Ultimately, it is the renovation of the soul that God desires to accomplish in you.

So little teaching on the soul brings about confusion. If I am to make any headway in transformation and the soul at the center of who I am, my Dana OS, then I am invited to think deeply about my soul.

The key starting point  is in realizing I am not contained in my body. I am not only a physical being. I am a spiritual being who has a body.

We get so enamored by all things scientific that we miss out on the most important aspect of reality. Not measured by any lab instruments.  Lasting for eternity.

Just as the physical body, the soul needs proper care. The soul lasts forever. It is not a ghost that leaves our body and floats around after we die. The soul is a non-physical entity that isn’t limited to our body’s boundaries.

Caring for the soul centers on spiritual disciplines which bring refreshment to our existence. Our souls are grievously damaged over the years. Abuse, betrayal, abandonment, and other destructive forces in our lives chip away at our identity. We need God to “renew” us.

Make us new.

We need to give ourselves over to God's care.

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Zipity do da…

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If I choose to live by my own desires, my life is headed for ruin. No one will tell me this. As a human being, this is my modus operundi; my mode of operation. If I am young and single, I will naturally follow this path without much thought any other way.

Then other life circumstances kick in. If I am married, I begin to see that my way isn’t always the way it is. If we have children, this is even more evident. When I learn that I am not in charge of my life, it is a good start.

It isn’t a shock that research “married with children” brings about greater physical and emotional health than any other social arrangement. Without living a deliberate path of self-denial and moving toward God transformation, from human terms, this is the best chance we get. Yet, marriage and parenthood are not enough.

Married or single, parent or not, to live intentionally, focusing on renovation of all the parts of who we are, is the means to long term health, and through Jesus, eternal significance. We don’t have to wait to get married and have kids to begin this process. It can start any day at any time in our lives. The soul is at the center of the whole endeavor.

A soul process. Join Jesus in transforming our hearts, minds, bodies, and social relations. The soul integrates all of these and makes our life “our life.” For the first time, we can actually live life the way we are designed. It may be a stretch, but compare the soul to Michael Jordan.

The Bulls had Michael Jordan for a couple of years before they started winning championships. They didn’t become the world famous Chicago Bulls until Michael learned to involve the other four players and integrate them fully in the game. When all five were working together toward the common purpose of getting another “ring” things clicked. Michael functioned like our soul, making sure everyone was involved and contributing in a healthy way. Even Luc Longley!

Next week, we will look at the means to wrap everything together. Transformation of the soul.

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Sermon 25 October 2009 by Pastor Dana  
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25 October 2009.mp3 (6667 KB)

Getting the Story straight

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God is in charge. He is the source of transformation and he doesn’t hide this from us. The Bible is the way God gives us the plan to renovate our souls. This begins and ends with the fact that we don’t trust in our own wisdom; we trust in God's.

Either the Bible is the Word of God for us or it isn’t. If it isn’t, then we are left with two choices.

1. Our own understanding- We are the source of what will transform our lives.
2. Understanding not based on God's Word- Learning based on what someone else thinks who doesn't use a biblical worldview.
   

Here are the challenges of either of these veiwpoints.

1. If I am the source of transformation in my life, then there is great risk because I have been wrong before and I can't imagine that I am not going to be wrong again.
2. No matter how brilliant the thinking may be, if it is not filtered through the Scripture, it can’t always be trusted. It may be an identical principle, as Jesus is the source of all truth. We can expect to find good, solid teaching in other religions and worldviews. Yet, how do we know if the teaching veers away from God's Word if we don't know the Bible?
   

Yes, God gives people a conscience to guide themselves whether they know the Bible or not. Yet, we can ignore our consciences so easily. Human history is filled with the disasters of people doing what they know is wrong, and at best convincing themselves that it is not wrong after all, and at worst, relishing the evil behavior. For those who trust God’s Word, neither is an option.

The transformation of the soul occurs through those who love the Word, read it in a careful, straightforward manner, and live it day to day. This is not usually a huge leap in life change, but rather a slow, quiet exposure to the Word of Life.

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Are we in soul denial?

As the organizer, the soul needs to function well in order for the rest of the parts of who I am to work well. When I am using my whole self in any endeavor of life, a healthy soul is absolutely essential. What are these areas?

Renovation of the Heart lists these examples:

Creativity, sleep, sex, parenting, relationships, health and meaningful work.

In our time, many of our most “brilliant” thinkers have dismissed the concept of the soul and its importance in integrating our lives in healthy ways. So, how’s it going?

Look at each of the aspects of human life and you tell me. One example is sleep. According to Archibald Hart, in The Anxiety Cure, half of all adult Americans suffer from some form of insomnia. Without a good night’s sleep, everything else is affected.

Or take sex. Is it is a private, intimate bonding experience for husbands and wives where “two become one,” on occasion bringing about new life for the next generation? Is that the purpose of sexual relations as designed by God? If so, how are we doing?

Marriage, parenting, work, friendships, love of neighbor—- how are we doing???

If the scholars who say we are simply “particles and progress” are correct, then what is their answer? Even if you deny the soul, you still have to get up in the morning and live life. I say, good luck scientific materialists (those who say the physical is all there is), but I am going with the evidence there is more to it than this.

Meaning and purpose are essential ingredients of a healthy life. Scientific materialism has no delivery system for this. In fact, it is more accurate to say that soul ruin is just around the corner for those stuck on the “life is only about me” motif.

Fortunately, we are not buying into the despair of hopelessness and meaninglessness that has been such a staple of the "intelligentsia" (actually, with enough gentle prodding, you will find they don’t believe it either) for the last 100 years. We need to get to the soul of the matter, and more and more people are willing to look.

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When we think of soul, there are three main ways to think of it.

First, is a vague characteristic a person has or doesn't have.

“He’s got soul.”

Second, is an immaterial entity that is contained within them.

“I love you down to my very soul.”

Third, is the belief it doesn’t exist at all. We are completely physical and any other sense of who we are comes from electrical impulses in our brain circuitry and chemical reactions.

“It’s just how we are wired.”

Dallas Willard offers a fourth view. Soul is beyond our body. It contains the body, but it is much bigger than that. Your soul is the organizing force that holds together heart, the mind’s thoughts and feelings, the body, and our relationships. The soul is the CEO of who we are.

According to Willard, our soul is given to us by God at conception and through it creates and organizes our DNA and all the life that follows.

This may all seem strange, but if our souls are real and organizing our lives together, then we are missing out on key knowledge of our existence, as this is not a standard course of study in high school, university, or even churches nowadays. Let's consider the soul…

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We are looking at the main elements of who we are according to the book, Renovation of the Heart (Student Edition), by Dallas Willard and Randy Frazee. We are not specific isolated ingredients, but we are united and enmeshed into one unique human being. Our soul is the glue that holds our heart, mind, body, and social life together. The soul coordinates our lives and manages the interaction of the other parts of who we are.

I live my life through my soul. I am hardly conscious of its work. The soul is not physical, but it is real. It is hard to understand the awesome nature of my soul, and of the five parts of who I am, it is the most involved. The soul responds to all aspects of my life.

God desires to transform my soul. It is not holy and pure on its own, but needs renovating like all the other parts of who I am. If I want to be like Jesus, I need to be changed from the very depths of who I am.

This week we will look at the vision to transform my soul. This is the most challenging aspect of who I am to explain, but it is essential we understand. We have to have the “big picture” view of everything else.

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Pay it forward.

This is another important tool for the transformation of social life. The film, Pay it Forward, brought this concept out in a powerful way. Starring Haley Joel Osment, Helen Hunt, Kevin Spacey, and Jesus (well actually James Caviezel, who played, “Jesus” in The Passion of the Christ and, therefore, I keep seeing him as Jesus), shows what might happen if you reach out for the sake of another.

Do something “big” for someone else, and then tell them they have to do something “big” for three other people who do it for three other people, and so on. In other words, you can’t return the good deed, you have to pay it forward. Movie critics don’t buy it. Here is Roger Ebert has to say.

That's the theory behind "Pay It Forward," a movie that might have been more entertaining if it didn't believe it. It's a seductive theory, but in the real world, altruism is less powerful than selfishness, greed, nepotism, xenophobia, tribalism and paranoia. If you doubt me, take another look at the front pages.

I have two responses for Mr. Ebert.

1. Roger, have you ever tried it?

2. Jesus would certainly beg to differ.

It's not that willing the good of your neighbor and taking action on it, “loving thy neighbor,” can’t be done, it's we don’t try it enough. We don’t realize where the chain of good begins. Jesus tells us.

I have loved you even as the Father has loved me. Remain in my love. When you obey me, you remain in my love, just as I obey my Father and remain in his love. I have told you this so that you will be filled with my joy. Yes, your joy will overflow! I command you to love each other in the same way that I love you. (John 15:10-12)

The love Jesus experiences in the Trinity, is given to me, and I pay it forward to someone else, who in turn will be influenced by my action, and will have the opportunity to pay it forward.

Apologies to Roger Ebert, but this theory works in the real world.

The real world is where God rules, God’s Kingdom, and if all the parties involved are living transformed lives, pay it forward is as natural as selfishness is in a world that doesn’t recognize the transforming power of God.

As we reach out in love to others, and they are under the same power of the Holy Spirit they will bless us as well as bless others. Can you imagine what it would be like if we all lived in communities where people were transformed disciples of the living God, Jesus? Pay it forward would be no big deal. You can live in such a community.

It starts with you.

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