While salvation is instantaneous, spiritually, when you ask Jesus into your life and to be your Lord, that’s not the end. He does ask you to come… just as you are, but He has no intention of leaving you in that condition – there IS the rest of you. What do I mean? Simply. Your spirit was immediately cleansed and accepted at that moment but there’s also your soul and body to consider (and contend for). And now the rest of the story is told by you.
Body: it really is your decision as to how you treat your body. It’s yours and it’s your responsibility. Feed it with non-nourishing foods and you will balloon out or you will be sluggish. If all you do is to sit around, this sedentary lifestyle will not be healthy. Healthy – that’s the goal. There are so many good and healthy foods available to us but when we choose, because it always is a choice, to eat those foods that cause us to be ill then we are reaping what we sow. Sadly it appears that it’s those foods that we crave but we can curb this and in the process reduce our risk for cancer or diabetes or any of the other life-threatening diseases.
Soul: mind, will, emotions – at least that’s the definition I’ve been taught. This is where the longest, hardest battles are fought. This is where you make decisions about who and what and your how of Christianity. And this is always growing and refining and becoming. You are now in the developmental stages of who you are as a Christian. If this wasn’t true then why are we told in many places to renew our mind? And it doesn’t stop with the mind. We are emotional creatures. We express the vast array in the panorama of feelings. And when it comes to will… just watch a very young child sometime and you see the effect and influence of the will. As for the will… only you can choose to control.
One could argue that splitting ourselves up into 3 components, especially since they interrelate as much as they do, is unnecessary. I would argue that this gives us a greater understanding of not only who we are but how we are put together. In this life, a great deal of our growing effort is spent in the soul area and yes the spirit and body relate highly since the soul does as much directing as it does. It is our spirit, the most eternal aspect of who we are, which should be in the ‘driver’s seat’ but it is our will and mind and emotions that far too often dictate. However, as we renew our mind, as we bring our emotions into focus that the spirit can make itself known.
