There is another category.Some things are not of dirt and not of God.Yesterday, I said, that the things of this world are all just dirt and that the things of God are things of His Spirit, of His Life.There is another category, though. It includes the things that are not of dirt and not of God.

This is the spiritual side of man. The part that is not of dirt, yet bears the broken image of God. Without Christ, the spiritual side of man exists, but it exists apart from God. It exists, but it is dead. 
That is to say, it is separated from God, and in the normal course of things, our individual human spirit remains forever separated from the God with whom it was originally intended to have fellowship. It is dead. Man was made in the image and likeness of God, but at the fall, when our forbearer, Adam, sinned, all mankind became separated from God. 
We see this initially in Adam's own life in that when he sinned he tried to hide himself from God. He even made fig-leaf coverings for himself to aid in covering his nakedness before God.

...she [Eve] took from its fruit and ate; and she gave also to her husband [Adam] with her, and he ate. Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loin coverings.
      They heard the sound of the LORD God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the LORD God among the trees of the garden. Then the LORD God called to the man, and said to him, “Where are you?” He said, “I heard the sound of You in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; so I hid myself.” Gen. 3:6-10

Eating of the forbidden fruit was the beginning of sin on this earth. It brought death, first in the form of spiritual death which is separation form God. This spiritual death is ours, inherited from our forbearers since the fall. Then, sin also brought physical death, not only to all mankind, but also to all living things on this earth from that time onward. Adam and Eve eventually died physically. Universal bondage to physical death is also ours by inheritance since that day.

The Bible tells us that the wages of sin is death, but, it says that the free gift of God is eternal life through Christ Jesus our Lord. We see from our passage above that Adam and Eve sinned and with sin came death. God had warned Adam, "...from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat from it you will surely die.” Yet, Adam sinned by eating of the forbidden fruit and with sin came death, spiritual as well as physical. That very day, he became dead to God. Their fellowship had been broken. He now feared and sought to hide from God. And physical death began to set-in as well.

The wages of sin is death. We see that. That is the human condition. Yet, the verse goes on to say that the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

What happened? What changed? What made it possible for dead and dying sinful man to come to life? The answer is,

God intervened.

In Genesis Three, God spelled out some of the nature of the curse that man brought upon himself. The woman would bear children with much pain, the man would eat bread by the sweat of his brow. The serpent, through whom Eve was deceived would crawl on its belly and eat the dust of the earth.

God also promised to overturn the slavery to death that sin had brought. He told the serpent that the seed of the woman would crush the serpent on its head, while he, the serpent merely would bruise Him on His Heel. God promised to send a Savior. Jesus Christ is that Savior. He crushed the serpent on his head. He rendered the serpent powerless. He struck the death blow upon its head. 

How did He do this? He did this by dying in our place on the cross. Jesus, who knew no sin and had no inheritance of our slavery to death, took our sin upon Himself when He died on the cross. Death was master over us through our sin, yet when Jesus died bearing our sin, He freed us from our subjection to both sin and death. That is, he freed all those who would ever become His. He died on the cross because He took our sin upon Himself. Yet on the third day, He rose from the dead! He was not contained by death, but He rose again. He was bruised on His heel as he dealt  the death blow to the head of the serpent, as He wrested power over us from the devil.

Everything on this earth is made of this earth. It is dirt. Yet the Spirit of God lives in those who belong to Jesus Christ. There is also an evil spirit, a dead spirit which controls the lives of humankind. All people born of this earth are spiritually aligned with this evil spirit. We are all born sinners separated form God. We are all born sinners, dead in our sins and slaves of death in our bodies.

Yet God has reached down in time and space to bring about victory over death, deliverance from sin and death. He has done this in His Son Jesus Christ who died to pay for our sins, and rose to assure our justification. Anyone who turns from his or her sin and comes to Christ through faith will find forgiveness and eternal life as a result of what Christ has done on their behalf.

You and I know about sin. From our earliest days it masters us. We lie, we cheat, we envy, we lust, we steal, we seek our own good over the good of others, we covet. Our lives are filled with greed and self-indulgence. Many of us fornicate and indulge in all kinds of immorality. Yet, for the most part we try to hide our own nakedness and try to believe it when we say that we are good people. 

Jesus' message to us is, Repent! "Repent," He says, "for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand."

The Bible says, "as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become Sons of God."

Jesus says that your religion will not save you. In order to enter into eternal life you must be born from above, "you must be be born again!"

Have you repented? Have you truly received Christ? Have you been born from above?

Jesus says, "If anyone wishes to come after Me he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow Me.

Be intentional!

Turn form your sin and follow Christ!