Soul Strengths and Soul Kinks

“Good and evil both increase at compound interest. That is why the little decisions you and I make every day are of such infinite importance. The smallest good act today is the capture of a strategic point from which, a few months later, you may be able to go on to victories you never dreamed of. An apparently trivial indulgence in lust or anger today is the loss of a ridge or railway line or bridgehead from which the enemy may launch an attack otherwise impossible.” (C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity, 117).

Every day of our lives we make thousands of decisions. With every decision, we are choosing what kind of people we will be today and for the rest of our lives. With every choice for or against the Word of God, we reinforce in our souls either strengths or kinks.

Soul Strengths—

Volition. God made us free; He gave us the ability to choose. The most important (and the smartest) choice we can make every day is to have a positive, receptive attitude toward the Word of God.
Mentality. If we are positive, we will look at the whole array of things we can do with the mind and will choose to use it for Bible study. This is where the spiritual battle is most heated because the enemy does not want us to use our minds to understand the Word of God.
Conscience. As we study with a receptive attitude to the Word, our conscience becomes a storehouse for truth. We know that what we put in our conscience becomes the norms and standards by which we live. Because we are positive and are willing to confess our sins, we can live with a clear conscience.
Emotion. The emotion is the center of our capacity for living and enjoying physical and spiritual life. The more we are oriented to the Word, the more capacity we have and the more wonderful life is, regardless of external circumstances.
Self-consciousness. When, with an attitude of humility, we base our self-image on what the Word says about how God sees us in Christ, then we can accept ourselves. Because we are looking at the living Word through the written Word, we see ourselves realistically, and can put both our strengths and our weaknesses in perspective. We never stop driving ourselves toward the goal of conformity to Christ, yet we always rest in the fact that we are infinitely precious to God just as we are.

Soul Kinks—

Volition. We can choose to have a negative attitude to the Word. We can choose to not be interested, to not make the Word a priority. When we make that choice, we automatically choose misery for ourselves.
Mentality. If we do not fill our mind with the Word, we will fill it with vanity, emptiness. We will live, like Lot, in torment of soul.
Conscience. If we are not positive to the Word and not willing to humble ourselves before it, we will never be able to have a clear conscience. We will be eaten alive by guilt, fear, and hardness.
Emotion. When our emotion is not under the control of God, it becomes a tyrant. We live under a heartless despot who rules and dictates our lives, who lifts us up to dizzying heights only to drop us on our face on the rocks below. This is the roller-coaster of emotional revolt.
Self-consciousness. When our awareness of ourselves functions independently of the Word, we live in a hell of preoccupation with ourselves. Whether we are wrapped up in how great we are or in how worthless we are does not matter, because all preoccupation with self is equally poisonous.

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