{These are notes based on my new book, please only use with permission. Thanks}
Today we continue with our mini series on Psalm 23.
1 The Lord is my shepherd;
I shall not want.
2 He makes me to lie down in green pastures;
He leads me beside the still waters.
3 He restores my soul;
He leads me in the paths of righteousness
For His name’s sake.
4 Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,
I will fear no evil;
For You are with me;
Your rod and Your staff, they comfort me.
5 You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies;
You anoint my head with oil;
My cup runs over.
6 Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me
All the days of my life;
And I will dwell[a] in the house of the Lord
and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever. (NKJV)
What is the Soul?
The soul is not the mind. It is not the body. It is not the human spirit. It is the glue that holds those other three things together. It is the life of the person.
In the Hebrew Bible the term “soul” is nephesh, appearing 756 times.
The word can refer to “life” (Genesis 1:30), or simply the “person” (Deuteronomy 10:22).
The word soul can refer to both the intangible and material aspects of humanity. Unlike human beings having a spirit, human beings are souls.
In its most basic sense, the word soul means “life”; however, beyond this essential meaning, the Bible speaks of the soul in many contexts. One of these is in relation to humanity’s eagerness to sin (Luke 12:26).
Human beings have a sinful nature, and our souls are tainted with sin. The soul, as the life essence of the body, is removed at the time of physical death (Genesis 35:18; Jeremiah 15:2). The soul is the centre of many spiritual and emotional experiences:
Psalm 43:5: Why, my soul, are you downcast? Why so disturbed within me? Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise him, my Saviour and my God.
The word soul can refer to the whole person, whether alive on earth or in the afterlife.
The soul and the spirit are connected, but separable Hebrews 4:12: For the word of God is alive and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart.
The soul is the essence of humanity’s being; it is who we are. The spirit is the immaterial part of humanity that connects with God.
We are not mere hunks of moulded “dust” (Genesis 2:7); there is an inner essence, the soul (Matthew 10:28) that has been made in the very image of God himself (Genesis 1:26-27).
So we know that the soul is different to the spirit. Greek thought would have been that we are three - spirit, mind, body. Biblical thought is that we are four parts, spirit, mind, body held together in the life of the soul.
The Soul is Delicate
Here is a startling truth. It is not in God’s original plan for you to experience the pain of brokenness. He does not desire for your heart to be broken. He does not want you to experience the pain of rejection. He does not want you to suffer the trauma of loss, or grief, or poverty, or health issues, nor any many of other things.
But we all do.
What went wrong? Sin. Before sin entered the world God looked across the whole of creation and declared that it was good (Genesis 1:31). Before sin entered the world no one would die. No one would need to experience any of the griefs and the losses we know today.
But we do.
The point is that we were not originally designed to experience pain and loss in the way we do today.
Our family is expanding slowly. We have three sons, three daughter-in-laws and one grandson. As such as we are we do not want them to experience pain, loss, sickness or any other difficulty. Why? Because we want the best for them. We know that during the course of their lifetime they will experience some pain though.
Our basic design, put there by God is to protect our loved ones.
Our basic design as beings created in the image of God is to know Him but we were never designed to experience deep pain in our lives.
But we do.
We experience pain that goes beyond what medicine can heal. It’s pain that affects the soul.
Factory recall: Barbie has a Honda Jazz and she loves that little car. Recently I got a letter from Honda. It explained that in rare cases the driver’s airbag would go off with too much force in an accident and this could be dangerous. They’d identified the problem and so, although in no immediate danger, asked me to take the car into Honda. As it was due it’s annual service and MOT when I booked it in for this work I told them about the recall. They replaced the airbag. To be honest, I do not see the difference. The airbag is hidden.
Here’s the thing: God issues a factory recall notice on the hidden part of you, the soul. He calls you in to have it renewed, refreshed, made new again, despite all the pain, all the anguish and all the hurt, He says He can fix that. On the outside others may not know the difference, just like my airbag, until something goes wrong! Then people see a healed and whole soul in operation.
A damaged and sick soul infects the mind, the body and someone’s spirit. It is the glue that holds everything together. It is the life of the individual.
The Bible tells us to take care of the elements of our beings.
Mind: renew it - Romans 12:2: Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.
Body: take care of it - 1 Timothy 4:8: For physical training is of some value, but godliness has value for all things, holding promise for both the present life and the life to come.
Spirit: give it to God, born again - John 3: 6-8: Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit gives birth to spirit. 7 You should not be surprised at my saying, ‘You must be born again.’ 8 The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit.”
There is only one treatment for the soul: the Shepherd who created it.
So what has God done about it? He has an incredible healing capacity. He can heal the mind, the body, the spirit and the soul.
Restores My Soul
But what is the meaning of the verb “restores” (used about 1,060 times in the Old Testament)?
In my reading I discovered that many treatments and poles opinions around refreshing the soul centre around taking time out, resting, relaxing, even meditating. All these are good but they are not things that reach the soul.
While the word can signify “to refresh,” that’s not what is bing communicated in Psalm 23.
Does God refresh the soul? Yes.
Psalm 19:7: The law of the Lord is perfect, refreshing the soul. The statutes of the Lord are trustworthy,
making wise the simple.
To refresh the soul is to immerse it in Scripture. This is maintenance too. To keep the soul free from the cares of the world.
The word “restore” in Hebrew in Psalm 23 indicates two things: a bringing back home and a movement back to the point of departure. In other words God turns our life around and resets us to where we should be.
In computing you can use restore points. This is basically when your PC stops working properly (which it will) you can go back to a point in time when it was working properly and use that. Often the corrupt data that has stopped it working properly will be lost. In simple terms, that what God does. He removes the thing that has affected the soul and restores it to new.
The fact that the Lord has made provision for the soul to be restored there is the awareness of the damage that sin can do to the soul.
King David, who wrote this Psalm, sometimes walked away from God. He backslid on occasions, and when he did, his soul was plunged into distress (cf. Psalm 32; 51).
The Apostle Paul put it like this:
2 Corinthians 4:16: Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day.
Wrapping this up:
We have to depend on God’s promises to heal our wounded souls. Together we are gong to say some declarations together and then we are going to go into a personal prayer time.
Declarations:
When I’m in emotional pain,
He restores my soul!
When life is too much for me,
He restores my soul!
When I have sinned,
He restores my soul!
When I am backslidden,
He restores my soul!
When I need refreshing,
He restores my soul!
When work pressures are too much to bare,
He restores my soul!
When my mind won’t rest,
He restores my soul!
When my body is failing,
He restores my soul!
When life is dark,
He restores my soul!
He restores my soul!
He restores my soul!
Prayer time
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