Soul, soul soul… I can talk for absolutely ages about soul and r&b music because it’s one of my great passions, but right now I’m not talking about ‘soul’ in the James Brown, Marvin Gaye ‘Let’s Get It On’ context… I’m talking about the ‘inner man’ soul; And the burning question is “is yours soulful, or soul-full?” “What’s the difference?” I hear you say, well I’m glad you asked! In a nutshell, the difference between soulful and soul-full is what navigates you. Vague and obscure response I know… let’s delve deeper, but I’m going to take the long route to try and make sense of these abstract concepts.

 

Mankind – The Tripartite Being

Mankind is made up of three parts; body, spirit and soul.

 Body: is the part of us that processes, functions and communicates with the physical world/realm around us via our five sense (sight, smell, taste, touch & hearing).

Spirit: the part of us that processes data from the spiritual realm around (God directing us through His Spirit into all truth, discerning right from wrong and giving us wisdom to make good decisions amongst other things).

Soul: consists of our mind, will and emotions. It is the core expression of who we really are; how we think, make choices and express ourselves.

 

Life is about fulfilling our destiny – that predestined path that God has prepared for us before we were formed in our mother’s womb. That journey is successfully walked when we go about our daily lives in the physical realm in very active communication with the Holy Spirit, which guides our inner man in making decisions in the best expression of ourselves for our lives.

This means that we walk this physical realm ‘taking in information’ (taking in to our ‘inner man’ (our Spirit and Soul) data for the formation of our choices, emotions and decisions). When we walk being led by the Spirit of God, we literally take data through our physical senses and because we are being guided by the Spirit of God, we make decisions consistent with His Word according to what the Spirit of God is confirming/telling us. What then happens we make make choices from our inner man according to the guidance of the Holy Spirit (which confirms the Word). What comes out in the physical realm as the expression of our inner man is our choices, behaviour and words that align with the Word (good fruit). This is the best expression of who we are and the life that God has prepared for us to live, what we were born for.

This is how we are meant to live and is the type of life where, when we consistently walk in this upright manner we become a vessel for God. We manifest His glory and power through our lives, through the unique expression of each of us – unique beings with all our idiosyncrasies, we our destiny.

The Holy Spirit guides us into all truth (John 16:13), and according to the Word of God. Therefore in order for us to live effectively under the guidance of the Holy Spirit we must know the Word for ourselves! When we are full of the Word, then we are fully receptive and sensitive to how the Holy Spirit is guiding us through life. This is what it means to be SOUL-FULL – the Soul is FULL of the Word and the Holy Spirit has something to work with!

Having taken this long route to explain what it means to be Soul-Full, it is clear what the scriptures talk about when it says “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength” (Mark 12:30; Deuteronomy 6:5; Luke 10:27; Matthew 22:37). When our very being is full of love and focus on God, we are equipped to go into our destiny.

SOULFUL…

So what is soulful? Generally, any word that ends in ‘ful’ denotes that the prefix is full of it .. Joyful (full of joy), colourful (full of colour) so soulful is full of soul. What does that mean? Full of the mind, will and emotions. Until we accept Jesus Christ as our personal Lord and Saviour, we live our lives according to how we feel, and what we think is right. This is living out the expression of our souls, according to what ‘we’ think. However, when we become Christians we make Jesus Christ our Saviour and Lord. If we make Jesus Christ our Saviour (as in accept Him into our lives believing that He died for our sins), but don’t make Him Lord, it means that we live with a redemptive Saviour but when it comes to our life decisions, we still make them according to our own standards and our own way. For Jesus Christ to be our Lord, it means that He has to be Lord over every facet of our life. Jesus Christ – The Word has to reign as head over every area of our lives, that’s what being Lord is. When Jesus Christ is our Lord, we submit ourselves under the Word, and we align every single decision of our lives in obedience to it. This means we put the Word in our hearts and express it through our souls (mind, will and emotions).  So being soulful means that our expressions – our minds, will and emotions are expressing ‘our own way’ instead of God’s way.

The difference between soul-full and soulful is the substance that fills our soul at any given time. Whatever our soul is full of is what will dominate our choices, decisions and emotions.

So in examining ourselves we must ask whether we being soul-full (is the fruit of our lives producing outcomes aligned with the Word?) or are we being soulful (are we expressing what we want done according to our own wishes and emotions?).

It’s very easy then to understand why soul music is so emotive – it’s people expressing their inner man (usually as a result of external situations). Gospel music however is soul-full music – the soul is filled with the joy of the Lord and lyrically charged with His Word (by the way let it be known that I’m not knocking soul music!) This is why it is so important for us to guard our ear and eye-gates – everything external is information, which when taken in through the senses of the body takes formation in one way or another in how we express ourselves through the inner man of our souls.  If we are meant to be expressions of God in this world, then we need to make sure that the dominant information in our lives is the Word   of God.

I believe this is why the bible emphasises the need to meditate on the Word day and night. To meditate is to focus the mind – so meditating on the Word is focussing on the Word day and night. This way, we are making sure that the right information is the dominating force taking formation in the inner man’s expression.

 

Key scriptures about filling the soul with the right information:

This Book of the Law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate on it day and night – Joshua 1:8

Blessed is the man….whose delight is in the law of the LORD, and who meditates on his law day and night – Psalm 1:1-2

Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart Be acceptable in Your sight, O LORD, my rock and my Redeemer. – Psalm 19:14

I have set the LORD continually before me; Because He is at my right hand, I will not be shaken – Psalm 16:8

I will meditate on Your precepts And regard Your ways. I shall delight in Your statutes; I shall not forget Your word. – Psalm 119:15-16

This book of the law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do according to all that is written in it; for then you will make your way prosperous, and then you will have success. – Joshua 1:8

 

Let’s make a commitment to be conscious about living a soul-full life in every part of our lives.

Stay blessed.