Day 3221 of the 7 day Bible verse challenge.

1 Samuel 2:3 NIV

Arrogance allies a self with itself and thus burns every bridge to anything better that was kindly built by another.

Because our ego only keeps us so blinded by self-perception that we can’t see, let alone accept or admit how little we've done as seen in light of all we've done that shame now says shouldn't have ever even been considered. But if we could see that sad reality, we might just realize both the gravity of God's grace and therefore the urgency in which we should seek it. But we can't because in all honesty, we don't.

Don't have the foggiest idea as to how dire a state we're in. We don't want to have any awareness as to how bad off we really are wrapped within these lies we've made into lives that have only left us not at all living in that all that is now know in life, of life and within what we've mistakenly made of it comes not from the Father of light and life but from instead inside us knights of the night that live life as if it's our own to do with as pleases us.

And despite every decision made unto delight that then seems only to devolve and dissolve into a disdain that comes to keep us up at night, we awake from our sinful slumber every morning to once again march as if victors claiming territory never ours to keep. But yet we boast in this ability to demand otherwise, assuming God's eyes see as ours do, and that if so because we say so, He shall only reward us for the achievements we've made only by ignoring His existence.

Yes, our arrogance has achieved for us this insatiable ability to assume ourselves either standing on God's level or at least on a level of our own that's still somehow in good standing with Him.

We're not. We were born broken into a broken world that only broke us down into breaking ourselves into all these parts and pieces that now prefer this opinion that life's a party in which we are here only to pursue what pleases or at the least pacifies. Indeed, what we know of life is merely this endless string of self-perceived satisfactions that are only satisfying to a sin that's defined our defiance against the God from whom we came.

And to whom we'll return.

Within the endless hours and countless days spent confident that all that counts is what we consider comfortable or convenient, how often do we sit with that fact? Or do we even agree that such is reality? That one day we'll be found before God whether or not He's ever been acknowledged as the One who has gone before us?

Sadly, no, I don't have any reason to doubt that we don't consider that. Because the ways in which we've walked don't display nor define that He has gone before us. We're going our way, not His. We're in this for us, not Him. It's our plans we prize for the prizes they promise, and so His example of surrender seems silly. Yeah, His ways are foolishness to we who are perishing.

All because we're so lost that we don't know just how close death remains at the heels of our hateful heresies.

No, seems as if we've exchanged the image in which we were made for one considerably less stern and instead far more stupid. We bounce through life bounding off the bridges we're burning so we needn't admit we're holding the matches. We run right up the edge of reason or responsibility, but not to catch them only to shove them away from our way spent living as if they're so egregious that they're simply unneeded.

Yes, we've got it all figured out, don't we?

Know perfectly everything we're doing as if there's not a smoldering ruin in sight that says otherwise. At least not in the direction we're looking, as well, flames and their smoke rise whereas we're clearly content to keep falling further in love with our selfishness to a measure immeasurable in which we finally find this elusive reason to stop measuring in accordance with this arrogance that insists we be the ones who define the lines we walk and whether or not they're good.

And there's the definition of our downfall: We've shoved God so far out of our way that we're out of our minds with misunderstanding.

Indeed, we've no idea where we're standing as in fact we aren't. Baby deer do better than we do in terms of walking a line or living a life or getting it right. All we know is wrong, but it's been so wrong for so long that, knowing we don't know the way back, we just write lies that tell us wrongs are right and rights are wrong and that we're doing just fine as a result of our ego assuming itself an author of life on par with He who is life.

See, we've forgotten that. Not sure how as He told us quite plainly who all He is. The Way. The Truth. The LIFE. Jesus Christ. Son of God. Son of Man. So humble as to count equality with God as something to not be used as His own benefit so that we could be the ones to benefit from His humble benevolence.

Something we know nothing of, humility. Generosity. Modesty. Meekness. Can't even agree that we know weakness even though our only real strength is to sin against the Son who came that we might have life to the full instead of this hollow replacement we've been applauding ourselves for having made so irreverently. Irreversibly. But again, we don't consider that part, do we?

That sin is relevant that it's irreversible? That who we are as a direct result of all we've done that the Son simply said shouldn't be as it's in no way to Him satisfactory is so unpleasing that He'd rather look upon Christ suffering than to watch more of our sinning? Can you imagine that? That our ways are so wicked that God would rather see Christ in agony than another moment of our arrogance?

We've no idea as to just how unacceptable we've become.

And yet, because we so openly accept all that affirms or appeases or pleases, we see ourselves as saints deserving of divine reward instead of the sinners we really are who deserve only unending death. We're of such arrogance and pride that we'd rather die in selfishness than live forever in surrender. Again, can you imagine that? That a people would devolve so disgustingly that they'd eventually prefer death to life?

We're here, and yet, we're proud of it. We make flags and plan marches and march in parades in which we perform sights and sounds that soothe and satiate this gluttony that we've grown to idolize. Yes, we idolize depravity and insist everyone all around do the same.

But here's the thing, it's by Him that we're measured. It's by the Son that our souls will be weighed. It's according to the truth that our eternities will be determined. It has nothing to do with us nor what we like nor what we hate nor that we hate what He loves and won't stop loving all He hates. We're insistent upon doing this backwards as if He's simply going to accommodate our arrogant assumptions of these rewards to which we've grown entitled.

Friends, we ain't entitled to anything as we've taken everything He's given us, everything He's made of us, for us and sold it off so that we could serve ourselves instead. Fully denied God so fervently, so completely that even the living embodiment of love so perfect was seen as an enemy we had to eliminate. And yet we boast. We cheer and chuckle and chime in our voices to the chorus of calamity ringing in the ears of a Father who hears nothing but hatred from His creation.

How dare we do this this way? How dare we assume He oblige our obliviousness to His existence? How dare we pat ourselves on the back when we can look around and find nothing we've made, nothing we've done, nothing we are that ought to be? How dare we throw our arrogance in His face in return for His goodness and grace? Not only should such not be so, but it's due a demise that many eyes will only wish they couldn't see.

All because we've embraced this wicked idea that says our actions are weighed by our preferences and opinions. We live like everything we do is considered good or bad based on yesterday's failures. We make our choices in light of all the ones we've only gotten wrong. Do we not get that? That we've done nothing right? That when living according to our own wants and wishes, wickedness is all that's possible?

We can't please Him. We can't beat Him. We can't prove ourselves better than Him, faster than Him, smarter than Him, higher than Him. Because He lifted Himself on a cross like the ones we weary ourselves trying to leave laying on the ground. He took what we deserve while we won't agree that we even deserved it. Instead, we live in a way that has us boasting in ourselves as if we're something of ourselves when in reality, all we are is a combination of wrongs we decided upon by ourselves.

We're nothing without Him. Empty. Hollow. Baseless, faceless, graceless illusions of superiority that will eventually be utterly annihilated. Unless we stop. Unless we surrender. Unless we turn and return to the senses we sacrificed so long ago that we don't even remember what morality means anymore. We have no chance at anything other than the death we deserve unless we stop measuring our lives as if success is within our ability.

It isn't. Our pasts prove failure our only accomplishment. Failure to care. Failure to try. Failure to improve. Failure to feel. Failure to find whatever it is that we've so long assumed we'd find within ourselves and this place we've made a mess of having served ourselves for so long that we've severed hope and healing and happiness. Yet we can't even admit that we don't have any of those left either.

All we're left with is this arrogant assumption that He will measure our worth against what we've done, believing we've actually done something, anything that was truly worth doing. What have we done that's of any eternal worth? What have we made that will make Him proud? What can we point to that will guide us through those gates we've slammed shut with our sins? If we don't have the Son, what have we won that will ensure we win a race we can't otherwise prove we've ever tried to run?

It's by Christ that we'll be measured. By His deeds will ours be determined. By His deeds. By Him. Not by our pasts. Not in comparison to our present. Not in light of our preferences nor the passion with which we pursue them. We are weighed against Him, and in that we will always come up lacking as we've long since lost any reflection of the righteousness He designed in us.

No, we're but shells of the sons and daughters He designed us and then redeemed us to be. And if we don't do anything any differently knowing now the story of His glory, we've only ourselves to blame when we one day get everything we've earned. But it won't be peace. It won't be rest. We won't find healing or hope in nor of ourselves. He won't simply wave us in after we've lived waving Him off.

On that day, should we awaken unto it without Jesus, we'll be measured and found short as all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. All have let Him down. All have failed Him endlessly. All have denied Him tirelessly. All have refused Him, rejected Him completely. Each of us have felt the cold grip of that hammer and chosen our pick of the nails. We are Judas. We are Egypt. We are Sodom. We are fallen.

And our only hope isn't found in boasting so loudly that He forgets our failures but in surrendering so completely that nothing is left of us as all we seek anymore is more of the Son in whom is promised shelter. He is our only hope because it's by Him that we'll be measured.

So we'd better stop looking at life, at truth, at reason or reality as we've tried to make them and get back to seeing as He does, because He doesn't see as we do. He's not blind like we are. And that's the definition of our demise as He has seen in His eyes every wrong we've done, every mistake we've won, every loss we've craved and every choice we've made.

And we'd be fools to assume He's happy with anything we've done having done all we have without any of the humility or decency or dignity that He displayed for us to see.

See, He showed us the way, and so if we miss it, that's on us. Because He tried to show us the measure, and so if we don't measure up, it's only because He's not in us as we never wanted to be in Him.

And that's just the truth of it. No matter whether we like it or not as it’s not our preferences that form the standards by which He will judge. It’s His standards that we’ve lived never showing a willingness to prefer that will forever leave outside His mercy unless we humbly embrace the death to self that He showed is necessary to find it.

#LeaveNoSoulUntold