Concept of Fire Baptism
Today’s Focus: The Soul
Scripture: 1 Thessalonians 5:23; Genesis 3:6,7,11
Greetings Kingdom Citizens
Now when we talk about the soul leading this is completely different from the lead of the Spirit. When the soul is leading, you are the leader. The soul is the dominant leader before the Spirit of God abides in a person and begins to lead and order their steps. This was not always the case. The lead of the soul began with the fall in the Garden and let me show you.
Man is composed of three elements, the spirit, soul and flesh. How do we know?
1 Thessalonians 5:23: And the very God of peace sanctify you wholly; and I pray God your whole spirit and soul and body be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.
So before the coming of our Lord, we are to be sanctified wholly, meaning all three in agreement with the Will and purposes of God which is your spirit, soul and body.
Now before the fall of this was in perfect alignment. Man was being lead by the Spirit and His actions and ways mimicked the Father and the creation responded to the one who was given dominion over it, the son of God. Now Adam was ok but in the fall something changed and let’s see what it was because remember before the fall Adam was lead by God.
Genesis 3:6,7: And when the woman saw (lust of the eyes) that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant (lust of the flesh) to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise (pride of life), she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave also unto her husband with her, and he did eat. AND THE EYES OF THEM BOTH WERE OPENED AND THEY KNEW THAT THEY WERE NAKED AND THEY SEWED FIG LEAVES TOGETHER AND MADE THEMSELVES APRONS.
This set of scripture is so loaded we may have to pick this up in the next message but look at verse 7 where it says and their eyes were opened and remember this was now after the transgression. So before the transgression we know that the eyes of the spirit was opened because Adam and Eve were led by God. We know their physical eyes were open because they can see the serpent and name the various things that they saw on the earth. So what were the eyes that were opened in verse 7. It was the eyes of the soul.
The soul is where you perceive, rationalize and feel emotions. Now look at verse 7 because their perception to who they are has now changed and verse 7 speaks of their new perception. The scripture says their eyes were open and they KNEW they were naked. Now to say that they knew means they acquired some knowledge contrary to the knowledge they received from God. Adam understood that he was a spirit enclosed in flesh but after the fall it says that they knew they were naked. Their nakedness in this scripture pertained to them seeing themselves as fleshly beings and then their action corresponded to their perception in the act of sewing fig leaves to make an apron. Do we see this? Their perception now as being fleshly beings came from their soul and in response to that perception they acted to try to cover their nakedness. This is why God asked Adam in Genesis 3:11: “Who told you, that you were naked?”
So now man became led by His soul and he would seek provision and protection by the sweat of his own brow. How he perceived things would now be by the five-senses and because now man is fatherless due to his sin and separation from the Father, now he has become an orphan and a slave to sin. So the mindset of the orphan or fatherless individual is lead by the soul being consistently preoccupied with their provision and protection. This is not the life God designed for mankind but it was a life that He knew would be the consequence of their choice to sin against Him. Nonetheless the love of God and the wisdom of God already had a plan in place to save man from the lie, the lifestyle and death and give Him life again.
In the next message we will look at the foundation of Life.
At Our Father’s Service,
Calvin Calhoun, Jr.
