WHAT IS THE PURPOSE OF LIFE?

(part 5)

Many religious people have been taught the false concept of the immortal soul, and as a result they are frightened not only about their own future but for their friends and relatives, who, they fear, are right now being tormented in an eternal hell. Very far from the truth. The truth is that not one human being who has ever lived and died is now suffering in hell's fire. Metaphorically, the Bible refers to death as a sleep. Referring to his friend Lazarus, Jesus said that Lazarus's death is as a sleep. The dead have no consciousness, "For the living know that they will die; but the dead know nothing." (Ecclesiastes 9:5)

The dead experience no conscious passing of time. In the next split second of their consciousness, they will awaken in the resurrection.

We are not born with an immortal soul, but human beings do have a spiritual component. As Job says, "There is a spirit in man." (Job 32:8)

As the apostle Paul wrote: "For what man knows the things of a man except the spirit of the man which is in him?." (1 Corinthians 2:11)

It is this human spirit that imparts human intellect to our physical brains, creating the human mind, for man is mortal. But the human spirit is not a soul and does not have consciousness apart from the human mind. Yet this spiritual aspect of human existence is nothing like the immortal soul concept. The spirit of man is not animate of itself. It is not a spirit entity that "lives on" after death. When we die, we will have no awareness of anything at all - until, that is, the future time when God places our individual spirits within new bodies. He will give us, thereby bringing us back to life. Human spirit is critical to our destiny, since God's Holy Spirit joining with it is what makes us God's children. Then, the converted Christian grows in the grace and knowledge of Christ. By Christ living in us, we become transformed into the very nature and mind of Christ. We have God's character, love and nature.!

And just as the human spirit gives us human understanding, so God's Spirit gives us higher, godly understanding.

It is a fact that throughout the ages the overwhelming majority of people have failed to grasp the amazing future that God has in store for those who develop a proper relationship with Him. The apostle Paul put it in this way:" No eye has seen, no ear has heard, no mind has conceived what God has prepared for those who love Him." (1 Corinthians 2:9)

We cannot imagine all that God has in store for us, both is this life and for eternity. This world is not all there is. The best is yet to come.

In Daniel 12:2-3, a prophetic message gives us our first clue to our fantastic future. Speaking of the resurrection of the dead, it tell us that a time is coming when "multitudes who sleep in the dust of the earth will awake... Those who are wise will shine like the brightness of the heavens, and those who lead many to righteousness, like the stars forever and ever. "

Many people try to be stars in the world of entertainment, only to find out that their stardom is only temporary. God tell us how to become eternal "stars". (continued)