Life Lessons with Dr. Steve Schell
Religion & Spirituality:Christianity
You aren't your body. You express yourself through your body; you are influenced by your body; you even have to take care of your body, but your existence is rooted in another dimension altogether. That's because God made you in His image, and He doesn't have a body. He is spirit (Jn 4:24). When He created Adam and Eve, He created rational, volitional, conscious beings who can know Him, obey Him, love Him and communicate with Him, person to person. He gave us a body, and said it was “good,” and intends us to have one forever. But you are not your body. No human is. Once conceived we are eternal spirits: rational, volitional, conscious beings.
I admit it can be difficult to remember this when someone dies. Their body looks dead, but that's because the person isn't there anymore. He or she has gone somewhere else. That body was just the “clothing” they once wore, and someday God will give them a new one.
Without this perspective, nothing in the Bible makes sense. The ideas we read there are based on the understanding that this season of time, on this planet, is only a testing ground, so people can decide for or against God. And based on those decisions they will spend the next season, which lasts forever, either with Him or separated from Him. And as we watch and listen to Jesus it is quite evident that He was constantly seeing both these dimensions: the physical and the spiritual. To Him the line between life and death was very thin. In no way did He think a human being ceased to exist when their body died. He spoke of people who died as simply stepping into another level of existence and knew that it was possible, given the right circumstances, for someone to return to their body. And what made that possible was Him. Wherever He was, that could happen because life radiated from Him like light shines from the sun. So in His presence, dead things could come back to life, and He could give that gift of life to whomever He chose.
Standing on the outskirts of a little village called Bethany Jesus tried to explain this truth to a grieving woman, but on that day the Father had given Him the assignment to do more than simply use words. His assignment was to demonstrate His power over death, to show her what He is going to do for her, and for all of us, someday. He not only told her that He is the resurrection and the life; He proved it.
24 - Steven Full of Grace
23 - Handling Problems Well
22 - Gamaliel
21 - Power in Community
20 - Ananias and Sapphira
19 - The Price of a Soul
18 - Godly Disobedience
17 - Answering Our Accusers
16 - Decisions of the Heart
15 - The Gift of Guilt
14 - Anatomy of a Healing
13 - The Meaning of Baptism
12 - Koinonia
11 - Lord and Christ
10 - Peter’s Boldness
9 - They Shall Prophesy
8 - Spiritual Language
7 - The Promise Arrives
6 - Replacing Judas
5 - Waiting For Pentecost
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