How To Take Care of Your Soul - Touré Roberts

1:33 bit of recap but i've got a couple of thoughts to add on to it today i don't have i typically have five or six pages of notes. Today I have two. So we won't be here too long, but we're going to finish what we started. Third John. 1 and 2. Beloved, I pray that you may prosper in all things and be in health.

2:16 In other words, I want you to prosper and thrive and be blessed in every which way but loose. and everything that concerns you, from the crown of your head, the soles of your feet, to everything that concerns you. I want you to prosper, to do well, to be fruitful, to multiply, to not go backwards, but to always go forward according as your soul prospers.

3:05 And then I want us to look at something that I had never seen before until the other day in Mark chapter 3, a little truth, a nugget of wisdom hidden in the midst of great miracles. Mark 3, beginning at verse 7 says,

3:29 But Jesus withdrew with his disciples to the sea, and a great multitude from Galilee followed him, and from Judea and Jerusalem and Edomia and beyond the Jordan and those from Tyre and Sidon, a great multitude, when they heard how many things he was doing, came to him. So he told his disciples that a small boat should be kept ready for him. because of the multitude, lest they should crush him. That a small boat should be kept ready for him because of the multitude, lest they should crush him. Father, thank you so much for the opportunity to be in your courts, to be in your house, the opportunity to hear your word, to receive your unction.

4:38 And God, we thank you for what we've already experienced. And we esteem your word more than our necessary food. It is a lamp unto our feet. It is a light unto our path. Now, you love your sons and daughters richly. You are into us beyond what we would even fathom. And therefore, may the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in your sight. God, I'm yours. And I thank you for the spirit of wisdom and revelation and insight and prophecy and knowledge and accuracy that you might build your children today. Have your way. Do a great work in Jesus' name. Amen. Amen. God bless you. God keep you as my prayer. Last week, we started our conversation by me transparently acknowledging that I am not a subject matter expert on the subject of the soul.

5:50 I would never purport myself to be that, but that I am a journeymate with you trying to figure this thing called life out. No one but God has all the answers. And that's why it is critical, it's important that we have a relationship with God, lean on God, depend on God, trust God, and walk with God because we will learn as we go. But it was very, very clear to me that God was calling our attention to a part of us that is often neglected, and that part of us is our soul. We talked about how the other aspects of us, our mind, our body, even our spirit, is a bit more accessible and easy to recognize and to identify, and therefore gets a response from us, gets attention from us, because it is ever-present with us. We have a consciousness of mind, a consciousness of our bodies, obviously, and even a consciousness that we are spirit beings.

7:12 But the soul is a little deeper. It is the deepest part of who we are. And it is not only deep and hard to realize and hard to access, but it is very impressionable. things things that happen to you in life they happen to your soul your soul is is impressionable it's it's delicate and it's supposed to be because you were created in the environment in the safe environment of god there were no threats there and so so your soul could be impressionable god god being the only one to to shape you and form you so so it's it's okay with it being it's almost like the scripture talks about husbands dwell with your wives according to the weaker vessel is how king james translated a better translation is a delicate vessel doesn't mean that that there's something wrong it just means that that you are like fine china it speaks to your worth it speaks to to it being delicate so the soul is very much like that it is impressionable i mentioned last week that when i was 16 years old i got caught up in the drive-by in los angeles and I was shot and my body healed in months.

8:50 It took my soul decades to heal. and the craziest part about it was i didn't even know it was wounded the bodily wound was obvious the soul wound was not and i didn't figure it out until later on watch this i started showing up differently because i had been shaped by what shaped my soul so so we learn that that according to the health of your soul determines the output of your life i'm just i'm just we're recapping a little bit so who you are showing up as right now is a reflection of the shaping of your soul in in the book knowing i have a chapter called misknowing trauma secret symptoms so so it seems like this is just who you are and that's not that that's only half true it is just who you are but who you are is a result of the shaping that you've experienced in your life the shaping of your soul which means that we have to pay attention. We have to locate the soul, and we have to pay attention to the soul, because if we don't deal with the soul, the soul will deal with us. Are we tracking? And so we looked at 3 John and what the writer was saying, and the writer was not putting the prosperity of our lives and our health, the forward progress of our lives and our healths. He wasn't putting that in equal posture to the soul. He wasn't doing that. He was really talking about the soul. And he was trying to help us to understand that if our soul does well, our life will do well. And I'm thinking about

10:59 the times that we're in right now. And let me just say it plainly, the body was not created, was not wired to experience this much chaos. I know that certain things have been normalized because we're getting a little anesthetized to things because they happen so frequently. We used to be shocked. by what people say or do.

11:42 Now we almost have come to expect cray-cray. and hear me clearly family that's not normal our intake the intake that we constantly and consistently receive and take in it is wild and it is affecting us in ways we don't even realize because it's been normalized Can I talk to you about the brain a little bit? the brain is wired for predictability. It craves, it longs for predictability. And when the mind can no longer predict what's next, it goes into a fight-or-flight type of state.

12:47 and the part of your brain that is what is used for creativity and progress shuts down and the other part of your brain that is for protection turns on. now imagine years and years weeks and weeks scenario after scenario of watch this of chaos that puts you in a place where you can no longer predict peace you don't know what's going to happen this is the state of the human being right now and that state does not naturally or organically bring forth the best version of us that's why we have decision fatigue should i stay or should i go should i start the company or should i sell the company should i move to dallas or should i move to LA. All these sort of things. Why? Because your system is short-circuiting. And watch this.

14:07 Either you do nothing or you move in fear. and do something irrational. Are you tracking with me? So here's what I'm saying. I'm saying we're not doing as good as we think we are. And the beauty about the opportunity to have a healthy soul is when you have a healthy soul, it becomes an anchor. whereby we are no longer tossed to and fro by everything that's taking place can i take my time so so last week last week i introduced the concept that was to compel us to recognize the soul, to recognize that we have one, and to be intentional about taking care of the soul.

15:26 That's where we left off. We learned last week that you cannot tend to your soul with any old thing. the soul is unique and distinct we looked at the scripture in hebrews 4 and 12 where it talked about how when it's talking about how powerful and dynamic the word of god is talked about how it's so quick alive and powerful and it's sharper than any two-edged sword that it divides asunder soul and spirit. In other words, it draws a line of demarcation between soul and spirit, meaning that this is a very fine line. Hard to tell where one stops and the other begins and vice versa. And yet he doesn't say that everything else is going to prosper when your spirit prospers. He says when your soul prospers, that's when everything else is going to prosper.

16:30 So last week, we talked about that. We drew to the best of our ability the distinction between the spirit and the soul because we needed to separate the soul out because the soul, what the soul needs is different from what the spirit, the mind, and the body needs. And the soul needs God. God is the only one. Come on, who can restore the soul? David said in Psalm 23, the Lord is my shepherd. And he goes down the list of all the things that shepherd does. He leads me beside the still waters. And that's wonderful, but guess what? A good tour guide could lead you beside the still waters. Don't play with me.

17:29 He says, your rod and your staff, they cover me, they protect me, but a good pastor or a good father or a good mother can whip out the rod and the staff and guide you and protect you. don't play with me he says he says you anoint my head with oil and somebody can go pull a jar out in the back right now and toray robbers can anoint your head with oil but he says something in that context that only god can do he says you restoreth my soul that sets God apart from anything and everything because the only one that can do your soul good is Jesus. Are you tracking with me today? And that word, we're going somewhere, and that word that was translated restore, that's a great translation, but it literally means to turn back. It is almost as if God knew that there were going to be some things that happens to our souls that misfigures, that disfigures our soul, and we were going to need a savior to reshape and to reform our souls into its original shape so that we can be fruitful and multiply and show up, watch this, and show up in life the way we are supposed to, because you cannot show up beyond beyond how your soul is shaped.

19:08 We talked last week. I'm almost into this week. We talked last week about how much of what we are taught compels us to try to fix our problems at the fruit level.

19:29 This is how you have a good relationship. This is how you make more money. This is how you do this. Very few are talking about the reality that what determines the fruit is the root. I don't fix my fruit.

19:49 At the level of the fruit, watch this, I don't fix my output. at the level of my output, I fix my output at the place of my input because my input determines my output. And so we talked about how God equates us often in scripture to trees. How many places, as he said, and you shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water that brings forth its fruit in its season, whose leaf will not wither, and whatever he does shall prosper. And so what we're doing, we miss oftentimes, we think about the tree prospering, we think about the fruit, and we think about the leaves not withering, but you missed it.

20:41 He said you're like a tree planted by the rivers of water. In other words, if you are not planted by the rivers of water, you are not going to bring forth fruit, and you're not going to bring forth it consistently. I feel this for somebody. I hear this clearly. I just want to say it. It's a root problem.

21:05 You think it's a fruit problem, but it's a root. Oh, I feel the Holy Ghost. Somebody's getting ready to get restored. Somebody's getting ready to get reconnected. Somebody got detached from the vine. You thought that you were the vine. No, baby, you're not the vine. You are the branch. He says, abide in me. If you abide in me. Ooh. abide your job watch this your job is not even to bear fruit