image. The better the image, the more people will come.
And so the cycle continues.
Where is the gospel in this? I didn't say where are the numbers. Where is the gospel?
I'm not denying some come to the Lord through all this. I'm saying what's the emphasis? The gospel, or the attainment (and entertainment) in the gospel?
There's some slippery-slope factor in this that concerns me, yet the Body seems to accept this accumulation and fanfare as the acceptable and recommended way to now advance the Kingdom.
I mentioned 1 Corinthians 3:10-15 earlier, and I wonder what portion of this image-in-the-name-of-Jesus is gold and what portion of it is hay or straw:
“But each one should be careful how he builds. 11For no one can lay any foundation other than the one already laid, which is Jesus Christ. 12If any man builds on this foundation using gold, silver, costly stones, wood, hay or straw, 13his work will be shown for what it is, because the Day will bring it to light. It will be revealed with fire, and the fire will test the quality of each man's work. 14If what he has built survives, he will receive his reward. 15If it is burned up, he will suffer loss; he himself will be saved, but only as one escaping through the flames.”
••keeping up with the church Joneses••
Some friends and I were recently talking, and one of them mentioned noticing a lighting system at a church which he noted "must have cost well in excess of $10,000". Another friend made a really salient observation about that.
"You know", he said, "once a church commits to that they can never go back. They have now raised the bar in that church, and they can never retreat from that." True. And sad.
And yet this is 21st Century American churchery. Churches are into one-upmanship and keeping up with the other church Joneses. But it’s all in the name of and for Jesus, though, so it’s alright. Right?
And that's probably why I wonder where the gospel factors into all this. The Body is in a Christian rat race, and doesn't even blink an eye about it.
Attention, Body. It’s time to blink.
••Happiness vs. Joy••
It was mentioned earlier how emotional appeal is wrapped into the American fixation with image and identity. Tightly linked to the promotion of most things is the notion of their bringing contentment, convenience and happiness.
These things in and of themselves are okay. My thought, though, is how often the man-made things take God’s place.
I have wrestled much for some time now with the whole concept of happiness, one of the golden calves worshipped in the United States. A very high percentage of folks, inside and outside the Body, pursue happiness relentlessly.
There are a couple of emotional cousins which I think warrant consideration as pertains to America, America’s ideals and the Body. Happiness and joy.
There’s a percentage of Followers, and I don’t know the number, who I don’t think realize happiness and joy are two different things.
I had a discussion with another Follower a few months ago, during which I commented “the goal of Christianity is not happiness”. It took about two seconds for this comment to sink in, and the resulting look of confusion on their face indicated the point had registered.
Knowing I had their attention and their confusion, I continued. “Jesus did not die on the cross so that we could be happy.”
The look of bewilderment continued, which is what I knew would happen and what I wished to happen. I then left the conversation hanging…on purpose.
Happiness is a temporary human emotion tied to circumstances. I'm happy when there's money in the bank. I'm happy when my sports team wins. I'm happy when someone likes me. I'm happy when I eat great food.
Happiness is temporary. It's transient. It comes and goes with circumstance and does not endure.
Stop for a sec. I am not bashing happiness or on some happiness-chastity march. I am simply stating it is not all it is cracked up to be. If it were, I would still be in bliss for my team winning the league championship twenty years ago.
I am also saying the pursuit of happiness and/or its worship, at least in this society, can easily and seemingly innocently get on the throne of our lives…without our even knowing it.
Let us also note, society is not only obsessed with happiness or pursuing happiness.
Society is also obsessed with the portrayal of the image of being happy (and the portrayal of “I’m fine”, “I’ve got it all together”, “I’m doing great”, “I’m complete”, “I’ve arrived”).
And so in this subsequent discussion of happiness, we can substitute any of these images in the paragraph above as what is obsessively pursued in America today.
Commonly, we in the Body pursue some form of happiness or image of it. The difference is we call it “blessing” and defend our relentless pursuit of it in the name of Jesus.
Whatever we tend to call it, happiness or otherwise, it comes and goes with unpredictability.
It is also very common to mistake happiness for the more enduring, stable and intrinsic emotion of God: joy.
My hand is raised as I type this. I've done it, and do it. Whether we pursue happiness in "more wholesome" ways or not, happiness still seems to be a very common driving impetus in our lives.
Sometimes the Body pursues the same objects of happiness the world does, and sometimes the objects pursued are different.
Sometimes the ways in which happiness is pursued by the Body are the same as the world, and sometimes they are different.
(Let me pause for a second to distinguish what could easily be misconstrued here. This is a discussion of joy and happiness, not a discussion over what is good/evil or right/wrong in life to pursue. Bear with me.)
My concern is the Body joining the world in looking to happiness/image/blessing as the foundation of our sustenance, the basis of our well-being, the core of our identity, the drive of our motivations, the essence of ourselves, and/or the goal of our lives.
I am not proposing Christian masochism, nor claiming any "right way" or "answer" here. I simply see some gray clouds of indistinguishability between the Body and the world, and joy and happiness, and think it something to gnaw on.
So, what about joy?
I've not taken the time to look up the original Greek biblical word(s) for it, which I sometimes do, and in doing so it’s cool to find varying uses of different words that got watered down in their English translation.
Instead, I reflect on joy based on experience and how it differs from happiness.
Joy is likewise an emotion of circumstance. It therefore seems similar to happiness, yet is very different.
When I think of joy at its root, what comes to mind is emotion experienced with God.
Joy comes when seeing a captive set free. Joy swells within upon seeing someone’s heart or countenance transformed. There is joy in seeing God perform a physical miracle right before the eyes.
Joy is not relegated to Kingdom events alone. But whether it’s a Kingdom event or otherwise, God is in it, over it, or right alongside—experiencing whatever it is right there with us.
When God orchestrates it, it is He who authors the blessing in that hour. When He is simply there alongside, there is joy in sharing the moment with Him.
Just as I’ve not looked up the Hebrew or Greek words for joy, neither is an exposition on joy forthcoming (ehhh). I’ll sum it up real simply.
In the NIV, happiness appears six times in the Bible. Joy appears 242 times. The numbers line up I think with God’s emphasis of the truer of the two emotions. And, upon looking at joy verses, joy aligns with God’s presence and experiences with His people.
Summary over, back to joy.
I can think of a couple of things offhand, and there are probably many more, which distinguish joy from happiness.
Joy can be experienced in painful circumstances. Happiness cannot.
Joy arises and flows out from within. It’s an intrinsic emotion which springs up. Happiness, on the other hand, is a surface emotion which resides in the stimuli alone.
When the stimuli fades, happiness fades. When the stimuli falters, happiness falters. Circumstances are a part of experiencing joy, but not the entire makeup of the experience.
This is why happiness as a barometer in marriage (or in life) is perilous. Spouses CAN make us happy, and they sometimes or often do. Yet when we look to a spouse as THE source of our life this is a slippery slope with horrific consequences.
Note the word spouse above can be interchanged with any number of words: job, friends, car, marriage, position, children, sports, recognition, possessions, image, hobbies, talents, recreation, celebrities, identity, (fill in the blank--this can be any of a zillion things).
Let us remember also, God at some point (or regularly) allows our earthly security blankets, whatever they are, to tear.
Because He’s mean? To me it’s both a favor and a gut check. To me it’s because He loves.
When others and things fail me, I get a reminder from the Holy Spirit that things and mankind fail, and will continue to fail.
Thinking of this in Old Testament terms, He’s letting me know not to have any other god or idol before Him.
When I blindly or purposely put too much faith in something or someone, the resultant sting of the failing reminds me.
And this is good.
Back to joy. Drifted, but it brought some valuable self-examination.
In joy I experience circumstances and emotion, but not alone. In joy, even when the stimuli or circumstance is gone, there is still the taste of having gone through whatever it was with God. The fact that God was with me gives joy a much richer flavor than stimuli-dependent happiness.
Joy is commonly accompanied by any combination of humility, amazement and gratitude. This is because of God being present. My experiences are vastly different when God is in them. And I welcome Him to share them with me.
I perceive happiness as tied to our emotions and our mind, in other words tied to our soul (from the Greek word “psuche”, which literally is ‘mind, will and emotions’).
When my sports team wins, I am happy. When I win a prize from a name-in-the-hat drawing at work, I'm happy. When I win a new car on a game show, I'm happy. Happiness is tied to external circumstances, human circumstances, and is an expression of mirth that happens on the outside, as opposed to coming from within like joy.
We are better served resting in the joy of the Lord than in unpredictable and ebbing happiness.
An example of joy and happiness comes to mind in the disciples seeing Jesus resurrected and in their midst.
The stunning amazement of God's miracle and power brought joy to their spirits. Their core, their foundation, their spirits were galvanized and lifted by Jesus' resurrection. They now believed. And joy swelled from within them.
Interestingly, in all gospel accounts of seeing Jesus resurrected, it mentions joy upon seeing Him. Happiness is never mentioned. Joy, the inner emotion springing up from within, linked to our spirit, our core.
We are a mix of spirit and emotion, and God cares for them both.
Jesus calmed the disciples' fears [emotions] when they saw Him walking on the water. Their emotions were all over the place, thinking Jesus was a ghost and also fearing they were about to drown.
Also, the miracles performed in calming the storms and walking on water brought joy within Jesus’ disciples. The miracles strengthened the belief in the core of their spirits. "Who is this, that even the winds and the storms obey Him" they asked. They knew He was of God, and the foundational emotion springing from within was joy.
••spirit and soul••
This example of Jesus' resurrection ties into the distinction of joy and happiness, and also into the distinction of spirit and soul which my friend and I were discussing, mentioned at the beginning of this post.
In my frustration and lamentation of American obsession with happiness, and how that translates into damning circumstances, I have pondered and struggled with understanding this whole tide of emotion in America and the Body (spouses leaving spouses, children being train-wrecked emotionally, the emptiness from not having the image or accepted "it" that society says matters, etc).
In learning a few weeks ago the biblical Greek word for soul, psuche (again, translated refers to the part of us that is our mind/will/emotions), I began to wonder: okay, well what then is my spirit, and what's the difference between my spirit and my soul?
I have them both, a spirit and a soul. How do they link in to this struggle I have with the penchant of emotionalism and happiness here in the States?
Why is the drive for happiness so pervading in the Body as well as unbelieving society? Why is there such fleshly living among the Body?
My mind raced with these and related questions.
Before going further, let me say I don’t see the soul as bad or evil in and of itself. I believe the soul is a neutral entity which is bendable and influence-able. It can be swayed in a good way or a bad way.
Probably most of the following will reflect on how the soul can be swayed in a fleshly, emotional way that is detrimental to our society and the Body, but I thought it important to make this clarification.
Okay, back to the why of my mind being flooded with questions about what is going on.
It’s partly because I've experienced the heart-numbing sting of this soulish approach to life time and time and time again. I want to understand what has hurt and torments me.
I want to understand why couples of whom I've thought "man, they are strong in Jesus, they'll stay together forever" I find out later have divorced.
I want to understand why some who claim Jesus do not speak Life to me when they attempt to minister to me about things. Instead, they say these cutesy little Christian comments that do nothing to help. Their words don't compare to the salve I receive at the Cross and the Throne, and from a small set of others, when I lay my heart out. What’s the ‘why’ behind this?
I want to understand the obsession with worldly attainment that is a cancer to Jesus' Body. I want to understand the attraction of the Prosperity Gospel, where life in Jesus is so smooth. I want to understand the Dominion Gospel, where the attraction is speaking and claiming what you want, then standing your ground and not budging til God gives it to you.
I want to understand why pastors and deacons run off with their secretaries. I want to understand why parents who follow Jesus have no conscience at all to scream at the top of their lungs at their children.
I want to understand why so many who follow Jesus give the same dirty look down their noses at those who need help as the unreligious do.
I want to understand why churches grow to memberships of 30,000 plus without a call to turn from sin.
I want to understand why so many Followers and the majority of those in churches are superficial, and put on their masks of "all togetherness" instead of being honest and transparent.
I want to understand the hollowness I feel when I see a Bible-wielding Follower rant at every passer by in a public venue.
The Christian faith receives ridicule and scorn from the American media, from the world. Some Followers simply chalk it up to persecution. I think that's a short, easy answer.
I am embarrassed, and I think that embarrassment stems from God shaking His head at some of the things we do in the name of Jesus and call it Christianity.
I see us as Followers missing the mark. There's a lack of separation and distinction between our lives and those of the world. There's a cloudy gray overlap of similarity, and I don't blame the world for looking at the Body and saying "no thanks".
I feel moved to tell them "I'm sorry". Sorry for what they've seen. Sorry for what we example to them. Sorry for being a "do as I say, not as I do" example to the world. I want to understand this.
Our Body is sick, folks, with this soulish and emotion-driven living, and I want to understand more of this plague which doesn’t distinguish us from the world we proclaim Jesus to.
Jesus says we are all known by our fruit. Some of our fruit in the Body is rotten, and the world is laughing all the way to hell while we keep fumbling all over ourselves living just like them, yet saying "no, really, it's not like that". I want to understand why we’re so similar in our lives with the world.
Why do we wonder why there are so many deaf ears turned away from Jesus…
I want to understand a portion of the "why" behind all this happening.
I want to understand this because of the passion I have to be a lampstand in the way Jesus says I am to be. I want to better understand the emptiness I feel when I see the Way trashed--by myself, another Follower or a scorner.
I want to understand a little more, so I can better speak with the doubters, the skeptics, the wounded, the backslidden, the haters, the wicked, the mockers, the insolent, the proud, the ashamed.
Jesus talks about abiding in Him and bearing good fruit. I want to understand some of the why behind becoming detached from the Vine. I wish to understand some of the why behind Followers going from bearing good fruit to bearing bad fruit.
Jesus says "Many will come to me and say 'Lord, Lord', and I will say solemnly unto them, 'Depart from Me, I never knew you.'" I want to understand a portion of why this is, where we live in His name but are not on the same page with Him.
Hebrews says some will believe and be saved, while others will shrink back and be destroyed. What leads to shrinking back?
Jesus says "those who remain steadfast to the end will be saved". So, deductive reasoning says that it is possible to waver from steadfastness. Why and how does this happen?
I want to better understand lukewarmness.
So all this doubt, all this weakness I see in myself, all this cancer in the Body, all these 'shocking' stories of what Christians are doing, I want to understand better. Why is it happening with enormous regularity in the U.S. Body today?
The desire to understand is not for the sake of being some know-it-all or "God gave me a revelation" person (puke).
You don’t have to worry about any 10 Steps to a Strong Walk b.s. coming forth in this blog. (gag, barf)
God forbid. Rather, I see God's heart breaking by all this mess we the Body do. And I wish to understand myself, so I can see a little better. For when I understand myself better, I can walk with Him better. I can warm the Lord’s heart instead of break it. And this is my desire.
So many people take events at face value. They see what happens and their understanding stops there. I have always been a person, pre-Follower and since-Follower, who wants to understand the ‘why’ behind actions.
In understanding the why, I can understand others better too. I can understand a bigger picture through the why, instead of simply familiarizing with individual and surface components.
I don’t seek understanding for the purpose of being or becoming some fount of wisdom or superior knowledge goon. To me understanding the ‘why’ simply helps me relate better.
Real quick case in point. Knew a guy growing up who was very brash. Rough, unrefined, a punk more than a bully. Didn’t care for him much at all.
Found out in high school he had been abused all those years. Boom. I had always taken his actions at surface value. Learning the ‘why’ behind his actions gave me a new understanding. And through that came a compassion and a new door of relating to him which I never before had known existed. I’d simply labeled him without thinking anything about the why behind what was going on on the surface.
And so, laying all this groundwork of wanting to understand the Way better, and the why behind events and people, I hope will help me comprehend a bigger picture. Not for the sake of having knowledge, for having knowledge in and of itself can be largely futile.
There are a lot of educated derelicts and knowledge buffoons running around, and I do not aspire to that.
I just want to understand better at the root. It will season my conversations. I hope it would help me go deeper than the surface garbage which is so prevalent. It will help me be a sharper iron.
And so, I have been pounding the question “why” for some time. Why all this worldly living among us in the Body? Why the lack of distinction in our lives from the world we are called out of? Why so similar to the things we theoretically are not, but realistically are?
••the analogy that helped••
Tossing all these questions around might be a complex thing. And it may be complex on other levels, but for me the understanding is very basic.
This may be an oversimplification, but I now sometimes find myself measuring things that come my way in life (products, people, advertisements, words, advice, situations) according to one of two things: is this speaking/appealing to my spirit (my core, my foundation which is reborn in Jesus and gauges God and Truth), or is it appealing to my soul (my emotions, will and mind). There's an awful lot of fluff and b.s., both within and outside the Body, when I filter things this way.
In talking about a core, it helped me understand spirit and soul when the thought of an apple came to mind.
Our spirit is our core, just like an apple has a core. It’s the inner part. The foundation. The center.
We are not born with a spirit which embraces God. When we are reborn in Jesus, we are given a new spirit, a new core, a new center, a new foundation.
Our new spirit desires Father, Son and Holy Spirit. The old core is gone. It has died and been removed. We now at our root welcome, desire and embrace the Lord, whereas our old core did not.
Yet as awesome as this new core is, it does not constitute my whole being. I still have a soul.
My soul is akin to the flesh of the apple. It is every bit a part of me as my spirit. I had mind, will and emotions when I had the old core. I have mind, will and emotions with my reborn spirit.
Just as the flesh of the apple is the meat of the fruit and the desirable part, our soul is the lively part of our being.
And here is where I think the root of turbulence and struggle lies. We love God, yet our soul is still subject to the attractions of the world.
The good news for Followers is being reborn into the Lord. The bad news is this taking place does not place us in a sanctified bubble.
Until and unless our new spirit and our soul figure out what’s going on, the posturing between them can be rather frustrating and confusing.
What happened in me is something like this: “I have this hunger for God, but I also have this hunger and appeal for (fill in the blank here with any worldly thing, pleasure or habit that appeals to us through flesh, mind or emotions). What is going on? Why do I still have desires for x in this world? I am a new creature in Jesus, yet I still find myself succumbing to x, enjoying y and giving in to z.”
The timeframe of this battle can be very short, very long, anywhere in between or never for a Christ follower.
We can waver and see-saw, be hot then cold. It can change from season to season or moment to moment.
I can live, live, live according to my reborn spirit, and then in a moment concede my will to some desire or my flesh.
We can be strong in the Lord, rooted and grown in Him, believe in all He is, side with Jesus, etc, yet we live with the perpetual option to live according to our reborn spirit or according to the flesh, which continually makes a case to our mind/will/emotions to live by it.
I’m raising my hand. I wondered for years, literally, why I love God on one hand and still enjoy and crave worldly passions on the other.
And I still have passions. They don’t vanish. Why? Because I have a soul.
Because I have a soul the things of the world jockey for position to appeal to me.
The things of the world come continuously, in the form of pride, in the form of temptation, in the form of thoughts, in the form of lures, in the form of attractions, in the form of entertainment, in the form of secrecy, in the form of pleasures.
The suggestions and tug of the soul will not cease as long as we have breath in us.
So getting back to the confusion of having a reborn spirit but still desiring and battling things of the world.
As I ponder soul and spirit, a thought about this came to mind.
Why do people who are Followers go up front repeatedly during altar calls, to “get saved” again and again (sometimes every week)?
Our confusion is we don’t know how this all meshes together. We crave God on one hand but satiate desires on the other. Are we God’s child or not?
We think because we are fulfilling the flesh that we aren’t “saved”. In other words, we question whether we have a reborn spirit, and so we go to the altar to “make sure”.
Sin “got us” through appealing to our soul. We conceded to it, instead of living by the Holy Spirit in our reborn spirit.
We look honestly at our fleshly living. So we go up front to “get saved” again.
Then we go home that day or that week and still give way to the flesh. And so the cycle of confusion and praying for salvation continues.
If our core has a desire to live pleasing to the Lord, this is a sign that He has given us a new spirit. It’s a sign the Holy Spirit is in us (convicting of sin).
Therefore, we don’t have to be “born again” when we go to the altar repeatedly. We are born of the Spirit, that’s why our conscience burns.
What we’re really wanting, and we may not realize it, is we are wanting to learn to obey and walk by our reborn spirit in Jesus instead of our soul, susceptible to the appeal of flesh and temptation.
Yet this is not something we remain ignorant of, for we grow to know the “flesh wars against the soul” (1 Peter 2:11).
••the war••
The flesh (earthly passion) wars against our soul, not our spirit. Our soul contains our emotions and our mind, the part of us which is the feeding ground for temptation. And when temptation has reached maturity, it gives birth to sin.
Why doesn’t flesh war against our spirit? Our spirit is our reborn core which loves and desires God. Our reborn foundation isn’t going anywhere.
Flesh and reborn spirit are polar opposites (Gal 5:17). Flesh knows it’s not going to be able to trick or win over its polar opposite, which by God’s Spirit will forever and always desire what is contrary to the flesh. So flesh goes for the weaker part of us.
Flesh wars instead against the more movable, the more susceptible of our two parts: the soul, with its ability to be swayed by emotion (happiness-based, fleeting, impulsive) and logic (“surely you won’t die if you eat of the fruit of this tree”, Genesis 3:4).
So, as the soul gets its barrage of lures and temptations from the flesh, the reborn spirit of the Christ follower expresses its God-embracing passion from within us (which is born of the Holy Spirit, John 3:6).
When this takes place, 1 John 3:9 comes alive: “No one who is born of God will continue to sin, because God's seed remains in him; he cannot go on sinning, because he has been born of God.”
Note, John doesn’t say anyone born of God won’t sin, he says no one “born of God will continue to sin…because he has been born of God.”
Hmm. In that passage it also mentions not continuing to sin “because God’s seed remains in him”. Just like an apple core has seeds, our reborn spirit now has God’s seed in our core, in our foundation.
It may take some adjustment to learn to live by the new spirit we’ve been given by God. John acknowledges there may be an adjustment period, but he also states that there comes a point where the continuance of sin stops in those who are born of God.
When we grow to live according to our reborn spirit instead of our soulish flesh, the word from Titus 2 also comes alive:
“For the grace of God that brings salvation has appeared to all men. It teaches us to say "No" to ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright and godly lives in this present age, while we wait for the blessed hope—the glorious appearing of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ, who gave himself for us to redeem us from all wickedness and to purify for himself a people that are his very own, eager to do what is good.
A people that are His very own. We “have God’s seed in us”, as we just read in 1 John 3.
This apple core/flesh analogy and soul/spirit distinction have hugely opened up Scripture for me.
It’s helping me with a tangible understanding of things going on in my own life, as well as the things going on around me, both in American society in general and in the Body.
For example, I better understand that when I have a very strong situation going on in my life, my heart can be totally ripped apart and torn open, and I can be venting the full anguish of my soul to the Lord, and yet at the same time that I’m bleeding out to Him I simultaneously sense a strengthening and comforting coming from Him.
My soul (mind, emotions) is bludgeoned and cutting full loose to the Lord, and in that same instant He is pouring healing salve over my spirit, my foundation.
His nurturing assurance and compassion bathes my spirit, even as the ugliness from my soul is being laid out before Him.
This is the Word come alive: “For the word of God is living and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit…” Hebrews 4:12, NIV
It’s helping me better understand why (American) society and Body have such a strong emotional bent and flavor in them.
••soulish America••
Mainstream American society is absolutely soulish through and through. Every single thing about society is a tug and appeal to my soul, and in mainstream society this lure does not have God in it.
Oh, sure, we’ll hear “God bless America” and “God bless you” here and there, but let’s be honest. Those phrases are so watered down it’s pathetic.
“God bless you” is the salutation on the Nigerian multi-millionaire email scams. It’s such a diluted phrase that it actually grates my ears 99% of the time when I hear it.
American society is totally bipolar. On one hand, we have commercials and advertising unmercifully appealing to the emotion part of our soul, and then there is news reporting and education and government entities bombarding the mind part of our soul.
If I watch a news program, the news promotes that I can “stay informed” best by watching their channel. The media and academia are in relentless pursuit of knowledge and information as the pinnacle of being and making a person. The best-informed, most-knowledgeable person is king or queen.
And then, as I continue to watch TV, the commercials in between segments is totally geared toward my emotions and gratification. Get this motorcycle and you’ll end up in the sack with your date instead of giving her a handshake goodbye. Have this beer in your hand or this cologne on your body and women will swoon. This product, that product will make you…happy.
As for the ladies, wear this clothing or this brand of makeup and you’ll have this image and this “look” that makes you have “it”. Eat this food, buy this exercise machine and you’ll be on your way to bliss. You’ll have the “look” that we American media and the fashion industry say will make you…happy.
Buy this video game or this latest toy, or this cereal or that brand of macaroni and cheese, and your child will be…happy.
••soulishness and happiness••
There it is. Happiness. America foams at the mouth in the pursuit of happiness.
Every year now come the news stories from stores where day-after-Thanksgiving shoppers pushed, shoved and, yes, got into fist fights over getting to the latest toy or game for their child to have at Christmas.
We are bound and determined to get what’s ours. And,by the way, we deserve it and it’s our “right”. Totally flesh. Totally soulish.
Not joy. There is no inclusion of God in the things we obtain or seek in life. Joy in life comes from God’s favor or God’s presence in what we experience, whether it be “blessings” or trials.
Now, honestly, I wouldn’t expect any TV commercial to go that route or have that included in their ad spots.
It’s just simply the perpetual urge by society to consume ourselves with things, attainments and knowledge, so that we can be happy, fulfilled, “with it”.
••soulish Body••
And so, we have a Body in this country, a portion of which pursues the same things as the world. And yet it’s okay and innocent to do this because it’s veiled in the name of Jesus. Veiled behind the gospel in a sick way.
(I type this thinking of last summer, when a very strong Believer told me she is “believing God for a plasma TV”.)
Now, a plasma TV of itself is not evil. And I don’t think her desiring a plasma TV is of itself wrong.
I just ponder why a plasma TV has to have some kind of belief or claim associated with it in the name of Jesus.
I mean, I know not a sparrow falls to the ground that God doesn’t know about it, but God actually caring about a plasma TV purchase just doesn’t register 100% with my spirit.
••spiritual discernment••
Spirit. Because of my reborn spirit in Jesus, now when I see or experience things, the Holy Spirit sends signals to my core to give me a sense, a “gut” if you will, about them.
The Body is so quick to say “don’t judge, we aren’t to judge, we shouldn’t judge”. Well, go ahead and quote that.
Yet in terms of having a reborn spirit and being led by the Holy Spirit (Romans 8:14), let’s also look at what God also says about the man who has the Holy Spirit of God within him:
“The man without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually discerned. The spiritual man makes judgments about all things, but he himself is not subject to any man's judgment” (1 Cor 2)
This is not mentioned to go on a binge of phrase-dropping the term “spiritual discernment” around to every Tom, Dick and Jane we know.
Rather I would submit there is a balance in this aspect of our reborn spirit which is of God. I think this gift, given by the Father and communicated to our spirit by the Holy Spirit, is largely shunned by Christiandom in a false humility and a “we aren’t to judge” kind of way.
Case in point. There are times where we are in a human situation which appears innocent or proper in the realm of the soul (mind, emotions), yet there is “something” within us, a red warning flag if you will, telling our spirit (core) that something doesn’t add up, despite what our eyes or ears are seeing and hearing.
We may have heard or used the term of something along the lines of “witnessing to my spirit” or “bearing witness to my spirit”.
This is another way of saying our reborn spirit is signaling our soul that something is good, that something is okay, that something is “right”, if you will.
Along the same line, we may have heard or used the term that something “grates against my spirit” or “doesn’t witness to my spirit”.
This is when our reborn spirit gives us a red warning flag about a situation, and our spirit signals to our soul: “hold up here. I know this looks good or sounds good to you, Mr. Mind and Mr. Emotion, but the Holy Spirit is flagging this for some reason and I’m just telling you.”
Sometimes our soul listens to the intuition of our spirit and we avoid a bad situation. Sometimes it becomes a debate between the two, we give way to our soul, and it comes back to bite us in the butt.
When that happens we say “man, there was something telling me that something wasn’t right about that. I wish I would have listened to my gut.”
This is the soul and spirit in simple form.
The soul gave its view from the visible realm of mind and emotion. The spirit gave its view from the invisible realm of what the Holy Spirit was signaling to our core.
Sometimes our spirit (by the Holy Spirit) confirms what we’re getting in our soul about a circumstance.
Sometimes our spirit opposes what we’re getting in our soul about something, though visibly there’s no sign of anything ‘wrong’.
Great example of this is Peter at the beginning of Acts 5.
Everything seemed all hunky dory on the surface, but the Holy Spirit in Peter gave him discernment in his spirit, and he called out the deceit that was invisible to the naked eye.
And because it was from the Holy Spirit, the discernment was dead on--literally.
••discernment is a developmental thing••
So the caution here is to not take this information, deem ourselves spiritual and then go running off to discern everything in sight now that we’re “enlightened and informed” (puke).
In my experience, that’s going to lead to a lot of crash and burn scenarios and embarrassment for us and for Jesus.
My experience has been discernment is not something to broadcast or gloat. It’s something that happens internally, by the Holy Spirit, to be my silent guide despite what is going on through stimuli in the visible world. (John 16:13)
This develops from my relationship with the Holy Spirit. As I get to know Him, things become clearer.
I don’t have this clarity and discernment in my spirit if I don’t know the Spirit.
And even as I get to know Him it is again a developmental thing. As I become more intimate with Him and get to know Him, I get to know His voice more and more.
I still miss the mark. There are still times where discerning the Holy Spirit is not crystal clear.
There are times where I get a sense of something in my spirit and act on it, and the situation doesn’t pan as thought it would.
Another thing of note is the Lord’s silence. Sometimes things I think or expect to hear from Him on there is nothing said. There’s no gut, no sense in my spirit, no clear direction.
Is the Lord taking a break or ignoring me at these times? No. Not at all.
This used to drive me absolutely nuts because I’m a detailed person.
Now I embrace these times. They are very rich, and I know why He does so. What an awesome God.
••coming in for a landing••
And so, I begin to mesh this all together. I better understand the differences, subtle or distinct, between joy and happiness.
I understand that happiness is a transient emotion tied to the appeal and satisfaction of the soul.
And please, please understand, this is not evil.
This is not a crusade against happiness. It’s simply an observation that we should not establish happiness as the foundational source and goal in our lives.
Perhaps better said, enjoyment and source are two different things. They are distinct. The danger is when they become grayed or manilla’d--either from our self-consumption or by the innocent-seeming deceit of the enemy.
I enjoy being happy like anyone else, but I don’t linger my trust in it. I don’t look to hop from happy mountaintop to happy mountaintop in life. Spending my time, energy, resources and prayer life waiting for God’s next grand blessing.
That’s a roller coaster I don’t care to ride on.
There’s a subtle difference between something being enjoyed and it becoming a god or idol. A difference between something being a hobby versus an obsession.
I’m just sitting here now thinking “when’s the last time I asked the Lord what gods or idols I have in my life?”
And a question like this requires a sober, no-b.s. answer to Him if any change is going to happen in my life as a result of this pondering.
I don’t want to be like the rich, young man who almost got it, yet who walked away from Jesus when Jesus called out what He knew still remained an idol in this man.
This story illustrates Jesus knows what these things are in our lives, and He will gladly reveal them to us.
It won’t be said we weren’t aware this is a dangerous and cunning thing, to place our resident trust in temporary emotions and things which pound their appeal to our souls.
Happiness is okay. It’s fine. God doesn’t frown on happiness. He’s not anti-happiness. It is just this opinion there is greater freedom and truer, deeper satisfaction in the Lord through joy.
Joy is closer linked to our spirit. Joy wells up from within, as we experience life and circumstances with the knowledge that God is with us, author of the blessing we are in, and right there with us as we enjoy the good things around us.
And then from here I slide over to the distinctions, both subtle and stark, between soul and reborn spirit.
I know that as long as I breathe I have them both.
And with this clarity of soul and spirit I have begun to weigh and filter things as a Christ follower.
I look at what American society sends my way. I look at what churches, the Body and other Followers send my way.
I ponder these things. In terms of what they promote to me. In terms of advice. In terms of suggestions. In terms of wisdom. In terms of counsel.
I’ve begun to filter all that comes my way. I weigh it in my soul and in my reborn spirit.
I am no longer motivated or intrigued by things simply on their face value as how they appeal to the mind, emotions and logic of my Christian soul.
I look past the fluff. I look past emotionalism. I look past entertainment. I look past the clichés and platitudes. I look past the logic. I look past the appeal to power or prestige.
I don’t scorn these things, it is simply that I’m not as enamored by them as I have been in the past.
I am not drawn to the hype that is so rampant in American Christianity.
Churchdom has taken the true joy and freedom of the Lord and turned it into a circus routine of soulish-based emotion and entertainment. And I’m not buying it.
“But when he, the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all truth. He will not speak on his own; he will speak only what he hears, and he will tell you what is yet to come.” (John 16:13, NIV)
My spirit intercourses with the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit guides toward the Way. And since Jesus and the Father are one, and since the Holy Spirit searches the mind of God, it is the Holy Spirit who speaks and intercourses with my spirit to lead and guide.
Because of my new spirit, I now can see something and, regardless of what signals I’m getting from my mind and emotions, I get a gauge of the thing in my spirit.
Perceptions occur through my spirit, not just assessments based on my mind, my emotions or appearance.
For example, church members who end up being pedophiles, embezzlers, etc. How often do we hear people say "there was something about them that just didn’t seem right"?
Ding ding. This is Holy Spirit red flag stuff.
Sadly, often these flags (when they indeed are from the Holy Spirit) are bypassed for the tangible, visible signals to the soul.
My experience has not been that the Holy Spirit makes perpetual witch-hunt mode out of this.
That’s not to say someone else isn’t “called” to do that. I can only say for me the sense in the spirit does not always contrast the sense in the soul.
And to me this ties in to the larger picture.
What is going on in the American Body is soulish Christianity.
The true enthusiasm and joy of the Holy Spirit (in and to our spirit) has been secularized by the Body. Christiandom in America has largely become a marketing campaign to the emotions… about and in the name of Jesus.
Why else would churches feel this great impetus to entertain attendees of services? Productions, shows, lights, sound systems, programs, groups, retreats, topical preaching…the list goes on forever.
The fellowship I’ve been attending in their bulletin says “Visitors, if there is anything we can do to make your visit more comfortable, please let us know.”
I understand the spirit of that, and I’m not trying to be a semantics goon here, but that ties exactly in to this whole “marketing campaign for Jesus” that permeates the American Body.
The Body thinks that we are called to make people feel good, stroke them, show them how positive we are, and they will embrace the Way.
This marketing mentality is deeply engrained in American churchdom. It is viewable everywhere: in the bumper stickers, on church marquees, in services, in small groups, in the Christianese language spoken by Followers, in sermons, in movements. It’s everywhere.
••what next for the American Body••
In seeing the American Body go down this soulish path, where the Way is currently being forged not on the appeal to our spirit but rather on appeal to our mind- and emotion-based soul, it’s neither cool where the Body is nor to think where it is headed.
We clearly see where emotion-based society is infiltrating the Body left and right. Or, maybe better said, the Body mimics/brings society into the Body.
The question is how much further will this go in the Body? It’s growing.
America has grown progressively heavier/worse in this regard. The progression through the years of shock media. The bent toward emotional appeal in marketing. And it sure ain’t slowing down. At any point in time we can say “they wouldn’t have allowed THAT commercial five years ago”.
There are videos online that show preachers doing hype and emotion-based gunk that parallels WWF theatrics. I didn’t think the Body had gone this way YET.
Boy, was I shocked a few months ago to see this full-fledged entertainment bullshit with my own two eyes by name-recognized preachers. (Maybe my disinterest in watching Christian TV for the last 15 years was a godsend, to keep me from staying perpetually pissed off. Sure did lead to some eyebrow raising and eye popping a few months ago, though.)
And so, it seems, the Body keeps pushing the envelope as well, in its own “innocent” way, in the name of Jesus.
Church ministry/outreach/whatever-the-hell-you-call-it centers around soulish emotional appeal in increasing measure. And church “members” are expecting it.
“Well, I heard so and so church in THEIR Christmas production actually flew in a few shepherds from the Holy Land!!!”
That sounds so far fetched, doesn’t it? Not to me anymore.
This post may sound like an awful lot of gripe and that’s about it.
Well, I’m pissed off to be quite frank.
I do not aspire to be any reference man about things Jesus, but I do have convictions about some of this sh*t in the Body, and that’s the best word I can think to describe it.
This whole path and obsession of emotionalism in American society is bad enough. It has brought wretched heartache into my daily life for a long time (long story if you don’t know my story).
And I see it weaving its way into the Body in increasing measure.
I just wanted to get out of my gut what has been eating at me for months about this.
And from this view of spirit and soul, emotion and core, I don’t like what I’ve seen a lot in myself, and I don’t like what I see among us for the large part.
I’ve laid out the platitudes with the worst of them.
And now, tempered by life and seeing things from a totally different perspective, I’m seeing more of what’s real, what’s deep and what’s rugged about Jesus.
I’ve had to go deep with Jesus. There is no such thing as surface Following for me anymore.
And yeah, I bark and snarl at the superficial, surface-level stuff I see and experience. Yet instead of simply barking I want to look beneath the surface at the “why”, because it’s been very fruitful doing so in the past.
I have attempted here to sift through experiences and a perhaps nominal metaphor to try and begin to understand what these actions are that tip me so easily these days.
I’ve seldom been one to jump on a bandwagon. I look at the bandwagon of conventional churching and conventional Christian thought, and I question a lot of it.
I believe these happiness and soulish fixations play a part in the circus that is American society and the circus that is the American Body.
There’s another growing and glaring piece to this that is rearing its ugly head. It’s a branch of this societal and soulish dung which has been mentioned briefly in this post. More to come.
