Christian Soul as a Land of Promise
THE SOUL Can Be a Spiritual Land of Promise.
Without the spiritual connection, God allowed the human soul to wither and decline as a landscape of corruption. The spiritual land of the human heart was engulfed in a darkness as God withdrew His light. The soul of man-kind WITHOUT GOD became a dark land.
Was there a spiritual, emotional, and intellectual cost to any human beings after Adam and before a DECISION to believe in Christ?
Yes. And it was high indeed!
Almost every person has some good times. Life seems good. Beautiful sunsets. Glorious morning dawns. The glimmer on the mountain lake. God’s creation still bears witness of His beautiful desire for our soulish landscape. (Romans 1:20). This should draw the non-Christian toward his Creator.
For the non-Christian, the landscape in corruption is dismal. The down times for this human soul come all too often and are more like dark clouds and thunderstorms than sparkling sunshine, flowing streams and “the good life”– “That’s a fiction in my life,” they might say.
The Bible speaks about the land promised to Father Abraham of Israel. Israel’s conquest of foreign lands, the land of promise, was tangible. But to God’s kingdom today and the new covenant, faith like Abraham’s is to be applied to a spiritual land of promise. (see Romans 4:3-17)
This spiritual land of promise is the territory of a person’s inward life– their spiritual heart– containing both a person’s human spirit and their existing soul.
Like real land, the spiritual heart must be possessed and cared for. Each human being has their own territory to tend, to make good and fruitful.
Fortunately, Christians are not alone in this process. We have God working WITH us just as He worked with Abraham’s descendants, Israel, in conquering the physical land of promise.
We conquer the mental and emotional battles of life like Abraham did– by faith. Our battles are more intangible than physical. Our mind and emotions are to be tried and tested for the endurance and success that only comes with a genuine faith in our Creator God.
In one sense, salvation of our souls– the renovation of our mind and emotions– comes in a faith that believes that God is working WITH us.
Matthew 19:24-26 Speaking of a rich man who trusted primarily in tangible things, Jesus said that it was…
– “easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.” (24)
His disciples were astonished with this and said,
– “Then who can be saved?” (25)
“And looking at them Jesus said to them, ‘With people this is impossible, but WITH GOD all things are possible.” (26)
The concept that we must grasp is that our soul is a spiritual land and that God has a vested interest in seeing it become a beautiful land. WITH His help, our lives will change for the better, forever!
What are we to do with the promise of God’s help?
We should apply these principles: First, we must know we have been transferred from a land of darkness to a land of light in believing in the redemptive blood grace of God. This is what we did when we “crossed the border” into Christ-land.
Second, we must exercise our faith in the hope and faith which God Himself has in our lives. This faith is like Abraham’s which believes that God wants to work WITH us, REWARDING OUR FAITH, making our soul into a beautiful land of promise. (Hebrews 11:6,8-10)
Those who stay uncommitted to God in the indecision of doubts, remain in a dark land. Even Christians who remain less than wholly committed to God are like the immigrant who remains standing just inside the border of their new land of promise having never really gotten to know the kingdom or enjoyed the blessings of the new government.