Luke 21:19
By your patience possess your souls.
We possess our souls by patience. The soul is a marvelous creation of God. The soul is where we think, feel and resolve to do. It is from this invisible place that love must be received and released. A disturbed soul is terrible to live with and is useless for sustaining love. A soul at rest in God is a marvelous tool for love.
According to Jesus, the duty to possess our souls is ours. Our soul is our responsibility. That is, we must be sure that what takes possession of our soul is what we truly want to be. Patience is our personal grip on our own soul. Our soul can get away from us.
Possessing the soul goes back to the idea that "whatever gets your attention gets you." When something gets your attention that something gets some level of possession of you soul. The may be for a brief moment or it may be for a prolonged time.
Even demonic possession of a soul is real and the effect of demon possession is the total stopping of love and the delivery of evil in its place.
The thing that gets our attention turns our soul where that thing wants to go and we can literally lose possession of our soul when we focus on things that do not synchronize with God's good intentions.
Imagine that you are in a traffic jam and you are getting upset. What is at stake? You soul is at stake and so are other drivers because upset drivers do very stupid things. Imagine that you go to a town hall meeting on healthcare and you think President Obama's plan is terrible. Be careful. More than healthcare is at stake. Your soul is at stake, too.
How many people sit in prisons today because they gave the possession of their soul to something other than God for just a moment? How many families have been ripped apart because dad gave his soul to another woman for just a moment?
Patience is a virtue that comes from God in Christ. The source of patience lives in you right now. In Him you have the perfect patience to possess your soul for love. Turn your attention to Jesus the moment you feel impatience rising in you. Your soul is at stake and so is your ability to love.
To do this, use a simple phrase like "Thine only" or "Jesus, your will be done". This gives you back the possession of your soul as you give yourself back to Him.
James 1:4
But let patience have its perfect work, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking nothing.
1 comment:
That is beautiful! It seems to me that the church is giving into this way too often and we start to tune out the Spirit that resides in us. Politics is a big one and I can definately see how there is no rest within loosing our soul to that which takes possession. Thanks for that!
Noah
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