The Dust of the Earth!

Job 34

Good morning! This is Pastor Jerry Ingalls from New Castle First Baptist Church and today is Wednesday, February 15.

Today is Ash Wednesday and we begin the 40-day journey of preparation for Holy Week. Every year on this first day of the season of Lent, church leaders call the people to reflect upon life and death, to repent of their sins, and to humble themselves by receiving a visible sign on their foreheads. As church leaders put ash on the forehead of each participant, they say, “From dust you came and from dust you will return.” They say this because God created us from the dust, according to Genesis 2:7, “Then the Lord God formed man of dust from the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being.”

In the same way, it is based on this truth, and ones like it found in Genesis 3:19, that I pray the ancient committal prayer for a Christian at their graveside service, “In the sure and certain hope of the resurrection to eternal life through our Lord Jesus Christ we commend to Almighty God our sister/brother and we commit her/his body to the ground: earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust.”

I invite you to join us in gathering tonight during our weekly prayer service, and do so in a spirit of humility, remembering Elihu’s words in Job 34:12-15:

Surely, God will not act wickedly, and the Almighty will not pervert justice. Who gave Him authority over the earth? And who has laid on Him the whole world? If He should determine to do so, if He should gather to Himself His spirit and His breath, all flesh would perish together, and man would return to dust.

Seize the moment and remember that the God who first breathed His gift of life into the dust, has now, through faith in Jesus Christ, breathed the gift of His Holy Spirit into our mortal bodies so that we may join Him in the resurrection from the dead (Romans 6:5: Philippians 3:10-11; Colossians 2:12f). 

God bless you!

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YOUTUBE:

If you prefer a video, Pastor Jerry reads his devotion on YouTube as well. Click HERE to visit the page.

Videos are posted about a week after the devotion appears in the blog.