Take up
your Soul and Follow Him
by John Paul Jackson
A
little over a year before Jesus was crucified, He expressed to those following
Him that if they loved their lives, they would lose them, but if they hated
their lives, they would gain them - and be able to keep them (Matthew 16:25).
The Soul
The
word life in that passage is psuche, which is the same word for
"soul." So He was saying that if we love our souls in this world, we
will lose them, but if we "hate" our souls, we will find them.
In
the same passage (verse 24), Jesus said, "Take up your cross and follow
Me." He clearly indicated that to "take up your cross" and
follow Him is to cast aside all that belongs to the soul. That means we give up
what the soul says rightfully belongs to us and put the spiritual interests of
others ahead of our own interests. The process of yielding to the cross
crucifies our selfish desires and self-focused interests in order to save our
lives (our souls).
One
year later in the Garden of Gethsemane, moments before they came to take Him,
Jesus was tested by His own words. In the most poignant moment in the history
of humanity, Jesus uttered, "My soul is exceedingly troubled." So we
find a remarkable paradox: Adam, who gave up his spiritual life in a garden to
gain his soul, and Jesus, who freely gave up His soul in a garden to give us
spiritual life.
What
does all this mean for each of us on a daily basis? As humans, we are comprised
of body, soul and spirit (1 Thessalonians 5:23). The soul (mind, will and
emotions) quickly puts itself in charge of that group. We learn at infancy that
if we make a fuss about what we want, it will be given to us, and in various
ways, we build on that understanding as we grow into adulthood. Through the
natural process of life, our souls strengthen. They become dense and thick,
like stone. The more we rely on ourselves - on our own understanding and
perspective - the less we resemble God. This is why the spirit must rule over
the soul; it is the part of us that comes alive when we meet Jesus. It is the
part of us that is like Him: His seed and that which makes us the children of
God. When the spirit is in control, we will be much more apt to think, feel and
act as our Father thinks, feels and acts.
How
does God displace a soul that is hard, fast and determined to stay? How does He
cut through our soulish opinions, thought processes, wants and desires that may
or may not readily reveal their truly earthly state? In most cases, He does
this by treating the soul as the rock it is.
Fracking
When
we give our lives to Jesus, our tough outer shells are penetrated, and our
spirits are made alive. We are reconceived. We become the literal children of
God, blood of His blood, made alive through His seed (1 John 3:9).
But
just as the physical conception is hardly the end of the growing process, so it
is with spiritual conception. After that first puncture in the ground, the
fracking begins - not because God despises who we are, but because He wants to
bring the real us to the surface. He allows the pressure to come to the soul,
and the soul begins to fragment. We experience things in our lives that destroy
our confidence in ourselves. We discover we cannot trust the mind, intellect or
human desire; our trust in our emotions is totally obliterated. God's process
of spiritual fracking is meant to crush the soul, and it is very successful. He
breaks away the stone that keeps us from Him, so that what is of Him and like
Him can appear.
As
this happens, we begin to function as we were created to function. What does
that look like? It looks like what happened in Acts, when Peter's shadow fell
across people and they were healed. As the soul becomes broken, fractured and
permeable, the spirit floods through, and the Light we carry becomes more and
more visible. We become like our Father. When the world looks at us, it sees
Him.
As uncomfortable and painful
as it can be, the pressure of God brings us eternal life that will last. What
are you facing right now that feels like it is crushing you? If you are willing
to take up your soul and follow Him, you will find Him at a level that is
deeper and richer than anything you have experienced before.
John Paul Jackson