Day 3223 of the 7 day Bible verse challenge.

Colossians 2:23 NIV

When the purpose is purely personal, the performance is probably pathetic.

But here's the problem, being the performers we've become, we've become unable to see that far from stadiums, the only thing we're selling out is ourselves. And having been on sale for so long, we've left next to nothing with which to buy any semblance of sense that would afford us the humility to grasp our one opportunity to be saved from such an eternal loss as the letting go at rock bottom prices the pricelessness of Christ and all He's freely provided.

Much to our impending dismay, all this display is doing is driving us deeper into unending despair once we get where we can't quite bring ourselves to admit we fully deserve to be.

No, we're still debating whether or not hell really exists and how a good and loving God could be so brutal as to allow such a reality. We're still bickering back and forth as to what certain verses mean within the context we claim they come from. We're still separated, segregated upon these segues and sensitizations leaving souls sacrificed for sake of social success.

Yes, we're lost in denominations and delightful demonstrations that keep the people coming back as if faith is supposed to be popular in this place where the truth is unwelcome.

But because we don't want to feel unwelcome, unworthy and know that nobody else does either, we've settled for assuming the authority to select for ourselves and our friends the things we feel important, leaving behind all those too hard or too offensive or too confrontational as that's just not who we are. We're the good guys. We're the good news. We're the good.

If only in our own eyes, because hey, it makes a difference doesn't it?

Makes people feel good, right? It ensures that folks feel encouraged rather than weighed down, and that's why we're here, isn't it? To make people feel good? To make sure we feel good? To live our lives assuming we've any idea as to what good is despite our pasts proving effortlessly otherwise? It's our eyes. Our time. Our turn. And as such, apparently it's our chance to make the changes we insist should be there in order to make this what we feel it should be.

Devil doing his work in these wayward hearts that want only to wander away from their Maker.

How dare I say such a thing in this day and age where it's so supremely easy to find someone who will say that whatever you want to do is the very thing you ought to be free to do? Because here lost within irrelevant religion as opposed to reverent submission, we've become the ones who draw the lines and expect God to be impressed with how well we walk them.

That's all religion is. It's humanity's selfish attempt to craft or create a construct that conveys a consideration of things we otherwise find unacceptable.

It's our working ourselves thin just to show Him how hard we could go for Him had He been the One we were living for. All these rules and regulations made requirements in these religious environments are only evidence that we can restrain, but only in such a way that doesn't restrict. No, we're fine writing rules we know we can follow, but to follow another is asking too much as we need our voices heard as they'll ensure our preferences are appeased.

That's why we have so many religions in this world. That's why we have so many truths considered actually true. They're all formulations and fabrications of feeble facilitations found in trying to figure out a way to find what we want to find without finding out that we're just failures. We want to show a moral standard, but turns out that doing so while having no standards, moral or otherwise, well, we've not much choice but to fake it hoping we'll make it.

Indeed, that's by and large the loophole that our hope has come to exist as. We hope that God's impressed. We hope that Christ can someday see that it wasn't us who held that hammer. We hope that the Spirit doesn't mind the social suggestions we sometimes listen to. We hope that the Bible doesn't mind a bit of eisegesis so that our opinions fit into it. We hope that prayer is really just a means to ensure our success or safety or satisfaction.

Yeah, we hope that He's fooled. We hope that He falls for it. We hope that all these foolish rules we impose upon ourselves prove passing replacements for the lack of reverence or respect shown in our rejection of submission to the Son who won back what we lost by paying our cost on the cross. We hope that following the lines we draw so strictly shows Him that we're trying really hard to walk the line, just our own.

Because we don't want to submit, to obey, to agree to die in such a way as to walk in His.

And yet as we know that that's wholly unacceptable a response to His sacrifice, we know we have to find a way to make it look better so that we can feel better about not doing better. We don't want the One who carried our cross to see ours still on the ground, because we know that that would look bad. And well, we're all about appearances, deceiving though they stay.

You know, it's a funny thing all this time we spend on trying to backdoor salvation. Spend our lives looking for another way into His gift of resurrection into a new life that doesn't demand a death lead the way in. We try to come up with all these alternative suggestions that seem to impose a greater degree of self-denial, but in truth, the only real denial here is our thinking that He's actually going to believe our show and tell.

Can we not yet see that that's all we've chosen to offer? We put on these costumes in order to look the part we're to play, but that's where it stays. We rehearse the lines so they sound smooth when we say them, but the interesting inflections only illustrate that we're inconsiderate. It's all just pretend, a pattern we repeat supposing that He's going to appreciate our surrender to a schedule.

Worship starts at 10:30 sharp each Sunday. Done by noon, guaranteed.

It's all us. All the time. We insist on being the ones who prove ourselves the ones who don't need Him. From platforms of pretend piety to shows orchestrated so well that Broadway takes notice, it's all just our way to stay in our lane knowing well the cost required of His. Sure, we'll consider some limits. We'll write some rules. Brainstorm some bylaws. One more translation. Exciting new denomination.

How pleased He must be at how insane we've become trying to avoid His simplicity.

But I guess it has to stay difficult for it look genuine. We need to show a little suffer to make up for a lack of surrender. Watch us cry, hear us weep, salvation hinged upon an apology. That's as far as we'll go. Final offer. Take it and leave us alone. We'll make our way from here toward wherever we can get on our own all so that we needn't ask another to show us how to do what would end us.

No, His end is fine because He could bounce back. We know there's no going back for us should we dare venture into the fullness of the humility that sees a tomb as an open door unto another life.

We don’t want another life. Don’t want a way that actually demands something we’re not willing to consider. We don’t appreciate a faith that asks us to believe in something we can’t see. We can see rules. We can polish shoes. We can check boxes and convince ourselves that they symbolize accomplishments. Because they ask we do what we’re willing to.

He just asks we do what we’re not ready to.

Confrontational. Just like these posts probably come across most of the time as they are generally along this line of aggravation and utter disappointment. So much so that I doubt highly that all that many read them, let alone all the way through. We don't have to. We don't have to hear what offends. We don't have to acknowledge what agitates. Nothing in this world has left us any reason to let anything or anyone annoy with affront. Scroll on. Skip it. Why go there?

Because we can't fight what's fighting against us if we can't admit we're losing the battle.

God isn't impressed with religion because it's a bunch of human rules that we've come up with that only keep us focused the wrong direction. It's not sacrifices or grain offerings He's ever been pleased with. He doesn't need the smoke and concerts. We'll not win His favor by singing the right song or showing up at the required number of weekly meetings. There are no pins or trophies, only triumphs and testimonies.

But those come through hardship and humility, and friends, all this that we're trying to do our way just doesn't want either. We don't want to be humble. We don't want to endure challenge. We hate life's hard days. Despise the rain. And then we still reserve the right to wonder why we don't grow anymore.

No, here we sit all sullen and sad assuming that such is the sacrifice needed for salvation. It's become tear-stained eyes and torn clothes. See how much we're suffering! Oh the calamity of our self-imposed challenges to make only the changes we know we can't fail. And He stays on the cross while we keep trying to find a way to get there without the crosses we see lying beside us.

Friends, our way will never accomplish for us anything we need, it'll only keep us distracted from it. When Jesus said that no one goes to the Father expect through Him, He did leave any wiggle room for religion to set in. It's Him or hell. Surrender or suffer. It's simple, but all this complexity that we've arrived at instead just shows that we still assume that our making it hard will somehow make it more acceptable.

But the bottom line is that we aren't acceptable. There's nothing about us that's acceptable. All we are are just heartbreaking reminders of every moment we could have chosen to fear God but instead chose to be afraid of what God both demands and honestly just deserves. Afraid to let go what we don’t think we can live without. Afraid that what He said wasn't enough. Afraid that the Son He sent didn't finish the job. Afraid that surely 10 Commandments aren't enough to ensure righteousness. Afraid that the cross might still kill us.

Afraid to let go of what the cross asks of us.

Religion is misplaced respect. It's hope hung upon our abilities, our ideas, our opinions. It's just us respecting ourselves far too much in assuming that we ourselves can actually come up with some way to please God that's based on rules rather than reverence. And as long as we keep going that way, it doesn't matter how thin the line we draw becomes, it will only lead us nowhere closer to the One who proved that life as we've known it has to end before faith can truly begin.

He will never be impressed with our attempts to impress Him. Because true faith demands true humility, and honestly, we can't actually think ourselves humble when we're the ones we're trusting to write the rules we hope He approves as acceptable replacements for hearts we never tore away from what was tearing them apart from Him.

At the end of this life, it won’t matter the lines we walked but rather where we went. What we did. Who we were. Where we stood. But if all we have to stand upon when we kneel before Him is a bunch of rules we wrote for ourselves to follow, we’ll be proven the biggest fools ever for actually expecting that to be anywhere near enough to hear Him to say He knew us enough to welcome us into His peace.

If you want to run this race relying on religion, go right ahead. But don't be surprised when one day you find that you're running all alone without anyone to help but the rules you chose to follow instead of following the Son who knows the way.

#LeaveNoSoulUntold