Heart and Soul

[HKHaugan]

Faith 16 Heart and Soul

That was the title of a Frank Loesser song from the late 1930’s. It’s romantic lean, like the song we quoted last time, narrows love to emotional longing and leaves you there. “Heart and soul, I fell in love with you, lost control, the way a fool would do, Gladly... Because you held me tight...” Note the ‘lost control.’ Keep that word ‘control’ in mind. Just who is in control?

Also there is a problem hidden in this scenario. The idea of 'falling in love' is being caught up in a false assumption. We 'fall in love,' we lose control, we become infatuated with an expectation of being overcome like the constant comfort of a warm shower. It's based on a hope for a feeling, an emotional high, that may never be realized. It's fantasized in movies, books and TV dramas. Of course there are moments when that may come into to play. But is it lasting?

When Jesus calls us to love the ‘Lord your God,’ again in Matt.22:37, with all our heart He continues to a second call, the soul. In Greek ‘soul’ is ‘psyche.’ It means the inner person, the spirit of the person, the ‘deep inside’ that is eternal. In some places it is called the ‘eso anthropon’---‘inner man’ as in Eph.3:16 and Rom.7:22. It is also called ‘pneuma ton anthropon’---‘man’s spirit’ in 1Cor.2:11.

The idea of quoting the Greek here is not to get over-technical. Rather it is to show how specific Matthew and Paul are in recording Jesus’ emphatic call to let the Lord be the center of our center, our heart. The Lord wants all of us; our thoughts, our emotions, our decisions and our moment-to-moment actions, the inner stuff of life. This is when love in its perfect form, Jesus, God the Son, breaks into our fallen world.

Ultimately, without God, it’s all about personal control. Sin will always work in our hearts to maintain the idea and feeling that we are in control. It's all about me. Sin works especially on our weaknesses that are unique in every individual. Our weaknesses are what we struggle with, what we hide. They are where we will deny them to protect ourselves, promote ourselves and devise some personal strategy to cover them. It is here that the spirit of fear fuels our constant inclination to be in control. I want to be in control of who I am. The modern call can be heard across the culture, “I need to take control of my life.” And there are all kinds of books, TV programs, religions, philosophies and ‘gurus’ ready to take your money as they help you pursue that control. They offer everything ranging from how to take control to how to be in control by denying you are in control which is control.

As an aside, it seems rather typical of the secular world that many practitioners in the field of psychology (which literally means the study of the soul) as well as psychiatry, have hijacked the word ‘psyche,’ redefined it to control it and to change it, called it psychotherapy. In its contemporary form, it views and treats spiritual reality as a symptom rather than a reality. And for those who want to escape 'psyche' entirely there are escape artists who offer psychedelic drugs. Many other biblical words have also been culturally hijacked like love, truth, tolerance, compassion, disciple, gospel and of course, born again.

But back to the main problem, sin and control. Sin will also make us vulnerable to whatever spirits can energize control and a spirit of control will work in conjunction with them. No wonder Jesus calls us to love Him completely 'with all our mind, heart and strength.' He makes us aware that the devil and his arsenal of spirits war against us all the time. This is why He gives us the Holy Spirit who is far more powerful than the devil’s entire arsenal. So He tells us that there is no area of our being over which He does not have authority and power. This is especially true in the deepest recesses of who we are; our heart, our mind, our spirit, the image of God in us His children. “You, dear children, are from God and have overcome them, because the one who is in you is greater than the one who is in the world (1Jn.4:4).”

In this world we are always at the fork in the road called choice. It's decision time. It is at the point of choice that the Holy Spirit comes to be our Counselor, our Comforter and our Companion. It's in His Word that He works as we yield to its call. He lives in us, “And if the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit, who lives in you (Rom.7:11).”

So the Spirit of God, the Holy Spirit, is the One who sorts out the needs in the depth of our being and works in us the restoration of the image of God that is our spirit, our soul, our inner being. “In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groans that words cannot express. And he who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints in accordance with God's will (Rom.8:26-27 NIV).”

So the title words of that song Heart and Soul come together and prompt us to see that our heart and our soul are the objects of the love of God. Control? We give it to the Lord Jesus which is the Father's will. The Holy Spirit brings a constancy in which we can relax. The heart and soul together with the mind are the image of God in us He is bringing back to Himself. So it is the mind we visit next.