In following the Lord as His disciples, we need to lose our soul-life, that is, forsake it and not seek to have the enjoyment of the soul in this age but, for the Lord’s sake, put it aside and enjoy the Lord and seek His purpose.
This week we come to a new topic in our morning revival enjoyment, which is, The Losing of the soul-life, Participating in the Rapture of the Overcomers, and Receiving the End of our Faith – the Salvation of the Soul.
We start by losing our soul life in this age and end up with gaining it in the next age.
There are a few portions in both Matthew and Luke that speak of losing our soul-life; in following the Lord, we need to not only have a higher and deeper spiritual life but, as He calls us, we need to deny the self, take up our cross, and lose our soul life.
Such a matter is not easily received or digested by many of the believers in Christ, and by no means do we approach this matter to encourage one another to practice asceticism; rather, we want to follow the Lord and, as He commanded us, we want to learn from Him in this matter.
Whoever wants to save his soul-life, preserve it, retain it in this age, he will lose it (Matt. 16:22-24).
To “lose” in Greek means to destroy, utterly destroy; it doesn’t mean that you lose something, you’re missing something, but you destroy it by losing it utterly.
This should be our attitude toward our soul life in this age, considering that we should lose it utterly and destroy it.
If we allow our soul-life to be destroyed now, if we forsake it and abandon it, if we give it up and lay it aside, if we do this for the Lord’s sake, we will find it.
Even more, though we may gain the whole world, what profit will it be if we lose our soul!
There is the world without, and there’s the soul-life which corresponds to it within; what shall a man give in exchange for the soul-life?
What we lose in this age we will preserve in the next age, and what we preserve in this age we will lose in the next age; either way, there is a loss and again – it depends on when, either in this age or in the next age.
At His return, in the next age, there will be a reward; this reward can be positive or negative; based on our doings, based on how we conduct ourselves, based on how we live and work and serve in this age, and based on how we follow the Lord, we will receive either a reward or a punishment.
One day there will be a reward for sure, and this is a serious matter. May we realize that what we do and how we live in this age affects how we will be in the next age; there’s a direct correlation and relationship.
In Matt. 10:38 the Lord said that he who doesn’t take his cross and follows after Him, this one is not worthy of Him; to take the cross means to be killed, to die.
The thought of destroying, therefore, is not so out-of-line; the Lord was destroyed on the cross, and if we want to follow Him and be worthy of Him, we also need to take our own cross to die with Christ, die to ourselves, die to our soul-life, and die to our human life – this is the thought here.
If we find our soul life in this age, we will lose it in the next, but if we destroy it in this age for the Lord’s sake, if we die with Christ to ourselves and our soulish enjoyment, we will find it in the next age.
We may think we possess it in this age, but we shall lose it; one day the Lord will reveal all things as they are, and those who preserved their soul-life in this age, they will lose it in the next.
Yet those who let their soul-life go for the Lord’s sake, they will find it – for it will be reacquired, repossessed, and enjoyed by us. Oh, Lord!
If we want to Save our Soul-Life, we will Lose it, but if we Lose our Soul-Life for the Lord’s Sake, we will Save it!
Whether we will save or lose our soul-life in the next age, it is up to us; if we allow our soul-life to be denied and lost in this age, we will save it in the next age.
It is a spiritual principle that applies all the time to us today: if we actively let our soul-life go, if we allow it to be forsaken, we will save it in the next age.
In Luke 9:23-25 the Lord Jesus taught us, His disciples, to take up our cross and follow Him by denying their soul-life.
What does it mean to save our soul-life in this age? To save the soul-life is to allow our soul to have its enjoyment and in particular to escape from suffering; to lose the soul-life is to cause the soul to lose its enjoyment and thereby to suffer (Matt. 16:25).
If today we gain the world and preserve our soul-life, we commit an error – we make a breach of this principle, and we will lose our soul-life in the next age.
This is quite serious, and unless the Lord shines on this matter in His word, we will not see it or apply it afresh in our daily life.
No one likes to suffer; we all prefer enjoyment over suffering at any time – and this is not wrong; but if we allow our soul to escape suffering in this age, we will have suffering in the next age.
There is the physical suffering, which is very real, and there is the spiritual suffering; in the middle, there’s the soulish enjoyment and the soulish suffering.
Actually, we as human beings are a soul, and the soul-life is our person; the highest enjoyment a man can have is the enjoyment of and in his soul, and the deepest suffering a man can have is not just physical but it is in his soul, in his psychological part.
Suffering in the soul is greater than suffering in the body, it is more real.
To eventually have the real enjoyment of the soul, we need to have rest in the body, have peace and rest in our spirit, and be at peace and in joy in the soul.
Eventually, the real enjoyment of the rest in our body and the peace in our spirit is experienced in and partaken of in our soul; when our soul is enjoying itself, that’s the real human enjoyment.
It is the same with suffering: outward suffering brings suffering to the soul, and spiritual suffering is felt in the soul.
For us to save our soul-life is to allow the soul to have enjoyment in this age, to escape suffering; it means that we get away from suffering, we don’t want to suffer, but we save our soul today.
In contrast, to lose our soul-life today is simply to lose its enjoyment today, and thus to suffer for the Lord’s sake.
Such a word is not pleasant or welcomed, but this is what the Lord Jesus was doing, this is how He lived; now we need to live the same kind of life, a life of taking up our cross, denying the self, and losing our soul-life for His sake in this age.
We are here today following the Lord in His footsteps, for our destiny is not different from His, and our pathway is not a different one; our pathway is the pathway of the cross, the way of suffering.
For us to lose the soul-life is to lose the enjoyment of the soul, and for us to save the soul-life is to preserve the soul with its enjoyment (Mark 8:35). May we be honest with the Lord and tell Him,
Lord Jesus, we love You and we want to follow in Your footsteps. We choose to deny the self, take up our own cross, and lose our soul-life. We love You so much, dear Lord, and we make the wise choice of losing the soul-life in this age so that we may gain it in the next! Dear Lord, save us from allowing our soul to have its enjoyment in this age. Save us from trying to escape suffering. May we lose the enjoyment of the soul in this age for Your sake so that we may gain it in the next age! Amen, Lord, we want to have the full salvation of our soul and the full enjoyment in the soul in the next age! Dear Lord Jesus, we love You! For Your sake and one with You we want to take this way, the pathway of the cross!
We must Deny our Soulish Life with all its Pleasures in this Age to Gain it in the Enjoyment of the Lord in the Coming Age
For us to deny the self is for us to reject the soul’s desire, preference, and choice (Luke 9:23).
The self, which embodies the soul-life, needs to be denied; to deny the self is in fact to lose our soul-life.
This means that we need to reject our soul’s desire; when the desire of the soul is fulfilled, we are happy, but when its desire is not met and we don’t get what we desired, the soul suffers.
Our soul prefers something, and when it doesn’t get what it prefers, it suffers; when the soul doesn’t get what it wants and it chooses, it suffers.
If we think of our daily life, many times in our personal life, our marriage life, our family life, and in the church life, we don’t get what we want – we don’t get our preference, our desire, even though we want it – our soul wants it desperately.
When the soul gets what it wants, the soul is happy, but when the soul doesn’t get what it desires, it suffers.
We need to proactively reject and deprive the soul of its enjoyment.
This doesn’t mean that we should practice asceticism, which the monks and the Buddhists do; rather, we need to have the proper denying of the self and the losing of the soul-life.
Asceticism is a human practice of unsaved, unregenerated people without Christ Jesus, without a hope and a future; they do something to discipline themselves and deprive themselves of certain things, abstain from certain fleshly indulgences, and even mistreat their body, doing things against their body to fight off the desires of the flesh. Oh, Lord!
Christ doesn’t want a group of followers who practice asceticism; rather, we need to actively deny the self and lose the soul-life, rejecting the soul’s desire actively for the Lord’s sake, so that we may enjoy the Lord and not what the soul really wants.
We must deny our soul, our soulish life, with all its pleasures in this age, so that we may gain our soul in the enjoyment of the Lord in the coming age (1 Pet. 1:9).
If we lose our soul-life today, we will actually find a deeper and higher enjoyment of the Lord in our spirit in this age, for we will have the peace and rest coming from the denying of the soul in this age.
Furthermore, in the coming age, we will have the enjoyment of the soul, which is a reward to those who are faithful to Him in this age!
We need to realize that, if we allow our soul to suffer the loss of its enjoyment in this age for the Lord’s sake, we will cause our soul to have its enjoyment in the coming age (Matt. 25:21, 23).
If we lose the enjoyment of our soul in this age for the Lord’s sake, we will share the Lord’s joy in ruling over the earth! Amen!
This doesn’t mean that we should harm our soul or our flesh to cause it to suffer, but to let it, allow it to die, allow it to suffer, rather than preserving it.
What the soul prefers in this age, what pleases the soul now, we should not let it have it but rather, seek to enjoy the Lord, turn to Him, and be filled with His enjoyment in our soul. If we are faithful to Him to lose our soul-life in this age, we will be given to rule with Him over the earth and we will enter into the joy of the Lord.
Lord Jesus, we love You more than we love the enjoyment of our soul in this age! We put aside and reject our soul’s desire, preference, and choice and we choose You! We turn to our spirit, dear Lord, to receive You, enjoy You, pursue You, gain You, and be filled with You! We put our soulish life aside – we want to gain the deeper enjoyment of the Lord in our spirit! We open wide our heart to You – release us from any religious duty and bring us into Your presence to enjoy You! Amen, Lord Jesus, we allow our soul to suffer the loss of its enjoyment in this age for Your sake so that we may cause our soul to have its enjoyment in the kingdom age! We love You, Lord Jesus!
References and Hymns on this Topic
- Sources of inspiration: the Word of God, my enjoyment in the ministry, the message by Minoru Chen for this week, and portions from, Collected Works of Witness Lee, 1978, vol. 1, “The Exercise of the Kingdom for the Building of the Church,” chs. 5-6, as quoted in the Holy Word for Morning Revival on, The Christian Life, the Church Life, the Consummation of the Age, and the Coming of the Lord (2020 fall ITERO), week 3, The Losing of the soul-life, Participating in the Rapture of the Overcomers, and Receiving the End of our Faith – the Salvation of the Soul.
- Hymns on this topic:
– Oh, from myself deliver, / From all its misery; / I’d henceforth be forever / Completely filled with Thee. (Hymns #280)
– Jesus Lord, I’m captured by Thy beauty, / All my heart to Thee I open wide; / Now set free from all religious duty, / Only let me in Thyself abide. / As I’m gazing here upon Thy glory, / Fill my heart with radiancy divine; / Saturate me, Lord, I now implore Thee, / Mingle now Thy Spirit, Lord, with mine. (Hymns #1159)
– Through the Cross, O Lord, I pray, / Put my soul-life all away; / Make me any price to pay, / Full anointing to receive. (Hymns #279)
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