Day 3045 of the 7 day Bible verse challenge.

2 Timothy 1:7 NIV

For such a gift to go unnoticed and therefore lie dormant is to manifest a disconnect between the image in which we were made and who we become.

There exists inside each of us a war. It's a battle between what we know to be right and what we know to be easy. As our time has been spent watching and listening and learning from a fallen world falling further, we've grown to place a higher worth upon that which is simple and comfortable and profitable from a popularity point of perception. And so that that we know to be right is left mostly unconsidered as it's considered inconsequential and inconvenient to the cravings this culture has taught us to desire.

And so we war within ourselves, half seeking hope the other only pleasure.

A long time ago I heard what was explained to me as the Native American version of this story. Now whether or not that's the case, I'm not sure as we all know that history and its legends have a tendency to be inflated and skewed as they pass down through the years. But it's a tale of two wolves living inside a person. One good, courageous, moral and the other wicked, devouring, driven mad by its hunger. And in this parable about this internal struggle, it's said that the one that wins is the one that's fed.

Now whether or not it's a Cherokee legend or simply a nifty way to teach this contemplation doesn't matter. What matters is that it sounds an awful lot like another lesson that's been passed down to us, this one found in the book of Galatians. "For the flesh desires what is contrary to the Spirit, and the Spirit what is contrary to the flesh. They are in conflict with each other, so that you are not to do whatever you want."

For each of us, this responsibility has been taken so lightly that we've not even known it was a responsibility. No, it's been buried beneath all of our other concerns and prerogatives. It's a consideration contained behind blinded eyes set on all that glimmers and shines. It's a truth that, like most others strewn throughout Scripture, has been largely forgotten more and more with each passing generation. And for good reason.

You see, we live in this place that teaches us to cater to that which makes us feel good, to prioritize the things that present the most prominent pleasure and immediate gratification. We've become a people which know only to seek the things that satisfy our lusts, whatever those lusts may be. And I think it's safe to say that our modern society has so advanced that we are all but crippled in our ability to stand against those lusts which are the schemes of the adversary.

Yes, we've advanced to the point where we don't really have to do much anymore. You don't need to know how to cook, McDonald's does a fine job of it. Don't need to drive as we're even tinkering with self-driving cars nowadays, seems a safe idea. Why worry about finding love and failing so many times when the internet offers an endless array of suitors who will not reject you? Friendship is expendable as social media provides a passing connection to the outside world, albeit digital and superficial.

Don't need to work out or lose weight to become healthier and stronger and more able to withstand the pressures and demands of life, no saying that someone is unhealthy is unloving and that should they feel insecure about their health, well, there are pills that burn that fat away. Flat tire, roadside assistance. Fear from life's uncertainty, talk to a therapist. Addiction, find a counselor. Worried about all your failures and flaws, sit in a church pew once a week.

Yeah, we don't even need to think anymore, artificial intelligence is coming along to take care that for us as well.

My point is that we've outsourced our responsibility for everything to everyone else all so that we don't have to get our hands dirty living our own lives. But friends, as clearly easy as that has made our lives, freeing up our time to further invest our energy into our indulgences, it's not how God designed us. That's not who He made us to be. No, that's who the world has convinced us to become. We are products a system designed around refusing God.

And yet we wonder why happiness and peace and fulfillment are all all but impossible to find anymore.

It's because they're buried underneath all this modern nonsense aimed at making ourselves seem like the only gods in our lives. They're lost behind a mind that’s agreed to set limitations for itself. They’re hidden down deep right beside the Spirit that God gave us when He made us, a Spirit of power, love and self-discipline. Instead, we've become a people of laziness, hatred and self-righteousness. And as we continue to willingly drift away from both Him and His design, we will only find ourselves more like a world we're one day leaving behind.

And when we inevitably find ourselves kneeling before His throne, should we find ourselves naught but a replica of the world which killed His Son, to say that we'll be unwelcome is a rather fluffy way to put it.

How would you respond to a person who had destroyed the image in which they were made? How would you react to seeing a people you created choose to alter themselves into clones of a way of life that has no room for acknowledging you? We hear all this talk about justice and equality and fairness, but are we prepared to come face-to-face with He who created those ideals?

No, I don't think that many of us are. Because we've still not found that Spirit that He placed inside us. Still it lay dormant and dying due to lack of interest and concern.

Instead, timidity has been embraced to the point of being standard expectation. We can’t risk being too different as different doesn’t help us fit in. We can’t speak the truth too loudly as the masses who much prefer being lied to will not like it. Can’t walk tall, shoulder’s back, chest high filled with assurance in who we are, in whose we are because that’s just too arrogant and bold for a society all meek and refined. Again, we’ve now come too far from such antiquated ideas.

To better oneself is only to show a sense of unhappiness or lack of confidence. To be seen is to risk being seen. To be heard is to invite ridicule as harmless words which might be found offensive. To refuse the wide road is to slap away the hand that feeds in this place. Yes, to be certain, masculinity is now considered toxic and unwelcome. Childhood is being erased with the most depraved of indoctrination. And well, many have apparently forgotten the rare and beautiful characteristics of a woman.

No, that’s hogwash. Nonsense. Idiocy, pure insanity. All that’s really been forgotten is that there is a divine God above and that He made us for far more than the stupidity we’ve settled upon and that we alone bear the full responsibility for having lowered our standards to such pitiful depth.

I know a vast majority of these posts come across as considerably heavy handed and even at times somewhat inconsiderate. But that's never the case. In truth, I write each and every one of these seeking in some way to rebuke myself for the many misgivings I'm giving to the One who gave me everything, the One I've not yet managed to give anything in return. So if these do offend, my hope is that we're all mature enough, humble enough to consider the reasons as to why we're offended.

My contention is that we're often offended as the truth is simply jarring and leaves no consideration for our complacency. The truth of God's Word is indeed confrontational, and in this softened society still losing its fight, to be confronted is a guaranteed loss to all who've forgotten they were made in the image of the ultimate victor who has already achieved our victory over the things we tend to still let beat us down and break us apart.

We should be offended, but at the fact that we've lived a lie, not at the truth that points it out. This verse here is a great example. We've all likely convinced ourselves that this one's in the bag as they say. We're loving, we're kind, we're bold in our typing away on the keyboard or cellphone screen, we're disciplined enough to at least still get ourselves dressed and feed ourselves. So yeah, this one's checked man, we're good here.

But we're not.

You see, power, love and self-discipline aren't boxes to be checked or attributes to perfect. This isn't a finish line, it's the journey. It's the calling. It's a life-long responsibility to choose who we are, where we go and which path we follow toward our home of choice. And His Spirit isn't something so easily quenched as we tend to hope. His rebuking, correcting, instructing and guiding do not merely shut up just because we've shut them out.

They lie dormant inside waiting for us to either turn back to them or explode into eternal misery for having refused to come anywhere near our senses.

Fact is that day's coming. But by some kind of miraculous love, we've been given a bit more time to reconsider our choices. We've been given a bit more time to choose between the voices vying for our attentions. We've been given a bit more time to seek something other than the selfish nothingness we’ve found thus far hidden just inside our chosen limitations. We've been given today to turn away from our selfish pursuits back toward the One who made us to be self-disciplined instead of self-centered.

Friends, this gift is living inside each of us. Power, love, self-discipline. Power, love, sound mind. We are not the victims we've chosen to be. We are not at the mercy of the wayward wants and wicked whims of this wacky world. We are not to be of this world, though that's exactly what each of us has long settled for becoming. And if we're aware that we've been called up and out of those pits of selfish stupidity and idiotic indulgence, we've the responsibility to do something about it.

And because God knows we've been so weakened and diluted from a life misspent chasing all manner of worldly prize, He went ahead and designed in us the lifeline He knew we'd need to save us from the stormy seas we would churn up in the wake of racing toward everything that isn't Him. He gave us His Spirit, a Spirit of power, love and self-discipline that we might humbly turn toward Him and let Him take the lead for once.

This gift is there inside of each of us, waiting for us to acknowledge it, to seek it, to choose it. He just wants our permission to let Him take the throne in our lives as our freewill must be the one to make this choice so that we alone bear the burden of having made it ourselves. Truth be told, we make this choice every day through which things are given priority. We make it every time we opt between serving self and seeking Christ.

Maybe it's time to stop pretending we're so innocent in all this. We alone have made the choices we cannot undo. And we alone will make the choices we have left to choose in the few remaining days we've been allotted in this place. What will you choose? Where will you focus? Will His Spirit be allowed to remain unseen, unacknowledged, underappreciated and never chosen? Or will we do what we should have always done and let Him be God while we simply fade?

Power, love, self-discipline. It's not an uplifting ideal saved for the few able to see beyond themselves. It's a promise that helps us see beyond ourselves. But we have to choose to stop putting ourselves first and instead seek first He who said we will not be last. We have to stop putting Him last if we want more out of this life than a passing reward which is left to rot when we're not here to keep it shining.

No, leave the trophies to those still racing after each other in a race nobody can ever win.

We've been called to a different path in a far different direction. Power over preference or popularity. Love instead of this hollow concept that equates to mere agreement, appeasement and affirmation that many are selling as a passing replica. And yes, self-discipline rather than self-righteousness. We have the power to stand against all that’s warring against us. But we have to have the courage to look outside ourselves in order to find it.

It is in us, but friends, it is from Him. And until we seek Him first, we will always be stuck at rock bottom unable to see the ladder left for us to climb back into the Son. Yes, the meek shall inherit the earth, but to approach this walk of faith in such sheepish and fearful timidity is to accept defeat before the first volley’s even begun.

Truth is that we can’t fathom what’s coming. But with His Spirit leading our choices, leading our lives, leading our way, we will make it. Time to build something other than excuses. Because we truly have none.

#LeaveNoSoulUntold