"And now I ask, can ye say aught of yourselves? I answer you, Nay. Ye cannot say that ye are even as much as the dust of the earth; yet ye were created of the dust of the earth; but behold, it belongeth to him who created you."
Mosiah 2:25
It sounds pretty harsh for someone to say that you are less than the dust, right? It seems to be another way of saying we're worthless, pointless, that we should just give up and die. But that isn't King Benjamin's message here... or God's. In fact, I think dust is painted in a pretty bad light here. :)
Today in my Sunday School class someone asked about the concept of "original sin," and I was explaining that we don't believe that we come to the Earth already burdened with sin. We are born innocent, and we will only be responsible for our own sins, not anyone else's... including Adam's. And so she asked, if we aren't burdened with sin from the beginning, why do we need Christ?
It's a good question. Why do we need to be saved? And the answer is that we sin. We're fallible. We don't need "original" sin to mess things up for us; we do it quite well ourselves. And Christ provides us a chance to try again... to repent, to change, to have space to learn, rather than failing the moment we first cross that line into evil. He suffered for us so that we could be saved from ourselves, and from that troublesome death stuff too. :)
The fact is that we all fall short, and God knew that we would, and he made a plan so that we could be saved anyway. Dust apparently doesn't really go in for a lot of rebellion like we do. So, in that way, we are less. But it doesn't make us worthless... in fact, we are worth everything to God. We were worth the sacrifice that Christ made, and worth being saved. We are worth the creation. We are worth all of the effort involved in all of human history... all of God's plan. All of this messy world is part of his plan to allow us choice, to help us learn to be like him, and save us even though we all have some issues. :) Today, let's be more like our friend the dust, recognizing our weaknesses and our need to change, and choosing to belong to our Creator.
Mosiah 2:25
It sounds pretty harsh for someone to say that you are less than the dust, right? It seems to be another way of saying we're worthless, pointless, that we should just give up and die. But that isn't King Benjamin's message here... or God's. In fact, I think dust is painted in a pretty bad light here. :)
Today in my Sunday School class someone asked about the concept of "original sin," and I was explaining that we don't believe that we come to the Earth already burdened with sin. We are born innocent, and we will only be responsible for our own sins, not anyone else's... including Adam's. And so she asked, if we aren't burdened with sin from the beginning, why do we need Christ?
It's a good question. Why do we need to be saved? And the answer is that we sin. We're fallible. We don't need "original" sin to mess things up for us; we do it quite well ourselves. And Christ provides us a chance to try again... to repent, to change, to have space to learn, rather than failing the moment we first cross that line into evil. He suffered for us so that we could be saved from ourselves, and from that troublesome death stuff too. :)
The fact is that we all fall short, and God knew that we would, and he made a plan so that we could be saved anyway. Dust apparently doesn't really go in for a lot of rebellion like we do. So, in that way, we are less. But it doesn't make us worthless... in fact, we are worth everything to God. We were worth the sacrifice that Christ made, and worth being saved. We are worth the creation. We are worth all of the effort involved in all of human history... all of God's plan. All of this messy world is part of his plan to allow us choice, to help us learn to be like him, and save us even though we all have some issues. :) Today, let's be more like our friend the dust, recognizing our weaknesses and our need to change, and choosing to belong to our Creator.
I think he is referring to:
ReplyDeleteGenesis 2:7 “The Lord God formed a man from the dust of the earth and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being.”