Five Reasons Why Your Soul Matters by Colin Smith – Unlocking the Bible
When our children were very young, we spoke about the soul like this: “I have a soul. My soul is inside me. I can’t see it, but it lasts forever.”
Jim Packer says that your soul is your “conscious personal self,” the “I” that knows itself as “me.” Your soul is the identity that makes you who you really are. It is the seat of your memory, and your feelings, and your imagination, and your convictions, and your desires, and your affections.
In Mark 8:35-36, Jesus says our soul has great value. Do you know why this is? Here are five reasons why your soul matters more than anything else you have.
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1.) Your soul is breathed into you by God.
The LORD God formed the man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living creature. (Genesis 2:7)
Grasping this is of huge importance in knowing who you are, and why your life is of such great value. Adam was created in two stages. There were two steps in the process by which God gave him life.
The first was that God, “formed the man of dust from the ground.” God formed a body. It was made from the dust of the ground. Now in this way, the man and the woman were similar to the animals: “Now out of the ground the LORD God had formed every beast of the field and every bird of the heavens” (Genesis 2:19).
There is a second stage in the creation of Adam which shows why we are different from animals:
The LORD God formed the man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living creature. (Genesis 2:7)
God breathes life into this corpse, and this makes Adam different from the animals. He is more than a body. Adam is a living soul. This soul is capable of knowing God and enjoying God, and it is capable of sinning against God, something the animals cannot do.
This is at the heart of what God is saying when he says, “You are made in the image of God” (Genesis 1:26-27). God has breathed life into you and that life will never end.
2.) Your soul is the source of all your achievement.
The body apart from the spirit is dead. (James 2:26)
Think about everything that is important in your life, and you will say, “Yes, that came from my soul.” Think about this in relation to the world.
