The Bottom Line...

God planted my human spirit within my earthly body, when he created me. Zechariah the prophet and priest wrote about this in Zech 12:1 "The Lord, who stretches out the heavens, who lays the foundation of the earth and who forms the spirit of man within him...".

And, in Job 20, Job's friend, Zophar is responding to him about man, beginning at verse 4 says "surely you know how it has been from of old, ever since man was placed on the earth, that the mirth of the wicked is brief, the joy of the godless lasts but a moment. Though his pride reaches to the heavens and his head touches the clouds, he will perish forever, like his own dung; those who have seen him will say, 'Where is he?' Like a dream he flies away, no more to be found banished like a vision of the night. The eye that saw him will not see him again; his place will look on him no more..." What a vivid description...his spirit flies away leaving his earthly body behind!

Noting further, the words of King Solomon, perhaps the wisest man living in his time, in Ecclesiastes 12:7, we read "...and the dust returns to the ground it came from, and the spirit returns to God who gave it."  When I read all of these words,  I realize that who and what I am is a spirit from God on loan in my earthy body 'tent' and, as a believer, I am destined to return to him in eternity when my time on earth has ended.

In the meantime, Solomon really nails it in verse 13, when he gives us The Bottom Line... "Now all has been heard; here is the conclusion of the matter: Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the whole duty of man."

Today, let each one of us seek to love and fear our God, our Creator, our Abba Father, striving to follow his leading until we join him in Heaven for eternity!