Genesis 3:824 describes the consequences of man's rebellion against God. For you are dust, and you will return to dust.''. Genesis 3:19, CSB: 'You will eat bread by the sweat of your brow until you return to the ground, since you were taken from it.
Brazil’s economy has fallen into a deepening recession, its president is facing impeachment, and a corruption scandal has forestalled any possibility of reform. Popular America’s best pics and videos on the site Dust You Came, and To Dust You Shall Return. IT COULD BE SOMEONE I KNOW. Turn away from sin and be faithful to Christ.’YOU COME FROM DUST, YOU WILL RETURN DUST. We have come to have ashes marked on our foreheads in the sign of the cross and to hear again the words, ‘Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return.
And so, in that old story, God said to the human one, the one we call Adam, that life would be tough and tiring, ‘until you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken you are dust, and to dust you shall return.’Because of that, we see the sign of dust and ashes all about us – of our failures of the hurts we inflict and the hurts we receive of our attempts to play God, of sidelining God and following our own path the ashes and dust that come when we no longer walk with God. That’s certainly how it is with me, and yes, I guess it’s like that for you too. But then we got above ourselves, and we began to play God, making wrong choices and having to wear the consequences.
From Dust You Came And From Dust Free In The
It takes us back to how God would have us be: walking free in the evening breeze, delighting again in the intimacy of God’s love for us. We’re invited to turn away from all those things that consume so much of our energy – that are self-seeking, self-serving – and return to the life that is real life. It is a message of good news. But then, that’s not how it ends. Turn away from sin and be faithful to Christ.’I find it a tough message to hear, perhaps even dismal.
These ashes return us to our Creator who loved us at the beginning, who loves us now, and who will love us for eternity. We can’t take anything out of this world – that is, except for God’s love for us – a love that is so immense, that it transcends even the grave. Someone said, that there are no pockets in a shroud. We return to what it is to be a child of God, to know ourselves treasured and of infinite worth to our Creator.Today points to how it will be at the end of our living on earth. We go back to before we tried to be God, and instead, simply get to be with God. We return to the beginning, before all the wrong choices, before all the hurtful things, and make a fresh start.
The God who created us does not leave us, but is also recreating us, day by day.Lent is a time that encourages us to think about these things. Through Christ, transformation and healing, renewal, forgiveness, new beginnings and second chances are possible. The smaller deaths that we know in our everyday living have within them the seeds of new life. The last event of our lives leads on to something richer – to a renewed, recreated life in Christ.If that is for then, so it is for now. Our mortality is not something to be feared or denied, for in the hope of Christ, death does not have the last word.
Today, we see ourselves “As dying, and see – we are alive … as sorrowful, yet always rejoicing”. Today, we hear God say, “return to me with all your heart” for I am “gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love”. But the cross that we will bear on our foreheads is also a sign of our hope, a sign that God brings life out of dust and ashes, that God brings hope out of despair, joy out of sorrow, life out of death.
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