"The spirit returns to God," yet, our body "sleeps in Jesus." Scripure does not lie, we sleep IN Jesus. Does this sound like....
...when Paul says, 'To be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord.'
Jacob wrestled with an Angel, who was God.
Daniel in the lion's den was preserved, thanks to an Angel shutting up the lion's mouth.
When our spirit returns to God, per Ecclesiastes 12, what does this mean ?
When we are to love the Lord with our mind, soul, heart, strength, the part about loving God with our 'soul' is our 'spirit.'
We are to, therefore, Love God with this 'part' of us. Does this make sense? This is not a 'breath' part or a non-tangible part, but a very real and tangible part. Or, else what? Jesus would not have replied to Love Him with all our.....
Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind.
Our mind gives us head knowledge, which we keep inside our brain, but our HEART is what accepts Christ. OH, I know, Scripture never says 'accept Christ with your heart!' But you do, don't you
Sure, it's THE HEART that Christ makes change from stone to flesh, as Ezekiel says. We become a living soul when God gives us OUR 'heart,' and, keep in mind, some might confuse this with the organ that beats life in us. Noooooo. That's not it. It's more than that, think of a different 'beat' inside of us, and, using your OWN mind won't get you to understand either. YOU must use 'the mind of Christ.'
We don't have the mind of God, His thoughts are not ours, His ways are not ours, way beyond us, right
But, God says, through His inspiration writings of apostle Paul, 'But we have THE MIND OF CHRIST.'
THIS spiritualizes OUR whole being, our spirit at ONE with His Spirit and ONCE we die we SLEEP in Jesus, we are with Him and, like is said in the opening post, you are WITHIN the arms of an Angel, who is Christ Jesus our Lord
Is this making any sense
Nate's got it. Perhaps, too, I was playing a little Devil's Advocate for those who want to THINK we are dead in the ground asleep and UNAWARE of anything with our 'minds of Christ.' This is just not so. ONcE we HAVE accepted Christ, the VEIL has been raised, the CURSE was broken by 'the cross.' WE SLEEP NO MORE in the dictionary definition of sleep and what we ALL DO nightly on planet Earth for 7-10 hours a day. LIFE will be different when we die, we do NOT just sleep, we SLEEP in Jesus. It's a beautiful thing, really, God gave us all so much inside our heads for HOPE once we die, and, that hope is in being with Him the moment we die.
So, IF we, which is our spirits, are absent from the body the MOMENT we die, what is that telling you when we are then present with the Lord? Don't OVERthink it. The answer is sooooooo simple. WE ARE WITH JESUS, 'sleeping.' We are NOT 'dead in Jesus,' we are 'sleeping' and 'sleeeping' in this case means being with the Lord, just like sleeping in today's terms means eyes closed, NOT dead.