Hi everyone. I pray you are prospering and being in health even as your soul is prospering (3 John 1:2). That is what the apostle of Jesus, John, prayed regarding our souls. What is it about the soul that is so powerful, mysterious, and mesmerizing? There are ubiquitous idioms addressing the soul such as: soul mate, soul ties, body and soul, sold soul to the devil, god rest his or her soul, tormented soul, a lost soul, soul sister or soul brother, the eyes are the windows of the soul and many others. In the Holy Scriptures, there are 432 verses and 459 matches for the word soul.
First mentioned in Genesis 2:7, it reads,
“And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul” (King James Version).
In the New King James Version, living soul is translated as living being. In Hebrew thought, the breath of something or someone describes the character of the object or person. The Hebrew word for soul is nephesh and among it’s deeper definitions is:
1) soul, self, life, creature, person, appetite, mind, living being, desire, emotion, passion1a) that which breathes, the breathing substance or being, soul, the inner being of man
1b) living being
1c) living being (with life in the blood)
1d) the man himself, self, person or individual
1e) seat of the appetites
1f) seat of emotions and passions
1g) activity of mind
1g1) dubious
1h) activity of the will (2)
As one can see, our souls have far more in them than can meet the eye. So, what does that have to do with getting high? Believe it or not, God wants us to get High i.e. to come back to His mind through an understanding (Phil 2:5). However, the avenues of God’s “high” are not in drugs, marijuana, alcohol, sex, prescriptions medications, emotional religon, cigarettes, food, making money or any other artificial elixir, which temporarily apeases our natural senses and appetites without redeeming our souls back to the nature of God. God is Spirit [His breath, His character, His divine wisdom (John 4:23, 24; John 14:17)] and He wants us to have His nature by true worship; a life completely surrendered to Him (Luke 14:26, 27). The breath, appetite, passions, and mind that we were created in is God’s. He said,
“Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness… So God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them”
(Gen 1:26, 27).
Well, man fell from that image by making the wrong choice and there has been a fierce battle for our souls ever since. The question is which “high” are we going after? The devil’s or God’s!
There are now billboard signs for competing marijuana merchants; there are the ‘familiar spirits’ of beer, wine, and liquor. Once standing outside of a mechanic’s shop with my guitar awaiting car repairs, a guy named Donald came up to me and asked me if I “get high”, if I had any “weed”. I replied no, but asked him why he asked me. He explained it was because he saw me with my guitar, and because I am a musician he presumed I got ‘high’. I offered to pray for him and he received prayer; the path to the True high. A term often used in medicine is “self medication”, which can take a myriad number of forms. It’s really the fallen soul with the wounds of fears, anxiety, depression, unforgiveness, anger, addictions and a whole host of other dysfunctions trying to touch God again, to get back to the Garden (Gen 2:8). It is a process, and not an instant fix to come back to the intimacy that God wants us to experience in Him.
Thus, from the beginning of our creation in Genesis to the completion of the process in Revelation, He invites us to come back to His mind (Rev 2:5) which is the Ultimate High. Without his Holy Spirit (who is the Teacher, the Counselor and the Comforter), the only option is the deception of false teaching, false counseling and false comforting selling the “soul of men” for a false high which Jesus judges the merchants of religion for doing (Rev 18:13). The Early Church Fathers (before 325 A.D.) understood the process of restoring the soul, which is through the revelation of Jesus by true apostolic teaching (Rev 2:2). That is why there is a book of Revelation. So, if you have been struggling with addictions, habits, dysfunctional patterns etc., God doesn’t want just behavior modification, He wants to get your soul high on Him which fixes you back to Him. So, may your “spirit, soul and body” prosper and be in health (1 Thess 5:23).
Blessings.
References:
1. Bible references: King James Version and New King James Version
2. Brown-Drivers-Briggs Bible Dictionary (BDB)