July 23, 2012 issue
The value of a soul
By Bill Hartwell Omaha, Neb.Your soul is that part of you that has judgment, that makes moral decisions. Your soul also involves your will. Your will chooses or rejects things. It has memory — the capacity for storing up knowledge. There is something down inside us that is beyond science to know. Most of us have knowledge, but we don’t have wisdom.
Prov. 9:10 says, “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.” The men I minister to in the Nebraska prison system are in a battle to save their souls. With the help of the Holy Spirit I try to get their minds on positive thinking and hope. The place to begin is the soul. We tend to put all of our emphasis on the body, with its pleasures and appetites. But the soul also has appetites. The soul longs for God.
I often hear the men say, “I was always looking and searching for something, and I didn’t know what. The decisions made in my past were often wrong.” Our souls long to know that something or someone loves and cares for them.
Man’s soul is valuable because it is eternal. The value of the soul can be measured by the devil’s interest in it. Jesus pictured Satan as an enemy battling and bidding for the souls of people. God sees our soul as the most valuable thing in the world, so valuable that he sent his only Son to the cross to suffer and die so that our souls may be saved.
I ask the men to stop gambling with their souls. They simply cannot take a chance with it. The Bible says there is a heaven and hell. Where are they prepared to spend all eternity? Many of these men are choosing right now.
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