Penny Catechism; The Soul.

 is this likeness to God in  your body or in your soul?   This likeness to God is chiefly in my soul.

How is your soul like to God?   My soul is like to God because it is a spirit and can never die.

I have a 4 year old grandson.  He plays a game on the computer where he guides a running figure to a destination, he has a button to press on a handset to make it run, and another to make the figure jump onto ledges.    Now unless these buttons are pressed then nothing will happen, for the computer although it has within it all the parts necessary to do the job, it needs some intervention from the outside to make it act - my grandson.    The human body is like that.   When I raise my arm it is because some part of the brain has sent a message through the body instructing the arm to rise.    But that will never happen unless there is something like my grandson pressing that part of the brain to make it act.   My Grandson just takes it for granted he can do it.   So there is something else in the human body which directs things, it is called his soul.   Now you cannot see the soul, but we know it is there.    We all know we have a soul directing things.   When a body is dead it is like a turned off computer, it can do nothing.

The great thing is I know I have a soul which is different from other souls and responds in different ways from other souls.    I know that 'I am' and to myself I am the greatest wonder on the world.   I am not just another  part of my body, I can think, can plan, can remember can play computers.   Other souls that I meet can build computers, paint beautiful pictures, sing, act, so  so many things I cannot do.   But what happens when I and they die.    Well I kept a body alive for many years so can 'I' exist outside my body.     Yes the 'I', my soul, it can.      It is going to exist for all time with  the One who created it, God.    I have forever to look forward to, an eternal life.

We can see then that the body cannot exist without an eternal soul.   When the 'I' is present the body begins to flourish and grow.   Mothers expecting babies can see it in a scan and because of the presence of  a soul it grows every time the mother sees the scan.    This little human, yes human, is like to God because it has a immortal soul.   It is precious in the eyes of God, who has created it to love him in this world and to be happy with h in the next.   How wonderful is our God.  

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