Spirit, Soul, and Body

The Bible urges us to share strong feelings (emotions) with our Christian brothers and sisters.

 

One of many examples: Phil. 2:1-3

Therefore if you have any encouragement from being united with Christ, if any comfort from his love, if any common sharing in the Spirit, if any tenderness and compassion, then make my joy complete by being like-minded, having the same love, being one in spirit and of one mind. 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.

 

Strong feelings of love, tenderness, and compassion (compassion means “feeling together”) involve physical and chemical reactions in our (dare I use the word) bodies.

Having recently begun to attend a Pentecostal church, I am learning that emotions combined with spiritual and physical phenomena can be confusing, exhilarating, and nearly overwhelming.

Satan has tried to exploit my confusion to convince me that my feelings of affection, joy, and connection are or could become sinful. This fear pushes me away from my brothers and sisters.

 

But scripture pushes me toward love and promises that God will strengthen my heart to make me able to practice pure and holy love.

 

Ephesians 3:15-19

I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you , being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.

 

I Thessalonians 3:12,13

May the Lord make your love increase and overflow for each other and for everyone else, just as ours does for you. May he strengthen your hearts so that you will be blameless and holy in the presence of our God and Father when our Lord Jesus comes with all his holy ones.

 

I Thessalonians 5:24,25

May God himself, the God of peace, sanctify you through and through. May your whole spirit, soul, and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. The one who calls you is faithful, and he will do it.

 

I refuse to allow Satan to make my relationships with my Christian brothers and sisters anything but holy.

Easter Passion

When asked if I have seen the movies “The Passion of the Christ,” or “Son of God” I want to say, “No, I haven’t paid to watch the torture, humiliation, and murder of my best friend and brother. But thank you for asking.”

And I despise sermons that exploit the agony of the crucifixion—the stripe by stripe, blow by blow, gasp by gasp description of Roman cruelty.

First and foremost, such sermons are not Biblical. If God had wanted Christians to be guilt-ridden by the appalling physical aspect of Christ’s passion, you would think at least one of the four gospel writers would have gone that direction. Instead, in regard to the actual manner of death, we have this:

Matthew: “When they had crucified him. . .”

Mark: “And they crucified him.”

Luke:  “. . . there they crucified him . . .”

John: “When the soldiers crucified Jesus . . .”

Second, if the point of Christ’s death were the pain, there are hundreds, if not thousands of more dreadful ends. For one, He could, like my own mother, live to be over 90 and die of multiple, painful conditions that kill by inches. Or he could have simply remained on the cross for the typical two to three days instead of dying after six hours.

I do not mean to downplay Christ’s physical suffering, but, over the centuries, tens of thousands of human beings have been and are being crucified.

Only one had the power to save himself yet willingly chose to die.

Only one lived a sinless life and chose to die as a sinner.

Only one died for me.

Only one is still living.