Would you serve god and jesus if your soul did not last forever?
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Desire to be a vessel of honor unto the Lord Jesus Christ?
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Taking the time to pray? Christ is the answer in times of need
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How are famous preachers sometimes affected by sin?
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[Would you serve God and Jesus if your soul did not last forever?] That's very much what the satan said Job would not do. Yahweh showed the satan (the cynics of humanity?) that humans could serve him for non-mercenary reasons. C S Lewis came to serve God at least a year, he reckoned, before belief in everlasting life postmortem, was given to him. Consider how we can serve one another irrespective of whether we have, or will gain, immortal life. Even atheists can gladly die for their country and/or cause.
[I would let God and Jesus destroy me.] I do not see why, if there is no postmortem life, we should prefer to hasten our death in principle. I can understand suicide in particular situations, and indeed can commend it if in a good cause.
[I would let God and Jesus destroy me.] I do not see why, if there is no postmortem life, we should prefer to hasten our death in principle. I can understand suicide in particular situations, and indeed can commend it if in a good cause.
We do not worship or serve God because of what we get from doing that, but because we Love him and because it is the right thing to do.Would you serve god and jesus if your soul did not last forever?
Thay people,e have no or little concept of what is right or of actually doing what is right shows just how Godless they are.
Isaiah 61:10 I will greatly rejoice in the LORD, my soul shall be joyful in my God; for he hath clothed me with the garments of salvation, he hath covered me with the robe of righteousness, as a bridegroom decketh himself with ornaments, and as a bride adorneth herself with her jewels.
2Corinthians 5:1 For we know that if our earthly house of this tabernacle were dissolved, we have a building of God, an house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.
2 Corinthians 5:2 For in this we groan, earnestly desiring to be clothed upon with our house which is from heaven:
Genesis 2:7 And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.
Here dust + breath/spirit from God = a living soul. When the flesh dies physically it returns back to the dust of the ground and our spirit is preserved with God for final judgment.
We return to the dust of the ground when this physical body dies and our breath/spirit returns to God as we wait for Gods final judgment when Christ returns.
Matthew 10:28 And fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul: but rather fear him which is able to destroy both soul and body in hell.
Our spirit can never die and is preserved until Gods final judgment on the last day when Christ returns, John 6:40.
This body/flesh dies and deteriorates as it turns back to dust while in the ground. The breath/spirit goes back to God who gave it, Ecclesiastes 12:7. The soul which makes up the conscious part of ones being is that of thought, action and emotion. The spiritual nature of man regarded as immortal and separable from the body/flesh at death and susceptible to happiness or misery in a future state.
2Corinthians 5:1 For we know that if our earthly house of this tabernacle were dissolved, we have a building of God, an house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.
2 Corinthians 5:2 For in this we groan, earnestly desiring to be clothed upon with our house which is from heaven:
Genesis 2:7 And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.
Here dust + breath/spirit from God = a living soul. When the flesh dies physically it returns back to the dust of the ground and our spirit is preserved with God for final judgment.
We return to the dust of the ground when this physical body dies and our breath/spirit returns to God as we wait for Gods final judgment when Christ returns.
Matthew 10:28 And fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul: but rather fear him which is able to destroy both soul and body in hell.
Our spirit can never die and is preserved until Gods final judgment on the last day when Christ returns, John 6:40.
This body/flesh dies and deteriorates as it turns back to dust while in the ground. The breath/spirit goes back to God who gave it, Ecclesiastes 12:7. The soul which makes up the conscious part of ones being is that of thought, action and emotion. The spiritual nature of man regarded as immortal and separable from the body/flesh at death and susceptible to happiness or misery in a future state.
If my end was ultimately exactly the same as the end of someone who didn't serve God, what motivation would I have to live in the self-sacrificing, often difficult way that God commands? Imagine the most selfish, wicked, God-defying wretch you can think of - a Colombian drug lord, or Russian criminal oligarch, or Hitler, or Stalin - serving every perverse impulse that grips them, killing millions of other people, etc. who, after a life of evil selfishness just...stops, their body dying and their consciousness ceasing forever. They encounter no Final Judgment, no accounting to God for their evil, no divine justice rendered upon their sin; they just wink out of existence permanently. Have they not, essentially, gotten away with a life of great wickedness? And what of the Mother Theresa type who toils away in a life of deep self-sacrifice, suffering pain and deprivation to help the downtrodden and persecuted, who contracts a deadly disease from one of the people she's helped and dies, her consciousness evaporating into nothing forever? Her end is just the same as the one who has lived exactly the opposite sort of life from hers. If there is nothing after this life, if the end of the wicked and the righteous is the same, "eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow we die!"
But, thank God, this isn't the case. "It is appointed unto man once to die and after this, the Judgment." (Hebrews 9:27) We all go on either to eternal "joy inexpressible and full of glory" in God's heavenly kingdom, or to eternal, conscious torment in hell, separated from God (and all others), in "the blackness of darkness forever." (Jude 1:13)
But, thank God, this isn't the case. "It is appointed unto man once to die and after this, the Judgment." (Hebrews 9:27) We all go on either to eternal "joy inexpressible and full of glory" in God's heavenly kingdom, or to eternal, conscious torment in hell, separated from God (and all others), in "the blackness of darkness forever." (Jude 1:13)
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Please keep in mind that I was simply thinking along the line the OP appeared to have set out.
The wicked often prosper in this life while the righteous suffer. The Bible itself notes that this is so. If there is no compensating justice for this state-of-affairs in an afterlife, no reward for the righteous person who has suffered - perhaps profoundly - for being righteous, and no justice rendered upon the wicked who has prospered in their wickedness, then there is no good reason that I can see for not living as the wicked do and eking out of life every drop of self-gratification possible.
Why is it that God makes to us "unblushing promises" of eternal reward and unparalleled blessing in Himself, if not to induce us to greater pursuit of His will and way in this life? God doesn't say to us, "Just do what I say because I say so." No, He offers us "the carrot" of eternal life, joy and blessing, knowing that the righteous in this earthly life will suffer, sometimes very terribly, for His sake.
The wicked often prosper in this life while the righteous suffer. The Bible itself notes that this is so. If there is no compensating justice for this state-of-affairs in an afterlife, no reward for the righteous person who has suffered - perhaps profoundly - for being righteous, and no justice rendered upon the wicked who has prospered in their wickedness, then there is no good reason that I can see for not living as the wicked do and eking out of life every drop of self-gratification possible.
Why is it that God makes to us "unblushing promises" of eternal reward and unparalleled blessing in Himself, if not to induce us to greater pursuit of His will and way in this life? God doesn't say to us, "Just do what I say because I say so." No, He offers us "the carrot" of eternal life, joy and blessing, knowing that the righteous in this earthly life will suffer, sometimes very terribly, for His sake.
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