Have You Had Your Surgery Today?

Who among us doesn’t enjoy slicing into a thick, juicy steak?  (Unless, of course, you’re Vegan?)  But think about how it feels to be the “slicee” rather than the “slicer”.  Most of us have had surgery of some sort, so you already know how it feels!  You’re given some kind of pain-altering anesthesia and then a hopefully-well-trained doctor begins to slice you open, looking for something that either needs repair or removal.  And your last thought before drifting off to la-la-land is, “I hope the doc remembers everything from anatomy class!”  Meanwhile, the doctor is thinking, “Now which one of these is the gall bladder, anyway?”  In any case, when you awake, the result is usually that you’re in better shape than you were before the cutting took place, even though your sick part has been replaced by searing pain.

God does something like that for us when we open the Bible.  The writer of Hebrews describes the process by which our “surgery” takes place:

For the word of God is living and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the division of soul and spirit, and of joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.   (Hebrews 4:12)

Many who follow Christ read a passage like this and nod in agreement without really understanding what happens.  We open the Bible and begin to read; and this WORD (logos in the Greek) that emanates from the Creator of the universe begins to slice into the intricacies of our being to help us see what’s wrong and what’s right about who we are.  Kind of like having an x-ray and surgery all at the same time.  Our spiritual surgery is performed using a knife that is razor-sharp, literally alive, completely powerful, and wielded by the perfectly-skilled hands of the Holy Spirit.  But I FEEL OK, why is God slicing into me today?

We are, as the Bible declares in Psalm 139, “fearfully and wonderfully made” in the image of God.  An aspect of what that means is the three-fold nature of our being: body, soul, and spirit.  Sometimes we confuse the words “soul” and “spirit” and assume they are the same thing.  They are not, hence this wonderful statement from Hebrews about the need for discerning between the motives of the two. 

Our SPIRIT (not to be confused with the Holy Spirit that indwells believers in Christ) is that part of us that is made alive when we confess and repent of our sin, and acknowledge Jesus as the only source of our much-needed salvation.  Our spirit can then commune with the Spirit of God directly.  Prior to being regenerated by the saving power of God, our spirits are dead and unresponsive.

The SOUL, by contrast, is a part of every person, believer or not, comprised of those mental aspects of thought, will, and emotion.  We humans are driven by what we think, what we feel, and what we want, and the habits and drives generated by those kinds of motivations are sometimes hard to separate from what God Himself wants for us.  That’s why we so badly need the skilled hands of the Holy Spirit to guide the powerful Word of God to separate the motives of our own souls from what our spirits should desire. 

We should schedule time for “surgery” every day!  Yes, it hurts, but I can’t really be healthy without it.  “Paging Dr. Logos….”

Jacob