Day 3014 of the 7 day Bible verse challenge.

Romans 1:32 NIV

I know you’ve heard it said that “the heart wants what the hearts wants.” Problem is that God wants better.

You see, all of these human attempts at the justification of sin do indeed sound quite lovely. They offer this image of love and compassion aimed at bringing both contentment and joy to those listening and learning. But hopefully you’ve also heard that looks can be deceiving. Because those pretty attempts to nullify God’s Word will ultimately prove unable to change God's mind, as He's told us that He does not change like the shifting shadows of our selfish delusions.

Yet, somehow, as with every other clear truth and obvious warning laden throughout Scripture, we've apparently not saw fit to care what He says. At least not on the large scale. On the large scale, this society is still happily steaming toward all the indulgence they can handle, willfully ignorant as to what we've been told lies just beyond the final breath spent indulging our idiotic ideologies. Guess we don't want to admit that part.

But, claiming we didn't know, much like the ongoing attempts to justify or validate our foolishness will only succeed on this side of our grave, that assumptive mindset will find itself shattered on the ground before a God so many never took the chance to revere or honor or worship or praise or even acknowledge.

We've talked quite extensively about the many ways in which Scripture is proving itself eternally relevant in today's rapid unraveling. This little footnote stands at the end of an incredibly poignant and entirely applicable summation of the tremendous downfall of society that is described in the few verses preceding verse 32. Things we can witness with our own eyes. Things we've noticed happening in real time. Things we simply cannot deny, no matter the effort given unto that undertaking.

"Furthermore, just as they did not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God, so God gave them over to a depraved mind, so that they do what ought not to be done. 29 They have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed and depravity. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit and malice. They are gossips, 30 slanderers, God-haters, insolent, arrogant and boastful; they invent ways of doing evil; they disobey their parents; 31 they have no understanding, no fidelity, no love, no mercy."

What I continue to find absolutely gob smacking is how the Bible manages to consolidate such graphic depictions of a society, of a mindset, of a way of life being witnessed thousands of years after it having been written. And to know that there are still many who doubt, debate and deny the divine authority strewn and shown throughout the Good Book just blows my mind. Because you've got to be both blind and belligerent to not see all the truth and reality framed and contained in what can only be God's Word.

But, that unique ability is something else we've also talked about a bunch in these daily discussions. We humans have a truly remarkable knack for missing every point, undermining every warning, rejecting every offer and denying every opportunity to turn from our wicked ways, humble ourselves, pray, seek His face, surrender our hearts, let go of our idiocy and accept His healing that our wayward and therefore shattered hearts so fully need.

Problem is we don't want to admit that we need it. Don't want to admit that we've done wrong. Don't want to admit that we've no idea what we're doing. Don't want to admit that our pride and vanity can't admit that we don't know what we're doing. Our ego simply cannot compute the request to deny self and seek salvation for the selfishness that's steadily revealed itself as sin across the entirety of our shameful existence.

I know it's not something for us to decide or determine, and at times I wonder if it's even something that's ours to contemplate or consider, but I often find myself wondering if there's a breaking point that either has been or will be reached from which there's no coming back. Is there a line over which society stumbles that renders it incapable of healing, of humility? Is there a day somewhere on our past or present calendars that spells the moment when it all just fell eternally apart?

Don't know. But I will say that in all of the reading and studying and thinking and trying and seeking that I'm doing, that many are trying to do, it does seem as though if that line does exist, society is at the very least contending with all its might to find it and pass it and enjoy every moment of the journey that leads them to that gross fulfillment of selfish dereliction. It seems as though it's no longer enjoyable enough to sin in private.

No, depravity loves company, and now wickedness is being paraded in our streets, sold in our stores, shown on our screens and open for all to see in every place and every way possible. The devil knows what he's doing, and friends, he's doing it well.

My question, which is again one that's been asked for a few days now, is why are we, as a church, so content with watching it? Why are we willing to simply try to ignore it and hope others do as well? Why are we so eager to downplay the death of those around us when we claim to believe that sin is just that, death eternal? Do we not care as much as we say we do? Are we scared more than we think we are? Have we accepted a defeat we've been told was already overcome? Are we among the wolves hiding in sheep’s clothing selling an image of holiness yet entirely denying its power?

Are our crosses still laying on the ground?

Nobody knows God. It's impossible for us to know God. He is entirely too large, too significant, to majestic, to magnificent for us to contain even a fraction of Him in our brains. But we know of Him. We read of Him in His Word. We pray to Him in our moments of joy or sorrow. We speak of Him in church services and worship songs. We claim to trust in the living image of Him in His Son Jesus who is the Christ, Emmanuel, God with us.

Is that not enough for us to have at least an idea of who God is since He's gone to such great lengths to help us know of Him and of what He expects and deserves of us? It should be, has been. But it is enough to hold us to the anchor of truth that we'll need to weather the storm that's ever raging, and only getting darker?

Friends, knowing of God is both all we can achieve and all we should hope for across this limited time among this place of His creation before we're gathered unto Him and spend eternity either with Him or apart from Him. That's the grand reality of life in this place. It ends, and once it has gone, what is left is the reward, the prize, the promise that each person lived trying to find.

Problem is that there are two sides to that reward, and many are playing to win a prize of eternal misery through their blatant disregard for the One who holds the key and the gavel.

What are we doing to make that coming comeuppance known to those will face it and be left with nothing to say to overturn it?

It's easy to turn a blind eye to sin as that's something that each of us have done innumerable times in our own lives. And yet now, it's something that's being asked of, requested of, commanded of, demanded of us every moment of every day we have left in this land of the lost. So I reckon it really does come down to our decision as to whom we should serve, with the realization that yet another truth taught by Scripture is entirely personally expository.

No one can serve two masters.

Do we live to serve the wants and wishes of a world so clearly contending against God? Or do we live to serve God and welcome the onslaught and gauntlets that it will mean we'll have to walk through? We cannot do both, no matter what anyone, any group, any sermon or any message may say. We're either with Him, or we're against Him. Which is yet again a truth we can find for ourselves right there in His roadmap through this monstrosity of a society fleeing His design.

The wholeness of this predicament hinges upon our understanding of love and to whom it's owed, and how it's shown as a result of that understanding. There's worldly love and there's God's version. There's this idea of love that has us expected to encourage, to support, to embrace, to justify and validate. And there's the opposing concept built on truth, edification, humility, honor and a firm grasp on both the brevity of this life and the infinity of the next.

We are not here to love as the world requests we love. We're not here to merely agree with everything everyone wishes to do, as we ourselves know that things we've wished to do ought not have been done, and the guilt it brings is not a result of the love we've been shown. We're not here to encourage those around us to find their own truth nor approve of their incessant attempts to do so. No, we are here to serve God and to love one another in truth, His truth. The truth.

And the truth is that all sin is death, and for us to turn a blind eye or go so far as to embrace someone's downfall so that we appear loving in the worldly sense of love is an utter failure of this calling to go and make disciples. It's an utter failure of our opportunity to help people find Jesus before they're rejected from His presence. It's an utter failure to take seriously what He did on the cross, and friends, how can we do that?

To live according to the Bible is considered to be an either antiquated ideal or a foolish idea in this modern world where everything goes and everyone always wins. We're not called to win but to lose. To lose our vanity, our ego, our hopes of worldly acceptance, our very lives as that's the example we've been shown and called to follow. Not only should it not matter what anyone else thinks of our faith nor our choice to surrender the entirety of ourselves to it and its truth, it mustn't matter.

Because we're here to serve Christ alone, not the opinions or requests of a people pretending He's not there.

There is a great deal being done that is entirely wrong. And it's not just around us, it's also within us and how we move and serve amidst our surroundings. It's time for us to fight against sin in every form and in every place. Not because it's easy or will bring enormous comfort or appreciation from those we're here to help. But because He asked to accept His gift, and to do that, we have to understand the cost.

And the cost is a life. We owe Him a life. Where, when and how we settle is up to us. But to live our lives here seeking to appease those around us through the sheepish approval of their chosen degradations is to love our lives, to love this world, to serve this world. And that only means that this world will be the only prize, the only comfort, the only gain, the only home we'll ever know.

Please don't do that to yourself. Don't encourage that unto anyone else either. Whoever wants to save their life in order to live it as they wish to live it will in fact lose it. But whoever lose their life, their dreams, their comforts, their expectations and their desires in exchange for finding Him will find life. We should helping one another find life, find Christ. But we'll never come close to that life nor He who holds it should we settle for pleasing people by approving of the sins that have, are and may well keep them from Him forevermore.

Let the world try to justify their actions and choices if that's what they intend to do, as it so obviously is. As for us, we're here to call out the danger found in doing so. So considering this fork in this road in this life in this place, may we pick a path and walk with the conviction it deserves. Because we're going to answer for the path we pick and how well we walked it. And, having been given the warnings as to what’s coming, should we fail to warn others by speaking against the sin that has them living against God, their blood will be on our heads.

And you guessed, that’s yet one more promise found clearly in Scripture. Can’t just follow the parts we like, because He’s not grading us on a curve. He’s looking at our hearts. What does He see?

#LeaveNoSoulUntold