Day 2904 of the 7 day Bible verse challenge.

Hebrews 10:14 NIV

I think the immediacy in which faith begins its transformative process in our lives is one of the largely misunderstood aspects of this road we’re walking. Christ's gift of salvation is the catalyst that ignites an entire process of growth and refinement and renewal and repentance that leads us closer and closer to the righteousness that God desires for us and from us.

We do understand that, right?

It's not this instant release pill that we take before bed and expect to wake up the next morning completely immune to sin, to hardship, to mistake, to weakness, to struggle. It isn't a quick means to the fulfillment of our desire for ease and comfort and peace and a worldly life free from strife. It's not a sudden cure for our illnesses and injuries, and it definitely doesn't make us unsusceptible to such maladies. It is not a single prayer cried out in a singular moment of realizing our wretched condition.

It is a life-long journey that we humbly choose every single day to undertake that leads us ever closer to the example we've been called to follow, the example we wish to follow, the example that God gave us to follow.

This is something that we've been talking about for quite a while now. It's this confusion that seems to have settled into the common mindset of humanity. It's this errant idea that has us convinced that somehow opening a Bible, sitting in a church pew, saying a prayer or humming along to a worship song renders us free from any and all misery and suffering. It's this foolish fallacy in which we assume faith to be a freedom from failure or difficulty.

But in reality, faith is the tearing of the veil that has kept us from seeing the fullness of our faith, and our fallenness as well. Faith makes us aware of responsibility, not immune to it. It reminds us of the growth needed to become more than what we've always been. It's a loving and merciful guide toward a better life than the hollow existence we've carved out within the shadows of sinful lies.

Yet so often we tend to undertake this effort to water that all down into something easier to understand, easier to follow, easier to fit into what we're capable of doing, or rather interested in doing. And in our ongoing efforts to water down faith into something we can comprehend and therefore understand, we end up muddying the entire point and purpose that faith is meant to serve.

Again, it is a process. Not a quick fix. Not an immediate gratification. Not even a companion that offers constant comfort. Faith is a means by which we undergo the process of sanctification that helps us reset, relearn, release all we've been, all we've sought, all we've craved and gained and seen and heard and known. The rebirthing process of sharing in Christ's death, burial and resurrection ushers us into a new life that is filled with an entirely new way of life that is utterly alien to all we've ever known.

And that whole death, burial and resurrection concept is what the majority of these recent posts have been trying to help us remember. As we discussed yesterday, even though Christ is the Son of God, he chose to humble Himself to the suffering He endured for the good of all mankind. He chose to exemplify obedience so that you and I could learn the value in it. He chose to show us what full faith and surrender and trust in God's will looks like.

In case we've forgotten, and judging by our habitual tendencies we have, His life was not free from trial or hardship or pain or suffering or sacrifice. In fact, it's His pain and suffering and misery and sacrifice that achieved for us the opportunity at salvation. The cross is the final closing of the book we tried to write by ourselves. And it’s the opening chapter of the book we’ll spend the rest of our lives experiencing.

Our faith in His promises and the appreciation of what they cost to be offered to us is what paves the path and encourages our following of it for the remainder of our stay in this land of the lost. It’s what inspires our growth up and out of the pitiful lives we’ve known among the lost. It’s our constant reminder of what He went through and why He did it, and the shameful role we played in it. Because in truth, what we know He went through is what each of us should have had to endure as punishment for our willful rejection of God's sovereignty.

But He knew we couldn't make it. We are humans. We are limited. We are altogether weak and entirely unable to settle the debt our sins so clearly owe. And so He lovingly embraced a misery and suffering we honestly know nothing of as it's unlike anything we've ever known. Sure, we've had hard days. We've felt pain and loneliness and regret and likely bear the scars of many of those sufferings. But we've not hung on a cross.

Yet that's exactly what our Savior chose to do in order to begin this process of our spiritual renewal that leads us continually along the path that strips away all the garbage and lies that caused His suffering.

That's what this whole process is about. It's not just forgiving our past sins but instilling an entirely new urgency to never make those mistakes again. It's not simply washing us clean but helping us learn to stop making such a mess of everything. It's about us learning the cost of our mistakes, and though we don't always understand it and sometimes don't enjoy it, one of the best ways for us to learn is through struggle and strife.

His one sacrifice made perfect forever those who are being made holy. His endurance of the cross gave us this chance. It gave us a new start. It offered us the opportunity to change, to try again, to start afresh, to turn back toward Him and begin the journey back to the Garden we left behind all those years ago.

What we need to understand is that the trip will be hard. It's hard because it requires us to let go of things we've come to enjoy. It's hard because it demands we embrace humility though our egos have grown to detest it. It's hard because it asks us die to self when in fact living for self is all we've done for our entire stay so far. It's hard because it leads us to challenges that push us to walk by faith and trust in the unseen and believe in that which our fallen and corrupted human minds innately think is unbelievable and impossible.

And it's also hard because this narrow road back to life leads us against the grain of a society still fleeing reality. It causes us to adhere to a truth that much of society hates as it confronts the comforting lies that so many believe. It demands we stand up for something when most simply just fall in line behind the herd ahead of them headed for slaughter. It stands out in a world where we're expected to fit in. And as they say, the nail that sticks out farthest gets hammered.

So we will be hammered. We will face hardship. We will know suffering through the loss of comfort, of material possessions, of idealistic dreams, of perfectly laid plans, of social acceptance, of personal safety. We will endure trial. We will face tribulation. We will feel the flames of salvation burning away all that doesn't belong in the hearts and minds and lives of those who truly wish to follow Christ through the entirety of His death, burial and resurrection.

That's what it means to be made holy. Holy is something we've not come close to being in all our time spent learning the ways of a fallen world. Holy is nothing we could ever accomplish on our own as doing things our way is what led to the necessity of the cross and Christ's suffering upon it. And so, we need something different. We need something new. We need some help, and thankfully, help is exactly what we've been given.

The help we need is found in the message of the cross. It's the cold hard reality that part of us must die if we hope to live. It's the realization that many of the habits and desires we've harbored are not worthy of anything other than death. And by some miraculous stroke of mercy, death is exactly what we've been offered to undertake. Death to self. Death to sin. The ongoing desire to leave our sinful ways buried in a tomb that we now get to walk out of and leave behind, just as Jesus did.

The Gospel offers us the opportunity to share in Christ. To share in His death by dying to the things that cost His death. Sharing in His burial as we bury the wayward desires we've always lived to fulfill. And sharing in His resurrection by embracing this new life that we get to live seeking righteousness and holiness and the glorification of the One who offered us such a priceless opportunity.

We are being made holy. Being made. Currently underway. Constantly ongoing. A journey away from our clear ungodliness toward the righteousness that God desires. Being made. But ain’t there yet!

Christ came to this earth to begin a good work in us through the peeling away of the blinders that had kept us unware of just how rotten we’d become. He began that good work in His setting everything straight upon the cross. And it’s that good work that He will carry on until it’s finally completed when He walks us through the gates that our old sinful choices had slammed closed.

What we see in the message of the cross is that it won't always be easy. Won't always be comfortable. Won't always look like the sunshine and happiness that much of religion has made it out to be. There will be some hard days. There will be some painful lessons. And there will even be moments that we don't think we'll get through. But we will, not on our own, but because we're not doing this on our own.

We're doing this with the very same Savior who endured our suffering for us in order to show us that a little bit of suffering is needed in order to bring about new life and the freedom found within it.

Christ didn't do what He did because He simply enjoys misery. He endured that cross because He knew the joy it would bring to see His people walk through those gates that they didn't really deserve to enter. If our lives along the way home are hard and scary and painful, then just imagine how overwhelming that joy will be when we reach the promised home where there is no more suffering or pain. Imagine how incredible that final rest will be when we get to rest forever in peace.

The pain of the cross was embraced so that there could be joy on the other side of death.

In light of that defeat of the deaths we all owed, and sadly chose, let’s embrace the life we live that leads us home. Let us live the remainder of our lives in such a way that we give both Him and ourselves something to smile about, to be thankful for, to rejoice over forever once we've finished the race that He began for us. Appreciate this process my friends. While not easy, it's could not be more worthwhile as it leads us toward the holy perfection that punches our ticket out of whatever misery we may face along the way.

#LeaveNoSoulUntold