HOW Does a Soul Prosper?

Beloved, I pray that you may prosper in all things and be in health, just as your soul prospers.  (3 Joh 1:2)

How does a soul prosper?  What is a soul?  According to the Bible, we each have three parts:  a body, a soul, and a spirit.  (see 1 Thes 5:23) 

Each one of us is a spirit; we live in our own body; and we each have a soul.  Mankind was made in the image of God (Gen 1:26); and God is a Spirit (Joh 4:24).  Therefore we, too, are spirit-beings. 

We can see that we each have a soul that is distinctly separate and different from our spirit:

For the word of God is quick, and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.  (Heb 4:12) 

Even though the spirit and the soul are joined together, they are still separate parts of every individual.  So, we live in a body (2 Cor 5:6, 8) that has a soul.  The soul is where the emotions, the will, and the intellect dwell. 

Did you see that according to 3 John 1:2, the level or degree to which we prosper, and/or obtain the health and healing of God is directly related to the level or degree that our soul (the thinking, reasoning part of us: The Mind) is prospering?

Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.  (Rom 12:2)

So our circumstances and situations can be changed once we have changed the way that we think about them!  How may we change our thoughts?  When we renew our minds with God’s promises contained in His Word, we change the way that we think about our situation.  And what naturally follows is that our emotions and will then follow where our thoughts take us.

God has given each one of us the gift of grace (Eph 2:8).  By God’s gift of grace, we may obediently and intentionally place our soul upon the path of prosperity.