All of You: Learning to Love God With Your Whole SelfSýnishorn

I've often asked a pointed question when I'm with someone I know well and care about deeply. "How's your soul?" Now, that's not a question you can ask flippantly or superficially. I usually follow up with, "I really want to know." Because I know this world often damages our souls in ways we ignore.

Earlier in this plan, I told you that following Jesus requires and transforms all of you. To love God well, we must include our souls. The Greek word we translate as the soul is "psuche," which means "soul/life/spirit." One commentator notes that your soul is "the essence of who we are. The part of us responsible for our highest spiritual exercises. The seat of our emotional activity."

While the "heart" relates to the will, the "soul" relates to the emotions. Jesus modeled a healthy approach to our emotions. He expressed his emotions, rather than suppressing them. In John 15, we see Jesus full of joy. In Matthew 23, Jesus gets angry without sinning. In John 2, we see Jesus react with disgust and sorrow in John 11. He has compassion in Matthew 9 and loving concern in John 19.

To love God with your soul includes loving God with your emotions. After all, God created them, and Jesus expressed them. But the soul is more than just our emotions. The soul is eternal. Jesus warned His followers in Matthew 16 to beware of gaining the world and losing their souls. If we lose our soul, we lose everything!

We're tempted to give up the most important part of who we are in exchange for what we think will satisfy us. What are you looking for in your spiritual beliefs? What are you expecting to give you hope, peace, and healing? Our enemy Satan tempts us by saying, "If you do ____________, then you'll be at peace, be healed, or find hope." We often experience disillusionment because what we expected to bring peace only brought us pain.

The truth is we need those things Satan offers us - peace, healing, and hope. But there's an even more profound truth - you won't find those things through Satan. Your enemy often uses your emotions against you, manipulating you to make decisions purely based on emotions rather than a commitment to Jesus' way.

Jesus continually invited those who followed Him to deny themselves, take up their crosses, and follow Him. Based upon His expression of emotions, Jesus wasn't giving us a mandate to eliminate emotions. He was calling us to deny the sinful flesh and the way of Satan, which cost us our souls. Following Jesus and loving God with our souls is the path to true peace.

Today, I encourage you to ask yourself, "How is my soul doing?" You could get together with a friend and ask each other how your souls are doing. Attending to your soul means paying attention to something significant to Jesus.

Tomorrow, we will move to a different part of ourselves. If we don't love God with this part of ourselves, we may miss God's movement in our lives. I know you don't want to miss God, so I'll see you then!