This is an old post pulled from my Facebook notes.
A breath. Such a simple thing that we take for granted every day,
but when we really think about it has such significance. Without it,
there is no life. It is the first thing we do when we live, and the
last thing we do when we die. The average human in a lifetime will take
approximately 672,769,000 breaths! Yet every one of these is more
precious than gold. In Genesis, the first book of the Bible, God shows
us the significance of breath in His creation of Adam the first man.
“then the Lord God formed the man of dust from the ground and breathed
into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living
creature”(Genesis 2:7 ESV). At first our first ancestor Adam, and later
his wife Eve, used this amazing gift of breath to praise God for His
awesome works and fellowship with Him daily, but one day they chose to
break God’s rule, and ever since that fateful day, man has used this
gift of breath, not to bless God, but to curse Him. We curse Him by
placing things, it doesn’t matter what, above the One who made them in
our hearts. And doing that allows all the other sins to come about. We
steal because we place the value of the item above the command that God
gave us to not steal. We lie because we value the opinions of others
more than the law of God. We kill because we care more about what we
want than the breath that God gave that person. God requires perfection
out of the people He created, but man cannot do this, we can’t achieve
it because we love ourselves more than God; and so every human that has
ever lived from Adam to you and I, is under the judgment of God: “for
all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God”(Romans 3:23 ESV).
God has also within the law He gave us, placed the penalty for breaking
it—death. “For the wages of sin is death” (Romans 6:23a ESV). Not only
a physical death, but there will come a spiritual one as well. “But as
for the cowardly, the faithless, the detestable, as for murderers, the
sexually immoral, sorcerers, idolaters, and all liars, their portion
will be in the lake that burns with fire and sulfur, which is the second
death” (Revelation 21:8 ESV). God must judge. Yes, He loves us
perfectly, but He also is perfectly just and that justice demands that
innocent blood be shed to pay for sin. However, not a single human on
earth could ever even qualify to be that sacrifice even if one could be
convinced of the necessity of shedding his blood for all. So we are
left without hope. Until we finish the rest of Romans 6:23: “For the
wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in
Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 6:23 ESV). God came into this world, not
as the conquering king that He is, but as a poor carpenter’s son, not
to the royal palace, but to a humble cave. Not to comfortable cradle
followed by a life of luxury, but to straw-filled manger and a life of
drudgery, disrespect, pain, and hard work. He as God was entirely
perfect, fulfilling the law of God His Father. He walked everywhere
preaching and teaching and healing those who were sick and believed that
He could save them, proving that He was God. But instead of welcoming
Him and believing in Him, they hated and betrayed Him. Jesus was
arrested on false charges, taken to a phony trial—a mockery of
justice—and condemned Him to death. The mob hung Him on the cross, but
they did not kill Him, His Father did. “Yet, it was the Lord's will to
crush him with suffering” (Isaiah 53:10 GW). The death of the Son,
Jesus, brought a smile to His Father’s face, because Jesus had become
the very embodiment of our sin. “He himself bore our sins in his body
on the tree, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. By his
wounds you have been healed” (1 Peter 2:24 ESV). Jesus when He was on
the cross was the most disgusting, defiled, awful man that ever lived.
All the sins ever committed in the vast story of humanity: past,
present, and future were laid upon the account of Jesus and, with the
same breath that He used to create life in us, He gave it up to redeem
us. Listen friend, When Jesus died on that tree, He did it for you.
You are a sinner, plain and simple. You have lied, cheated, stolen.
You have lusted, hated, coveted. You have used the breath that God
graciously gave you to curse His holy and matchless name. You have and
so have I. You are under the death penalty of a perfect God. But God
did not leave you without hope, He gave you His Son. Will you today
take the free gift of life and freedom offered to you by God? All He
requires in exchange is your life. Surrender to God! Turn your back on
your old life. Leave behind the filth of sin. Allow God to cleanse
you and make you pure so that you can stand before God; and give Him
everything that you have and are. Give to Him your time, your energy,
your money, because they were never actually yours! You have nothing
apart from Him. Give God your breath back, you owe Him!
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