Day 3224 of the 7 day Bible verse challenge.

Colossians 2:20 NIV

As those who claim a share in the cross, our lives should evidence a sacrificial awareness of the cost.

And yet within religion's assumptions, we see only a semblance, a shadow, a selfish selflessness that has only achieved for us the lukewarm faith that He made clear He hates. Because why shouldn't He despise such a disinterested display as our relegating the fullness of faith to merely a list filling up with rules we hope can get us close enough without the ultimate loss? Truth is that if we won't die too, then how dare we ask Him to do so for us?

How dare we claim His Name, proclaim His Name if we live in such a way that said Name is merely one aspect of our understanding, a misunderstanding leaving us standing still when we should be running for our lives from all He died to take away?

Unfortunately having so long lived inside this idea that life is meant for gain, we're horrified of loss. We're shaken at the suggestion of sacrifice. The mere mention of meekness brings in us this weakness that's not what we want seen in us. No, we're supposed to be these bold, brave victors who exist solely to divide the spoils of all we accomplish on our own upon this soil. Lives lived stuck to the ground, but holding high a list of intentions we've invented to lift ourselves higher.

Is there a greater height than the depth of His love shown for all to see in the place we should be?

No, the true pinnacle of personal responsibility is found only when we've drained ourselves dry, reaching the bottom of our selfishness, and then sought that one step further into selflessness, taken excitedly knowing that as we trust in Him, such faith will achieve for us a better understanding of all He did to give us something to stand upon in this world that's filled with things trying to knock us down.

We should reach for that loss so that this world and the lord of lies who runs this show for so many doesn't find the satisfaction for having toppled us. No, as seen in Christ, we choose to humble ourselves rather than to agree to this wicked world's insistence upon humiliating us.

Because they can’t take away what we’ve already given up trying to gain.

But alas, religion can't accomplish that sort of surrender. Goes the other way. Religion keeps us within our own minds, seeking something that will suffice as a show of sacrifice without actually costing us anything other than the time it took to think of it and the arrogance that's able to assume it's a passing replacement for reverence. No, all these rules can do is keep the focus on us and our performance, as if that's all this relationship is supposed to deserve.

No, friends, this gift deserves a death. But not one we consider begrudgingly nor accept mournfully. If we agree His work on the cross is truly worth what we say, then what we do should show that we're willing to accept nothing less than complete loss of self as well. Follow me, He says, but do so knowing well where it leads. Yes, to a throne, but first through a tomb.

But that's just it, if we're still trying according to some list of rules and humanly inspired expectations, then we're still living by things of this world. If our approach to, appreciation of this faith that's found us doesn't have us trying to find our end, well then we never will. And should we never find the end of ourselves then we can never possibly begin down the path that only exists beyond our wants and worries.

I confess many days anymore that I do notice the heavier gravity of these discussions. And too that I realize that such isn't seen as anything other than offensive to most anymore. But here's the thing, I talk so much, so often about the darkness of our sins because we need first a firm understanding of the terror trapped inside the tragedy of His turmoil before we can ever truly grasp the beauty of His benevolence.

We need to realize the death we deserve before we can appreciate the life we've been offered. Indeed, we need to be pushed toward witnessing His torture upon the cross before we can comprehend the triumph over it He won on our behalf, as that misery should have been ours. And simply put, if we don't understand the debt, we can't possibly claim to fully understand the worth.

But if we do truly understand the worth of what He's won, we'd race to lose whatever may keep us apart from that kind of impossible love. Even these lives we've lived trying to hold onto, and the religions that we've long assumed acceptable outlines for how best to please Him. Yet as He knew we'd struggle with the surrender, Hebrews 11:6.

"And without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him."

Earnestly seek Him. Solely. Passionately. Purposefully. Him alone. Not rules. Not something someone else said is expected. Not the path that’s consider popular. Not the brand or band or denomination dominating the charts and hearts of those lost in things down here. No, it’s those who seek Him earnestly that show forth a faith that is pleasing, as it’s one that affords absolutely no consideration nor time to anything but Him.

We can't please God without faith built entirely upon trust. We can't please God without a surrender of self showing we yearn to rely on Him even more than we've learned to lean upon ourselves. We can't possibly approach Him if we don't first believe He is there. But if we do believe He is there and that His Son came to show us home, all of this world cannot remain a stumbling block anymore. Everything must go.

Everything.

All expectations. All hesitations. All past frustrations and present consternations. Hopes, dreams, designs, divided devotions. Homes, cars, questions. Hatred, folly, failure to fight for the fullness of faithfulness. It all goes. Why? Because we can afford but one anchor in this journey, one lone priority for which we'll unquestioningly quell all other suggestion, input, idea or ideology. We must come to terms with the simple severity of a narrow way.

And simply put, if anything is left any worth enough any of our attention, Christ cannot be the fullness He must be if we're to find ourselves where only He can be.

That's why religion is so dangerous. Religion affords us a subjective truth that exists within the rules we ourselves come up with in order to feel as though we’re reaching for Heaven without letting go of here. And having tried that approach to faith for as long as we have, it’s dimmed our hope down so low that the light of His love pierces offensively this self-perception of peace that we feel we’ve found inside of the sense of accomplishment accomplished by religion’s many rules we manage to ironically abide by.

But in truth, it’s all merely a delight in deceptive devotion, devoted to the ideas we’ve come up with to afford an image of piety through religious adherence as opposed to surrender to a divinity not of our own design. Religion adds our ideas to His truth, making us a part too involved in a place our pasts prove we don't belong. As sinners, He doesn't need our suggestions. And we can't keep assuming otherwise.

Because that's just a subjective truth that allows each of us to choose for ourselves what model, what outline, what schedule and layout works best for us, chosen obviously with a firm understanding of both where we are and our unwillingness to never move too far in any other direction. No, that's why we make religion. It lets us choose what we'll do so that we can say we've done something while never having done the one thing required:

Die.

See, that very idea is about as egregious as it gets. Why? Because religion has convinced us that we can get to Heaven with just a few rules grafted into our current way of life that apparently displays some sort of devotion that we feel is worth that reward. And since, again, life is all about a gain, the loss we see in death is just divisive to the point of disgusting to most.

All because we think we can get where we're going on some roadmap of rules that we wrote without any way of knowing what we're doing having already done only all we shouldn't have.

Thus the fact that we need an objective truth, an objecting truth, a truth that confronts our counterfeits. We need something that we can’t uphold or perfect or therefore alter to meet our insufficiencies so that we can instead see our insufficiencies as being insufficient and then fight for life against them.

But we can't get there without dying so completely to ourselves and this world we're in that we don't even want to come up with any rules, any ideas, any words that may once again prove only problems that lead us once more in the wrong direction. And while our arrogance may hate God’s Word, without His Word all we have are ours and ours are just altogether too easily corrupted and confused as they’re always used to make us seem the victors rather than the villains playing the victims.

We don't want to be the victims. We don't want to be seen as those who've lost. We can't tolerate the thought of this world seeing us suffer so severely that those we once tried to please or compete against gain the victory we long wearied ourselves to win. We don't want to be where Christ went, because religion has convinced us there's another way that requires only a little limitation rather than a limitless surrender.

Friends, you'll notice a colon left at the end of today's verse, means there's something still to come, something more to say. What rules? “Do not handle! Do not taste! Do not touch!” Things done or levied in the assumption that such will save us. But done with a blindness to the obviousness that such rules accommodate only entirely too much acknowledgement of things of this world. Do you see the silliness in our allowing ourselves to be distracted by rules, be them ones we're writing or ones others have written that we just follow?

Every worldly rule is written in regard to something of this world. Do not handle means it’s here for us to hold. Do not taste testifies that we can touch it to our tongues to try the taste. Do not touch means it must be something here we can or could touch. Follow this outline that some other person perfected. 3 minute abs. Go to this church, they do it better in my opinion. Worship this way, the extra instruments really add to the emotion. It’s all here, written here because we’re here and only know of what is here.

But that why we're not here to follow rules but to follow Christ. Because this world and every idea it's ever had has only accomplished what He had to atone for on the cross. Who are we to think that what we need is more rules, more requirements, more suggestion or influence? Folks, the more we listen to this world or what we ourselves have learned from it, the longer we'll remain distracted from the devotion He alone is due.

The simple fact is that sure, we can come up with a million rules that help us avoid having to die the death He showed was needed. But we can't come up with any rule or idea that can possibly replace the fact that He did give His life to show us that His gift is worth losing everything else.

May we too become soon so bold as to let go this assumption that rules will lead the way to the place we can't possibly find and instead follow so closely the footsteps of the Way that we let nothing of ourselves nor anyone else dare venture into our attention. Because humans can't do what He already did, and so it's not our ideas that will save us.

It's realizing that we've no idea what we're doing, and seeing that as more than enough reason to die so hard that we can't be the ones leading the way anymore. He has to be, otherwise, lost is all we'll ever find. Because He doesn’t exist in rules written by humans, and how dare we think so little of Him to assume otherwise!

We have to stop walking this faith as if this world could pave the way to do it perfectly. A world broken by arrogance cannot produce the perfect humility needed for the existence of true faith. And so this world and every path we've paved has to be left behind, because He doesn't walk in our way.

We're called to walk in His.

#LeaveNoSoulUntold