Prospering Soul | November 2021 Monthly Newsletter
Written by Ps. Nicholas Hung | Senior Pastor of Antioch Gospel Church
Hi Church,
We sure hope that this month’s newsletter catches you well – growing and maturing in our Lord, experiencing breakthroughs in His goodness and according to His grace and prospering even as your soul prospers.
Indeed, developing a prospering soul is an undeniably important part of our life journey.
In 3 John 1:2 (NKJV), the apostle John penned, “Beloved, I pray that you may prosper in all things and be in health, just as your soul prospers.”
What an interesting statement – “[Your overall life prosperity will happen] just as your soul prospers.” The King James Version translates these words as, “Even as your soul prospers.” Evidently, our lives will only prosper in accordance with the level that our souls are prospering.
As our souls prosper, our lives also prosper. When the growth of our souls is neglected, the rest of our life also fails to experience the prospering that God promised us.
This is indeed a sobering thought that ought to stir us up to pay closer attention to the state of our souls on a continual basis.
Diving a little deeper, our souls comprise of our mind, our will and our emotions. If we are to truly prosper in our souls, each of these areas ought to be considered in depth, however, for the purposes of this monthly letter I want to briefly emphasise the importance of regularly growing in the right knowledge.
Equipped with the right knowledge, our minds become better positioned to more clearly think and make better decisions and in turn, the other two parts of our soul (our will and emotions), are also able to experience increased levels of alignment with the prosperous ways of our Lord.
A great illustration of this principle is found in Solomon’s request for understanding, knowledge, discernment and wisdom (See 1 Kings 3:5-15). What a wise request! Because Solomon was more concerned with investing into the quality of his soul than he was with material things such as wealth or fame, God took him to a place of prosperity in every area of his life. When humans invest into the quality of their soul and fill their soul with the right nutrients they can expect a good return.
In this modern world, knowledge in and of itself is not difficult to come by – even a simple internet search will bring forth a great degree of information which could in turn be converted into knowledge. However, developing a prosperous soul is not quite as simple as just learning whatever is presented before us.
Paul described the people who will live in the end days as, “… always learning and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth.” (2 Timothy 3:7 NKJV)
Information may be prevalent in this modern era, but the relative ease with which men and women and can fall prey to deceptions and other fruitless knowledge pursuits is extremely concerning.
It is clear that developing a prosperous soul is important. The question we must ask ourselves is, how can I develop that prosperous soul? For this, I believe that we would do well to consider each of the following questions:
What thoughts and information will we allow to enter through the gate of our soul, and thus influencing our mind, will and emotions? How will we care for and enforce the gate of our souls?
2. What will we do in order to gain the right knowledge we need to develop a prosperous soul?
3. What habits and disciplines will we develop to ensure that we consistently continue to feed on right information?
4. And most importantly, how is the knowledge we are gaining, forming right applications and shaping prosperous Godly behavioural patterns in our life?
I truly believe God longs to see every believer living the blessed, fruitful and prosperous life. I also believe that finding Godly answers to these questions (and more) and then developing Godly responses to these questions will go a long way towards the development of a prosperous soul, and henceforth the prosperous kind of life.
Church, I’m believing for an amazing and fully prosperous season ahead, as you continue growing and prospering in your soul.
Many blessings,
Pastors Nicholas Hung & Grace Lim