Our first personality, the living soul, may have many excellent characteristics. Our soul may bless the Lord and may be blessed by the Lord. Our redemption begins with the desire of our soul to be saved. However, in order to destroy the "body of sin" that is in us, God has assigned our soul to the cross with Christ.

There is an important concept concerning the human soul that is not always stressed when our crucifixion and resurrection in Jesus are being taught. It is that our salvation depends on the faithfulness of our soul. If our soul does not do its part we cannot please God.

When Christians come short of the Glory of God it is not because the engrafted Life of Christ has failed, it is because the soul was not willing to let go of its own life and desires. An individual who does not have integrity can never make a success of the victorious Christian life.

In order for the new creation to be brought forth successfully, to come to the fullness of birth, the soul must adhere to the commandments of Jesus. Most of the work of serving Christ and doing His will is performed by the soul. It is the soul that must pray, must read the Word, must set aside time to commune with the Lord, must willingly give itself to crucifixion. It is the soul that must serve God faithfully, enduring to the end. Only then can there be a successful bringing forth of the new creation.

It is not unusual for the believer to make a fine start and then to fall by the way. Why is this? It is because his soul was attracted to God by the promise of walking on a street of gold, of entering Paradise, of eternal joy. When the time came that the Lord Jesus began to make deadly demands on him, demands that required the painful or even agonizing loss of some treasured relationship or possession, his soul refused to obey God.

Unless we have an honest and good heart, unless there is integrity and faithfulness in our soul and a willingness to serve the Lord no matter what He requires, it is impossible for us to bring the eternal life that has been conceived in us to the maturity needed for participation in the revelation of Christ (Colossians 3:4).

In order for our soul to be saved it must be transformed into a new creation, much as a caterpillar is transformed into a butterfly. The soul must understand this fact and, as was true of John the Baptist, must insist that Christ increase while he himself, the soul, continually must decrease.

The task of the soul is to keep the words of Jesus diligently, praying for the grace of God in order to perform God's will, meanwhile submitting to death as the Divine Seed begins to grow into a new personality. The soul must sternly obey the Lord to the best of its ability if it is to bring forth permanent fruit. It must be "an honest and good heart" (Luke 8:15).

To be continued.