Genesis 2:7 And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being.

Man became a living being when God gave him breath.  Our country has been seeing utter chaos over the past few months because of an all-out attack on man’s ability to breath.  As a close family friend pointed out recently, COVID 19 which is a disease that attacks the respiratory system; where the lungs can become inflamed, making it tough for you to breathe.  While nearly two weeks ago a Police officer in Minnesota decided to take away the breath of George Floyd by kneeling on his neck for over 9 mins.  Isn’t it interesting that the very thing that God gave man to live, these two enemies have successfully attacked and taken breath away, causing death.  Well it shouldn’t be, because Jesus told us that “The thief does not come except to steal, and to kill, and to destroy (John 10:10).”

To breathe, by definition is to take air into the lungs and then expel it.  So, taking in air; then blowing it out.  This is exactly what Jesus told us to do when He told the disciples “Follow Me, and I will make you fishers of men (Matt 4:19);” to take air in; spiritually breathing in what Jesus taught us about living as a Christian.  Then He said “Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations;” to blow it out; give to others what it is we learned from Christ.  This is the process of discipleship, that Jesus created with the original 12 and what the church was supposed to come.  I intentionally said supposed to, because I believe that much of the chaos, we are living thru now is exposing that the church is not where Jesus desired for us to be in this discipleship process.

The systematic racism that we are seeing uncovered around the impact of COVID 19, incidents of blatant racism leading up to the murder of George Floyd; has finally been seen for what it is and we cannot remain silent.  Although we are seeing a series of peaceful protest and some ugly violent scenes of rioting and looting; the ugliest scenes may have come from within the kingdom of God, the Church.  Sunday mornings prior to the pandemic season was the most segregated time all over the world.  Due to this separation of people and ethnicity; the people of God are living completely different lives from one another.

The evangelical church is often being manipulated into become more and more political all the time, and many people believe that the Evangelical Church is now its own political party.  The problem with all of this happening is that the church is not at all UNIFIED.  When the Church is not UNIFIED it cannot accomplish all that God has desired for it (US) to do.  Matt 12:25 Every kingdom divided against itself is brought to desolation, and every city or house divided against itself will not stand.  Our nation is being brought to desolation, because the kingdom is divided against itself.  We must find a way to hear each other; Proverbs 1:5 tells us A wise man will hear and increase learning, And a man of understanding will attain wise counsel.  But we also have to listen to Jesus; in Genesis God was talking to himself (God, Jesus & Holy Spirit) when He said “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness.”  God made the church and we need to remember how He made us:

1. We’re All from The Same Dirt: And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground. Dirt is dirt and since we are all of dirt, none of us deserve to be followers of Christ.  God formed us from the dirt because we were a mess and we were all far from perfect.  But we must go back and realize that all of that dirt was the very same.  We should all learn to treat each other the same because God did not form us from different materials but from the dust of the ground.  God did not discriminate during formation nor does He want the Church to do so now.
2. We Breathe the Same Air: breathed into his nostrils the breath of life. God breathed His Spirit into all of us, not just some of us.  We all have been given the breath of life, so that He would be able to live, move and love His children freely all around the world.  We are all fueled by the same Spirit; “There are diversities of gifts, but the same Spirit (1 Cor 12:4).”  If we are all from the same dirt and breath the same air why are we living such different lives.
3. We Once Were Dead but Now We’re Alive: and man became a living being. It was not until God breathed into man, that he came alive.  Which means that prior to His breath, the man God formed was not alive, or dead.  Until we met Jesus and accepted His love for us, we were dead in our sins.  That was the same position for all of us.  Not one person currently a believer of Jesus in the Church was formed by God alive.  We each have the same experience after meeting God for ourselves, we had to believe in Jesus.  While the way we were saved was not the same, the process of salvation was.  We once were lost, then Jesus found us.  So, it is clear that everything about our Christian lives is the same, we all in the Church have more in common that we think.  Let’s work with what we know then develop by listening and learning from each other, all those things that we don’t know.  We’re all living now, let us live in Christ together

To the church; since Jesus died and was raised from the dead; we are all in the same gang.  I used the word gang on purpose; because the word gang is defined as “an organized group of criminals.”  Jesus was persecuted because He and His disciples were deemed by the High Priest and Romans to be criminals.  We aligned with that criminal, because He loved us better than any person ever could.  We’re in this together but we must learn how to listen to each other, appreciate our different perspectives and honor our courage to love those who are nothing like ourselves.  Will You Try Today?  Don’t worry Jesus is ready to help us.