If the soul is not immortal, human life is a farce. If it is immortal, man is a fool to ignore it. To be an immortal being would require an immortal nature. Death separates the soul from the body, not the spirit. The tie that joins the two is loosed. The bondage that sin imposes on the body cannot be the bondage wrought by sin, it has to be the bondage brought about by decadence. Death, therefore, is a merciful provision, not a tool of some tyrannical being unhappy with our behavior. Christ destroyed the curse of death which is separation from His presence, but did not destroy death. To the Christian death is just another step in the epoch of continued existence. It relieves the soul of dominion of flesh. Flesh weighs heavily in the decisions made in the body. Care for unimportant things afforded our bodies and the pitfalls brought on by the desire to comfort and satisfy the body is no longer important. Many times I see even the members of the Lord’s Church who have seemed to have lost faith in immortality, or so it seems by the way they are living!! I see them living as though tomorrow will not bring eternity and today is all that matters. They ‘give up’ when the battle has not even begun to rage, settling for mediocrity instead of “the glory that shall be revealed in us”!! When considered from the eternal aspect, age is only counted in the babyhood of our existence. Here we become the children of eternity where ‘old as Methuselah’ is only an infant of days with millennial cycles unfolding and unending!! The grandeur of Heaven will erase any desire to ‘return to Egypt’ Our invested liberty, in a universe of unparalleled freedom, will cause us to be over-joyous because we followed the Master of the Universe instead of the Chief of the Failed creation of God!!
What is the meaning of “I”? What is this “I”? Who is it? Of all the words used this word is used more often than any other word in our vocabulary yet many don not even know what this “I” is!! Is it my Body? The body is only the outward garment worn by ME. The body can be measured and labeled as portions of lime, silica, iron, water and other elements. It changes every 7 years. The body “I” am in today is not the body of my birth, my teenage years, or that which “I” wore when I first became a Christian. “I” have worn several bodies since I first debuted on this planet, but, the “I” am the same!! “I”, the REAL MAN, stands behind the body looking through windows of eyes, receiving messages through portals called ears, and traveling about on one of the least considered parts of my anatomy, my feet! In all these bodies the “I” RULES . “I” possess this body, “I” make plans and dreams for this body as though it actually belongs to ME!!, and it most emphatically does not!! If “I” am not careful, “I” will become a thief, for “I” will take what is not mine, use it as though it is mine, mock it making it participate in sin and introduce things made up of chemical composition into it which will eat it away and destroy it’s ability to function; and “I” have not been given permission from its owner to do so!!! One thing I must remember as a Christian, this tabernacle “I” dwell in belongs to God!! “I” cannot mark it, burn it, color it with tattoos or epithets, eat it to oblivion, or join it to a harlot, this body “I” live in was a gift given, and I am expected to respect both the gift and the Giver!! “I” am not MY BODY”.
“I” am not my Brain (all have a brain even IF we do not use it!!). If “I” am my brain, which brain is “I”? Its tissues (cells) have changed repeatedly, but this “I” is the same in spite of all these changes of the brain. Like my body, my brain is something that belongs to its Creator and will not be in Eternity!! The brain decays, “I” remain!!
