Renovation of the Heart
Transforming the Soul (3|4)
Pages 216-220
• Acknowledging Our Souls
• The Cries of the Soul
• Abandoning Outcomes
• No Soul Rest with Sin
TOGETHER read the devotional and the scripture.
INDIVIDUALLY take notes in your journal on what stands out.
Matthew 9:36 (NIV) When he saw the crowds, he had compassion on them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd.
1 Peter 5:5-7 (NIV) In the same way, you who are younger, submit yourselves to your elders. All of you, clothe yourselves with humility toward one another, because, “God opposes the proud but shows favor to the humble.” Humble yourselves, therefore, under God’s mighty hand, that he may lift you up in due time. Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you.
TOGETHER pray for one another.
INDIVIDUALLY answer the questions in your journal - process your devotional notes and pray.
Acknowledge Our Souls
“Some conservative and evangelical churches still sometimes talk about saving the soul, but even this much less than used to be the case; and once the soul is ‘safe’ it is usually treated as needing no further attention. Ignoring the soul is one reason why Christian churches have become fertile sources of recruits for cults and other religious and political groups. It is not reasonable to think the soul would be properly cared for when it isn’t even seriously acknowledged. So this has to change. - Our preachers and teachers must emphatically and repeatedly acknowledge the soul as the living center of Christian life that it is, and they must reassume their responsibility for the care of souls, long assigned to them in Christian tradition. We as individuals must ‘own’ our souls and take responsibility before God for them, turning to our pastors and teachers for the necessary help.”
What are some ways in which you can acknowledge your own soul?
The Cries of the Soul
“His own greatness of soul made meekness and lowliness the natural way for him to be (Philippians 2:3-11 Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves, not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of the others. In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus: Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage; rather, he made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to death — even death on a cross! Therefore God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.). Being in his yoke is not a matter of taking on additional labor to crush us all the more, but a matter of learning how to use his strength and ours together to bear our load and his. We will find his yoke an easy one and his burden a light one because, in learning from him, we have found ‘rest to our souls’ (Matthew 11:29 NIV “Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”) What we have learned is primarily, to rest our souls in God. Rest to our souls is rest in God, as a child with its mother.”
What would it be like to experience soul rest? Do you believe it is possible?
Abandoning Outcomes
“What we most learn in Jesus’ yoke, beyond acting with him, is to abandon outcomes to God, accepting what we do not have in ourselves - in our own hearts, souls, minds, and strength - the wherewithal to make this come out right, whatever ‘this’ is. Even if we ‘suffer according to the will of God,’ we simply ‘entrust [our] souls to a faithful Creator in doing what is right’ (1 Peter 4:19 NIV So then, those who suffer according to God’s will should commit themselves to their faithful Creator and continue to do good.) Now, this is a major part of that meekness and lowliness of heart that we must also learn in his yoke. And what rest comes with it!”
What does “entrust our souls to a faithful Creator in doing what is right” - mean to you? How is it connected to rest?
“Humility is the framework within which all virtue lives. - Humility is a great secret of rest of soul because it does not presume to secure outcomes. - We live in a world where, by God’s appointment, (Ecclesiastes 9:11 NIV I have seen something else under the sun: The race is not to the swift or the battle to the strong, nor does food come to the wise or wealth to the brilliant or favor to the learned; but time and chance happen to them all.) - Resting in God, we can be free from all anxiety, which means deep soul rest.”
How does humility fit in with the “rest of soul” Jesus promises?
No Soul Rest with Sin
“Those are surely right who have recognized in pride the root of all disobedience. We think we are ‘big enough’ to take our lives into our own hands and disobey, instead of ‘[humbling ourselves] under the mighty hand of God’ (1 Peter 5:6 NIV Humble yourselves, therefore, under God’s mighty hand, that he may lift you up in due time.) And this will certainly be driven by the thought that if we do not take things into our own hands, we will not get what we want - another blow to our pride.”
Is pride the root of all disobedience? When have you submitted to your pride instead of obedience and what was the outcome? When have you resisted pride and obeyed and what was the outcome?
“So sin, through desire and pride, alienates the life in us (the soul) from the life that is in God and leaves us in the turmoil of a soul struggling with life on its own. Those who go so far as to abandon themselves to evil - consciously choosing evil as their goal (the ‘wicked’ of Proverbs 21:10 NIV the wicked crave evil; their neighbors get no mercy from them.) - will be totally abandoned by God. Arrogant wrongdoing is the deepest possible wound people can inflict on their souls.
What is your response to this statement?
EXTRA READING:
“A church that doesn’t provoke any crises, a gospel that doesn’t unsettle, a word of God that doesn’t get under anyone’s skin, a word of God that doesn’t touch the real sin of the society in which it is being proclaimed - what gospel is that?”
- Oscar Romero of El Salvador (1917 - 1980)