What variety there is amongst men and women!  The strong and the weak, the clever and the ordinary.  There is also a great variety amongst people in their personalities.  Yet, we have one thing in common and that is that we have an immortal soul.  The soul is the very centre of our being – it is the real you.  The soul does not age because it is incapable of dying. It is immortal.  The body dies but the soul does not and this is worthy of our most serious consideration.

In my parent’s home, we had an old family Bible with all the dates of births, marriages and deaths for many generations.  Inside, there was a preface to the Bible itself which was well worth reading.   It began with the words, ‘Dear Precious Soul’, which I found most striking.  Let me ask you: how precious is your soul to you? 

Please consider this matter with me, and read on. I trust what I have written will be of interest to you and, hopefully, it will be of eternal blessing.  Have you ever considered the fact that you always feel the same, as if age has nothing to do with you?  However old we may be, there is this inward consciousness that we always remain the same.  This is you, this is your soul.  We are careful of our physical well-being and our appearance but what about the soul, especially after the body dies?

The Bible has a great deal to say about the soul.  The Lord Jesus Christ gives us a vivid example in one of His illustrations.  He describes a man who was extremely successful and had trouble sleeping because he didn’t know where to store his wealth.  In his mind, he decided to put his riches safely away and enjoy them at his leisure.  This man had only one aim in life and that was to gain material wealth, which was entirely for his own use and advantage.  Apparently, he had little thought for others and certainly he had never entertained the thought of God.  In the account, there is an interruption to his selfish thoughts: God addresses him, pointing out how foolish he had been to neglect the well-being of his own soul.  It seems he had never considered that at death his wealth would be dispersed amongst many.  God informs him that on that night he would die, and his soul would appear before God who would judge him. Yes, there will be a time when we will all appear before God.

I wonder what condition your soul is in, or if you have ever thought about it.  Possibly, you have never got round to considering spiritual matters.  Possibly, your life has been so full of various activities that God has not come into your thinking or on to your agenda.  Possibly as you read this little letter you will be thinking of this for the first time.  More to the point, I wonder if you are aware of the power of sin and how offensive it is to God. This startling news may suddenly make you anxious. You may even now be considering for the first time that you are not fit to meet a holy God. What a dreadful loss is the separation of your precious soul from God!

Do you desire, in the depths of your being, to be at peace with God, both in this life and in the life to come?  There is a way, my dear friend, to have the greatest treasure upon earth, which is to be acceptable to God and ultimately welcomed to heaven.  As we are, our sin is a great barrier between God and ourselves.  No effort on our part can make amends for the sins in our lives, or please God in any way.  We need help.  Mercifully, there is help to be had in the Gospel of our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ.  The greatest event in the history of the world was when God sent His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, into this world.  He came on a great mission, this glorious Person who is both God and Man. His primary purpose in coming to this world was to rescue our souls from a truly dismal future and bring us to a glorious place in heaven. To be more precise, the Bible tells us that the wages of sin is death, and that means eternal death.

In the person of Jesus Christ, we find a sinless Saviour who was willing to take our sin upon Himself and to take our punishment. The cost of this is beyond our imagination. The physical suffering was bad enough but He also faced the wrath of God in our place. You see, God is holy and sin is offensive to Him. God accepts this great sacrifice by His Son on our behalf.  As well as this, the pure life of Christ is counted to us as if it were ours. How precious this Gospel is! A simple hymn expresses this very well:

There was no other good enough
To pay the price of sin;
He only could unlock the gate
Of heaven and let us in.

One problem remains.  How are these great benefits appropriated to ourselves?  Amazingly enough, it is God Himself who gives us the ability to repent and turn from our sin.  As well as this, He gives us faith to entrust our souls to the Lord Jesus Christ.  In this great experience, we become children of God and heirs of heaven.  Dear soul, I would plead with you to consider your eternal destiny.  O precious soul, consider now and call upon your God.