February 13, 2023
Reading: Genesis 2:4-25
Focus: Genesis 2:7 – Then the Lord God formed a man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life and the man became a living being.
Father, Thank you for creating man in Your Image. Thank You for caring enough to make us with Your own hands. Open our eyes so that we can understand just how unique we are on this planet. Open our hearts to see what You want us to see in Your word today. In Jesus name. Amen.
Before I begin, I would like to let you know that I will be posting new blogs every Monday and Thursday. Thank you for reading. I look forward to ‘talking’ with you.
NOTE: Check out this link for some discussion on the names of Jesus and tell me what You think. Thank you. https://bringingjesusn2focus.com/notes-no-matter-the-language-its-still-jesus/
Now, to today’s blog.
Have you ever noticed the pride of someone when they make something, whether it be for someone else or for themselves. There is a certain sense of joy and accomplishment when a design comes together. It could be a building, a dress, a quilt, a blog; anything we make using our skills and our hands, there is a sense of pride and ownership. We put something of ourselves into the creating. When we receive a handmade gift from someone – that person put themselves into the gift by handmaking it and lets us know that they feel we are important enough to receive their handmade gift. God has done the same in His creation of humans. I used to make jewelry and wreaths for different holidays. I put a lot of thought into my pieces. I planned color, layout, trim ribbons, beads, everything to complete the piece. When I sold it, it felt like I was giving away a piece of myself. It had become mine because I made it.
That is how God feels about us. We are His. The ones He made with His own hands. Have you ever wondered why God did not just call man into existence like he did the earth and all that was on it? Can you believe that He wanted to create man with His own hands, in His own image? God is the ultimate sculptor. He planned color, size, gender. He designed the blood vessels, the oxygen exchange between our lungs and our blood. He designed a heart that pumps fresh blood into our arteries which run through our bodies and the veins which carry it back to the heart to be pumped into the lungs for more oxygen. He designed all the organs to work together to make the body function properly. That makes us unique in all creation. We were formed by the hands of God Himself. We have His fingerprints upon us. He made man exactly the way He had planned.
Not only did God create man with His own hands, He took part of the earth to make Man, so that he was as much a part of earth as all other living creatures. And then, He did something He did not do with any other creature. He breathed life into him making him a living soul. Our very breath is from God. If God hadn’t breathed life into him, Adam would have been a clay statue. He would not have moved, or spoke, or thought or anything else that we do without thinking. It wasn’t until God used His divine breath to breathe life into him that Man became a living creature with a soul of God’s making. We are God’s living, breathing creation. Without breath, we are just clay figurines. Lifeless and immobile. Ok, I know this is going to sound a little gross, but have you ever been to a funeral and touched the deceased? They feel like cold clay, but that is what the dead body is. It is a clay shell that had been inhabited by the living soul that God had breathed into them. As fallen man, we are lifeless spiritually. With His breath in our lungs, we are alive, and our response should be to praise God with that breath.
How long can you hold your breath? Give it a try. Not long, right? When a man stops breathing, he dies. There are times that he can be resuscitated. When EMTs are working on someone who is not breathing, not only do they work to get air into the lungs but they also work to make the heart beat again. Without a heartbeat, oxygen cannot travel to and from the lungs and then to the other organs of the body. If you are breathing with a heartbeat and your organs fail, you don’t die immediately, but you will die. You must breathe and your heart must beat or you will die. They both have to be working for a person to live. When emergency personnel arrive, they can breathe for him with the use of equipment that will help a person breathe, but they cannot personally breathe for him to stay alive. There are machines that can breathe for you when you can’t breathe on your own, but if that machine is turned off, you will die. Without breath, we simply can’t live.
Spiritually we cannot breathe. We are dead in our sins. There is no filling of the ‘lungs’ of our spirit without the breath of God. There are no machines, no will to survive, nothing that can make us breathe spiritually. Someone else cannot spiritually breathe for us, just as someone else’s salvation cannot get us into heaven. We can’t be prayed into heaven after our death. The choice must be made by each of us.
Jesus breathes spiritual life back into us when we believe that He died for us and rose again on the third day. When we acknowledge that without the forgiveness of our sins and belief in Jesus, as the Son of the Living God, new live is breathed into our spiritual ‘lungs’. Through Christ we are spiritually revived and made spiritually living creatures. We are new, renewed by the breath of the Holy Spirit. We will live as God intended. We will live with Him eternally. Our human bodies will die but our reborn spirits will return to God to live as we were intended to live.
God gave the man a responsibility. He was to work the Garden of Eden and take care of it. In return he would walk and talk with God daily. Adam was given the responsibility to name all creatures on earth. Whatever Adam said their name was, it stuck. And we have called animals by those names ever since creation. But one thing was missing. Every animal had a mate. Every animal had another to live its life with. Except Adam. This tells me that God did not make Eve until after Adam had named all creatures and none were found to suitable to help him. Poor guy. I mean really, we all need someone, right?
So, God caused Adam to sleep. He opened his side and took a rib bone from Adam. Around that rib bone, God fashioned woman. She had the same organs, and blood vessels and every thing else that Adam had, except she was female. God brought her to Adam. Adam was grateful for his wife. She was part of him. God performed the first wedding right there in the Garden of Eden. The Father brought the Bride to the Groom. When Jesus returns to collect His church, we will be the pure Bride that sits down at the wedding supper of The Lamb. We, as Christians, are part of the family of God. We are His children.
It is God’s breath in our lungs. We should use that breath to praise Him. We are His creation. He alone gives us life. He is not willing to let even one of us be separated from Him. That is why Jesus came. Life everlasting is our choice.
Are you breathing?
Father God, Thank You for Your breath in my lungs. Help me to use it to sing Your praises. Help me to speak of You and of Jesus to others. Baruch HaShem Adonai (Hebrew for) Blessed be the Name of the Lord. Amen
Food for Thought
- How does it make you feel to know that God made man, and you, with His own hands?
- Why do you think God chose to breathe His breath into the created man’s lungs?
- Why do you think God used one of Adam’s ribs to make Eve?
- Have you ever made something for yourself or someone else? How did that make you feel?
- Do you believe in evolution or creation? Why?
