Soulish believers are often hasty. They cannot wait on God. They always do things in a hurried, flustered, and urgent manner. Even in doing the works of God, they are pushed by their enthusiasm and ardor and simply cannot wait for God's clear directing, leading, and opening of the way.

The minds of soulish believers are often completely occupied with their works. They consider, plan, deliberate, and anticipate. In their mind they often remember their work—the successes, the failures, or other results. Sometimes they envision the future of their works. When they think of the bright side, they are joyful beyond control. When they think of the dark side, they are overcome by sorrows. In either case, they may even neglect their sleeping and eating. At any rate, their mind is fully occupied with their work. Do they think that much of their Lord? Many times this is not the case. They think more of their work than of their Lord. In their view, the work of the Lord is very important, but often they forget the Lord who gives him work. The work of the Lord becomes the center of everything, while the Lord of the work becomes secondary.

Since soulish believers lack real spiritual insight, their actions unconsciously follow the direction of the "sudden thoughts" of their mind. Hence, they often speak inappropriate words in their work. Their words do not meet others' need. Nevertheless, because they themselves presume that there "ought" to be such a need in people, they utter useless words in trying to help others. They may reproach when one needs sympathy; they may comfort when one should be admonished. This is because they lack spiritual understanding and depend too much on their own limited thoughts. Even after their words have proven to be futile, they still are not convinced.

Soulish believers make many plans and have many opinions. Therefore, it is very difficult for them to work with others. They have what they themselves presume to be right, so they expect others to fully agree with them. Their condition for working together with others is that others must absolutely agree with their views. To them, even a minor idea is crucially related to the truth once delivered to the saints. They cannot allow others to proceed to work if there is any difference in opinion. They know that there must be no opinion, but if any opinion needs to die, it is not theirs. They realize that sects are not scriptural, but it is not their particular sect that must die. Whatever they do not believe, they consider as heresy. However, those who are soulish as they are reject their belief. Not only so, affection is very important in their work. They love to have their own small clique, their own so-called inner circle. They are not able to work together with other children of God. They love to partition God's children according to their liking.

In preaching, soulish believers cannot depend completely on God. They rely either on their own illustrations, interpretations, and clever ideas or on their own persuasive power. Perhaps there are a few famous ones who rely completely on themselves—"Because I said so, people must listen." They may depend on God but also on themselves. Therefore, it is necessary for them to have very skillful preparations. The time they spend in prayer, in seeking God's will, in waiting for the power from above is less than the time they spend on preparing outlines, in gathering materials, and in hard and careful thinking. They memorize the entire message and simply recite it at the time of preaching. The mind occupies the primary place in such work.