TO DUST YOU WILL RETURN - WE ARE GOING TO DIE

Remember that you are dust, and unto dust shall return. Although in creating mankind, God has lifted us up from our lowly origin, we are cautioned against pride.

All our earthly goods are destined to be lost. Everything we have, all our worldly possessions, will one day turn to dust, just as the great ancient empires of Egypt and

Babylon, Greece and Rome have crumbled. Even before then, time, age, illness and “doctor’s order” can take away our taste for our best food and drink, or our ability to enjoy best of our pleasure.

More to the point, one day our bodies will fail and die. Of course, no one goes so far as to deny that death is a real thing. Death does happen…… to other people.

Well, yes , it will happen to us, too, sooner or later. The fact that we are living into our late seventies and early eighties is no guarantee that you will celebrate your next birthday in the material world.

Stretch your life out as long as technology makes possible, and even there are the furthest reach of medicine, Death is still waiting for you.

There is no shutting off the mortality gene. In the long run, whether you are wise or a fool you share the same fate.

You will come face to face with death, death that make a mockery of so many of our human pretentions, desires and achievements. You are dust and dust you shall return.

“By the sweat of your brow you will eat your food until you return to the ground, since from it you were taken; for dust you are and to dust you will return.”(Genesis 3:19 NIV).

The point is not to live in fear or death, for that is to live in fear of life. Rather, the point is to realize the opportunity purchased to us by Christ’s sacrifice.

The point is to live in the recognition that now is the only time we have to repent and reform our lives, to order our priorities according to that recognition.

Only when we give death its full and proper immanence can we realize the immediacy of the Gospel message and begin to live it authentically – in a sense. “to live like we are dying.

Therefore we advice our Church Leaders
as emphasized earlier, that a major outcome of the uniqueness of man by creation is the responsibility of leadership. And the most profound of all is the leadership in the household of God.

Men and women alike have been called to different strata’s of the church leadership to guide her unto fulling her duty of being the conscience of the society.

However, and unfortunately, the church continues to be sidetracked by earthly lust and material acquisition. She has replaced the oil boom and cash crops of the 70s and

80s. her leaders continue to fatten themselves with the resource ment for the expansion of God’s kingdom at the detriment of the souls of her members.

Some subject members to humiliating practices and observances that they

themselves are not willing to partake of the gospel of Christ has been so watered down that church services are now mere feel good and entertainment gatherings.

The need of church CEOs- Church preneurs, has been placed over the value of the souls of members and God is watching.

We therefore charge and remind all church leaders at all levels that we are nothing but dust. Apart from our saved soul and those we won for and those we won Christ, we will be striped of all other possessions and acquisitions and left bay to vanish like the dust.

TO TRADITIONAL LEADERS:
The value and life of a people are embedded in their culture and traditions. So to be called to defend, protect and uphold such traditions is a call for the sustenance and security of the people’s future.

So we appreciate and respect the position of our traditional leaders at all levels. But we must warn that the ungodly and untraditional disposition of some who

occupy this prestigious position is posing a great risk to the future of our existence as a people. I am yet to understand how a traditional ruler who lives thousands of miles, some even continents, away from

their communities could effectively be a custodian, defender of the people’s traditions and oversee the daily maintenance of law and order in the community.

When a traditional ruler openly or behaviorally favors one political party against the other and or sells his community for money or other material acquisitions, he

loses the trust and respect of his subject and destroys the peace in his community. The selfish desires of our traditional leaders which gave birth to the one kitchen one

autonomous community system, particularly in our part of igbo land, has succeeded in dividing us and destroying our cultural and traditional heritage.

We therefore advice our traditional leaders to remember that they are nothing but dust. That a time will come when the only thing left of them will be the traditional and cultural legacies they left during their reign.

CONCLUSION:
God could have chosen to create humans in any way he desired. However, scripture records way he did create – using both natural material (dust) and supernatural power to give humans a unique place in the cosmos.

The recipe of dust of the earth + God’s breath emphasizes the supernatural power of God and the fragile nature of humanity. All of life, its unanswered questions and its passions, its joy and its frustration, come from God.

Human life is completely dependent upon God, and, as a result, humans are called to worship the lord and to serve him only.

The earth is just a tiny speck of dust in the universe. Man is a tiny speck of dust on earth, almost nothing. Maybe a millionth tinier dust in the universe.

Despite being just a tiny speck of atom, man never stops boasting being just tiny we behave, act and think as though we are center of the universe especially in dealing with fellow men.

It may be humbling a thought to consider that man is actually nothing but a dust with a life of breath in it.

But with just a tiny achievement, with just little riches and possessions, with only a car or a mansion and behaves with an overweening pride.

Forgetting the stark reality and fact, that with just one snap of time, one accident or one illness or disease, everything will be nothing and he returns to dust where he once came from.

You put a lot of trouble and effort into life. But what is the point, what dividends does it pay? We are here today and gone tomorrow in a world that goes on and on and on. Life is full of many challenges and crises.

I doubt how many of us (including me) will think to live and breathe fresh air every day is a curse of gratitude by itself. None of us are issued with a renewable ticket for this life. For life is very fragile and totally unpredictable.

I am here today, I am gone tomorrow. And all that I have done will just be a mere book at the most in the archive of book piled under the billions of book in the archive of book throughout time.

The world was there before we took our first unsteady steps upon it, and it is likely still to be there when we have taken our last faltering steps.

Whatever our abilities, whatever our achievements, we remain, in the words of hymn, “frail children of dust and feeble as frail”.

This massage is a reminder to bow down before the creator in deep humility, acknowledging the truth that we live because of that creator.

While it is a good thing to be active, hardworking and diligent in order to excel in life, we must understand that our struggles are not to be “do or die”.

There is absolutely nothing ahead of us that is worth dying for. Our labor and toiling should not be made to maim or harm, but encourage others.

We must run away from whatever would make others weep or suffer.we must live our life knowing fully well that “we are nothing But Dust And To Dust We Will Surely Return.

Shalom…..