What’s Getting to Will?
“It doesn’t really affect me.” That’s the way we usually excuse a questionable activity. God created humans of three parts: body, soul, and spirit. In a believer’s walk with the Lord, the soul is the primary target of Satan. Why?
The soul (mind, will, and emotions) is the place where all decisions happen. If this process were an allegory, Thinker, Will, and Feeler would be the main characters. Will makes the final choices, based on the influence of Thinker and Feeler. But where do Thinker and Feeler get their information? There are two doorways into the soul; through the body and through the spirit. The spirit is home to faith, conscience, wisdom, creativity, fellowship, worship, and discernment. These provide data for Thinker and Feeler to use when influencing Will. What gets into this place affects the quality (good or bad) of these residents. The unsaved person receives ungodly spiritual input from the enemy of his soul, the devil. At salvation, the Holy Spirit is united with the human spirit, and the believer begins to receive godly spiritual input, as well. The other doorway is the body. The residents of the physical are: Looker, Hearer, Smeller, Taster, and Toucher. These guys pay close attention to what is going on around them. Absolutely everything they are in contact with is picked up and sent over to Thinker and Feeler. Each of these five are obedient servants to Will. He makes decisions about what they will be in contact with. Of course, sometimes they are contacted by the results of someone else’s decisions. But, it is Will that rules. He can decide most of the data that comes into the soul through the doors of the spirit and the body. The apostle Paul wrote, “Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God.” (Romans 12:2)
Sin cera, Erik
Erik O. Garthe is Associate Pastor at Canton Baptist Church in Baltimore, Maryland.
