Amending Our Souls Enriches Our Lives

Just like the soil in a garden needs to be amended in order to produce good fruit from the plants that grow there, so we must amend our minds to affect our souls.

Good soil needs 3 vital components for healthy plant growth and fruit production.  Our souls need 3 key ingredients in order to grow and flourish and to be productive in our lives as Christians.

Nitrogen provides the necessary components for the plant to make proteins from amino acids.  In other words it is the Central Dogma of the plant's life.

DNA---> RNA----> PROTEINS

The Word of God is the Christian's DNA.  We need to feed on it in order to have the necessary components for the development of all the features to be a mature, growing  and thriving Christian.

It was the very words of God that brought life into existence! He created all life from His words.  The Word of God is imperative to our existence as believers.  

Psalm 33:6 NLT

The LORD merely spoke, and the heavens were created.  He breathed the word, and all the stars were born.

In order to have life we must plow deeply into the Word of God.

Potassium in soil provides the necessary component to regulate the opening and closing of the plant's stomata.  The stomata are openings on the underside of the leaf that are opened and closed by guard cells.  This gives the plant the ability to regulate the rate of gas exchange.  The guard cells are controlled by turgor pressure meaning the amount of water the plant retains determines the plants ability to open and close the stomata which serves to guard against the plant drying out too quickly.

Like potassium, prayer serves to give us the ability to guard against drying out spiritually.  The Spirit of God should be the air that we breath.  He is our breath of life.  We cannot be sustained by Him if we are not in communication with Him.  

Ephesians 6:18

Praying at all times in the Spirit, with all prayer and supplication.  To that end keep alert with all perseverance, making supplication with all the saints.

The third important component of soil is phosphorus.  Phosphorus is essential for all living organisms and imperative for normal growth and maturity.  It is involved in cell division as well as cell enlargement so it of course reminded me of the importance of community in the Christian's life.

In order for us to grow and mature and reproduce after our own kind we must be in intimate community with one another.  Church attendance is just not enough for the sanctifying work of community to have its necessary effect.  We must intentionally be pursuing relationships with one another that will challenge us to grow.  There are  areas where we need to confess sin and be pruned in order to flourish and grow. 

Ephesians 4:11-16 ESV

And he gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds and teachers, to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building the body of Christ, until we all attain to the unity of faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ, so that we may no longer be children, tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness in deceitful schemes.  Rather, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, from whom the whole body, joined and held together by every joint with which it is equipped, when each part is working properly, makes the body grow so that it builds itself up in love.

In order for our souls to flourish and be enriched we must maintain a healthy balance of the Word, prayer and community.  Without one of these it will be impossible to grow, thrive and produce fruit.

It is God's plan that we are in constant communion with Him and His people.  We must do the diligent work of incorporating these 3 vital componants into the soil (soul) of our lives so that we will grow and mature into the stature of the fullness of Christ and be deeply rooted to avoid being tossed about unplanted and unfruitful in our hearts and minds.