Take Care of Your Soul

TAKE CARE OF YOUR SOUL
TAKE CARE OF YOUR SOUL
"Hear me, O Lord, for Your lovingkindness is good; Turn to me according to the multitude of Your tender mercies. And do not hide Your face from Your servant, For I am in trouble; Hear me speedily. Draw near to my soul, and redeem it. . . ." (Psalm 69:16-18)

We're thinking about "soul care" each weekend during February. David wrote Psalm 69, crying out to God because His soul needed care. Notice that even one as close to God as David (a man after God's own heart) experienced times when his soul was overloaded and needed God's attention. We are no different!

Let me share some things that may indicate the need for soul care in your life or mine. If we are neglecting God's Word, we need some soul care. When we sense no joy in our walk with the Lord, we need soul care. Ongoing struggles with addictions definitely tell us we need soul care. Soul care is a need in our lives when we're not growing in grace.
The list of indicators could fill this edition of The Freedom Fighter!

Soul care really needs to happen regularly in our lives. Think of it like taking care of your physical body. Most of us do some "preventive"
things to take care of ourselves. Exercise, vitamins, rest and a healthy diet all fall into the preventive health care category.

Other occasions require more invasive measures. One of us may need a heart cath to take care of a blockage. Another of us may need surgery for a bad gall bladder. Our care is more aggressive because the problem is more dangerous. When life threatening issues attack us, we pull out all the stops. Major surgery, radiation, chemo and whatever else is needed come into play.

Soul care has counterparts to all the levels of medical care. Each of us, no matter how well we're doing in our walk with Jesus need a maintenance level of soul care. We're spiritually healthy and want to stay that way. So, we take care of our souls.

Times come when we struggle. Something happens that brings greater pressure or temptation to our lives. We see an issue and know that it's going to require more than a maintenance level of soul care. So, we get more aggressive about "watching over our hearts/souls" (Proverbs 4:23)

Some of us will experience times that demand major soul care. Times of great grief or temptation create a need for that level of soul care.
Times of failure demand intense soul care. We do whatever it takes to protect and fortify our souls because of great danger.

I hope you'll this week about the care of your soul. I invite you to join me this month in learning how to take care of our souls.

John Strain is Senior Pastor of First Baptist of Toms River.

Great Quote: Wise leaders should have known that the human heart cannot exist in a vacuum. If Christians are forbidden to enjoy the wine of the Spirit they will turn to the wine of the flesh...Christ died for our hearts and the Holy Spirit wants to come and satisfy them.

A. W. Tozer