Since about 2016, I’ve been thinking about what it would mean for me to share my life with and create a life together with another person. I always said jokingly (but not so much) that I’d meet my forever partner in the nursing home. I have no plans (who does) of needing a nursing home in later life, but the concept that I’d meet this person around 75 years of age was the point.

But perhaps I won’t wait that long. So I have been considering the impact having another person in my life and specifically the impact of becoming one with them would have on my walk with God. My life is so simple – but I’m fiercely complicated in personality.

So, I may decide this is not the right choice for me at all – marriage that is – but there are many ways to go about sharing ones life with another person.

One thing’s for sure, I have done my best to live life for God because after all – no offense married folk – scripture states that the pinnacle of life is remaining single so that we are free to follow God. The pinnacle isn’t marriage. The pinnacle of American society is marriage – though this is also changing rapidly with younger generations who are finding the binding institution of marriage to be stifling and restrictive.

But really, if you want to become one with another human being, there is a price to pay. And there are consequences which are not always pleasant. I think too much, I know. But then again, I make far less mistakes. There are drawbacks to each approach. So far, mine has worked rather well for me. But let’s get into this, shall we?

What Becoming One With Another Person Really Encompasses

Let’s talk for a moment about the human creation. We are triune beings comprised of these three parts: soul, spirit and body.

The Soul:

Now the soul – to further break it down – is comprised of the mind, will and emotions. It is where the human condition arises, where the battleground exists when we think of doing evil or doing good. The battle is in the soul; the mind thinking the thought, the emotions influencing that thought and the will taking control and putting that thought into action, making it a reality.

Soul: Mind

So the soul is the fallen aspect of the human which occurred when sin entered the world. This is why ‘the washing of the water of the word of God’ is so important – renewing the mind is a daily necessity. The soul and the spirit are like bone to marrow – so closely linked that only God’s word can precisely cut between them to decipher thought from intention. If you think that’s easy, try focusing on why you have a particular thought and whether or not that thought is of any premeditated intention (because intentions can lie dormant in the primitive brain which remains hidden from us). Too deep a subject to get into right now.

Soul: Emotions

Continuing with the soul: Emotions are what influence our actions everyday and either help us or hurt us depending on how renewed our thought-life is (i.e. how much of God’s word is in us, how much of God’s knowledge and wisdom we know). Emotions, still part of the fallen aspect, can be a serious issue if we are unable to control them and think through what we are feeling in a more logical way. Emotions are what cause us to do the wrong thing because it feels right at the moment.

Soul: Will

The last aspect of soul is the will. The will is the power behind everything we do. We can will ourselves to do almost anything as long as fear is kept in check. The will is also part of that fallen state that must be continually renewed – it’s not a one-time deal (there is only one, one-time deal which we’ll get to in a moment.)

The will is what started the building of the Tower of Babel for instance. God said, ‘when they put their minds together in unity, there is nothing they cannot accomplish’. We are such fragile beings, yet because we are made in the image of God, we are the most powerful creation He has made – albeit, without the Holy Spirit, the angels would be more powerful than humans because we still exist in this natural world (ah! but this is another topic altogether! Maybe I’ll write about it sometime.)

The Spirit:

Now the spirit is the true and everlasting part of our triune being. In billions of people, their spirit lies dormant within them because only God can give life to our spirit. (God breathed the breath of life into Adam.) Spiritual death is both life and death apart from God. This is not where you want to be – Christ is the answer to spiritual death. “I am the way the truth and the life. Apart from me you can do nothing”. Listen to how Jesus talks about the human condition and how he remedies all of it:

John 6:35 (paraphrased): I am the bread of life…The bread that I will give is my flesh for the life of the world and he who eats of this bread s/he shall live forever, s/he shall not die.

John 11:25 I am the resurrection and the life. Anyone who believes in me will live, even after dying.

This is profound! It is what many intellectuals and scientists long for, eternal life, immortality. But they reject it as coming from a Superior Being as they would call Him. Eternal life cannot be provided by any other means outside of spiritual salvation. This requires Jesus Christ – and this is the world’s stumbling block.

One-Time Deal

The spirit is not in need of renewal but it does need to be fed, so-to-speak, by the word of God. The word is likened to bread, or sustenance which we must eat in order to live. Without the word of God, the spirit will be too weak to contend with the soul (our fallen nature) and we will sin. Ah, the kerfuffle of the Christian walk, the soul always longing for the desires of this world which wrestles against the nature of God and spirit. Thank God for the blood of His Son that redeemed us in spite of our sin nature.

The spirit is the only part of us that gets a one-time deal on life. Once you received Jesus Christ as your savior, there is nothing else that needs to be done. Christ is the only one-time deal, praise God for Him! To understand more about this, you may read this post The Difference Between Righteousness and Holiness.

Now let’s move on to the third aspect of the human being.

The Body:

The body is our tent. It’s what houses all these complex intricacies of mind, will, emotion and spirit. It gives form to the human species and is also fashioned in the likeness of God. Our body is what makes all that we are in soul and spirit autonomous and able to move freely and have our being on this earth. The body is the physical aspect of who we are and the part of us that is mortal.

The human body is passing away – even so, the whole world is at this moment already passing away, temporal and not to be invested in. We are sojourners belonging to the eternal kingdom of God but finding ourselves inhabiting a temporal earth; we are everlasting, immortal beings born into the world for only a time and to save as many as we can that His will in heaven might come to pass on earth. Selah~

To be continued in Part 2

Next time, we will talk about how we are one with God as Jesus describes it in the vine and the branches teaching and how this relates to becoming one with another person. We’ll talk about the interesting statement Paul made concerning the human body being ‘the temple of the living God’ – wow! – and how this also relates to becoming one with another person.

For now, I’ll leave you with a most interesting statement Jesus made, which also caused many of his followers to stumble and stop following him. This stuff isn’t for lazy religious Christians. It’s for those who want to truly understand God and know who they were created to be in God.

John 6:4-5 “Whoever eats My flesh and drinks My blood remains in Me, and I in him.”

Now hold on, don’t fall away yet. It’s just starting to get interesting…

Until next time…

Featured Photo by The Humantra