Definitions

Today we are going to look at several definitions to get us started in the book Journey into Spirit Life. I hope you are benefiting from this. Let's begin by looking at some definitions which we will adhere to throughout this book: body - The body is the container in which our spirit and soul are deposited. It is the physical shell in which we function. Pretty important, huh? God formed the body from dirt and it was lifeless.

soul - The soul is our mind. It contains our emotions, our reasonings and our will. We may think of the soul as the mind or brain. It is our thought process. It defines who we are, our personality. Man became a living soul when the breath of God was breathed into that clay body. Genesis 2:7 says precisely that. And the LORD God formed man [of] the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of fife; and man became a living soul.
spirit - The spirit is the breath of God. It is the spirit that gives life (John 6:63). Without the spirit, there is no life. The spirit is the human spirit breathed into man by God.
This is not the Holy Spirit but the human spirit. When the spirit was breathed into the body of man, man became a living soul. In other words, the body is impregnated by the breath or spirit and the soul is produced. Man then becomes a tri-part being of spirit, soul and body.
flesh - We will refer to flesh as the cooperation between the body and the soul. The body often responds, for example, to the emotions and reasonings of the soul and cooperates to live out the fruit of that reasoning. We call that the will of man.
For example, your body feels tired, your emotions are on edge, you reason that you must have rest, and your body cooperates to lie down and sleep. Cooperation of soul and body can be a normal, good function. Often, however, our emotions and reasonings go astray and veer outside of God's plan for our lives, even into those areas deemed as sin and harmful to man. The body can be quite cooperative in those areas as well!

We'll actually begin the "meat" of the book next week.