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 Sermon > Spirit, soul and body |
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Title |
Spirit, soul and body(13) - The 2nd lecture on - Spirit, soul and body(5) |
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Speaker |
Rev. Jaerock Lee |
Bible |
2 Co 10:3-6 |
Date |
2004-02-29 |
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Introduction
Dear congregation, it is the fifth session of the 2nd part of the spirit, soul, and body.
Men consist of spirit, soul, and body, and to know what kind of person you are, you first have to know how these spirit, soul, and body were made.
By listening to this message on the spirit, soul, and body, you will be able to learn about your inner self. You will gain a great strength in leading your Christian life as well as in leading a successful life in this world.
I explained to you about the flesh for the last four sessions, and from today, we are getting into the aspect of soul.
Even the worldly people acknowledge the fact that we do not only have visible body but also spirit and soul that cannot be seen.
But they do not know spirit and soul are two different things or what they really are. I will begin to explain about soul from today, and if you understand these things, you will be able to learn how to control your soul, namely your thoughts.
For example, one can have a hard time because something keeps on coming to his mind even though he tries to forget about it.
At this time, he who clearly knows about the soul and its operation can control his thoughts, and that particular thought will not come to his mind any more.
Also, some say that, when they try to love somebody whom they hate, they find it hard because hatred arises when they see that particular person.
Even at this time, if we know about the operation of soul, it would be easier for us to love that person whom we used to hate.
Therefore, knowing about the soul and controlling it is so important in becoming sanctified. The things about the flesh that we learned so far are like the basic in learning about soul.
If we learn about spirit after we learn about soul, we will be able to receive greater power in becoming sanctified and changing into men of spirit.
I hope you will listen carefully and keep the messages in your mind.
I hope you will all understand about soul so that you will be able to control the works of soul with the truth.
Body
Dear congregation, members who are attending the service through the satellite all over the country, members of branch churches, branch sanctuaries, Light and Salt mission, Restaurant Mission, members who are attending the service through the Internet all over the world,
What is soul? In dictionaries, there are many definitions on soul.
Some say it is "the immaterial essence, animating principle, or actuating cause of an individual life," or it is "the spiritual principle embodied in human beings."
But of course, these explanations are not exactly correct.
We cannot define, with human knowledge, mental or spiritual things that are invisible.
We will know correctly only when God tells us about these spiritual things. What, then, is the definition of soul that God tells us?
We have brain in our head, and in the brain is the memory device.
A lot of knowledge and experiences we gain are stored in this memory device. Retrieving these memories is the thought.
Soul is the term for all these three things together - the memory device, the knowledge stored in that memory, and the operation of thoughts that retrieve these memories.
Let us compare human beings with the case of a computer. In a computer, there is memory. If we store information on the memory, we can retrieve the information and utilize it later.
This memory, information, and retrieving and utilizing this information altogether can be referred to as soul in case of human beings.
Our I.Q. will be different according to how much materials we saw, heard, and input, how much we can remember those materials, and how well we can utilize those materials.
These things were explained in the first part of the spirit, soul, and body. Dear congregation, you know we all have soul.
We all have brain, and in the memory device of brain, we have memories we gained from our parents, teachers, friends, books, televisions, and other things by seeing, hearing, and memorizing them.
We keep on thinking about them and applying them continuously. While you are listening to this message, you can understand and put it in your memory device because you have soul.
Also, it is possible to remember the message you heard before because you have soul.
Therefore, soul is like the heart for men, and the body is like the clothes that cover this heart.
As we will learn later, spirit makes this soul perfect. We can have so many different kinds of works of soul according to what kind of materials we input in what kind of way in our memory device.
For example, let us suppose there were three people who at the same time saw Deacon Kim and Park talking in a loud voice.
At this time, one thinks, "They are talking with enjoyment."
Another one thinks, "They must have some problem since their voices are raised."
The other one once saw Deacon Kim getting angry before. So he thinks in this situation, "Deacon Kim is getting angry at Deacon Park."
Seeing exactly the same scene, people have completely different works of soul. When people see somebody gobbling, if they were taught it was something impolite, they will think of it in a bad way saying, "Why is he gobbling without any etiquette?"
But seeing the same sight, some others might think it is lovely saying, "He is eating the food so deliciously. He has the thankful mind for his food."
According to what we have input, we have different feelings and thoughts seeing exactly the same thing.
Our God wants His children to have works of soul in truth.
He wants us to have thoughts and feelings that are right in His sight.
According to God's Word, we should change into the truth all knowledge, theories, and thoughts that do not please God, as said in 2 Corinthians 10:5, "We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ."
To do this, first of all, we should know what we store in the memory device in our brain, and how we store them.
According to what we store, we can have good thoughts that please God or vice versa.
While we are living in this world, we can see, hear, and experience good things and store good feelings. Or, we can see, hear, and experience bad things and store bad feelings.
If you stored something good, you will have good thoughts.
If you stored bad things, you will have bad thoughts.
For example, let us suppose that two people in a distance from you are laughing, while talking to each other. Then, some might think, "They are whispering to each other. It doesn't look good," or "They are speaking ill of me."
These people will have bad feelings whenever the similar situation occurs.
They will have bad thoughts because they store bad things.
On the contrary, some others might say, "They are talking in a low voice not to disturb others," or "They have something to talk about in low voice."
Those who input in this way will not have bad thoughts even when they see others whispering to each other.
They will just think, "They must have some reason," and finish with that situation.
In this way, seeing the same thing, those who stored good things will have good thoughts but those who stored bad things will have bad thoughts.
Next, we should also know about the process of memorizing in order to think good things that please God.
Namely, there are many ways in storing what we see, hear, and experience.
We sometimes have no memory or very weak memory on something even though we certainly saw and heard it before.
On the contrary, some things are so clear in our memory and we do not forget even after a long time.
This difference comes from the process of storing the contents in our memory.
We can generally divide the process of storing memory into four.
The first one is just passing by. We certainly see and hear something, but since we do not pay attention to it, we just pass it by.
For example, suppose you are on a train to go to your hometown. You see rice paddies and yellow rice ripening.
But you are preoccupied with the thoughts about your parents and family members. You keep on thinking, "What will I talk about with my parents?" "How happy will they be when I give this present to them?"
Then, will you be able to remember what you saw outside the window of the train? Most probably not, because you just pass them by.
To give you another example, a student in a class thinks about what he will do after the class.
This student is certainly sitting and hearing in the class, but he does not remember what he learned after the class.
Because he just passed by the explanations of the teacher, nothing was stored.
The second thing is something we just store. I gave you an example of going back to hometown in a train. In this case, if your parents are farmers, you can relate the rice paddies with your parents.
You look at the rice paddies thinking, "My father is also farming, and here, rice is ripening on these rice paddies."
If you just store like this, you can just remember some of the things you saw, if somebody asks you what you saw on the way.
You will probably be able to answer there were many rice paddies, and the rice was yellow, ripening.
But you will not be able to remember in detail, and you will soon forget about those things.
Also, a student may just store while he listens to the explanation of the teacher in a class. If somebody asks him what he learned in the class, he may be able to answer very briefly, "I learned about this and that."
But after a couple days, he will forget about that. If he takes a test in that situation, he will not be able to remember the answer although he knows he learned it before.
The third one is the things that are sown.
If you are a farmer yourself, when you see rice paddies on your way, you will not just pass them by.
You will probably look at the rice paddies carefully thinking, "This rice is growing well," "That greenhouse is built very well," "I will try to build one like that on my farm as well," and so on.
The things that you look carefully are sown into your memory well.
Even after you get back home, you will be able to remember in detail. Also let us think about the students' case.
The teacher says, "After this class, we will have a short test on what we learn in this class. You will be given a punishment for each wrong answer you get."
Then, how much will the students concentrate and try to put everything in their memory?
They will be able to remember these things for relatively a longer time.
So far, I explained three levels of memorizing. The latter, the longer the memory lasts.
The fourth one is the things that are sown in the heart and memory at the same time.
For example, suppose a seven or eight-year-old child saw his dear mother getting killed in a traffic accident.
How much will he be shocked and sad? At this time, he will not only remember with his brain but this memory will be put into his heart along with the sorrowful feelings. Things that are input in the brain as well as the heart are not easily forgettable even after a long time.
Even if we try to forget about it, we are reminded of it constantly, and we even see it in dreams.
Elderly people's memory gets poorer as they get older and they even forget the things that happened just now. But still, they clearly remember some things that are very old.
In other words, things that are input in both the brain and heart will remain even after the memory itself becomes so poor.
Furthermore, if our memory does not become so poor, these memories that are sown in both our brain and heart will remain as the memory for life time, unless our brain cells are all dead.
So far, we have looked at four different ways of putting materials in our memory. Dear congregation, knowing these things will help you a lot in controlling the works of soul.
Let me give you an example. Sometimes, even though you do not want to think about it, you are constantly reminded of something that is not truth.
This is because you have put it both in your brain and heart along with feelings.
For example, if a person gives you such a hard time, his name and face will be put in yourself along with feelings.
Because of the hard time you received from him, hatred arises in you, and when you think of him, the feeling of hatred comes into your mind at the same time.
Even if you try not to think of it, you are constantly reminded of the scene in which he gives you a hard time. So you are left with bad feelings.
Of course, if you have already got rid of hatred from your heart, you would not suffer from bad feelings. But in the process of getting rid of this hatred through prayers, some of you suffer from bad feelings being reminded of that person you hate.
If you don't want to suffer from bad feelings like this, you just have to input good things from the beginning.
Even if somebody does something that you cannot understand, you should not say, "I don't like that person doing that. Why on earth does he act in that way?"
Rather, you should try to understand that person thinking in his position saying, "There must be some reason for him to do that."
Therefore, even if somebody gives you such a hard time, hatred will not be aroused even when you think of that person, if you just understand him and input only good things.
Now, what do you have to do with the untruths that are already input in you along with feelings? You cannot just remove it by trying to remove the memory.
Because it is already in your memory, the more you try to forget, the more you will be reminded of it.
Therefore, rather than trying to remove the memory itself, you should try to change the feelings.
For example, you should change the feeling that you cannot forgive a certain person, thinking, "In his situation at that time, he could have done that," or "He himself suffered so much before he acted in that way." You should keep on trying to feel from the other's point of view.
At the same time, you should think of his good and loveable things, and pray for him.
You should act with love, for example, by saying a warm and good word to him and giving a small present.
To the extent that you act in this way, the feeling of hatred changes into the feeling of love. Then, you don't have to suffer from pain even when you think of that person.
Conclusion
Dear congregation, today we learned about soul.
Soul is the term used for memory device, the contents in it, and retrieving and utilizing those contents altogether.
When our soul works, it should work in truth.
When we see, hear, or experience, we should store good things. When we store something along with feelings, we should store it with good feelings.
In order to do this, we will look at how soul works in untruth, and what we have to do not to make our soul work in untruth in the next session. When you realize this message about soul and act, you will be able to change your thoughts and feelings into truth more quickly.
You will become God's true children who are renewed by spirit, as said in Colossians 3:9-10, "since you have taken off your old self with its practices and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge in the image of its Creator."
I hope you will find out and realize what kind of feelings and knowledge you have input and what kind of thoughts you have, so that you will be able to think only in truth.
I bless in the name of the Lord that you will come out as perfect men of spirit. |
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