Drop everything you are doing and open your eyes. Now, hold out your hand and look at it. Can you see it? We asked this question in part one of this series. Did you answer the question differently this time? In the previous parts of this series, we looked at just what a magnificent creation you are. We used the example of computers to illustrate how your body is a biomechanical machine controlled by a magnificent, bio-digital operating system.

Previously, you learned that your iHuman 1.0 body is a masterpiece of biomechanical engineering capable of incredible things, and filled with more information than you can even imagine! You have learned that your 1.0 operating system is a sophisticated piece of software with many useful apps that power cameras, microphones, speakers and other sensors that help you navigate this physical life. Then you discovered that your biomechanical, software-controlled body comes with its own user’s manual, complete with instructions for every single aspect of your life. You also learned that your human machine qualifies for a free software upgrade that can help you to understand your purpose, your place and what your Creator has in store for you.

And yet we have not even begun to scratch the surface of God’s magnificent creation. We haven’t discussed that the machines operating inside your cells are incredibly complex, thus far eluding the best scientific attempts at replication. We only briefly commented on your DNA, and left out the highly complex messenger RNA—the proteins that amaze scientists—and the structures that protect each of your living cells. Seriously, we barely scratched the surface! Your body hosts 10²¹ bytes of data, and yet there are proteins within each of your 100 trillion cells whose atoms can be folded 10^{97,000,000,000} different ways and only one way is correct! Go ahead and count to 97 billion. I dare you! But that number isn’t 97 billion (97,000,000,000). Rather, it is a 10 with 97 billion zeroes behind it. I did some math, and a 10-point font “0” (smaller than what is printed on this page) written 97 billion times would stretch past the moon! The numbers God is dealing with are simply beyond our capacity as human beings. And yet, even that is still nothing!

So, what is all of this info leading to? In 2007, Steve Jobs of Apple Computer took the stage at Macworld to tell the entire world about his great vision for computers. When he later introduced the iPhone, he made two remarkable quotes. First, he stated that Apple’s products represented the “intersection between the arts and technology,” and then he quoted Alan Kay, saying, “People who are really serious about software should make their own hardware.” Art, technology, hardware and software. Look at your hand again. And I mean really look at it. What do you see? Do you see artistic expression? Do you see technological innovation? What about revolutionary hardware and software? Do art and technology, hardware and software form up out of the mud with no purpose or direction?

That’s right. You have everything you need to inherit the Kingdom of God. It is now yours . . . to lose!

When you look at your hand, do you see a masterpiece? Yes, it’s just a hand, but seriously, look at that thing! You can reach out to the keyboard and tap-tap-tap away for hours on end and watch your thoughts spread out before you. You can use your eyeballs to discern and analyze language, realize you made an error, then tap-tap-tap backwards to correct a misspelled word and correct what was wrong. You can tie your shoes, hug a loved one, turn the pages of a good book. You can even use your hands to perform an Internet search, only to find that this secular world believes every last one of those miraculous things is the result of chance lightning and mud.

Back in 1996, a full decade before the iPhone, a beautiful son was born to my wife and me. He was born under duress and lived only until November 5, 2003. He was just 71⁄2 when he died, and never developed beyond the mental age of 6 months. We spent many years wondering why God would allow that to happen to us and our son. It wasn’t until we accepted our Human OS 2.0 upgrade that we learned what we know now: God has a plan, and it is much bigger than you or I. His plan is so grand that he wants every human being to take part in it (1 Timothy 2:3-4), even the people we have lost, like my own son. God speaks of a time so wonderful that mankind is incapable of even imagining it (1 Corinthians 2:9). It is a time of great peace, in which there will be no more tears and no more suffering (Revelation 21:4).

On a personal level, I understand the point Paul made in 1 Corinthians 2:9. I know I am incapable of fully comprehending the things God has in store for us. From my OS 1.0 perspective, there is no greater reward than to see my beloved son running and playing in God’s Kingdom. What greater reward could there possibly be for a 1.0 sinner such as me? But His future will go even beyond what I can imagine. Right now we have only our iHuman 1.0 interface to work with. Everything we experience, everything we feel, is physical! It is hard to grasp the spirit world in which God has His domain. Even with the Human OS 2.0 HS Edition upgrade (see Part 2 of this series), we aren’t entirely able to imagine life in the world He has planned for us. It is a perfect world. There is no war, suffering, hunger, sadness or heartache, and the inhabitants live in absolute peace.

So, how do we get there?

Okay, let’s run through it again. You are an iHuman 1.0, you have the Human OS 1.0 (the default human operating system), you know about the user’s manual (your Bible), and you have learned about the Human OS 2.0 HS Edition upgrade (the Holy Spirit, given at baptism) that is free to download—provided you first prepare the machine to receive it. With all of these things in place, you’re in!

That’s right. You have everything you need to inherit the Kingdom of God. It is now yours . . . to lose!

Yes, I said it is yours to lose! God has invited you to the wedding supper (Matthew 22:1-14; Revelation 19:7-9). As a member of His Church, you have become betrothed (engaged) to His Glorious Son, Jesus Christ, the One who actually designed and created you (John 1:1-15). Now, if only you could just hide in a cave, shut down your mind and never mess up again! Except that would actually be bad for you. Christ gave us a parable of this kind of hiding in Matthew 25:14-30. Read through it and you will find in your user’s manual that the Creator desires for you to go out into the world and tackle its problems head-on! In order to make difficult decisions, in order for your iHuman machinery to be tested to its fullest capacity, you must bang straight into those challenges that require you to “choose life” (Deuteronomy 30:19). If you do—if you use your new upgrade and “choose life”—then God will open the doors for you to enter into His Kingdom.

The Bible speaks of a coming time of trouble, “The Great Tribulation” as you will hear it called. But there is hope on the other side of that terrible time, and the Bible gives us some important clues regarding it. Many sections of your user’s manual (books like Isaiah, Micah, Malachi, Daniel, Revelation and others) speak of this hope. In one of the most beautiful verses in the Bible, we see a greater glimpse of that future:

“See what great love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are! The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know Him. Dear friends, now we are children of God, and what we will be has not yet been made known. But we know that when Christ appears, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as he is. All who have this hope in Him purify themselves, just as He is pure” (1 John 3:1-3, New International Version, emphasis added throughout).

You shall be like Him. John 4:24 tells you that God is spirit. 1 John 3:2 tells you that you shall be like Him! Since you are not currently spirit, but flesh and blood, what these verses tell you is that there is yet another upgrade available to your system. But this upgrade is not just software. It is also hardware. Yes, there is an option for a 2.0 hardware upgrade, and this one is seriously powerful! It comes complete with a totally new, completely fresh operating system called Spirit OS, which includes the Eternal Life app! With your new hardware and the Spirit OS upgrade installed, you are qualified to take control of the ultimate super computer: Rather than a physical human body, this baby is a spirit body, and it is driven entirely by God’s Holy Spirit.

To be like God! How many people have muttered this under their breath without actually considering what it means? To have the power to make worlds and destroy kingdoms? Only God has the character to do such things in a manner that is fair to all members of His creation (even if they don’t think so). And only a person operating with the character of God should ever qualify to receive such power. You see, this is why you must take your incredible machine on its journey. You must demonstrate that your iHuman 1.0 hardware is willing to serve God, that your Human OS 1.0 has read the user’s manual and that the combined system is prepared to take on the Human OS 2.0 HS Edition software upgrade. Only then will you qualify to execute your new programming in a concerted effort to demonstrate to God that you are a worthy candidate for the Eternal Life app.

You may not know it, but you are a Beta tester! Being called by God, either having grown up in the Church or called on your own, you have been steadily marching toward this point. Now you are ready to enter the final stages, clear out the bugs and restore your OS so that you, too, can enter into His Kingdom and take your new position as a 2.0 being running the Spirit OS with the Eternal Life app. Of this, 1 Corinthians 15:52 says: “In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump: for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed.”

Revelation 20:4-5 speaks of a “first resurrection,” a time when the called and chosen of this age will be transformed into eternal spirit beings. These beings are what we are talking about. They are the future you and me; majestic, powerful beings transformed with spiritual machine upgrades and the absolutely perfect Spirit OS operating system guided purposefully by our wonderful Creator!

Finally, it is time to take one last look at your hand, and read through Hebrews 11. The great iHuman “machines” listed in that chapter made very good use of their hardware and software, even though they could not see many of the things that you and I can see through the use of science and technology. They had no access to microscopes, computers, the Internet or cellphones. They had to take the word of their Creator with absolute confidence that what He said was true. Even so, there’s a whole spiritual realm out there that we can’t see, as we discussed. But we have the assurance of God’s Word. Your user’s manual is truth, the very word of God who will not lie to you (Titus 1:2; Hebrews 6:18)!

To conclude this series, we must remember that God’s Spirit inspired King David to say, “You were fearfully and wonderfully made” (Psalm 139:14). Your body is a marvel of biomechanical engineering. Your combined DNA stores 10²¹ gigabytes of data, not including a whole host of other complex structures residing in each of your cells. And the tiny, molecular machines operating inside you defy logic with their almost-human personalities. So, remember this: You are beautiful, you are intelligent, you are capable. “You were fearfully and wonderfully made.”

Now, are you ready for some upgrades?