The soul is made up of many parts, so does confession benefit the whole soul? Paul teaches that we are comprised of body, soul and spirit.
The body we see in the mirror each morning. We are curious about it in our puberty, excited about it in our 20s and 30s, concerned about it in our 40s and 50s, and resigned to it from that point on. We are unconcerned about the pain when we are young knowing nothing can hold us down, and very careful about it in old age when every movement becomes an effort with some amount of discomfort.
The spirit is invisible to our natural eyes but we know of it by becoming passionate about something, or angry at someone, or seeing a friend bowed down with care in depression. We see the spirit demonstrated as children run, laugh, and play together, or among co-workers at the office when Susie is jealous over the attention that Mary is getting from the new boss, or among two athletic teams as each member merges with his teammates to compete against the odds of winning. We feel the human spirit of the person as he/she speaks or sings. The more intensity he/she speaks or sings with, the more feeling the listeners ‘feel’ in their spirits.
Paul teaches that the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, long-suffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. These are fruits of God’s Holy Spirit, and only become ours as we yield our human spirit to His.
The soul is comprised of many parts: 1-imagination, 2-reasoning, 3-will, 4-emotions, 5-conscience. I believe that all of these are influenced by the conscience and especially the sub-conscience.
When God created Adam, He breathed into him the breath of life, and Adam became a living soul. When Adam disobeyed God, his soul died as God promised.
When Adam’s soul was alive it had ‘fellowship’ with his creator. He was able to live in paradise without any kind of suffering; physically, mentally or emotionally. He had everything provided for him as he tended the garden without sweat, overseeing the plant and animal kingdoms without harm. It was a harmonious world without discord or shame. A world of transparency and purity.
Man is not living in anything near like this today nor since Adam. Mankind lives with a sole-purpose of pacifying the desires of the flesh.
Paul lists the works of the flesh for us in the book of Galations, chapter five, verses 19-21, “ Now the deeds of the flesh are evident, which are: immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmities, strife, jealousy, outbursts of anger, disputes, dissensions, factions, envying, drunkenness, carousing, and things like these, of which I forewarn you, just as I have forewarned you, that those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.”
As you look at this list you will see yourself, as I see myself, having committed one or more or many of the fleshly works. No man is exempt, for Scripture teaches that “All men have sinned and come short of the Glory of God.” Romans 3:23
Peter teaches us to abstain from fleshly works that war against the soul. I Peter 2:11
‘Psychology Today’ has this to say about the subconscious or the unconscious mind. “The unconscious is where most of the work of the mind gets done; it’s the repository of automatic skills (riding a bike), the source of intuition and dreams, the engine of much information processing. Fleeting perceptions register on the unconscious mind long before we may be aware of them.
The unconscious mind is not some black hole of unacceptable impulses waiting to trip you up, but it can be the source of hidden beliefs, fears, and attitudes that interfere with everyday life. Most forms of psychotherapy aim to bring into conscious awareness many of these hidden hindrances, so that we can examine them and choose how to deal with them.”
So in light of this, “Confession” can be good for the soul. It is always good to get something off your chest that has been bothering you, whether it be about something or someone. You achieve the result of feeling cleaner and lighter after confessing.
‘Sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never harm me’ isn’t really true, it just hopefully discourages the party throwing the sticks to desist. No one but us can see our bruised feelings if we hide them.
So what we confessed to the one throwing the sticks didn’t really help our soul. It just caused us to hide our true feelings. Where does one hide one’s true feelings? We hide them somewhere in our soul, depending on how hurtful the words or actions were. The more painful, the deeper we hide them. This fact is what keeps many thousands of psyche doctors wealthy.
The job of the Psyche Doctor is to get you to talk about what is really bothering you. He is skilled at asking the right questions and seeing unspoken feelings surface behind your words and on your face and in your body language.
Jesus told the woman at the well that she was thirsty for ‘living water’ by asking her questions about her husband. She forgot her water pot while running into the village telling all about one who was able to tell her all she had ever done. He asked her one question. “Will you give me to drink?” The woman confessed to quite a few husbands and to living without marriage to her present man.
The woman was a Samaritan and the Jews considered her an outcast because she was a half-breed. Samaritans intermarried with foreigners and thus at one time worshiped their false gods or idols. She even asked Jesus why He was asking her, a Samaritan, for water.
Jesus is the Great Physician and the best Psyche Doctor of all time. He knew exactly what to ask because He knew what was in her heart.
Paul speaks of the heart and confession in Romans 10:9, “That if you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved…”
Jesus taught, out of the mouth the heart speaks, and Proverbs says we should guard the heart, for from it issues life. James teaches that there is power in the tongue to curse and bless, to give life and death.
Paul speaks of renewing and transforming our minds and putting off the old man for the new man created in Christ Jesus.
The body is aging from the moment it is conceived in the womb to the time we draw our last breath at death. The spirit is the clothing of the soul of man. (We know this from the disciples seeing Jesus in His resurrected body when He passed through a solid wall to visit with them) The soul is comprised of the will, emotions, reasoning, imaginations, and conscience all connected to the subconscious mind.
The eyes are the window to the soul. The will of man is the gate to the soul. The emotions, through fear and traumatic events, open this gate when we are beside ourselves with grief or anxiety. The imaginations of man open this gate when we intentionally obsess with those areas of life that feed the flesh and not the spirit. The reasoning of man hinders man from experiencing the ‘spirit-world’, good or bad, by rejecting everything that does not have a scientific answer for it. (the earth was thought to be flat at one time)
I think we can safely say that the more educated man becomes, the stronger his will is set against anything that he has not personally experienced. Paul says knowledge puffs up. If we put the intellect and the will together we have a formidable fortress or stronghold against any emotion of whether something is right or not. In fact the mind is so powerful that it dulls the conscience while confusing its reasoning abilities.
Paul speaks of our minds being blinded and hearts being darkened and our conscience being seared as with a hot iron. Scar tissue is a protective barrier standing between healthy tissue and the dangers of the outside world. It replaces what was once whole and healthy allowing us to function almost like new. But as anyone knows, who has scar tissue, it isn’t quite the same as the real skin and tissue. Everything goes along fine until you bump that scar and then your mind takes you instantly back to the point of trauma. It is the same with emotional and soul-wounds.
We try to cover up scars on the outside of the body with clothing or make-up or wearing the hair in a certain style. On the inside we shove them way down inside the sub-conscious, locking the door while throwing away the key. If anyone gets near to touching it, we immediately put up the defensive by rationalizing and toughening our conscience against unwanted weak emotions.
Psyche Doctors know you need them, so they just wait on your knock. If you become honest enough and set your will or intentions to secure help, then he knows you will show up at his door.
Jesus does it better, and for free, with the results lasting for eternity.
I have often said that the one thing that the Catholics have right is their teaching on confession. You have a sin or a problem or a concern, you go to the confessional and you get it off your chest. Protestants want to make this confession a one-time thing at the altar of repentance. They seem to forget about the need to confess the rest of the time, unless of course you hurt them, then they want justice with your tears.
Confession is good for the soul if we confess the right things. If we confess to the right person. If we insist on confessing our own superior intelligence, while we satiate our souls with as much worldly input as we possibly can, keeping our emotions in a constant feel-good state, while not even realizing that our hearts and conscience have become pretty dark and calloused, then the things we imagined and confessed will come true. We will have had our own way, while not knowing that our soul has been molded for the flesh and thus for the kingdom of darkness.
If we confess to the wrong person, they can do more damage than good, and hurt our hearts even worse. Jesus said that we should not cast our pearls before swine. Trust in a wise and gentle person is vital to confession. Who wants to confess just to receive more condemnation or to hear our secret sins being talked about at the office or church the next day? The beauty of taking them to the Lord is that He never gets drunk and spills our secrets at the local bar, nor does He have an ego to stroke as He tells a neighbor what interesting secrets He has just heard.
On the other hand, if we confess our weaknesses, our sins, our faults, the pain buried deep inside our hearts, together with our needs and desires, to Jesus Christ, we will find that we will be drinking the living water which Jesus offered the woman at the well. It is simple to do, but difficult for the pride of the willful-soul.
Before you can help an addict, he has to come to the end of his own resources and personally ask for help. He has to set his will to seek that help at all costs. It is the same for the broken soul of man or woman. He/she has to reach the end of his/her pride and intellect, allowing his/her innermost feelings to be voiced verbally with the intention that he/she needs healing more than anything else in the world. Only then will he/she seek help, bending the knee, opening the mouth, voicing sometimes without words, and nothing but groans, the tremendous pain of the heart, to the only one who sees and knows all. Jesus is the most skillful surgeon of all, knowing just how to heal without causing any more pain than necessary.
To be continued with ‘What and Who Our Confessions Attract’…