Day 3202 of the 7 day Bible verse challenge.

Micah 6:8 NIV

Christ went through a whole lot of bad just to show us what is good, and despite our defiance demanding otherwise, that gift is owed an immeasurable reverence in return.

It’s been my hope that I’ve somehow managed over the last couple of days to convey the dire difference between salvation by works and works inspired by salvation. This to me has become, for some reason, a truly vital message to share. Because it seems as though this discrepancy has been ironically ironed into a homogenous heresy that's custom-painted to make us believe that nothing at all is required of us in response to His impossible gift of supreme righteousness.

But because this whole idea has weighed upon my mind for weeks, months at this point, I can't help but imagine that no amount of words or the passion with which they're presented will inevitably fall well short of intention.

This laziness and laxity being laid within the foundations of faith being poured anymore is absolutely terrifying. Because I know all about laziness. I've lived as if it's master. My past awarded me a doctorate in dormancy. And I can testify to this in many different ways, but all of them would combine to say that laziness can never achieve for us anything. Because all laziness wants is to stay the same no matter what it may cost in the way of opportunity or other outcome.

And having known so long the levels to which the lazy will lobby for more lethargy, I know that it can bring nothing to faith. But knowing now how monumental this opportunity is that we've been unduly given, I know also that going into this journey with hearts still half-alive at best because of past laziness will only lead to struggle if not surrender at some point.

Because this road isn't easy and our having sought to make it so is only evidence that we're living in expectation of Him further lowering Himself through the lowering of His standards, of His requirements, of His righteousness to help us feel not quite so subhuman in light of our lack of standards as show in our hatred of requirements because of our complacency in unrighteousness.

We want Christ on that cross, we need Christ on that cross. Why? Because we're altogether morally, ethically, spiritually, eternally bankrupt and so we know we can't pay what we owe for what we've done that's left us who we've become.

But here's the thing, without a cross taken up, the entirety of our faith is meaningless. Had Jesus not chosen in humility to be humiliated by a humanity that forgot His majesty, we'd be not but forever depraved. We'd be dead men unable to walk, unable to hope, unable to feel or forgive or forget or pray that He can really do both knowing so severely how badly we need that mercy.

Yet thanks to action chosen on His end, He did what was needed and it’s resulted in that mercy we need so desperately. That’s the message of the Gospel, that He gave it. Freely. Without expectation is how the Lamb of God came to this earth because He knew beforehand that billions would only slap His hand away and keep on walking down the road they'd chosen. But friends, without expectation does not equate to without requirement. And that is the dividing line between works-based salvation and works done in response to our being saved.

He doesn't ask us to pay Him back because He knows we can't. But He does ask us to now live different lives as a sign of our appreciation for our awareness of the fact that we can't pay Him back.

Again, He chose Himself to do what He did for all who might have eyes that see and ears that hear and minds that are at all able to consider or contemplate the off-chance that they don't already know everything so that hearts once cold and dead can be revived back to living life again. He chose it, but should we choose to accept it, there ought to be distinct and indisputable evidence of our regeneration as made possible only by His redemption.

We are the redeemed, but what are we doing?

What does He ask of us in response to all the extraordinary good He's done in our lives? What sort of requirement has been registered for our acceptance in light of His completely unwarranted acceptance of us? What could He possibly demand we do in order to have the fullness of His forgiveness? Must be massive, this list of requirements and requests, right?

Act, love, walk.

11 letters combining to form three separate words. Simple enough, right? Kind of broad some may say. Act how? Love what? Walk in what fashion along which path heading where? Does seem somewhat broad indeed, but to that response I'd riposte, "But wait, there's more!" See, He never leaves us having to guess as, well, He knows we're not at all good at it.

And so He fills in the blanks our buffoonery builds before we've even begun deconstruction.

Act justly. Live in a way in which we show an appreciation for and awareness of the power of justice and the responsibility it's meant to inspire in us, as that's for which it's been created. It's a call to behave in a better form and fashion than our pasts had portrayed. To act justly is a duty which can only be done though humility as it must maintain an upright posture postulated upon proper performance as gauged by a source of supreme perfection.

And thankfully we have one such example as we ourselves ain't close!

Love mercy. To love mercy is to so revere His righteousness having chosen to save us that we fight fervently, forever if need be, against all that we now know has rendered us so unbecoming of His kindness coming. It's to hold so much gratitude for His giving us such an undeserved gift that it displays a newfound desire to serve Him in humility as we still come to understand in deeper measure every day just how humble He must be to have chosen what He did for a people who didn't choose Him.

Walk humbly. To move, fully aware of our being completely unworthy of such progress or passion. To move requires one to feel an urgency to refuse stagnancy. It's an awareness of our moral retardation shown in a new refusal to ever lower ourselves that low again but rather to understand the necessity of humility as it inspires a lowliness that has us forever reaching higher.

To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with our God is all accomplished in that one Commandment which says we shall have no other God before Him. Because to now act justly can only be done having lived thus far unjustly and being miraculously made aware of our shortcomings. To love His mercy asks of us that we admit that He is better than we as we agree that we don't deserve such grace. And to walk humbly with our God means we've made that choice that He is our God, thus no longer are we.

You see, people think that God has all of these really strict and drastically demanding requests and requirements. How could He not? He died for us! All the blood and pain and shame and torment must have left His rage boiling against our ongoing rebellion, right? Because I mean, we are still rebellious. Still prone to laziness. We still look for the ways in which to make this path easier as we still loathe all difficulty.

And so it stands to reason that He must have all sorts of extreme requirements for us to be redeemed back into His good graces.

Alas, God's not hindered by our misunderstandings of reason.

Act justly, love mercy, walk humbly. That it makes no sense just goes to show that we know nothing of who God is nor how He loves. We've so overcomplicated faith through trying to avoid any and all demand of change or chance that we've lost sight of the simplicity. How can it all be so simple? No, perhaps the real question is why can't it be so simple?

See, Scripture tells us that whomever will not receive the kingdom of God as if a little child shall never enter therein. Matthew 18:3, Mark 10:15, Luke 18:17 all say the same thing from the same source. Who? Jesus. Yep, Christ Himself tells us that the kingdom of God is found through the eyes and hearts and minds and souls of children. Why? Kids keep things simple. They trust, they believe, they rely. Yes, they rely upon another instinctively.

Why have we agreed to lose that, where was it lost and just how fiercely are we fighting to get it back?

Action, movement, love, gratitude, awareness, acceptance, reliance. We needn't figure it out as our understanding isn't the point. No, the point and purpose of the Gospel is to show us what is good so that we might understand that both we've not been good but that something good has still been done for us that has now opened the door unto our doing better. But again, why? Why would He show us who are wicked what is righteous? Why display goodness to a people lost in a way most grievous?

Because He still knows the image in which we were made and unlike we've so clearly done in our having so violently chosen all that's become our undoing, He's not given up quite yet. Because He is good, He still has plans for us that are better than what we've become. And though we've become the bankrupt, He responds to our errancy with a priceless perfection that makes us new again.

And that all of this has been done is not at all up for debate. The Gospel of Christ and His accomplishments upon our cross are cornerstone to our faith. All that's left undone is our deciding what we do in return. Again, not because He asks us to do something to earn it, but because this kind of gift simply deserves something done that shows it's been clearly received.

Friends, act, love, walk. Justice, mercy, humility. The simplicity of that requirement compared to the complexity of His crucifixion is mindboggling. But He's not asking us to be Him but rather to for once in our lives finally honor Him, worship Him, glorify Him, love Him. And honestly, if we can't do that in response to all He's done, we simply don't want to believe in the fullness of His story.

Because there must be doubt or denial hidden and still chosen somewhere in our lives if our response to having been saved and set free, given a revived hope in a peace unending held and waiting inside eternity, is anything but awe and a gratitude so humbling that everything we've known becomes everything we don't care to know about anymore.

The laziness, the levity, the laxity, the latitude in which we've formed our arrogant attitude must leave immediately as there's just no room in our new lives for our old ways.

We can't risk denying Him the honor and respect and love and praise that He deserves simply because we don't want to have to do anything. What we've been in the past isn't anywhere close to what is considered good, and so He came to show us what good looks like. And all we can possibly offer in return are lives clearly changed so deeply that they so obviously want to grow closer to His goodness no matter what it takes.

No matter what it takes.

Act justly, love mercy, walk humbly. We're getting off easy! But that doesn't mean we should go easily into this journey. No friends, He is owed more than that, so much more. Please stop forcing faith to conform to your understandings and simply accept that we'll never understand it, but that we can at the very least show that we get it. Do we get it? That He loves us and simply asks that we love Him in return?

It is just that simple, but if we can't show it, then how dare we say we've claimed it?

#LeaveNoSoulUntold