May God himself, the God of peace, sanctify you through and through. May your whole spirit, soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.

There are hundreds of scripture referring to the Spirit, Soul and Body.

Some people view the soul and body interchangeably, while others think the soul and spirit are the same. But it’s more accurate to think of them as separate components.  Our soul is the conscious part of us, composed of mind (intellect), will, and emotions.   It makes choices and controls our behavior by giving orders to the body. Our spirit is the subconscious part, an internal adviser to the conscious soul.  It’s  our conscience.

Both our soul and our spirit are intangible and eternal and are housed in our body which is tangible and temporal. Our body is designed for use in this life, and when we die we leave it behind. Paul described our body as our earthly dwelling and spoke of how we long to be clothed with our heavenly dwelling.  Believers don’t desire so much to be rid of our earthly bodies, he said, as to receive our heavenly ones. He said receiving our heavenly body is the very purpose for which we were created, and that’s why God gave us the Holy Spirit at the first moment of our belief. He’s a deposit guaranteeing what is to come, which is the exchange of our earthly dwelling for our heavenly one.

In effect, the Holy Spirit works through our spirit to repossess our soul from its bondage to sin. But since it’s not the conscious part of us, our spirit can only work to influence our decisions. Our soul must choose to heed the advice of our spirit, in whose “ear” the Holy Spirit is whispering.

The biggest problem we have is that our soul is still struggling with its bondage to sin, our worldly desires, and therefore must constantly choose to submit to our renewed spirit. Remember the soul is where our behavioral decisions are made. Our spirit is one with the Spirit of God, but can only advise.

When we die or pass on, our transformation will be complete, and the Holy Spirit’s work of repossessing our soul will be finished. The heavenly alignment will be permanently restored, our regenerated soul in perpetual submission to our spirit which is one with God. Only then will we be ready for our resurrection bodies. It will no longer occur to us to behave in a manner contrary to God’s will, and we’ll finally be fit to dwell with Him forever.