Hmm, I had never thought of this before

I had never thought of this before.  My faith brings me tremendous comfort.  I guess it just never really occurred to me that our faith also brings comfort to others. 

1 Thessalonians 3:6-8(NKJV)

But now that Timothy has come to us from you, and brought us good news of your faith and love, and that you always have good remembrance of us, greatly desiring to see us, as we also to see you—

therefore, brethren, in all our affliction and distress we were comforted concerning you by your faith. 

For now we live, if you stand fast in the Lord.

Spirit, Soul, and Body

We have two different verses here that talk about the spirit and the soul.  What is the difference?  I know that to me they see quite similar.


1 Thessalonians 5:23(NKJV)
Now may the God of peace Himself sanctify you completely; and may your whole spirit, soul, and body be preserved blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. 




Hebrews 4:12(NKJV)
For the word of God is living and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the division of soul and spirit, and of joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart. 


spirit
1. the principle of conscious life; the vital principle in humans, animating the body or mediating between body and soul.
2. the incorporeal part of humans:
present in spirit though absent in body.
3. the soul regarded as separating from the body at death.
4. conscious, incorporeal being, as opposed to matter:
the world of spirit.
5. a supernatural, incorporeal being, especially one inhabiting a place, object, etc., or having a particular character:
evil spirits.
6. a fairy, sprite, or elf.
7. an angel or demon.
8. an attitude or principle that inspires, animates, or pervades thought, feeling, or action:
the spirit of reform.
9. (initial capital letter) the divine influence as an agency working in the human heart.
10. a divine, inspiring, or animating being or influence. Num. 11:25; Is. 32:15.
11. (initial capital letter) the third person of the Trinity; Holy Spirit.
12. the soul or heart as the seat of feelings or sentiments, or as prompting to action:
a man of broken spirit.
13. spirits, feelings or mood with regard to exaltation or depression:
low spirits; good spirits.
14. excellent disposition or attitude in terms of vigor, courage, firmness of intent, etc.; mettle:
That's the spirit!
15. temper or disposition:
meek in spirit.
16. an individual as characterized by a given attitude, disposition, character, action, etc.:
A few brave spirits remained to face the danger.
17. the dominant tendency or character of anything:
the spirit of the age.
18. vigorous sense of membership in a group:
college spirit.
19. the general meaning or intent of a statement, document, etc. (opposed to letter):
the spirit of the law.
20. Chemistry. the essence or active principle of a substance as extracted in liquid form, especially by distillation.
21. Often, spirits. a strong distilled alcoholic liquor.
22. Chiefly British. alcohol.
23. Pharmacology. a solution in alcohol of an essential or volatile principle; essence (def 3).
24. any of certain subtle fluids formerly supposed to permeate the body.
25. the Spirit, God.


Now let's look at the definition of soul.


soul
1. the principle of life, feeling, thought, and action in humans, regarded as a distinct entity separate from the body, and commonly held to be separable in existence from the body; the spiritual part of humans as distinct from the physical part.
2. the spiritual part of humans regarded in its moral aspect, or as believed to survive death and be subject to happiness or misery in a life to come:
arguing the immortality of the soul.
3. the disembodied spirit of a deceased person:
He feared the soul of the deceased would haunt him.
4. the emotional part of human nature; the seat of the feelings or sentiments.
5. a human being; person.
6. high-mindedness; noble warmth of feeling, spirit or courage, etc.
7. the animating principle; the essential element or part of something.


That is clear as mud isn't it?  Let me take a stab at it.


The spirit is what animates our bodies and gives us life here on earth.  It dies when we do.  The soul on the other hand is what lives on. 

Am I correct?  I'm not sure.  I will be looking for Scripture to confirm this.

How is God glorified?

I'm sure there are many ways but I believe this is one of the main ones.

John 15:8(NKJV)

By this My Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit; so you will be My disciples.

Why am I sure this is one of the main ones?  Scripture. 

Scripture tells us many things that fit with this passage.  We are told that our reward in Heaven will be commensurate with the amount of work we do for God.  In other words how much fruit we bare for Him. 

Scripture also tells us that God always gives us what we need to carry out His plan.  Unfortunately not all use those tools.  The ones who do are bearing much fruit once again fulfilling the Scripture above. 

These are just a couple of examples that lead me to believe that how much fruit you bare is one of the best was to glorify God.

A Warning about the Intelligentsia

I think this is a great warning about the influence of the intelligentsia.  There are a lot of people who think they are smarter than God.  These verses warn against listening to them.

Colossians 2:8-10(NKJV)

Beware lest anyone cheat you through philosophy and empty deceit, according to the tradition of men, according to the basic principles of the world, and not according to Christ. 

For in Him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily; 

and you are complete in Him, who is the head of all principality and power.

And remember other parts of Scripture warn that you will be held accountable if you allow yourself to be led astray. 

Now I can hear some saying "That's not fair.  It wasn't my fault".  Well actually it is your fault.  God gave you plenty of warning in Scripture like the verses above.  If you ignore those warnings and allow yourself to be led astray it is indeed your fault! 

Glorified-What does it Mean?

In my continuing study of the words associated with "God is"  I am studying Glorifed.  It occurred to me that I didn't know exactly what it means.  I had a vague idea but wasn't sure if it was correct so I went and looked it up.  I found it helpful.  I thought others might as well.

As a side note all of the dictionary's defaulted to glorify so I went with that. 

glorify

verb (used with object), glorified, glorifying.

1. to cause to be or treat as being more splendid, excellent, etc., than would normally be considered.
2. to honor with praise, admiration, or worship; extol.
3. to make glorious; invest with glory.
4. to praise the glory of (God), especially as an act of worship.

From <http://www.dictionary.com/browse/glorified>

I hope that helps add clarification as you read Scripture.

One of my favorite hymns!

This is one of my favorite old time hymns.  You know my belief that attitude is of paramount importance to God and I have explained why many times.  I just think the words of the song are a great reminder of that.  Just learn to automatically start singing the song when things go wrong and experience how much that truly helps!

The song was inspired by this verse from Philippians.

Philippians 4:4(NKJV)

Rejoice in the Lord always. Again I will say, rejoice!

Rejoice in the Lord always:

again I say, Rejoice!

Rejoice in the Lord always:

again I say, Rejoice!

Rejoice, rejoice,

and again I say, Rejoice!

Rejoice, rejoice,

and again I say, Rejoice!

Rejoice in the Lord always:

again I say, Rejoice!

Rejoice in the Lord always:

again I say, Rejoice!

From <http://www.hymnary.org/text/rejoice_in_the_lord_always_and_again_i_s>

God is…Spirit

OK. Let's start with this verse. 

John 4:24(NKJV)

God is Spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth.”

God is Spirit.  This is the starting point.  But God isn't the only Spirit that we hear from.

1 John 4:1(NKJV)

Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits, whether they are of God; because many false prophets have gone out into the world. 

1st John clearly tells us that there are other spirits and so one of our jobs is to discern good spirits from bad.  We are told to test (judge) the spirits to see whether they are "of God" (good) or not (bad).  Or in other words we are told we need to make a judgement.  (Again just pointing out that the whole 'thou shall not judge" thing isn't a blanket prohibition against judgement)

Now as I have pointed out before, when God tells us to make a judgement He gives us the standard to judge by and this time is no different.

1 John 4:2-3(NKJV)

By this you know the Spirit of God: Every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is of God, 

and every spirit that does not confess that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is not of God. And this is the spirit of the Antichrist, which you have heard was coming, and is now already in the world.

So let's take a swing at the low hanging fruit and use Muslims for example.  Many people including many Christians say that Muslims and Christians worship the same God.  Really?  Let's use the previous verse to test that theory.

Do Muslims confess that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh?  Now here is where it gets in to semantics and I'll let you be the judge.  Some would say yes they do because they believe Jesus was a prophet.  I don't however believe that is what the verse is asking.  I believe that the phrase "come in the flesh" has a deeper meaning.  I believe it is referring to those who believe that God in the person of Jesus Christ came to earth and in that case Muslims would answer no.

At any rate let the Holy Spirit guide you as you wrestle with that one.

The other thing that I found interesting in the study of God is Spirit is all of the Old Testament references to the Holy Spirit which was referred to as God's Spirit.  I think I have written about this before but I'll cover it again.

In the OT it seems that God bestowed His Spirit on individual people as He wanted to.  Not everybody got God's Spirit and they had no say in whether they got it or not.  That all changes in the NT.  In the NT we can all have the Spirit and it is us, not God who decides whether we get it or not. 

If we want God's Spirit all we have to do is ask Jesus to come in to our lives and guide us.  Have you done that yet?  If not why not do it right now?  Just have a conversation with Jesus.  "Dear Jesus…."