Denying our Soulish Life today to Receive the Salvation of our Souls at Christ’s Return

The proving of our faith being found unto praise, glory, and honour results in receiving the end of our faith, the salvation of our souls; this means that, at the Lord’s revelation (His coming back), our soul will be saved from sufferings into the full enjoyment of the Lord! Hallelujah!

Praise the Lord for His full salvation! He first reaches our spirit to save our spirit by adding His divine life to it and making it a mingled spirit, even making our spirit life.

Then, He takes us through a lifelong process of transformation in which our soul is slowly being saturated with God as life until every part of our soul is saved.

Finally, at His revelation, if the proving of our faith is found unto praise and honour, our soul will be fully saved and our body will be transfigured to match the body of His glory. Wow!

Today we as believers in Christ are in a lifelong process of enjoying Christ, experiencing Christ, and living by faith; in this process, we learn to deny our soulish enjoyment for the Lord’s sake so that we may save our soul when He returns.

Just as gold is purified by fire to become pure and precious, so our faith is tested again and again, and the proving of our faith is precious.

The Lord granted us not only His precious promises, His precious blood, and His precious faith, but He is also taking us through a process of the proving of our faith, and this proving is so precious to Him and to us. In good times it is easy to say, Lord Jesus, I love You!

But when we go through sufferings, when things are against us, when the situation around us doesn’t seem to be so positive, and when our faith is tested, will we still say that we love the Lord? Our faith needs to be tested.

If the proving of our faith is positive, the proving will result in praise, glory, and honour at the revelation of Jesus Christ.

Right now we are in the process of being tested in our faith; one day the Lord will be manifested, revealed, and at His manifestation, we will see the proving of our faith.

Right now, the Lord is within us in a hidden way, in a veiled way; He is in our spirit, and others can’t really see Him or touch Him (Matt. 28:20).

However, when He returns, He will be revealed, and all will see Him openly (Rev. 1:7).

At that time, not only will He also be revealed but also the proving of our faith will be revealed.

May we cooperate with the Lord today by enjoying Him, opening to Him, and allowing Him to work Himself into us.

And may we keep turning to Him as we go through things, telling Him that we love Him, and still believe in Him as our Lord and Savior.

The Proving of our Faith being Found unto Praise Results in the Receiving the End of our Faith – the Salvation of our Souls!

If the proving of our faith is found unto praise, glory, and honour at the revelation of the Lord Jesus Christ, this will result in receiving the end of our faith – the salvation of our souls (1 Pet. 1:9).

What is the salvation of our souls? It is not just transformation; the salvation of our soul is not the sanctifying and renewing of our soul.

The salvation of our soul is, on the negative side, our soul being saved from suffering, and on the positive side, our entering into the joy of the Lord as our Master.

When we receive the salvation of our soul, we will no longer suffer or have pain but rather, we will enter into the joy of the Lord and participate in the wedding feast of the Lamb.

All the pain is gone, and even the memories of pain are gone.

The Lord wants His overcomers to enter into this joy with Him for one thousand years as a foretaste of the New Jerusalem for eternity.

In and as the New Jerusalem, our pain will be gone forever, and we will spend eternity with the Lord in His joy; there will be no more trials or pain, there will be just the full enjoyment of the Triune God as our everything.

Today, however, we are in the process of proving of our faith, and at the Lord’s revelation, there will be the result – the salvation of our soul, if the result is unto praise and glory and honour.

The salvation of our soul is full salvation, ultimate salvation, the salvation of the Triune God.

It refers specifically to the salvation of our souls from the dispensational punishment of the Lord’s governmental dealing at His coming back.

This is the salvation of our souls, which is ready to be revealed to us at the last time, the grace to be brought to us at the revelation of Jesus Christ in glory (vv. 8, 13; Matt. 16:27).

The salvation of our souls is the end of our faith. Until then, the enemy is continually attacking us and the proving of our faith is going on.

The enemy tries to entice us with the things in the world and he does his best to deceive us to partake of the things of this age.

But we need to exercise our spirit of faith and take up the shield of faith, realizing that it is a greater glory to suffer with the people of God and deny our soulish enjoyment in this age for the Lord’s sake.

May the Lord have mercy on us that the proving of our faith would be found unto praise so that we may receive the end of our faith – the salvation of our souls.

May we be saved from trying to accumulate things and enjoy the things in this world; may we be willing to rather lose the enjoyment of this world in order to have God infused into us so that we grow in life and are built up with the saints.

Especially the last part of the journey with the Lord, it is harder at the end; it is now harder than ever before – it is indescribably harder.

But there is a supply. There is the grace of Christ, there’s the faith, and there’s the love.

We have a vision of God’s economy, and as we are approaching the end of our faith, He will do in us what He wants to do, and we want to hear Him welcome us into His kingdom.

We want Him to tell us that we are good and faithful slaves and that He welcomes us in the joy of the Lord, the wedding feast together with His overcomers, and the ruling and reigning with Him for one thousand years.

At that time, when we receive the salvation of our souls and we reign with the Lord, we will realize that we made the wisest choice, choosing the Lord in this age.

May we choose to take up the shield of faith and quench all the fiery darts of the enemy, and may our faith increase until we overcome him by this, our faith, which is our victory.

Lord Jesus, may the proving of our faith be found unto praise, glory, and honour at the revelation of Jesus Christ. May we be those who receive the end of our faith, the salvation of our souls! Amen, Lord, we choose You today. We choose to fellowship with You and enjoy You. We choose to be with the people of God, being built up with the saints in the Body of Christ for His corporate expression. We do not want to build a career or gain riches for ourselves in this world; our eyes are set on the coming kingdom, and we want to gain the reward! Amen, Lord, we want to hear You telling us, Well done, good and faithful slave, enter into the joy of your Master! May we receive the end of our faith at Your revelation so that our soul may be saved from sufferings, we would enter into the joy of the Lord, and we would reign with Christ for one thousand years!

Denying our Soulish Life in this age to Gain it in the Enjoyment of the Lord in the Coming age at His Return

The Lord Jesus came to bring in another kingdom, even another age; when He came and called His followers, He charges us to deny our soulish enjoyment in this age so that we may gain it in the next age.

When the Lord returns, at His revelation, our soul will be saved from sufferings into the full enjoyment of the Lord if we have denied our soulish enjoyment today for His sake (Matt. 25:31).

This doesn’t mean that we need to be like the ascetics, denying any pleasure or enjoyment to our body and our soul.

Rather, God has given all things for us to enjoy, and we can enjoy things such as food, the nature, the family relations, etc.

What we’re talking about here is being willing to follow the Lord at any cost, even at the cost of losing our soulish enjoyment in this age.

We have a choice to make every day, and sometimes we have some big choices to make: do we choose the path of sufferings in following the Lord or do we choose a life of ease but not serving the Lord fully?

Will we choose our career at the cost of missing the meetings of the church and not having personal time with the Lord every day, or will we remain humble and not have a high position but pay the price to build up the church as the Body of Christ?

For us to receive the salvation of our souls we must deny our soul, our soulish life, with all its pleasures in this world so that we may gain it in the enjoyment of the Lord in the coming age (Matt. 10:37-39; 16:24-27; Luke 17:30-33; John 12:25).

To lose the soul-life means to lose the enjoyment of the soul in this age, today; to save the soul-life today means to preserve the soul in its enjoyment (Matt. 16:25).

We have a choice: we will either lose our soul-life today and gain it in the coming age, or save our soul-life today and lose it in the coming age.

Most believers in affluent countries do not want to hear this part of the truth; they want to hear that God wants them to have prosperity and that God loves them and will welcome them in their heavenly palace.

But we need to come back to the divine revelation in the word of God and realize that the truth is clear on this matter: if we want to enter into the Lord’s joy in the coming age, we need to pay the price in this age by losing our soul-life.

There is no compromise and there’s no shortcut. And the more we realize this truth, the greater our responsibility is.

So we need to encourage one another and pursue the Lord together, run together with those who call on the Lord out of a pure heart (2 Tim. 2:22).

May we choose to deny our soulish enjoyment in this age for the Lord’s sake so that, at the revelation of Jesus Christ, we may receive the salvation of our soul.

May the Lord grant us the grace and the faith to go all the way through the end of our course, losing our soul-life so that we can follow Him wherever He leads us.

Our soul is the organ by which we suffer and we also feel and enjoy.

Many times in following the Lord we suffer persecution and rejection from our closest friends and family members; these are sufferings to the soul.

If we do not love the Lord and do not follow Him absolutely because we want to avoid these sufferings, we will save our soul life in this age, but we will lose it in the next age, the age of the kingdom.

However, if we are willing to bear the sufferings for the Lord’s sake, if we allow our soul to be troubled today, to be dealt with, and to be sacrificed for the sake of the Lord and for the sake of the church, we will save our soul in that day.

In a sense, our soul is just our self; if today we’re willing to deny our self and put it to death without saving it, we will lose our soul life in this age but we will save it in the next age.

May we choose wisely today; may we choose to enjoy the Lord and be willing to suffer persecution and suffering for His sake in the soul today so that, when He returns, we will enter into His joy.

Actually, the enjoyment of the soul in this world, in this age, is not the real enjoyment; it is temporary and fleeting, and it never satisfies.

But if we learn to enjoy the Lord today and allow our souls to bear a certain measure of sufferings for the Lord’s sake, we will receive the salvation of our souls when He returns.

The joy that we will enjoy with the Lord for a thousand years is the real joy, and when we find our soul-life when He returns, we will obtain real enjoyment and joy.

Lord Jesus, we choose to enjoy You today. We want our soul to be saved from sufferings into the full enjoyment of the Lord at His revelation, so we choose to enjoy You and not have soulish enjoyment today for Your sake. Amen, Lord, we want to gain the salvation of our souls, and for this, we deny our soulish life with all its pleasures in this age so that we may gain it at Your return. We want to have the real enjoyment, the real joy in the soul, at Your return and in the coming kingdom age. Save us, Lord, from trying to enjoy the world with its pleasures and thus give our soul its pleasure and enjoyment today. May we follow You faithfully on the path of the cross today, denying our soul life and being willing to suffer in our soul for the Lord’s sake!

References and Hymns on this Topic

• Sources of inspiration: the Word of God, my enjoyment in the ministry, a sharing by the brothers, and portions from, Life-study of 1 Peter, msg. 6 (by Witness Lee), as quoted in the Holy Word for Morning Revival on, God’s Economy in Faith (2022 spring ITERO), week 7, entitled, Taking up the Shield of Faith, Experiencing the Proving of our Faith, and Receiving the End of our Faith – the Salvation of our Souls.
• Hymns on this topic:
  – ’Tis harder at the end / The word to testify, / For Satan fights with all his pow’r / Our witness to defy. / Much greater strength we need / The foe to overcome; / How happy when the Lord we see / And all our sighing’s done! / Who then will forward go / Strong in His mighty power? / Who then will firmly trust the Lord / Until the vict’ry hour; / Till with the conqu’rors blest, / The triumph song’s begun? / That man will then rejoice to hear, / Behold, I quickly come! (Hymns #893)
  – Will you be an overcomer? / On His life depend! / Dare to suffer persecution, / Faithful to the end. / Will you be an overcomer? / Will you make this choice? / Christ is calling, Christ is calling, / Listen to His voice! (Hymns #894)
  – Lord, I treasure the sweet flow of life, / And my soul-life at last I lay down; / O Lord, deepen the pure flow of life; / At Your coming may life be my crown. (Hymns #1191)