Exploring the soul

Reach God

We all agreed we had an eternal soul from birth and that it can develop and grow. But where does the soul come from and where does it go after we die. The students expressed their concern that there are many different ideas and religions, so it’s pretty confusing.

Who we are

Our identity is not really found in our body but rather in our soul. The soul is who we are and it’s the soul that controls the body. I am using my hands to type this blog right now. We use our bodies to express ourselves.

Reincarnation

The idea behind reincarnation is one of spiritual progression. What you don’t achieve in this life time you can work on in the next. Ultimately it is hoped that you will eventually achieve divinity, ultimate peace or consciousness.

Other religions

Every single religion is a method of becoming like God to be with God. The first diagram illustrates God as being at the top and us trying to attain a degree of goodness to please God so that we can either become like him or be with him. I call this the heavenly fly by system where people try and do things that please God so that they can connect with God and be with God.

The faith alternative

God reaches us

In the second diagram God moves towards us, he reaches down to be with us. He did this in the person of Jesus Christ who earned all the heavenly fly bys when he died on the cross. So instead of you having to earn them you can receive them as a gift from God.

Emotions and Connecting to God

We have many different emotions; joy, love, anger, fear, guilt. Sometimes it’s our soul telling us that we are guilty because we stole something, or we lied, or we cheated. And sometimes our soul tries to tell us that we need to get to know God who is the one who gave us a soul in the first place.

God loves you the way you are

One student shared that they often feel disappointed with themselves, that they are never feel satisfied. I pointed to the diagram of God coming down to the people and told the student that the beauty of God is that he loves them the way they are, that they do not have earn God’s love.