Day 3185 of the 7 day Bible verse challenge.

Hebrews 11:38 NIV

The world was not worthy of them.

Not worthy.

How many times have those two words defined our outlook? Not worthy. Not good enough. Not quite pretty enough or handsome enough, strong enough, brave enough, bold enough, rich enough or famous enough or powerful enough to ever possibly be enough to ever possibly be used for anything, to accomplish anything, to be anything.

Indeed, how many times have we looked in the mirror and seen only this ghost we're convinced isn't good for anything anymore?

This world has flipped so many things upside down that we all now know only to see inside out. It's a tragic unfolding of all that He stitched together in those hidden places where He planned out His perfect purposes for our lives. Not worthy. That the world demands we agree that we're nothing, nothing changes the fact that we have to be the ones who agree. We have to be the ones that go along. We have to make that decision to look in the mirror and hate the image we see looking back.

And we do because we've become convinced that we're supposed to. These ways in which this world works don't work, at least not in accord with how He planned this path. Down here it's all consumption and comparison. It's an agreement to agree that life is meant for nothing more, defined by nothing more than what we have and how we look. It's as if we've taken everything He designed inside and simply forgot it in exchange for a sad existence within the superficial upon the surface.

That's all we know as it's all we see. It's all we know to see, perhaps even all we want to see. Because we can do something about the images we portray for the public. We can add a little paint or pigment or other pretend perfection that gives the world what they want for us to be worthy. Because we've been told that societal opinions are all that matter. And yet we've seemingly never stopped to wonder why, ask why, ask ourselves why we wander into such forlorn considerations.

I dare you to sit with this idea today.

Why do you care what other people think? Why do we wear ourselves weary trying to be worthy unto those who aren't worried about us anyway? Why do we go to such great lengths to prove ourselves deserving of a world that doesn't deserve that kind of devotion?

Eye for an eye.

There's an inescapable fairness in God's faithfulness. Do unto others. Life for life. The measure we use is the same in which we'll be measured. It's equality at its finest, fair to a fault. And yet somehow we've managed to miss it still. I reckon that it's only because we've only known that way of life, a focus focused upon all that's not worth focusing on. A sort of disheveled discontentment pretending to be okay with all this darkness and disappointment.

And by agreeing to let the world define our outcome, well, I guess it only stands to reason, goes hand-in-hand that so too do they reserve the right to define our outlook.

But again, why? Why do we continue looking to a world that's not looking to Christ? See, we're losing sight of that fairness God wrote into all this. We're losing the urgency to listen for that small voice in exchange for listening to the loud voices of the small. Because they're the ones we hear? Because they insist they're heard? Because we'll be berated if we don't tune in to the flaring tempers?

We live in a world raging incessantly, egregiously, violently at this point against our God. He's removed from schools, banned from governments, ignored in churches even. Replaced all over the place with a weakness aimed only at being found worthy. Worthy in the eyes of those who don't find Christ worth the time to pray. Worthy in the minds of those who don't find truth anything other than subjective. Worthy in hearts so hard that they've sealed out hope.

Worthy in the opinions of these millions who have decided that God's not there, not watching, not serious, not important.

What are we doing trying to please this place? Do we honestly think that God will be more pleased with us if we can manage to come before Him on judgement day with a list of people who liked us? Will we convince Him that we're worthy of forever with Him by showing Him all the ones we impressed that lived apart from Him? Is that how we're to believe this works?

Because it's not!

Not even close. It's nothing to do with pleasing people. We're not here to wander around in every worldly way until this world says we're worthy. Because it's not this world that decides! No, God does. God did. Christ came. Eye for an eye. He gave His life for our attention, our affection, our devotion unto the perfection He deserves, not the kind this world demands.

And that's what we see in the closing considerations of this chapter in Hebrews. Talking, as we did a bit yesterday, about all those who exuded the kind of faith we're called to have. But among that list of those pillars of this path we don't see many kings or nobles. There aren't a bunch of celebrities or those considered heroes among the masses. Not even rich people or famous folks or those deemed the influencers of their day.

We see slaves and prisoners. Prostitutes in the right place at the right time with a heart willing to do the right thing. The broken and barren believing in something better albeit impossible. Loners living apart from civilization. Outcasts not welcome inside homes or families or cities or conversations. Silly little kids that just came from watching over sheep who stepped up to a battle line at which they had no business being. Foreigners sold as slaves into a strange nation they'd held save.

Indeed, instead of kings we see the homeless. Rather than a list of the wealthy, we see a weirdo building a boat in the middle of the desert without a drop of water in sight. Mouths of lions staying closed despite the hunger. Flames unable to do what fire does. Walls falling down, waters being parted, a world being shaken not by those deemed worthy by the world, but those not trying to be.

That's who we're called to be. A people who don't care to please people. A people so weird and wacky that the world isn't worthy of us! How about that? We spend so much time trying to convince the world that we're worthy of their time, their attention, their love, their mention. But we're wearing ourselves out for nothing we need. We don't need this world to agree that we're here, that we matter, that we're doing or saying or believing what we're supposed to.

No, we're here to seek and serve Christ. To revere God alone. To cling to His Holy Word with all our might, so tight that His Words replace our own whenever we speak in the hearing of whomever has ears to hear. I think that's the part that we've all widely agreed to get wrong. We're not here to be heard but to say something, do something, be something that sends a message to those willing to hear.

And that's just an entirely different line than this world's chosen to live.

Around here all we hear is this incessant noise consumed with comparison considered through countless hours of scrolling through an endless array of people who think that what they had to eat is important enough to make them seem or feel worthy. Of attention. That's all most are fighting for. It's attention. It's approval. It's acceptance and affirmation as an escape from the condemnation of the thoughts we've grown afraid to think about.

Like how one day all the voices will grow silent. Or how this world is passing away quicker than we care to admit. Or how truth isn't ours to define. Or how pleasing people isn't actually accomplishing anything that can last. Or how the filters may cover our flaws, but the effects are only fleeting. Because our failures are still there. Our weaknesses are still waiting for us to work on them. Our fears are continually fighting against our hope.

Indeed, our faith is falling apart while we put on this show showing the world we've got it all figured out.

To be worthy so that we don't feel unworthy anymore.

Can't we see that this is a perfect example of the fragility of our focus? That if we look long enough in the wrong direction we'll only learn too much of the wrong information. Looking to the world to define our worth forces us to forget the worth God worked in us when He made us in His image. Because this world doesn't care to remain in His image, in His will, in His Word, aware of His Son.

No, this world is lost forever inside this competition for acceptance. And folks are doing whatever, saying whatever, believing whatever, becoming whatever it takes to win the love of this world that hates God. That's why we're told that friendship with the world is enmity against God. It's why we're told not to look at someone's height or appearance as God looks instead at the heart of a person.

And here in this passage in Hebrews we learn that it's the weirdos, the freaks, the failures and foreigners who are the ones that made the difference. All because they sought faith in God instead of friendship with a world living apart from Him. They did what most people wouldn't have considered doing, because they heard a different voice talking. They followed the Holy Spirit rather than what was hip socially.

And the world was not worthy of them. This place didn't deserve their kind of different. The cities in which they lived and the streets along which they walked and the ears to whom they tried to talk were not worthy of them being there trying to make the difference those around them there didn't want them to make. Egypt wasn't worthy of Joseph helping to keep the people from starving. Sodom wasn't worthy of Lot's willingness to try and show them a better way that could have saved more of them.

The kings that threw the faithful to the lions and flames weren't worthy of the opportunity to see God work through those who overcame those impossible odds.

But that's what God does through those who are willing to be the kind of different this world finds undeserving. Because God doesn't care about what this world thinks is important or special or popular or powerful or famous or worth following. God's not following anyone, but He will do incredible things through those who follow His Son. Things that this world isn't worthy of seeing or having the chance to believe in.

Like parting a sea so that those He knew would test Him in the desert on the other side could pass through safely to that desert just to show those who had eyes to see that it could be done so that they might come to believe in Him rather than those who refused.

That's faith my friends. It's a willingness to do what the world thinks is worthless. It's a life given to the hope of giving it back to the One who gave us that opportunity. It's a courage to hope in something despite only hopelessness up ahead. It's doing the right thing when nobody in their 'right mind' would dare consider it. It's turning the other cheek and giving the shirt off your back and walking this world wanting nothing other than that others might think we're so weird that we don't belong here.

Because we don't and we shouldn't want to.

We shouldn't see this world as our home, as our hope, as our chance to advance the world's willingness to say we're worthy of staying here. No, we just work here. We're on the clock and that clock's running out. And when it does, each of us will find ourselves face-to-face with the Father who will decide our forever.

Perhaps we should worry about whether or not we'll be welcome where He is instead of where we are. Because we're not staying here, but when eternity comes around, we're not leaving it. So I think we might should consider His opinion far more than that of those who aren't.

I truly don't care if this world thinks I'm worthy of their time or attention or affection or whatever other fabrication they're offering as a prize to those with eyes too blind to see that something else is coming. I don't care. I want to be hated, to be excluded, to be weird and unwanted here. Because I don't want to stay here forever. I'm just here to hopefully be the kind of different that makes a difference to those few who are willing to do the same.

But to do that we have to learn to stop trying to be worthy in the eyes of those around us. Their ways aren't His ways. Their wants not His will. Their desires not in any way close to what He deserves. No, this world’s ways and wants and wishes are all worthless, so why should we look to the masses to determine if we’re worthy? No, we have to pick who we serve. And we might be highly and widely misunderstood for the choice we choose.

But in the end, we know we've only peace forever to lose. And simply put, there's nothing here that's worth risking that!

#LeaveNoSoulUntold