The Soul – Foundations of a Worldview

The Soul
Foundations of a Worldview

Deuteronomy 6:5
“You shall love the LORD with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength.”

Obedience of life begins in the soul, where the heart fears and loves God, the mind understands and embraces His instructions, and the conscience values God’s will and wills our members to obey His Word.

The more we understand about the unseen aspect of the human life—the soul—the better able we will be to know the Lord Who gives His Law and holds out the promises which obedience to that Law brings within our grasp.

As we shall see, God not only speaks His Law to our souls, but He instructs His people concerning how they must engage the different aspects of their souls with Him, training and disciplining their affections, thinking, and priorities to seek the Lord and His promises above everything else.

Unless we first gain mastery over the inward, unseen parts of our lives, we will never enjoy the abundant blessings God holds out to us in His precious and very great promises.

But the Law of God ultimately points our soul beyond itself, to the full realization of the Law and the promises in our Lord Jesus Christ (2 Pet. 1:4; 2 Cor. 1:20). On our own, apart from the regenerating work of God’s Spirit, we have no heart for God or His promises, much less for His Law. Only as we come to know Jesus Christ, cling to Him, and seek His Kingdom and righteousness, in the power of His Spirit, can the righteousness of God’s Law and the full and abundant life of God’s promises begin to be ours.

Act: Meditate on Deuteronomy 30:1-10 and Ezekiel 36:26, 27. What is the role of the Spirit, and how does He fulfill that role, in getting the “unseen” parts of our souls in shape for loving and serving the Lord?

The book of Ecclesiastes is a crucial resource for understanding the Biblical worldview against the backdrop of our secular age. Follow T. M.’s studies in Ecclesiastes by downloading the free, weekly studies available in our Scriptorium Resources page at The Fellowship of Ailbe. Click here to see the weekly studies available thus far.

Want to learn ore about the unseen realm? Order a copy of The Landscape of Unseen Things, T. M.’s 24-lesson study of that realm which anchors our Christian worldview.

Except as indicated, Scripture taken from the New King James Version. © Copyright 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

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In the Gates is a devotional series on the Law of God by Rev. T. M. Moore, editor of the Worldview Church. He serves as dean of the Centurions Program of the Wilberforce Forum and principal of The Fellowship of Ailbe, a spiritual fellowship in the Celtic Christian tradition. He is the author or editor of twenty books, and has contributed chapters to four others. His essays, reviews, articles, papers, and poetry have appeared in dozens of national and international journals, and on a wide range of websites. His most recent books are The Ailbe Psalter and The Ground for Christian Ethics (Waxed Tablet).