Day 3072 of the 7 day Bible verse challenge.

Isaiah 1:31 NIV

One day the inescapability of eternity’s reality will prove that everything a sinful man's hands have found to do was only their undoing.

All of this devotion being given to create for ourselves a shelter within ourselves only arrests our understanding that the only shelter which can withstand what’s coming is found in the One who’s already been through the grave and back. Look at the cross. Can you or I do what Christ did in our place upon our cross? Not at all! So who are we assume we’ve the strength, the ability, the intelligence to stand before God and prove ourselves worthy of such a gift for which we’ve never lived showing our humble appreciation?

And if we’ve not the strength nor the ability nor the authority to determine for ourselves our own worth or destiny, well then who are we to live as if His salvation is something we can somehow be owed in return for our self-perceived perfection?

Is that not all we’re doing in trying to prove ourselves perfect within these attempts to redefine righteousness in order to twist it down into something low enough that our feeble hands and failing hearts can reach it? Is that not all we’re doing in all this foolish rewriting of truth and morality and common decency we see society attempting? Are we not building a way of life that we can perfect in order to show ourselves flawless?

This great effort to establish for ourselves rules and regulations and expectations by which we hold ourselves accountable may indeed seem as if we're attempting to construct a structure which will lead us to the betterment we ought to be seeking. Only problem with that is that society clearly assumes that no betterment is needed. And so how can we accept this fallacy that humanity has the right to construct a version of anything that could be helpful when so few even care to help themselves?

All across our culture you see this movement rushing inward in search of ways in which people can prove themselves justified in their horrid actions. Rewriting of rules, altering of truth, the literal attempt to bend reality in order to accommodate the errancies which folks refuse to lose. And it's an effort only growing in both popularity and urgency as that little clock quietly ticking away inside only seems to be ticking louder and louder. Almost as if all of everyone realizes the game's almost over.

And yet, the arrogance in which so many remain adamant to abide has them rushing about heaping up foolishness in an attempt to show themselves wise. But as we've discussed recently, wisdom isn't ours to create. Truth isn't ours to define. Reality exists whether we agree with it or not. And our every attempt to create a version of righteousness that only exists to make our irrationalities seem reasonable will only prove kerosene to the inferno we've already ignited.

But because the blaze has yet to begin devouring, most hold to the assumption that it's not yet been kindled.

Believe me, I speak as one who has found himself carrying the ashes of life burned to the ground thinking I knew all along what I was doing.

At the age of 11 or 12, somewhere in there, I unwittingly struck a match that would annihilate many if not most of the dreams I’d have even years afterward. I accepted an invitation into a mindset that would warp me into being unable to see the beauty of life before I ever even knew what beauty really was. I fell in line behind a group of kids who I foolishly trusted to not lead me astray.

And as I sit here today, decades removed from doing what I didn’t realize I’d done, I look back and see the smoke still rising off those ideas I once had for a better life as a better person knowing that I myself burned them down.

And I think that’s why so many are so hesitant to read the Bible. It’s because verses like this one in Isaiah will hit so close to home that they define your life better than you ever could. And within that realization we find immutably that God is higher, and that’s something none of us are all too eager to accept.

You see, our world has always existed upon this mindset that tells us we're of enough strength and intellect to build ourselves up into something or someone that can rival the God we so often deny. From the first whisper of deception planted within the ears of the first of us to those who set out to literally erect a tower up to the heavens, humanity is just convinced that pushing God will never become a problem.

And no amount of reminders have yet to prove sufficient to break through our boldness and instill a stillness which embraces the humility that turns us onto a path that leads us into His refuge rather than His wrath.

Reading through the opening of Isaiah the other night and my man just comes out the gate with a cold dose of reality. And honestly, this is the kind of rebuke all of us need as all of us fall into this pattern of life spent convinced that we're able. We all go through this warped way of thinking that tells us we can do whatever we want because our arrogance has us certain that we're invincible. But only because we've not yet felt the heat.

And when we've not been held to the flame, then we'll go right on thinking it's cool to test God, reject God, replace God with more of ourselves, our ideas, our plans, our passions, our opinions, our way. To take His relenting as evidence of either weakness or nonexistence is an error that our arrogance wants us to learn the hard way. Yes, you read that right. Our arrogance wants us to learn the hard way. Simply because our arrogance doesn't think we have anything left to learn.

But friends, this happens to be the one lesson that will cost us our lives if we stubbornly insist on not learning it right now.

As this verse at the end of Isaiah chapter one warns, humanity's assumption of both the authority and the ability to create for ourselves an image of superiority is only hastening what will one day prove an already immediate defeat. Every effort being undertaken under this mindset of self-righteousness is creating a tinderbox, leaving many a soul entirely dried out and ready to ignite.

And our very own hands are what keep tinkering away at this demise we surmise isn’t coming.

Our strength, or rather the assumption of it will only keep us relying upon ourselves to be enough to do enough to make it through whatever may come all by ourselves. But if you will, please introduce me to anyone who has gone into the grave unalive and walked back out alive once more. We can't do it. But that's exactly what our sins owe unto the One whom we've lived in opposition against all this time spent trying to prove our strength an equal match to His.

The beginning years of our lives, the specific amount of which varies for each of us, have been spent living opposed to God. All of us were born into sin and grew up making a habit of it. All of us have gone against His commands with a big ol' smile on our face and pride in our hearts. All of us have followed those very hearts through every deceitful desire they've imagined. And all of us carry an incurable disease because of it.

We're all infected with this self-perceived image of ourselves that has us believing we're gods. All because we've lived thus far our way with little if any consequence. And we all love the assumption that tells us that what has yet to be will in fact never be. We love this idea that because we're not in a prison or an asylum or a grave that we're never headed there. We love having no reason to assume our guilt.

Because we want to believe we've been right all along in our every attempt to satisfy only ourselves.

But God's patience does not equate with His agreement. And it's that lesson that each of us will learn however we choose to learn it. However we choose.

We choose.

What makes this choice so hard, almost to the very point of impossibility is that both we don't want to have to make it and we live in a place that's also trying to refuse it. This world is living in such a way that is bringing about its own demise. Folks are full speed into this race thinking God's not at the finish line waiting with hands ready to give us the reward we’ve truly earned. Every new day brings a new tragedy in the form of a new sin that's so novel that it takes society by storm and everyone dives in head first.

But folks, a time is coming when everything a sinful man touches will turn against him. Every wayward idea will indeed lead us only away from our only chance at survival. Every effort spent fashioning ourselves into these images of endless strength and ability and intellect will prove a pedestal from which the fall will never reach bottom. If we continue living against God under this assumption that we can contend against Him should He truly be there, we'll find out real quick what it's really like to be in a place where His kindness isn't.

It's fun to make a mockery out of all this. It's fun to laugh at those who live self-controlled lives rather than self-righteous lives. It's amusing to make fun of the rules and seeming limitations of a life surrendered. It's fun, popular, common, normal, easy. But Jesus flips tables. And one days those laughing now will weep. Those mocking now will sink in misery. Those who refuse His existence will be given an eternal home apart from His existence.

Because they'll have chosen their enjoyment, their pleasure, their peace in this life through the opportunity to live as if it were theirs to define.

Our might, or at least our perception of it will ultimately turn against us. It will leave us leaning on ourselves, unable to understand how to lean on another. It will cause us to trust in only our own ability, never once accepting that we're unable to survive what's coming by ourselves. It will leave us dehydrated as we never embraced the invitation to drink from the well of Living Water we've been sent.

And our very own hands will have done all the work needed to ignite the spark that burns us down.

Yet for some reason, God has given us a bit more time to douse our dumbness and turn away from the flame toward which we've been burning. It's a love we can't understand. A mercy we can't earn. A kindness too good for us. A compassion that allows us the chance to actually learn the easy way what many will learn in misery.

But friends we have to put down the gas can. We're not immune to anything, much less that which God has planned for those who refuse His path. Just because we may think we've managed to get by just fine all by ourselves doesn't mean that we're ready for what's coming. We're not. Have you read through Revelation? It's like the whole Bible is just going along smoothly and consistently, and then BOOM, a nightmare explodes filled with monsters and mayhem and misery.

We ain't ready for that. Never will be.

And that's why we must, not should, not can, not might probably consider or contemplate, but we must seek refuge in Christ. Without Him, our strength is only our undoing. It will end us, but only if we let it rule us. We've got to get over ourselves and this idiotic idea that we can debate or defeat the One who made us.

We have to stop slaving away at all that keeps us enslaved to ourselves and these foolish attempts to prove ourselves. Just not going to work. Do not let yourself become your own enemy, at least not any longer. Humility may be lost on humanity, but if we don't find it quick, we'll find out fast just how wrong we've always been always thinking we were right.

Let us not wait until our misspent lives are left smoking on the ground behind us as we move deeper into the flames we ourselves have sparked to accept the gift of mercy we’ve been offered.

Christ has satisfied God’s well-earned wrath on our behalf. But we have to stop working against Him with hands still trying to build something under our own strength or ability. The only thing we can build that will last is a relationship built on trusting in Him to be all we finally admit we are not.

Humility isn’t God’s way of tearing us down. It’s His way of keeping us from tearing ourselves apart.

#LeaveNoSoulUntold