And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life (life-giving spirit of God); and man became a living being – Gen 2:7 (NKJV).
Then the Lord God called to Adam and said to him, “Where are you?” So he said, “I heard Your voice in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked (man became self-aware – the ‘soulish’ dimension of man became activated); and I hid myself.”Gen 3:9-10 (NKJV). (Words in parentheses are mine.)
Man is made up of three main components – Spirit, Soul and Body. Man is essentially spirit, with a soul that lives in a body. The body is the physical structure; the soul is the compartment of the mind, where concepts are developed and the material world processed and understood (intelligence); the spirit is the most abstract of these components. It is that part of man that relates with God, because He is Spirit (John 4:24).
The soul stands between the physical (body) and the spirit. Man is more aware of and interact with the soul much more than the spirit. This was not the case from the beginning. Man was created a living spirit (Gen 2:7). Before the fall of man in the Garden of Eden, man’s existence was spiritual. That is why he was able to commune and fellowship with God (in the spirit) without the consciousness of the material world. At the time, Adam and Eve were not aware of their nakedness. When man fell, the soul was activated (Gen 3:9-10); he plummeted into that realm and became aware of the material world at a whole different level (Gen 3:6). That was when Adam and Eve suddenly knew they were naked. At that point Adam could no longer hear God from his Spirit, and man became more ‘soulish’ than spiritual.
All that background was to help us understand the crux of this episode of Elevated Sight. I have read a number of motivational books and listened to some motivational speakers. There has been testimonies of lives that have been transformed mentally and physically as a result of their speaking and books. The renowned ones are sort after by multinational companies to speak to their staff to build and inspire them for greater productivity. This is targeted at improving productivity and competence, all of which ends in the domain of the soul.
It is important however that we make a distinction between motivational speaking and spiritual development. Motivational speaking stops at the realm of the soul of man. It helps to build the mind and can even make a man become highly effective and productive in his/her everyday activities. It is misleading and erroneous to take motivation speaking for spiritual impartation. Today’s reality is that most of the contents of our pulpits have turned motivational talks which only build the soul compartment of the listeners.
The line between these two have become so blurred that some people do not notice the difference. One of the dangers of this mismatch is that the people begin to grow outside the will and purpose of God. In the process, the average believer become ambitious and goal driven outside of God. They begin to define goals and ambitions without looking into the spirit for what God has planned for them. While some people successfully realize these dreams and ambitions they designed for themselves, for others, the efforts amount to chasing shadows. You can give yourself ambitions and dreams and accomplish them with outstanding results, but in the end they turn out to be a deviation from what God wanted for your life.
This is one of the reasons why we have so many Christian worship centres, with millions of people trooping in and out without any corresponding impart on our national life. It is the reason why people feel comfortable living in sin and yet remain active in church ministry. Rather than places for salvation and spiritual development, they have become havens for people to continue in sin and expect the grace of God to abound.
In Matthew 7:22, some people came to God with outstanding results, but God told them they did not work in His will. When you do your own thing, it is lawlessness before God irrespective of your accomplishments. When you define goals and ambition for yourself, it simply means your spirit is not working in tandem with that of God. Everything started and ended in the realm of the soul, and the carnal mind cannot please God(Rom 8:7-9).
By all means have goals, dreams and visions, but ensure they are the ones given or authorised by God. Ensure you are not presumptuous and do not try to impose your desires on God, or convince yourself they have been given by Him, because it won’t make any difference. Don’t be unwise, seek out the will of God regarding every aspect of your life (Eph 5:15-17, Rom 12:2, Acts 2:38). And in order to know the will of God, you need spiritual impartation and development, and not motivational talks.
In the day of final judgment, God will only approve the things He authorised. SELAH!!!
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