Soul Prosperity

Preached by Ps Jude Blayney

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3 John 2
Beloved I wish above all things that you may prosper and be in health even as your soul prospers.

Psalms 25:12-13
Who is the man that fears the Lord? Him shall He teach in the way he chooses.
His soul shall dwell in prosperity and his descendants shall inherit the earth.

We are a tri-part being. We are a spirit, we live in a body and we have a soul.

When we get saved our true being, our spirit gets renewed. It is completely dealt with at the cross. Nothing is left untouched in the spirit realm by the Holy Spirit. It's a done dusted deal. 2 Corinthians 5:17

Therefore, if any man is in Christ, he is a new creation, behold all things have passed away and all things have become new.

One day our body will be gone and we will be given a new body. This will occur at the end of our present age.

Romans 8:23
"Not only that, but we also who have the first-fruits of the spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, eagerly waiting for the adoption, the redemption of our body."

Philippians 3:21
"Who will transform our lowly body that it may be conformed to his glorious body, according to the working by which He is able to even subdue all things to Himself."

Our soul needs work. Our soul consists of our mind, our will and our emotions. This is the part of our being which causes us the most problems. We need our minds renewed, our wills harassed and our emotions stabilized.

In Summary

• Our spirit is dealt with
• Our Body will be dealt with
• Our soul needs dealing with

If our soul needs work then how can we get it worked upon?

Ephesians 4:11-16
Verse 12 "for the equipping of the saints for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ."

V14 "that we should be no longer children, tossed to and fro by every wind of doctrine..."

V15 "but speaking the truth in love, may grow up in all things into Him.."

All pastors, prophets, apostles, teachers and evangelists are leaders. The leader has a role to play and that is to equip other Christians to be mature. Now if our spirit is dealt with and our body will be dealt with then the aspect that leaders and ministers need to work on is the soul.

• The soul is being equipped.
• The soul should not be tossed around.
• The soul should be spoken to in love so that it may mature and prosper.

Our roles as leaders is then to correct, mentor, encourage, guide and speak into peoples lives so that they mature in their walk with God but more importantly that our speech, our actions may cause people to mature. This maturity needs to take place in the soul.

• We need our minds adjusted by the word of God.
• We need our wills harnessing around the kingdom of God.
• We need our emotions stabilized under the power of God.

As each of these happens our soul will prosper.

The Soul

3 components = the mind, the will and the emotions

How does the soul function?

Non-Christian - the soul looks at facts, then feelings and then faith.

Christian we are meant to deal with faith which directs our feelings that brings the facts into line with the Word of God.

Soul prosperity then has three components.

Our mind needs to prosper = this is dealt with through repentance. Repentance comes from the Greek word, metanoya. Meta means change and noya means mind or thoughts. So a true rendering of the word Repentance is 'change your thinking'. To get your mind to prosper change your thinking. We change our thinking by mediating on what is important to us. For us as Christians that is the complete work of Jesus Christ through His life, death and resurrection.

2 Corinthians 10:4-5
"for the weapons of our warfare are not carnal but mighty in God for pulling down strongholds, casting down arguments and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, bringing every thought captive to the obedience of Christ."

Romans 12:2
"And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good acceptable and perfect will of God."

Our will needs to prosper. Our will is dealt with through humility. Humility is best defined as the lowering of one's self in favor or preference to another. As we lower ourselves we place our will in a place of rest. As we prefer Christ and His power over our own we 'come to Him who is able to carry the load for us' Matthew 11:28 if you want your will prosper come to a place of rest in humility before God.

Matthew 11:28
Come unto me, all you who labor and are heavy laden and I will give you rest.
Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly of heart, and you will find rest for your souls.
For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.

James 4:6-7
But He gives more grace. Therefore He says, 'God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble.' Therefore submit to God. Resist the devil and He will flee from you.

Man's will is very powerful.

I will fly said the Wright Brothers.
I will make a car that all men can have said Henry Ford.
I will run 400 metres in under four minutes said Roger Banister.
I will create something which helps me see. Thomas Edison
I will create a phone. Alexander Bell
I will fly create a faster jet. Howard Hughes
I will fly to the moon.
I will communicate instantly across the world.

Unfortunately, the 'I will's' of man are just that. Man's will. And Man's will leads him/her to the pit of hell. Man is in desperate need for help. He needs his soul harassed to complete the desire locked deep inside.

That desire is to run faster, work harder, live longer. God wants these things but His plan for achievement is through his son because He knows that we are unable to get there ourselves. That's Christianity.

Galatians 5:16-17
I say then: walk in the spirit, and you shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh. For the flesh lusts against the spirit and the Spirit against the flesh; and these are contrary to one another, so that you do not do the things that you wish.

The War within

Everything within our earthly nature is at war with God's nature. We can not under our own stream defeat or restrain the lusts of the flesh. Nothing we do gives us the eternal satisfaction of success.

Have you ever tried to overcome a desire with you won strength? Sometimes you almost get there and then you get trapped or cornered and find yourself failing and running to God. We can not do anything without Christ.

I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. Phil 4:13

Galatians 5 goes on to talk about the works / fruits of the flesh in verses 19-21. These will naturally occur in your life without you having to do anything accept breathing. They are already inherent within you through Adam. Some people call this the Adamic nature.

IN Verses 22-23 is our Christ nature. These fruits come out of Christ. They come out because you are in Him. IN Christ.

Anything you see as strength really is filthy rubbish. Paul said in Philippians 3:8 I count it all as rubbish. I solely rely on Jesus' ability. It is Him in me. It is Him through me.

Don't stress about your inability JUST REST in his ability.

God resists the proud but gives grace to the humble. James 4:6 All we need to do is allow God to work. It's not hard really. JUST GIVE IN. You can't achieve it anyway. You've tried everything, every imaginable path, every action to achieve peace or rest. Some people try specific sets of steps looking earnestly for the rest. But the only action that gives total and complete soul prosperity is resting in Jesus.

Don't give up, GIVE IN.

Soul prosperity is about us trusting in God. Not in man, not in a church or a group of people. Not in a particular place but rather in GOD.

The world says to prosper you've got to work harder. The paradox is that in God's economy working harder gets us only to the grave quicker. In God's economy we stop the striving and start the simple step of resting.

The world says that will fail. You have been conditioned to run, work harder, try more, believe more, seek more, and worship more, prayer more. Your conditioning starts the moment you are born. You are told to get up have a go. You can do it. And there is some truth in that. We can achieve much just through our work.

You are taught at school that those who won't work succeed. Now we know this to be true from a world's perspective but from God viewpoint it is vastly different. The world's ideologies are diametrically opposed to God's kingdom ideologies.

When we come into God's family. WE begin to encounter something vastly different. WE meet just rest and be blessed. This "REST AND B blessed" foundation comes at us from all angles opposing our false frameworks of our previous life. We begin to adjust our thinking by bringing it into alignment with Gods' thoughts about us, but if we try to do this we hit a snag. Some of us keep hitting it over and over again. The same snag of 'works' confronts us. We think we have to change our thinking by our own actions. It is futile. We need God's help. We need the help of the creator of the heavens and the earth.

Thus we JUST REST. B Blessed. How good is that.

Some side issues that come at us, trying to undermine this are

1. comparisons to others resulting
2. Jealousy then
3. Hatred and finally
4. Bitterness

Your only action is to sleep. Remember when Abraham cut a covenant with God in Genesis he did it while he Abraham was asleep. Further, when God intervened in Jacob's life and showed him the ladder going up to heaven God did it while Jacob was asleep. The revelation came in a place of rest. Wow.

Resting doesn't have to be a place of sleep. In Acts 16:25-27 Paul and Silas were in Prison. They were singing and praying. They weren't in place of worry but a place, not physically, of rest.

Some people think that a place of rest is only a specific place for everyone. I.e. a specific building. A particular type of song. A particular way to worship or pray or read the bible. Resting is very different. From person to person resting unfolds in peoples lives very differently.

Different styles of Rest

1. Through Music
2. Through Nature
3. Through Fellowship
4. Through Reading
5. Through study

And there may be many more. How you rest is probably very different to how someone else rests. It's not the how but the 'whom' we are resting in. It's not the how of the path that will bring rest but the person walking on that path that brings rest. While there are specific avenues to resting one thing needs to be paramount and that is resting is not an action but an attitude. It's completely giving in to something much more capable than you.

It's not the how but the who.

It's not the path but the person.

It's not an action but an inner attitude.

Resting is just that RESTING.



Ask God to help you rest. Ask him to show you how it is best for you.

Our emotions need to stabilize = this is dealt with through the power of God. Have you ever noticed that when the presence of God shows up in an unusual way our emotions sometimes get ruffled? Some of us cry, or tears well up in our eyes. Some of us the adrenalin flows causing our heart beat or blood pressure to arise. Some of us experience varying levels of feelings. This is a good thing because God captivates our emotions and brings them to himself. When we get prayed for something shifts on the inside of us and our emotions get effected.

• Some people in life are overly emotional
• Some people in life are unemotional
• Both of these are not the best way to live our lives. God has given us emotions. We can't and should not deny that but God wants us to be able to stabilize them so that under pressure His presence gives us the inner strength to persist and handle anything that may assault our minds.

Luke 7:36-50 Story of the woman with the anointing oil who comes and anoints Jesus feet. What is interesting is that she also cried during this time for Jesus spoke to the Pharisees about her tears. Whenever we get into the presence of God our emotions get effected in some way.

Luke 8:35
Then they went out to see what had happened, and came to Jesus, and found the man from whom the demons had departed, sitting at the feet of Jesus clothed and in his right mind. And they were afraid. When we get in the presence of Jesus, something happens which puts us in our 'right mind'. The phrase 'right mind' comes from the Greek word 'sophroneo ( so-fron-eh'-o) and it means to be moderate or balanced, self controlled, stable. God's presence brings us to a place of stability that nothing else can bring.

Luke 10:38-42

V40 "but Martha was distracted or annoyed with much serving... When what we do distracts or annoys us we need to take note. The best thing for us to do is not to drop the bundle and stop but rather to slow down and get a bit more time in a place of rest. Mary had chosen the best place, in Jesus' presence.

Psalms 107:9
For He satisfies the longing soul, and He fills the hungry soul with goodness.

Psalms 142:7, Psalms 120:2, Psalms 33:20

Psalms 23

The Lord is my shepherd I shall not want
He makes me lie down in green pastures
He leads me beside still waters
He restores my soul
He leads me in the path of righteousness for His name's sake.

Some key thoughts pervade this passage.

1. We lie down. We humble ourselves
2. We are then taken to a place of still waters
3. This process restores our soul.
4. Out of this restoration we get lead in the path of righteousness

We don't get in the path of righteousness through our own actions or beliefs rather it comes out of a place of rest or humility.

Let me just digress a bit here...
Righteousness is a gift, not a reward for good works.

Let me share something with you. When someone gives someone a gift the receiver is subject to the giver.

Proverbs 22:7
The rich rules over the poor,
And the borrower is subject or servant to the lender.

Let me put that in another way. The receiver is subject to the giver.

In other words when someone gives us a gift we humble ourselves to receive the gift under their arm of blessing.

Righteousness is a gift.
Romans 5:17.
For if by one man's offence death reined through the one, much more those who receive abundance of Grace and of the gift of righteousness will reign in life through the one, Jesus Christ.

When we receive that gift we place ourselves under the giver, God. We have humbled ourselves and thus he can now exalt through soul prosperity.

Soul prosperity is something God wants in our lives. In summary soul prosperity comes from

1. Repentance
2. Rest in Him
3. His Presence