Day 3198 of the 7 day Bible verse challenge.

Romans 3:27 NIV

All which is now excluded is all for which we’ve long existed.

This fact defines the very reason so many deny Christ. It isn't because His promise doesn't hold amazing reward but just that it deserves rather humbling requirement.

And well, there's a couple of words in that that are altogether belittling to our sense of betterment. Humble and requirement are things that all of humanity struggle to entertain as we're lost feverishly inside this assumption of entitlement as bred by deception that's left us convinced we're not doing without in having our way.

No, all of life as we've come to know it, or rather to assume it, is encompassed in and defined by this idea that everyone is fully free to do as they please without pause. And by fully free I mean not merely to make our own choices but to avoid their consequences. That's the fabrication of freedom we've found in focusing on finding ourselves serving ourselves. It’s this completely carefree calamity that’s culturally considered commendable.

But in all, it's mostly the consequences that we've aimed to ignore as they're the half of this whole that we know carry a cost we can't deny. But being the arrogant we are, we've decided to try anyway.

And yet since such is asinine in the face of reality, we've had to resort to some rather impressive lengths gone to in order to find both ways and reasons to make such stupidity seem reasonable. Things such as vanity and pride have become mainstays among mankind as they offer us plenty of deceptions that serve as distractions that can and are serving as devotions to which we delve deeper in this incessant search of more shadows in which to hide our shallowness.

Yes, humanity has become altogether shallow, corporately living an existence up upon the surface afraid to go too deep as we all know that that's where the undeniable truth resides.

And so we continue these egotistical efforts to keep serving ourselves through sin and satisfaction assuming that such is truly what makes life worth living. In fact, it goes even deeper than that. Sin and its satisfaction are largely what have come to define our identity. It's this endless race, running as if dogs chasing their tails, entirely ready to tell everyone all about it should we catch them. Because that's all we've chosen to become, selfish souls seeking success in something by which we can sell ourselves as those superior among society.

Indeed, people here live life only to offer these lavish tales which serve to make heroes of themselves. It’s all about all we are, all we’ve done, all we still plan to do, as if we have any control over tomorrow, a foolishness warned against over in James 4:13-15. But sadly, like humility and requirement, we're not too interested in warnings either. And so we've probably missed that one, ironically enough.

No, life as we know it has devolved into being defined by our dreams and desires, and mostly our dedication to them. It’s what we have, what we hold, what we hope to have and hold if there's anything we've gone without thus far, knowing inside that we have as we want something today that we didn’t even know about last night. Accomplishments, achievements, accolades, attributes, attitudes. Opinions, preferences, possessions and pronouns.

It all just keeps progressing into this incessant and impromptu impropriety that again has become our identity.

We’ve made life all about us, leaving most to entirely hate the law that requires faith because this faith demands we hold another in higher regard than ourselves. It not only asks but expects that we humble ourselves to actually having to admit that we’ve been given something we couldn’t come close to accomplishing or acquiring as we have these selfish rewards earned due to our merits or mastery of something material.

No, faith is gift, a choice chosen by another, a mercy manifesting in the Son of Man who came not to be served but to serve and to give His life as a ransom for many, many among whom we're found. Yes, Christ died for all of us because all of us have lived a life that deserves death. And within this jarring truth is found the fact that the only part we've played in this story is that of the villain who violated a kind of love and kindness that we still don't deserve.

That's right, don't deserve. Can't earn. Can never afford. Are entirely unable to achieve or accomplish or purchase or produce. No, this faith utterly obliterates boasting because even if we were to boast, it could only be in that we've been given something, and that that something is a gift we don't deserve. So then even our boasting, should it be done, becomes praise because it must testify that God is better than we, as shown in His mercy overcoming our madness only possible because He sent the Christ to come find us.

And that's why the vast majority of folks detest this faith: It leaves us nothing to brag about, nothing to applaud ourselves for, nothing to show off as something we've done under our own power or by our own planning.

Therefore, in light of and in regard to common misunderstanding, faith leaves us nothing as it leaves us nothing of ourselves or our accomplishments because it proves that all we’ve accomplished by ourselves is an eternal undoing of all that He did to create us in an image of something better than we’ve become.

So no, we can't brag about what we've accomplished or acquired. Faith has no room for pride in possessions or vaunting ourselves via vanity. Faith's entire existence hinges wholly upon humility, and well, that's been all but lost upon most of humanity. In fact, I dare say that humility is only possible as a byproduct of faith because it's all but impossible in this place to not think too highly of oneself.

That is pretty much all we’ve all become because that’s all we’ve long been told to be by those who are or who were just as lost as we.

But that fact is that a faith that teaches that another died a death that our desires left us deserving, that pretty much reminds us permanently that we're next to nothing as we've obviously only done almost everything wrong, even if everyone else doing it did inspire our doing the same. And well, that's just about the last message you're likely to hear around here. No, we’ve got glory to gain through tales telling of all we’ve made of ourselves.

We're titles and trophies, treasures made into testimonies of our triumphs over trials. All so that we can boast about ourselves as if we're something of ourselves, something of our own doing, something we had some sort of say in somehow. Stomachs still seating gods who are gluttons for glory, even if it's short-lived and silly.

All because as long as we feel as though we've something in which to boast, well then we won't have to admit that we're actually nothing but buffoons.

And there’s the tragedy in this story. Faith effortlessly proves that we’re fools bent on futility. It paints this picture of perfection that all we’ve done is come along and ruin. That’s all we are, destroyers who delight in the tearing down or tearing apart of anything and everyone that we can’t claim some sort of glory in having managed or made. That’s why the cross, it was our way of making sure that everyone knew, Christ most of all, that His way and His Word weren’t welcome to contend against our arrogance.

Thankfully though, this faith comes with a chance to make the changes that are needed to become something more, something real, something true. But here's where the requirement comes into view. We have to be willing to surrender in order to make this kind of change. We have to actually want less of ourselves, so much so that we find ourselves oddly eager to race into a tomb, a strange outlook for those used to looking for ways to get out of it.

But you see, there's the beauty to be beheld in this gift of His goodness. We get to die to who we've been pretending to be as we've long pretended to be someone special while having to deny that we know otherwise. And thankfully faith doesn’t just kill the old us, it leaves all that that old us was used to likewise buried in that grave, boasting included.

Not merely because there’s some law against bragging or being as excessively vain as we’ve become in this day and age, but because the law defines us as lawbreakers who deserve only punishment, not pride. And while that is altogether offensive to our arrogance, just beyond our breaking is found something in which we can rejoice again. Yes, His mercy gives us a way to revel in something, a joy to be found, a hope to be had and held. His grace gives us something in which to glory!

Just not in ourselves, that's done for good on this side of reason.

No, what we can glory in is that the law defines that He desired us to return to Him, even though such was never an idea of our own as our sins clearly had us plenty content living life apart from Him and outside His will. And that cross, well, it just proves that He came for us when we weren’t looking, while we were so lost inside ourselves that we actually thought He deserved our part, an arrogance that left us unable to see His majesty was bringing us mercy we didn’t know to admit we couldn’t live without.

And thus faith comes full circle. What started with a batch of breathing blasphemes boasting in their belief in their being better has become a few following faithfully the faith that comes from the Father, finally something not of ourselves. And while this world doesn't understand the beauty of that, I'm personally finding in new ways every day that it's a freedom not found within the ways of this world.

No, true freedom is being set free from ourselves, but it's that final chain that's the hardest to break as it's the one we've been forging the longest. Living to serve self has long been our only outlook, but once faith is allowed forward, we'll find that we've been looking in only the wrong direction. His light has always been there but we've always been pointed into the darkness looking for desires that we believed would give us something to brag about.

Friends, life isn't meant for our making something of ourselves, something that'll please or impress this pitiably petty population. It's not about setting our souls to seeing and seeking all that satisfies as what have we really accomplished or achieved if we're satisfied? What can that possibly mean in eternity? That kind of priority only means something in the moment, and well, I'm personally done living as if one moment is meant to matter more than the rest.

No, what matters isn't what we do or what we've done but what's been done for us. Because when this life ends, and it will, we'll not be rewarded based upon our worldly accolades or how much applause we had here. Our worth will be weighed in whether or not we knew Christ as our only Lord and Savior. Only Lord and Savior. No room for self. Why? Because we’re nothing without Him, and so should we enter His presence without His presence in us, we'll be only welcomed to leave as He will have obviously never known us.

All because we lived only knowing ourselves all so that we could boast in ourselves, and that's simply not acceptable because that way of life will only ever have us focused on ourselves trying to commend ourselves.

But, “Let the one who boasts boast in the Lord.” For it is not the one who commends himself who is approved, but the one whom the Lord commends. 2 Corinthians 10:17-18

In the end, my accomplishments and accolades, even my very words mean nothing as my past arrogance proves that they would have likely been found among those used to cheer on His suffering. So it’s His words that I’ll now seek to echo instead because my voice hasn’t actually accomplished anything, but His on the other hand, well, “It is finished” pretty much says it all. Thus my personal boasting is done, and like Paul, my only opinion is now this:

“May I never boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, through which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world.” Galatians 6:14

#LeaveNoSoulUntold