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06.17.09 Pastor's Insights

He has breathed life on me

To heal, to mend, to comfort.

As people, we are familiar with frustration. We get frustrated with ourselves, with others and with circumstances. But God is never frustrated with us. In fact, He absolutely loves us, no matter what!

Then, not only does He absolutely love us, but His love is so powerful that He is moved by it. And when we experience it, we are also moved by it. And then we realize that this love of God will make us do things that look crazy to the world.

We can look at God’s greatest act of love toward us- Jesus. Jesus was God’s very own son, God made flesh, perfect in every way, without sin. Yet the sole purpose of Jesus’ life was to die for us, to save us. God loved us so much that He sent His son to die for all of humankind! Who else would have even thought that the death of one man could save the world? But it did. Crazy. Insane. Right?

We, as Christian City Church, Greensboro, know that our call is written in the words of Isaiah 61:1-4.

“The Spirit of the Sovereign Lord is upon me,
      for the Lord has anointed me
      to bring good news to the poor.
   He has sent me to comfort the brokenhearted
      and to proclaim that captives will be released
      and prisoners will be freed.
He has sent me to tell those who mourn
      that the time of the Lord’s favor has come,
      and with it, the day of God’s anger against their enemies.
To all who mourn in Israel,
      he will give a crown of beauty for ashes,
   a joyous blessing instead of mourning,
      festive praise instead of despair.
   In their righteousness, they will be like great oaks
      that the Lord has planted for his own glory.
 They will rebuild the ancient ruins,
      repairing cities destroyed long ago.
   They will revive them,
      though they have been deserted for many generations.” (NLT)

The very first words of this passage: “The Spirit of the Sovereign Lord is upon me,” are literally translated as, “the breath of God is upon me.” And breath—breath is life. What is the first thing that we do when we realize that someone in unconscious? We check to see if they are breathing, because we know that breath is at the core of our being. If we do not have breath, we are not alive. God breathes life into us. “He breathed the breath of life into the man’s nostrils, and the man became a living person” (Gen. 2:7 NLT). We know that when the breath of God is upon us, that the life of God is upon us.

So we read on. Why is the breath of God upon us? Why is life breathed into us?

So that we can live the way we were meant to. So that we can bring good news to the poor, comfort the brokenhearted, release captives, set prisoners free, bring favor and joyous blessing to those who mourn, replace despair with festive praise. So that we can rebuild, repair and revive that which has been torn apart. We have been given life so that we can give life!

We know that the poor, the brokenhearted, the captives, the prisoners and the mourners are not to be taken at face value. “The poor” does not necessarily mean the man on the street corner, or the country of India, or those who have lost their jobs. “The poor” is the poor in spirit. It is possible to gain the whole world, yet lose your own soul (Mark 8:36 NLT).

And we know that we once were, and still are, these poor, brokenhearted captives. That we all, as human beings, continuously need comfort and rebuilding. And God does not sit in heaven and breathe on us when we need comfort; He sends people to comfort people. Just as He sent Jesus to save the world, so have each of us been sent to comfort those around us. And this is how it’s supposed to be; people are supposed to need other people to comfort them. The brokenhearted don’t need just anyone to speak into their lives. They need those whose hearts have also been broken.

 

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