Day 3199 of the 7 day Bible verse challenge.

Ephesians 2:8-9 NIV

By grace through faith from God. Someone please tell me where our arrogance fits within that frame!

But I reckon the obvious problem that it's not within that frame that we've found ourselves fighting to fit. Rather, we've all unanimously approached life as if it's a masterpiece of our own making, as if we can make of it what we want from it, assuming that we know as much as we so often assume inside this rampant arrogance that has had us all convinced that we know everything there is to know about everything as if we're the ones who set it all in motion.

No, the only motion we've become is a furthering of that began by those who've gone down hard before us.

We are every bit the progeny of our predecessors. Images recapturing the raucous revelry of all those who've long lived in enmity against God. Despite our defiance as defined by our diligence given unto depicting ourselves as those dedicated to humble service of the divine, truth is that most of our lives still find us diving well short of the standards of God.

And yet, there's still such widespread boasting as if we're the ones who began these blessings we've risen above on the wings of wayward wickedness that has us only taking them entirely for granted as if grace is a given rather than a gift.

Yes, arrogance has us forgetting not only all that's been done but why, by whom, for whom and to what end. Having beheld such brashness within us, our arrogance has bred this belief that it was all only for us, an entitlement fulfilled rather than a faith being formed. And in that we find that we're still falling for ourselves, over ourselves, all because we've never come close to learning to get over ourselves.

Nope, upon high horses still we trod as if we're deserving of all that's been done.

But here inside this one lone verse from a letter written millennia ago is found every dismantling of our delusional illusion of grandeur. It's from God, all of it. Hope, healing, happiness, humility, all God. Peace, promise, prosperity, a position posed upon an opinion of popularity's repulsiveness. All from God. Hearts broken yet beating again, eyes opened as if seeing life for the first time, first breaths taken inside a belief that bridges here with home.

It's all God.

You see, should we lose sight of the fact that all of this that we know of as faith is in fact a gift, it will never be able to become what He began. Because the reality is that we've followed our foolishness and arrogance for so long now that we'll continue along that path perpetually perpendicular to the path that leads contrary. We'll forever be led away because we'll forever find ways to be led astray by everything other than He who died to take the lead.

That's the ultimate beauty in this faith, but it's the one arguably hardest to find. It's an opportunity we sadly see as inopportune. Because it both demands and deserves our humble dedication to delighting ourselves no longer in ourselves, the fullness of faith remains, potentially forever, just beyond the point where we won't go: Breaking to pieces over the truth that promises peace.

So few find so little reason to venture into a deeper measure of trust in Christ because we all know where it leads because we all know where He led. Goes one way, and it's everything that our way has never come to desire. We've learned to desire prosperity, safety, success and selfish security. Life is all but a making of misplaced masterpieces mangled inside minds misunderstanding their Maker simply because He isn't them.

He's not like us, and sadly, we've never really sought to be more like Him. At least not so far. Everything God has done for us was accomplished and achieved through humility. He didn't have to leave Heaven. He didn't have to endure the scowls and scolding of a sad society. Didn't have to embrace the cross, taking our place for us. Didn't have to lay down His life for those who didn't love Him enough to do the same, for those who didn't love Him at all.

But He chose all of this, to live, to die, to rise, to leave, to let us follow. Into the tomb. Because there's no boasting in death, at least not within our understanding of it. To us down here it's just the end of us down here. It's a door closed, a clock stopped, a life over, nothing left. Can't brag about that, won't find anything inside a grave to boast about as our voices will not speak again of all we've done or where we've been, because there’s no coming back from where we’ll go.

No, into the tomb is where we obviously end. But that's the only direction in which faith can begin.

Because we have to come to the end of us to see that He's always been there, just beyond our breaking. He waits for us to come to terms with the fact that we need Him because we're not Him and therefore are nothing without Him. That's faith, trusting in another to be there, to come through, to never fail nor forsake the hope placed humbly in them from those who dare place something of themselves in the hands of another.

And the reward is so remarkable because He knows the courage called for to make that choice to embrace that change.

Faith leads us to die in every way we know how without possibly knowing how. It's a letting go of all we've gained, a releasing of everything. No longer do we come first, no longer are we even on the list. No, once we're past the point where we no longer want to return to who we've been, He is the list because He then becomes everything as we finally find that He always been.

So much is talked about His mercy and grace and this extraordinary kind of love that saved sinners such as us. It's a big deal, but the problem is that it's bigger than we can imagine because our minds are still in tune with the many thoughts foolishly bought over the years. Ideas of inventing ourselves into the idols and images we've learned to imagine. Hours and days spent scouring this soil seeking something satisfying.

An entire lifetime left behind trying to get ahead all because we thought we knew where we were going, a place where we were going only because we knew we were going to gain everything.

And that's the hard part in this, He deserves us letting go of everything. Everything we've been and been through. Surrendering Saturday just as much as Sunday morning. Jumping headlong into His consuming fire fully aware that nothing is going to make it that doesn't belong, and excited for the opportunity to have it all taken away. But we're still in a world that seeks to keep.

So we too are at risk of being reminded of all we have to lose that we have to lose.

But I dare you to pay attention to only all you have to gain because the fact is that when all is lost, then all is left to gain again. Only this time, with hearts and eyes and minds and lives aimed eternally for Christ, what we gain can't be lost because He won't lose us. Proved that upon the cross. Paid that cost so that all who were lost can now be found, not so they can brag but so that we learn there's something better than our selfish victories.

Because this is a victory we couldn't win as our lives were already lost to the wrong side of everything. I think rather often about all that I've missed or misunderstood. Wonder who I could have been or how much further and deeper I could have been into this faith had I not wasted so many years worrying about everything else, everything less. And it sucks to be perfectly honest.

But then I'm reminded that that's just humility doing what He made it for. It's a gift given to lead us away from a life lived thinking we know how to best live life. Much like faith is a gift given to lead us away from ourselves having only known to live for ourselves so that we could boast in ourselves and all that we've done by ourselves.

Truth is we’ve done nothing by ourselves, and there's the ultimate table turned for all of us.

Everything we are, everything we've done, everything we've seen and everywhere we been is all part of God's design. We've only made a mess of it because we've tried to make it our own. But the grace is shown in that He chose to not let us be as powerful as we've long thought ourselves to be. We may have made some mistakes, a lot of mistakes, pretty much only mistakes, but our choices cannot undo what He's chosen.

And for that reason we can now rebuild ourselves by not trying to build ourselves but instead letting Him build us on the fact that all of this is a gift that was given to us which has nothing at all to do with us. It's all from God because of who God is, not what we've done. Because if faith were a product of what we've produced, He'd not be the Almighty. But thankfully, He is the first and the last, the beginning and the end.

All that's left for us is a simple decision as to when we begin to seek our end so that He can become to us all He's been all along.

I'll be the first to admit that I often struggle with this feeling of not doing enough. I reckon that's one of the reasons these posts tend to tip over the 2,000 word mark. But knowing who I've been and what He's done despite that, it's hard to imagine that I'm measuring up because I've lived a life measuring myself by myself. And this faith is something entirely different.

It's a different scale, a strange equation, a foreign currency exchange that makes no sense most of the time. Because He takes our brokenness and makes something that's beautiful. He turns messes into messages, trials into testimonies. The lost are found, dead are living and those living apart from Him the only ones who will die forever. The learning curve on this thing is wild!

But thankfully we have a patient Teacher who's already proven He's willing to do whatever it takes to help us understand who He is and how He loves.

Friends, as much as we're used to a world that makes us work for everything, we have to always remember that He is not of this world. Down here we wear ourselves out trying to find something, be something, make something that's worth bragging about. But in Him, our accomplishments don't really mean anything. No, as seen in Abraham's trust being credited to his account as the righteousness God deserves, we see that all we can do is the same.

Just trust. Believe. Have faith so deep that it demands nothing else be considered again. Because considering all He's done, what is there that we can possibly do that's of any semblance of worth? He gave His life, and so the best we can do is give ours to Him in return. And though they seem well broken way beyond repair, our fragility is all He asks for.

Because it's only when we're broken that we can find the humility that's long been hidden beneath the surface we've tried to make seem successful. It's in our brokenness that we finally find that He's shattered us for that very reason: Not to leave us in this condition, but to show that He can take anything, anyone and turn it in to something amazing. But the lesson is that He does it not for our glory but for His, because in truth, our glory means nothing. His though, it changes lives.

So no, there might not be much we can brag about once headed deeper in the direction of faith. But that's an amazing thing, because it just proves that we're not working for it but that it's been given. And because of the fact that it is a gift given with no regard to what a person has or hasn’t done, we can live for His glory now, like we should have all along, by telling everyone else who also doesn’t deserve it that deserving isn’t the point.

It’s accepting it that matters.

It's not faith by works but works from faith. And that's something that only grows more amazing every time you think about it. It's not what we have to do in order to be enough but what we get to do that shows that we’re not enough to show the rest of the world that He is enough.

To show everyone that He is everything.

#LeaveNoSoulUntold