Day 2913 of the 7 day Bible verse challenge.

1 Corinthians 10:14 NIV

What is it about us humans that has us so adamant to prove we're right by doing everything wrong? It's like we instinctually trust in that law of motion that tells us that for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. It's as if we rely on our foolishness to be met with an equal and opposite wisdom that yanks us back from the edge of destruction that our stupidity continues to race toward.

We simply cannot seem to get out of our own way. It's truly as if we're absolutely set on our downfall in this attempt to prove the validity of our faith in this expectancy that if God be real, then He will save us from the foolhardy mistakes we can't help but feel the need to make. We seem to believe that if we do enough wrong that His mercy will shine even brighter. Shall we go on sinning that His grace may increase? Well, it sure seems like that’s the theory we live to test!

Why is it that we can't calm it down, reel it in, and finally learn all the lessons our past mistakes should have taught us?

And this is in no way anything new. God placed us in a Garden of perfection and gave us freedom to enjoy the beautiful bounty of His creation so long as we refrained from partaking of the fruit of a single tree. Couldn't even get that right! When someone tells us to not look down, we look down. If they say, "Don't jump!” we say, "How high?" So when He asked us to not eat the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, we ran directly for it so that we could see what it was that we were missing out on.

It happened all over again at the foot of Mount Sinai when God gave Moses the Ten Commandments. By the time he came back down from his meeting with God, the people had already broken the very first commandment! That's what we began discussing yesterday in our post about that very commandment: Our human penchant for stumbling out of the gate. The entirety of God's commandments could have simply been summed up in that first decree that we shall have no other gods before Him.

That should have been enough because if we truly wished to honor Him, to glorify Him, to respect Him and live lives that show our love for Him then all of the other commandments would have been covered in that we'd not do nor say nor think nor believe anything that in any way brought disgrace upon ourselves or dishonor to our Father. To have no other gods before Him should have been enough.

But we couldn't even get that one right. And sadly, it's the one that we still seem to fail and fracture most often.

We look around at a world filled with eyes consumed by that which can be consumed. We've learned to idolize literally everything. I don't have the time in this day to discuss nor the interest in typing out all of the golden calves that humanity has idolized in recent years, let alone throughout history. The simple point is that as long as it's not God, we seem more than willing if not actively excited to treat it as if it were.

And in that constant bowing down and bending of a knee to all things not Him, we find that our hearts continue wandering through the world looking for more stuff that may finally bring the fulfillment that we've been clearly told exists only in Christ and yet remains simply out of reach because our worldly minds and human egos refuse to humble themselves to admitting we've been wrong so that we could turn back and finally reach out for the promise we've been promised won't fail or disappoint.

We just keep chasing idols in this effort to prove that we can in fact have other gods before Him. Again, it's the whole 'don't look down' conundrum. He says we shall not, we say we'll try anyway.

As I shared a bit in yesterday's post, this past week or so has led me through all sorts of realizations and reconsiderations that have all led to the singular issue of my allowing too many worldly things to take on too much importance in my mind. I've given far too much focus, time, excitement and devotion to things which have no meaning nor power within the grand scheme of eternity. And in that fact lies a truly miserable dance with a humbling truth that's left only embarrassment and regret.

And I think that's what keeps much of humanity running away from the truth of God's Word and the One who authored it. We know we'll be ashamed. We know we'll be overcome with regret. We know that within humbling ourselves to the point of not only realizing our mistakes but actually taking responsibility for having made them and for repenting of them, we'll be left without an escape through which we can run back to the comfort of our complacent commonalities.

So we continue to flee. We continue to seek other gods. We continue playing along in this worldly game of the idolization of all things inanimate and unworthy. We continue foolishly attempting to craft our own reality based on serving our own gods that allow us the ongoing distraction from our failures to embrace the only real reality and the only true God.

But there comes a time when we can no longer avoid the unavoidable. There comes a time when we must face humility head on. There comes a day in life when the reality from which we've been running suddenly stands before us all over again. Life is not linear as we tend to believe, it's circular. That from which we run will come around again. And that toward which we run will someday fade into the past behind us.

One day we will face God. Not the god of this world. Not the god of our stomachs. Not the god of our opinions or our possessions or our priorities but the God of Heaven. And when we inevitably find ourselves at the foot of the cross and the feet of the One who endured it, we will find ourselves unable to offer a different reality that allots for more of our comfort.

In that moment, all other gods and idols and dreams and ideals and goals and plans and purposes will be thwarted and proven meaningless and deadly. And should we have lived our lives in the assumption otherwise, we too will be handed a death we fully deserve as we fully chose it by never stopping to choose the life given only through Christ.

It's time that we stop fleeing from God and His truth and His Word and His commandments and His judgements and His reality under this selfish and stupid theory that we can somehow create our own versions of all the above that cater more toward what we want and that He will simply be okay with it all. He will not. Scripture has made that most abundantly clear. And should we choose to deny that or debate that or reject that, well then, we will find the fall back to reality far more painful than had we opted to climb down off our ivory towers on our own accord.

You see, that's the mercy being offered in this time of His patience. This is a time in which we can learn to let go of all that we've sought to gain. This is a time that's been given to us to simply come to our senses and realize that living to serve a world or an idol or a person or an idea that has no consideration for Him nor basis in His truth only leads us further away from Him and therefore the salvation that is found only in Him.

Whether we care to admit it or not, idols have been a large part of our worldly lives. As I said, I don't really find it necessary to discuss them all as deep down we all know what we've cherished in our hearts. And deep down we all know the things which remain distracting and dangerous to the progression and growth of our faith. We all know we have things to work on, and things that keep us from working on them that we simply need to get rid of so that the necessary work may begin.

What I've come to realize is that if we have to find a witty way to justify something then it's probably not a good thing. If we have to excuse something so that we feel less guilty for having it or wanting or watching it, then in all likelihood it simply doesn't need to be in our lives. If we have to find ways to feel less guilty, then we should probably just find a way to let it go instead.

Is it easy? No, especially considering how long we've chosen to fail to see the danger in it all. It's hard for eyes that have long seen worth in worldly objects to admit they're not so valuable. It's hard for us to let go of all we've tried so hard to have and hold onto. But friends, as long as an idol remains of any importance in our lives, we can be certain that full devotion to God is not paramount in our hearts. And that is why we're told that we shall have no other gods before Him.

Because only He created us, only He can save us, and the equal and opposite reaction of our actions is that only He too can destroy us.

It's time that we stop destroying ourselves by assuming that He can't. He can. And as Scripture warns quite clearly, He will. You see, our sins, as many as they are, are all either defined or evidenced by our having other gods before Him. Be it ourselves, our money, our cars, our opinions, our preferences, our politics, our preachers, our dreams, our whatevers; if it takes time that could be given to God instead, it's an idol we can't afford to serve or chase or prize or prioritize.

There remain many idols in this place as well as many people chasing after them. And there will come more as the world continues to flee God toward a hollow hope that He's not real. But if we're wise, and all of Scripture was breathed out by Him in order to at least help us start off in that direction, then we'll flee from idolatry and the world that exists only to worship it.

At the end of the day, or better yet, the end of our lives, no worldly object or idea will be able to save us. No amount of money in the bank can buy a ticket into Heaven as it's not a theme park. No mansion can testify to the value of our hearts. No social media following can prove our devotion to God. No car is fast enough to race through those gates without His knowing about it. And no person will be beside us ready to tell God just how hard we tried and how good we made them feel or how helpful we seemed to be.

All that will count immediately after our final breath has faded into this temporal air is whether or not Christ was welcome in our hearts as Lord of our lives. We can't let anything or anyone take His place, because without the fullness of Him, we'll simply never know the fullness of His promises nor the peace to which they lead.

#LeaveNoSoulUntold