Picture yourself facing one of your typical temptations. A neighbor opens a door for you to say something about Jesus, and the fearful part of you begs silence. A brother or sister wrongs you, and bitterness feels like fitting revenge. A stranger’s beauty catches your eye, and your eye would like to be caught longer.

But now imagine saying to yourself, right in the midst of the temptation, “I have a soul.”

Does anything change? Do you find fresh strength to speak, forgive, look away? Or does saying, “I have a soul” hold about as much power against temptation as saying, “I have two legs” or “I have brown hair”?

When our Lord Jesus walked among us, he met many people inattentive to their souls. Sure, if you asked them, they would have acknowledged, “I have a soul.” But their lives often said otherwise. For if they knew, really knew, they had a soul — a precious, immortal, endangered soul — they would not surrender to sin so easily. They would sever a hand or pluck out an eye sooner than hazard their soul (Matthew 5:29–30).

So, Jesus says repeatedly, to them and now to us, “You have a soul. You have a soul. Do you know it? Do you see it? Do you feel the weight and worth of it? O tempted one, let me tell you about your soul.”

Your Immortal Soul

Do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. (Matthew 10:28)

The first, most foundational fact we need to know about our soul is that our soul will live forever. Blades and bullets, diseases and disasters may kill the body, but they cannot kill the soul. It is, by God’s design, immortal.

Temptation has a way of obscuring this immortal future. Let me only say this word, indulge this desire, avoid this duty, please this person without thought for tomorrow, much less for eternity. But Jesus, here and elsewhere, relentlessly brings now into the context of then. Resist lust now, defy fear now, fight bitterness now because of how they threaten your forever (Matthew 5:29–30; 10:28; 16:26).

“After seventy years or so, when this body returns to dust, our soul will have barely begun.”

A proper esteem for the body will lead us to sacrifice many passing pleasures. We will deny ourselves dessert or urge ourselves from bed to the gym in order to care for the body God gave us. But after seventy years or so, when this body returns to dust, our soul will have barely begun. And when God raises our body to likewise live forever, its eternal future will rest on the state of the soul (John 5:28–29). Should we not then care much more for its welfare? Should we not live first for the self that will never die?

Our present life is like the first inch of the ocean, the first foot of the galaxies, the first half-second of the whole world’s history — only far less. So, meet your temptations with eternity: “I have a soul that will never die.”

Your Endangered Soul

What will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and forfeits his soul? (Matthew 16:26)

The immortality of the soul becomes deadly serious when we grasp a second fact: Though our soul can never die, it can be lost, forfeited, destroyed (Matthew 10:28). One day, perhaps at a moment we do not expect, God will require our soul from us (Luke 12:20). And on the other side of death, our portion will be either undying delight or undying destruction (Matthew 25:46).

Jesus, the great lover of souls, has gone to the greatest of lengths so delight and not destruction might be ours. He himself took on a human soul and suffered the utmost sorrow of soul in order to save our souls (Matthew 26:38). Now he lives and reigns forevermore to keep safe the souls that come to him.

But this same Jesus, from the same great love, warns us in the strongest terms not to treat such safety lightly. When he spoke of the soul’s potential destruction, he was addressing his disciples (Matthew 10:1, 28). Later, he would warn the same twelve men against the danger of forfeiting their soul (Matthew 16:26) — and for good reason, because one of them soon would (Matthew 26:47).

We modern disciples do not live beyond such warnings. The same temptations he warned them about — lust, fear of man, love of money, bitterness — claw at our souls as well. The flesh still begs to be pleased. The world still allures. The devil still deceives. So, meet your temptations with fear: “I have a soul that can be destroyed.”

Your Capacious Soul

You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. (Matthew 22:37)

Jesus warns us against neglecting our soul not only because he doesn’t want us to lose our soul but also because he knows, more deeply than anyone else, that our soul was made for more. When he spoke of whole-souled love to the Lord our God, he was quoting a commandment we have all failed to keep, yes, but also one that he came to reclaim. God made us to love him with all our soul — and in Christ, with his indwelling Spirit, we increasingly can.

God is in the business of changing human souls. He cleans dirty souls, enlarges narrow souls, ennobles crude souls, redeems every kind of soul. If we belong to him, then one way or another, he will have all our soul, not just some of it, and every time we trample temptation underfoot, we say to him, “More! Get more of my soul so I might get more of you!”

“God cleans dirty souls, enlarges narrow souls, ennobles crude souls, redeems every kind of soul.”

The one who turned tax collectors into cheerful givers, prostitutes into evangelists, crucified thieves into subjects of the King, and even some Pharisees into humble followers — he is fully able to restore your soul’s enormous capacities for love and turn them from sin to him. He does not destine you to a life of frustrated affections, one that still loves sin but dutifully says no. He destines you for whole-hearted, whole-souled love that despises sin for him.

You, finite one, were made for the Infinite One and nothing less. So, meet temptation with a better love: “I have a soul that was made for more.”

Your Longing Soul

Come to me . . . and you will find rest for your souls. (Matthew 11:28–29)

At the heart of the more that our soul was made for is the Christ who promises that he, and he alone, can give the deep-down rest our soul longs for. These souls of ours, which flit like birds from branch to branch, pleasure to pleasure, sin to sin, find their only nest in him.

Of course, temptation also promises rest. So often, we lust and covet and cower and laze about in search of something that will feel like a home for our soul, a place to sit down and find peace. But listen to this Jesus who bids you come and rest. He alone has traveled from heaven to earth to share a soul like yours. He alone has loved you enough to tell you the truth about your soul. And he alone has gone to the grave to save your soul from hell.

None of your sins can say the same. So, even if you cannot fathom how Christ can give you rest for this longing or that desire, will you not defy your sin and say you believe him?

Sin would delight you for a moment only to damn you forever. But Jesus offers rest and joy that deepens into eternity. So, meet temptation with him: “I have a soul, and its only rest is Christ.”