Day 2859 of the 7 day Bible verse challenge.

Mark 4:41 NIV

Even the wind and waves obey, and yet humanity still seemingly believes that they can get away with rejecting Him. You've gotta love our spunk! Or sass? Is it Boldness? Nincompoopness?

For several days now we've been discussing several different reasons as to why we humans instinctively doubt in the truth of the Gospel. From fearing the pain it will cause through damaging our pride to realizing that we in turn owe Christ radically altered lives should we humbly accept our dire need of the gift of His undeserved salvation, there are plenty of reasons that we have contemplated.

But another big one hit me last night as I started through Mark: We fear His power. We fear anything that we don't understand. We fear the kind of authority that is completely outside of our control. We fear anything that we can't confine, contain, command. And when we look at our Savior, we see a great many things that we cannot compete with, and therefore largely cannot comprehend.

And if we can't control or understand something, we tend to avoid it just because we don't like feeling that we're not the ones in the driver's seat. We largely prefer the vanity that our pride sells keeping us caught up in this illusion of grandeur that has us convinced we are invincible. We, as we touched upon a couple of days ago, tend to think of ourselves as the gods of our own little lives. And when we're convinced we're on the throne, we'll reject anything and anyone who reminds us we're not.

Humanity looks at the Gospel and we see a God who literally knows our every move. We find a God who has witnessed our every mistake. We discover a truth we can't deny yet can't allow ourselves to accept. We're so in love with our illusions of power that we can't bring ourselves to consider something, someone who is actually powerful. I guess perhaps we've just been here in this place for too long, but maybe we've just completely forgotten what true power really is.

Down here, power exists largely in volume. People put on these lavish displays of anger conveyed through yelling and screaming and calling names and throwing stones. We see a civilization built on petty judgement and rampant jealousy that has everyone living on edge of a full-on melt down. We have grown to think we have some kind of power just because we think power is nothing more than words or protests or violence.

But we open the pages of Scripture and immediately see a God who literally created the ground on which we stand. We see a God who made Heaven and earth and the stars above and the depths of the oceans below. We hear of a power that separates day from night and defines time itself. We recount the creation of creation and discover how He is so powerful that He made all of us out of dust and breathed life into our lungs.

But that's just Genesis. We've still 65 other books filled with stories of fire raining down from the heavens, walls crumbling to the ground, the earth opening up and swallowing His enemies. We read through stories of blind receiving their sight and the deaf hearing for the first time. We're told about the lame who rise and take their beds and walk home. We hear of lions having their mouths closed, flames not harming the faithful, even seas being parted.

You've got floods that wipe out humanity. Plagues that break down the mightiest of kingdoms. Bushes burning, fig trees wilting, rocks giving water, more stones being rolled away from tombs so the once dead can walk out fully alive.

Even the wind and waves silence and calm at the command of our King.

And though we'll not openly admit it, that truth terrifies us. It even terrified the disciples who were in the boat thinking they were going under. How could it not terrify us when we look upon a power that can end us or save us with nothing but a whisper?

Humanity has grown so arrogant that we cannot tolerate anything or anyone who dares take our power from us, or hint that we never had much to begin with. We will deny and dispute and disrupt anything that seems to be stronger than we, just because we must do whatever it takes to retain this lie that tells us we can overcome anyone and endure anything. We flat out reject any power that attempts to contend with our own illusion of such, and so when faced with the overwhelming reality of God’s power displayed and discussed throughout Scripture, we run like our hair is on fire!

When we hear this story of a Man who was beaten, tortured, bloodied and bruised, nailed to a cross, buried in a tomb and yet still walked out spotless just a few days later, we know it's simply bigger than us. He is simply bigger than us. The entire Gospel and the gift that it holds built on the truth it defines is simply bigger than us.

And we don't know what to do with that. We don't want to accept it because it hurts our pride and requires our change and leads us away from all we've known into an existence filled with nothing we've ever seen or felt or contemplated before. It demands that we let go of thinking we've got this and admit that what we need is something clearly outside of our wheelhouse.

The Gospel demands we admit how small, how weak, how sick, how lost, how insignificant and unsatisfactory we really are.

If all of those things are true, and if we're all honest we can admit that they are, then why do we scramble back to all these reasons to doubt? Are we afraid that He will suddenly change His mind and crush us like we deserve? Do we think that His love will run out leaving only the vengeance we've heard reports of? Do we think that He will stop caring, stop loving, stop being willing to forgive?

Do we really think that the One who came on this earth and died to bring us forgiveness will allow the stormy seas to sink the ship that is our existence?

Friends, if He were in the habit of changing His mind, we'd already be gone. His power is such that He can snap His fingers and this place be erased from existence. If we can calm the seas, bring the dead to life, and cast out demons, He can do whatever He wants to do. But what did He do? He sent His Son to find us in our mess and bring us back to life from the death we've always known. He chose to love us, proving that of all His limitless power, His capacity for love and compassion reigns supreme.

Should we be afraid of His power? Absolutely. But not in a hoping He doesn't change His mind sort of sense. He doesn’t change like the shifting tides or hold the uncertainty of emotions we ourselves grapple with. So we don’t fear Him because of an uncertainty of what He will do, but we respect Him out of a fear built upon reverence for His authority. We fear Him not because He can crush us, but because He chose not to, at least not without giving us a chance to find His Son and change our ways. We fear Him out of respect for who He is and how He loves and how He proved it all through Jesus.

He holds a power that we can't understand, and we run from it because it makes us uncomfortable. But if we really know Him to be a God that opens floodgates and washes away civilization, then what are we hiding from? If He is nothing but violence and vengeance, then why are we still here? If evil exists, and we’ve partaken of it many a time, why has He relented and given us life after the mistakes we’ve made?

Could it be that the God humanity largely fears and therefore almost completely ignores is truly a loving Father that wants to see His creation get their acts together and avoid the damnation we actually deserve? Well, He sent Christ to tell us as much, maybe we should listen to His message rather than all the foolish reasons we often resort to telling us it’s all made up.

In all reality, I think we all know deep down that there is no hiding. There is no running. There is only our pride that continues working overtime seeking ways that we can deny His authority in our lives. And whatever reason anyone may have for running from Him for so long, we have to come to an understanding that our fears and our doubts and our denials don't convince Him to leave us alone. One way or another, we will experience the divine authority He alone holds.

That's what I've been trying to get at with all this discussion of the reasons humanity may reject the Gospel. No matter how natural or reasonable or fool proof we may think our reasons to doubt and deny are, He is God and He has the final Word and nothing at all that we do can ever change any of that!

Friends, as we near Christmas, the world, or at least some in it, is gearing up to celebrate the arrival of a promise that brings a kind of joy that nothing else in this world offers. Trust us, we've tried. We've run just as long and tried just as hard and hidden just as well and looked in every place that so many are still looking. His power is scary, but His love holds a peace that constantly reminds us of a glory to be revealed one day very soon.

All we do by running from His truth is prevent ourselves from finding a peace in His power. He has the power to destroy, but also the power to save. He has the power to level, but also to lift. He can close the gates of Heaven or open them. He can grant eternal misery or eternal rest. We will all fall into His hands and the power they hold at some point. If we make the choice to surrender, it will go better than we can imagine. If we refuse to surrender to His will, it will go worse than we can fathom.

In this season of joy and celebration and excitement, make a reason to get rid of every reason keeping you from understanding the gift that we get to celebrate. Is it scary? Yeah. But knowing the lengths to which He went to bring us salvation and the eternal promise it leads toward just goes to show how incredibly kind and forgiving He really is. Don't keep running from that kind of love no matter how scary it may be.

Again, if He was done with you and wanted nothing to do with you and planned on rejecting you, He'd have wiped you out of this story long ago. The fact that we're still here just goes to show how much He cares about us. He has given us plenty of time and every reason we need to turn to Him and seek shelter in His presence. We just gotta get rid of all these other foolish, selfish, and simply silly reasons that we've come up with not to do so.

So sure, be afraid. Not of what He could do, but what He will do if you don't take Him up on His offer of merciful forgiveness. The wind and waves answer when He speaks. And one day, all of humanity will finally listen as well. Don’t make that day one of hearing a foreign voice that leaves you shaking in fear at the punishment that’s coming. Make it a day of finally hearing a Friend say welcome home to a peace you never deserved to have.

#LeaveNoSoulUntold