We’ve talked about this subject before at least once in my articles posted on Rapture Ready. I believe it is a very deep and sobering subject and at the same time...so necessary! Everybody that is ever “born” on this planet must deal with one’s own “death” at some point in time.

As a matter of fact you can NOT have one with out the other. If there is NO birth, then there is NO death either, except in an abortion! As serious and heinous as abortion is...I am not talking about that at this time. Every single person on the planet KNOWS...abortion...is the murder of a child!

It would seem that there are two ways to be “memorialized” and oddly enough...anyone can be, regardless of economic or professional level. The first is always the one we see on the news channels as some professional (of whatever) as his likeness recorded in some way. Usually with a statue or maybe his picture on a plaque, either way it becomes very notable and carefully placed for all to see.

For the rest of us, it’s usually in lieu of a funeral service and viewing, which in my personal opinion are a waste of time. ONLY...in that, I would never want to be put up to be viewed, whether alive or dead, somehow it seems to me to be very UN-necessary...and if dead...a bit gross. BUT...that is me!

In the Bible, we are told that our lives are very short...like a “vanishing vapor” and then we’re gone and we are also told that all those left behind will forget us in time, never to be remembered. I must admit that’s a little sobering to think about! In my own family I can see this.

My daughter was 4 years old when my dear Dad passed away and she doesn’t remember him at all. The same goes for my sweet, Mom. I remember her vividly and yet my daughter remembers very little of her, even though she was 11 years old when my Mom passed away.

I am sure this same thing runs in all families, bewildering though it may be. We talk about President Lincoln or any other person, what all they did in their life and yet, we know little about that person to begin with. They are an enigma. Judge Roy Bean was considered “A hangin’ judge and the “Law West of the Pecos.” But few know what kind of man he truly was on an everyday basis. It’s like learning about and knowing about a person will always be two very different things and so it is with everyone that is born. Someday those monuments will disappear and they...will be forgotten in time.

This is the “crux of the matter” as my sweet Mom used to say, it is the focal point...in being a human. We desperately do NOT want to be forgotten by anyone, especially those we love, like our families, and yet the Bible reminds us continually of this same situation. Thus, when we think of our own death, we know it is coming for each of us, we hope and pray it will be quick and painless and sometimes this comes true and not so in others.

 

So we see death as two-fold: Our actual death as a human and then the hope that we are never forgotten. Oddly enough, the first one is a “given.” You can NOT do a thing about it. It would seem that this is the more fearful of the two, the one where you stop breathing, the lights go out and then...what? Shivers run up and down our spine as we contemplate this inevitable situation! Gosh...the end.

 

Wow...what a concept to endure at the end of your life. Scary! It is comical in some ways when we think everyone will no longer remember us! So: We run out and build the highest skyscraper in the world, we die and in ten years and no one remembers who built it...disaster! Let’s see, who was Charles Lindbergh again? Or...who was Ramses II?

 

For hundreds and hundreds of years, the best minds did not understand “mortal death.” They also had a hard time recognizing that each of us has a soul and a spirit, the “unseen” part of us that provides life for our bodies. Everyone knows that these two exist inside our bodies, whether we are “willing” to acknowledge them or not...they are there.

There are Greek and Latin translations for this situation:

Body= Σώμα =e-o-s-a (In Greek) In Latin= Somes

 

Soul = ψυχή =ps-u-he-é (In Greek) In Latin= Animus

 

Spirit= πνεύμα =p-i-e-m-m-a (In Greek) In Latin= Phasmatis

 

We already know that there is the body (Σώμα =e-o-s-a, In Latin= Somes) the baggy, fluid and bone-filled housing, we use to walk and talk in. This is the part of us that one day dies and no longer works, that we must discard. It is said that the soul ( ψυχή =ps-u-he-é, In Latin= Animus) is the part of us where we actually think and feel emotion in, as in sayings like: “She had such a sweet soul.”

And then there is the spirit ( πνεύμα =p-i-e-m-m-a, In Latin= Phasmatis) that part of us that is the “Image of God” which is the only part that deals with spirituality, which is “of God.”

 

Most important in this last area is that which continues on after the body dies. In the Bible, it is broken down in 1 Thessalonians 5:23:

 

“And the very God of peace sanctify you wholly; and I pray God your whole spirit and soul and body be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.”

 

And the Bible states that we can be divided, as in what the apostle

Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians 3:1:

 

“And I, brethren, could not speak unto you as unto spiritual, but as unto carnal, even as unto babes in Christ.”

This is Paul who says he was speaking so that our bodies could hear, not in a Spiritual manner. And the next is in:

1 Corinthians 2:14:

“But the natural man receiveth NOT the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.”

 

“Natural” in the original Greek is “soulish.” And we can then see that Paul is talking about our “soul” as the “soulish” man, the one with “feelings and emotions.”

 

And then we read in 1 Corinthians 2:15-16:

“But he that is spiritual judgeth all things, yet he himself is judged of no man. For who hath known the mind of the Lord, that he may instruct him? But we have the mind of Christ.”

 

And so now we see that “God is Spirit.” Therefore to KNOW God is to be in “Spiritual” contact with God. In order to be in Contact with God, we must first belong to God, which is always through Jesus Christ and HIS blood on the Cross.

 

Now that we know the three parts of a man (body, soul, and spirit) we can easily see how any man or woman on this planet can be a “good person” and never see a moment of heaven with the Lord. With our body we are able to move and read, we read or hear the Word of God and then the soul is “moved” to want to know more, then the Lord God Almighty touches our spirit and calls us to HIM and we answer that call, by giving HIM our lives.

 

Not everyone follows this prescribed method, somehow they have fooled themselves into believing that their “good” manners and kind-heartedness makes them candidates for heaven. How wrong they are. Jesus Christ stated in John 14:6, emphasis added:

“Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.”

And so, that is the name of that tune!

We see now, that the body is close to the soul and yet these two are as far from the spirit as the east is from the west! We feel everything with the senses of our body and yet the emotions of our soul can give an action or situation an entirely different meaning (confusing?).

We know in our spirit that there is a God, a Creator, but way too many people want to be able to measure the spirit (science?), when they don’t understand that measurement is a “physical” thing, the “spirit” is already eternal and infinite.

The spirit is made in the “likeness of God.” God is Spirit therefore we must worship God in Spirit! Now that I have either deepened your understanding or have lost you entirely, it is at this very point that we must inject a bit of thought

How can you KNOW and UNDERSTAND our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ (who is God in human form) IF all you ever use is your body and soul, but NOT your Spirit?

I’m sorry, crying in church is an emotional response, NOT a spiritual response! We must rid ourselves of the “soulish” response to a spiritual situation...and respond to God on a “Spirit-filled” basis...otherwise there is nothing there!

When your body ceases to function (you die as a human) and your spirit leaves your body and for the born-again Believer, your Spirit is with the Lord God Almighty...immediately...if not sooner!! Praise the Lord for HIS love for us!! Marantha Lord!!

To be continued!!