It is with great pleasure that I introduce you to Coach Kent Sauls. Thank you, brother. Thank you, brother. That was awesome. It’s terrific. Thank you so much. That’s awesome. That’s for you.
Well, I’ve got a couple of things to share today, and I hope it’ll be a blessing to you. I’m going to get you up and be active. Do you guys remember—do you have that emotional connection to something called field day when you were in grade school? Field day, I’m telling you, it was awesome.
But now, some of you might have negative feelings about that. If you can put that aside for a moment, that can be good and bad days in some ways, right? When you’re just a kid. But for me, it was always a very interesting day because I saw myself as an athlete at that age. But I want to take you back to the emotion associated with that for a moment and have you participate in a light version of the activity that everybody got to participate in. And I have it right here for us. Do you remember what this represents on field day? I can see it in some of your faces.
Yeah, we’re going to pull this little flag one way or the other so we can win as a group in a tug-of-war. There it is. So, I’d like for all of you to get up, and we’re actually going to use that space right along there to get on one end of this rope. We’re just going to do a very light version of a tug. We’re thanking you for taking that end down there; we’ll take this end over here. Get knotted up there. There we go.
And I just want you to be able to—yeah, just lightly, of course. We’re not going to have a full-on competition here, but just lightly. I need some people on this end. I’ll be in the middle where the flag is. I’m the coach. I’ll tell you when to pull, but everybody has me at least a hand on to—I don’t know how much. Let’s scoot this way just a bit so we can get more people on this. Scoot this way just a little bit. Come on. Oh man, I do feel like the coach’s going to come. Bring it this way. Get out of it. We’re not going yet.
Okay, so I just want you to—at least have a hand on it, and you can feel—exactly. You’re getting wrapped around. I know we had all the strategies. I was at the end of the loop because I was a big guy. I, the loop. So here, this flag is going to move one way or the other. But all I want you to do right now is connect to that emotion of that time, that day, that sort of activity. By the way, you’re in a group, trying to win as a group, trying to win as a team. But you can feel—I can feel it—you guys are like pulling like you’re ready to go. There are six on that site, and only five. Oh, see? I am very concerned about whether it is fair or not. Okay, it’s not fair. It’s not fair.
The good thing is that this is not an actual competition today. But I wanted to bring you back to the emotion involved in that, so you have an emotional connection to what I’m about to analogize for you from the stage, right? You feel it. You feel the tension, and you know we’re trying to pull this objective one way or the other to “quote-unquote” win. Got it? Yep. Okay, thank you. So now, you can let go and go back to your seats, except for me—I know you’re waiting for “Ready, set, go!” right? And now, I have my volunteer, Wendy, and T’s busy. I was going to have T’ny volunteer, but Wendy will come up and volunteer for me to help me with this illustration.
She’ll have kind of one end representing this, and then I need another volunteer over here. Would you do it? Oh, great. You’re perfect because I’m going to get another volunteer in just a moment—hint hint—a moment to kind of illustrate this point. I am ready for you if you guys can just back up slightly and have that here in the middle so we can see three things here. There are three elements to this. Closer there, so that you’re—yeah, a little bit closer is good. Closer is good. Yes, so we can be in the frame here. Yeah, you can be pretty close to this illustration.
So here’s what I want you to envision. This is an illustration of something very important as a concept in life. And I’m speaking—I can back all of this up scripturally from the Bible. This is biblical. Okay, so here it is. You’ve got these elements in life. And in case this is something you haven’t seen or done before, if it’s a confirmation of what you already know, I just want to reinforce it or introduce it to you today on the off chance it might help you at some point.
Okay, so here’s the idea. There are three elements, and it comes from 1 Thessalonians 5:23. There are three elements to us as human beings: you have a body, you live in a body, you have a soul, but you are a spirit. Okay, so that’s scripturally accurate. I see you guys nodding with me in agreement. You understand that. Maybe this is just reinforcement for you. But I want to show you a concept here that might be key to anything that has to do with your—the—the theme of this conference, the healing part.
So, let’s say, uh, in this illustration, that over here, we have the spirit, and in the middle, this flag represents the soul, and over here, we represent the body. Okay. Spirit—we’ll talk, come back to that in just a moment—but the idea is that the body is out here in the world. This represents your five senses, which you hear, taste, smell uh, touch, and feel. This is the part that’s in contact with the world, the body, sometimes referred to as the Earth suit, right? You’ve got your Earth suit over here, and all these things are bombarding it. And not all of them are bad; some of them are very good. God intended, of course, for us to experience this as paradise to begin with. So, a lot of good is over here—the beauty of the mountains we see out the window daily here, Colorado Springs, all these wonderful things he’s created.
But there are also these other elements, which many of our speakers have alluded to—it’s not a perfect world; it’s a fallen world, right? Yeah. And so, I’ll just summarize it by saying there’s also the other side of life, which is sex, rock and roll, and drugs, right? Drugs, sex, rock and roll, that old phrase. So, that’s also bombarding our senses over here. So what happens is, if you guys would pull just slightly, what happens is the soulish piece of us is caught in the middle between what’s happening to the five senses, the body, sometimes referred to as the flesh, and what’s happening over here with the spirit. What’s caught in the middle is the soul.
I don’t know if you’ve ever heard it defined this way, and I can back this up, but I’ll just say it this way to try to make it simple for illustrational purposes. This is composed—your soul is composed of your mind, will, and emotions. Write this down: mind, will, and emotions. Hence the problem. Hence, the tug of war, right? Just take one of them, for instance, for a moment. How many people today are listening to, and hearkening to, and living from their emotions? Emotionalism is the call of today, yeah? Right. And the stimulation is there, all over the place.
I mean, one of the most recent examples, of course, you can go into politics and all that, but you can just talk about the state of Israel and what’s going on there. Perfect example, right? And it’s getting pulled in both directions, and there’s a ton of emotion, as well there should be. It’s an extremely important thing. But are you living and making decisions from the emotional part? Okay, that’s just one piece of the soul.
So, the emotion—how about the will? Well, in biblical terms, of course, that’s already taken care of because it’s defined as that willful part of yourself that sometimes wants what you want without regard for others or your own well-being. Now, there can be goodwill, and we’ll talk about that in a moment, but that’s a piece of what your soul is defined as. So, your emotions, your will, and your mind.
And for some of us, your mind might be the most important thing. And many of our speakers have talked about what’s going on in the mind, the battle of the mind. Well, I think, if I had to pick—now, after being—I’ve been to Bible College, I’ve been studying this stuff for many years and decades. And one of the most important lessons I’ve learned is this idea from Romans 12:1 and 2.
If I had to pick one scripture out of the Bible besides John 3:16, that’s given, but if I pick something else as the most critical pinpoint in the Bible, I would pick Romans 12:2 because it addresses this issue, the tug of war of life. It says, and I don’t mean—you’re nodding because you know it—it’s very famous, of course, but just to take us back there for a moment, what it is pointing out to us is that we should—the warning is—be not conformed to the world but be transformed by the renewing of—and I’m pointing back toward the spirit. Still, it’s right here in the soul, the mind. It’s the transformation, and that is such a key interpretation from the Greek and the Hebrew. The word ‘transform’ is metamorphose. And when you think about that amazing miracle that happens in the chrysalis with a butterfly before it becomes a butterfly, it’s a glob of gooey mess, hence the metaphor. This can become—the soulful part of us becomes the gooey mess because our mind, our will, and our emotions are trying to take over and do battle with all of the stimuli from the world. So, it’s that transformation, the metamorphosis of the mind.
And now, how does that happen? And, of course, the rest of that scripture goes on to say, by bending yourself in your will. If you pull this a little tight again, by, of course, allowing the tug of war to come this way—the spirit—because that is—and here’s the secret to my, my—this is the sauce for my speech today—that’s God’s secret sauce. Yes, that’s the secret sauce. And that’s what I found out in my spiritual journey in the world. I kept thinking about the Bible, God, all of it, New Testament, Old Testament, Old Covenant, New Covenant, all of it, but I kept going, where’s the juice? Where’s the juice? Because I didn’t grow up in a spiritual home. We didn’t go to church. They weren’t anti-church; it just was kind of… I was listening to people like Billy Swagger and Tim Jim Baker back in the day as I was waiting for football to come on, right? I was probably saved at a very early age without anybody’s effort. I was just listening to them, repeating what they said, right? You know, but as I continued to grow, I kept thinking, man, where’s the power in this? What people keep talking about is power; where does this come from? And then I discovered, of course, how to activate the Holy Spirit. And that, when people talk about the hole in their soul, the things that we try to fit in from the world, trying to fit it in, putting the square peg in the round hole, and it just never seems to work. Well, what’s the round to the round? What fits? And finally, when I discovered the teachings about understanding what God gave us as a gift, the Holy Spirit came and filled that perfectly. And so, you quibble about whether it’s the soul or the spirit, but the point is that God’s Holy Spirit is talking to our spirit and begins pulling the soul toward the spirit. And when that happens in this analogy, the body has to follow. That’s the secret sauce. And if we’re—trying our best to do exactly what it says and not be conformed to this world—the secret sauce and the power to it—is to understand how to fit in God’s spirit and allow it to pull us in that direction. Right, there you go, and when you get that, that’s perfect, right, right, right. Yes, good, good, good. Yes, I love it. Yes.
Now, if you go back to your original position for just one second, I just want to illustrate it one more way—actually, two more ways, if we have time. This is what’s happening, of course. This is the battle that’s going on constantly. And you understand the illustration here. But here’s what I want to say about it and give another volunteer a chance to come up here. When we understand the concept of—and you, come over here to this side, your turn now—inviting the Holy Spirit to come in and grab hold of this rope. Now, this is—I meant this purposely—because look at the size of this stud. Right? Yeah, yeah. Who do I want on my team? I picked him out this morning. I said that’s the first guy I’m picking to be on my end of the rope. Right? I want the victory. That’s right. And now, the point is, it’s not just in a game on field day, but this is the game of life. This is the battle we’re in. And if I’m going to win, I want the secret sauce on my side. I want this stud—I’ll call the Holy Spirit—to be on my side, to help me pull this rope in the right direction. Because I’ve lived enough life to know that these things also pull a little harder, pull a little harder—they pull a little harder sometimes. Sex, drugs, and rock and roll they do. And I’m kind of joking about it, but people, this is a perfect setup. All the speakers have gone before me here for the last 24 hours. It’s a perfect setup because they’ve all been talking about the pulls of this side and this side. What I wanted to bring to your mind today and to your spirit is the idea that you can access this secret sauce any time or day you want. It’s called the New Covenant. That’s right. We can go directly to the source. We no longer have to go through the blood of bulls and goats. We don’t have to go through a priest or someone else anymore. We can go directly to the source—thank you, Jesus—anytime we want. And this extra added strength gets to help us pull this rope in the right direction and, hopefully, then find the successes and the healings in life that we are demanding. We need—we know we need it; we know we need help. And so, instead of looking to the things of the world and saying, sex, drugs, and rock and roll solve my problems, soothe my emotions, help my pain, this—bring it over here.
Now, I do want to say that I’m not excluding things like medical, like, um, what’s her name? M. McCall said. Many of those things have been inspired as well. She’s a great example because she’s talking about using a lot of the herbal remedies and natural things that God put here, as he says, right from Genesis 1, “I created it all for you so that you would stay in perfect health and unity with him.” Okay, but now, here’s the other side of that coin. I don’t know if anybody’s ever said this to you before, but God’s efforts to parent actually did go awry. They did. They did. And, you know, I’m going to call it the Felix Culpa, which is the Latin term for the fortunate fall. I don’t know if you’ve ever heard that one before. I once picked that up from a Shakespeare professor at the University of Arizona, talking about Hamlet. By the way, the Felix Culpa means it was a fortunate fall because that’s the setup. Even though it’s sad that it fell, the creation, the god, the way God intended it, the fortune is that we’re going to get a new chance with a New Covenant. And this is one most compelling—the other compelling story in the Bible. I almost cry every time I think about it. Think about the moment that Jesus says to the disciples, “I got to go. I have to go.” It’s very practical. His physical body can’t be with everyone, everywhere, all the time. It’s true that wherever he went, he healed, just like this conference is talking about. It says repeatedly, “And he healed them all.” “All,” in the Greek, means all. He healed them all. But he couldn’t be with everybody all the time, simultaneously. So, it’s again a fortunate fall that he has to go away in order to send the greatest gift and the secret sauce for us in the New Covenant. So, represented by my sturdy friend right here, helping my other lovely friend right here to overcome all of the things on this end. Pull the spirit toward this, and that’s all you have to tune into.
Now, the last analogy part that will make sense, I hope, here, as they hold this. Thank you for being here, holding this. The last thing I’ll say is this. If that analogy might not strike all the way home for you, think of this as a pipe, like something that would carry your water, gas, whatever, to your house. This is like a pipe, and this part in here, with the soul, can be like a valve. If we are already believers and tuned into this opportunity to have the spirit inform us and empower us—in other words, it would be flowing in this direction—still, there’s this crazy valve in the middle that’s called my mind, will, and emotions.
You can die from dehydration one inch from the water that can nourish you because you don’t know how to turn on the valve. So here’s all of this life-giving energy and power coming to your valve, and your mind, will, and emotion can stop you. You’re too much in your head, like Wendy was talking about, or your circumstances overcome you, like M was talking about with physical problems, medical problems, whatever it might be, and you can’t quite let that flow. The term is to be able to receive it because you have had enough transformation in your mind that you’re not looking at worldly circumstances as your focus. You are pointing back towards this, which ultimately—I need another rope going up, of course, right to the source, coming down to this one and coming to us—but you can be this close and not receive it.
So, I want to encourage you to know as much about God’s will as possible. God’s will is not a mystery then; that’s an unfortunate teaching in a lot of places today. It is not a mystery; it’s right there in front of you. It’s called opening up the book and, hopefully, getting the right teachers in front of you to help you know how to open this valve through the soul. So that what will happen? It will go to the body and then go ahead and pull. We’re going to pull everything right over here, where it should be, where God intended it to be from the beginning. I hope that’s a blessing to you. I hope that makes sense. Thanks for having me today. I appreciate it, and God bless all of you.
Oh, and I have a parting gift. Let me not forget about this. I have a parting gift for you. I want each one of you to have your own personal rope as a takeaway today. And if you do one last exercise with me—one last exercise with me—give me that. Go, sorry, here, take that one. Okay, one last, one last piece to this. I’ll pass those out, yep, you, thank you, thank you. One last thing: I just want you to take a moment and do this. Here you go, Bobby. Did you get one? Here.
I just want you to do this with me for a moment. She needs one, please. I want everybody to have one, please. We will do this together if you just indulge me for a moment. I went ahead and colored mine, and I was going to have the chart up today, but I sort of color-coded mine so I could see something in the middle, a color on both ends representing what we just talked about. So, you pick and decide right now for yourself as we do this for a moment. You decide which end of this is going to be your spirit side. Then, I want you to take the rope in the middle, where we talked about the soul. So, it’s going to look like this, right? It’s going to look like this. You’re holding onto the spirit end and lightly grabbing that middle part of your soul. And I want you to take just a moment, a minute, to activate this. And I want it to go down into your spirit. I want it to transform your mind. I want you to close your eyes; if you trust me, just for a moment, please, just close your eyes. And I want you to take that rope with your spirit hand, and I want you to just slowly pull through to the other end until you get to the knot that represents the body. And then let it keep pulling that body toward the spirit, over to the side, wherever that is for you. Amen. That’s my prayer for you. That will be a part of your journey, and I hope it helps and blesses you. Amen.
[Applause]
Ladies and gentlemen, Coach Kent Sauls.
