Day 3232 of the 7 day Bible verse challenge.

Romans 8:4 NIV

There is both richness and poverty in life, problem is we've assumed the wrong wealth.

Wealth isn’t measured by riches but by righteousness as money cannot buy a ticket to Heaven but should one pursue righteousness, possible only now by a faith that follows the narrow path of Christ’s call, the same will be the few who find themselves welcomed where worldly wealth is proven worthless. Indeed, God does not call us to earn a living based on material earnings but rather to make righteousness our priority wherein we show a continual resolve to please Him rather than our pocketbooks.

See, we’ve become a soulless people who live according to the desires of the flesh as such are bought and sold, selling this image of worth in which we assume ourselves wealthy only when we have what the flesh desires. And as a result, we’ve all sold so much of ourselves that our souls are hanging on by a thread, ready to break that bank whenever needed so we’ve a bit more to give away in exchange a bit more of what we never needed to begin with.

Because what defines a soul's worth isn't what they have to lose nor the gains they fail to find but rather what they find in exchange for giving away what they never needed. This truth runs entirely contrary to our understanding of prosperity as it speaks to an emptying of life's excess so as to finally see one's true potential, a promise which awaits within a poverty we've long sought to fight against.

As if we have something we've found within this world that we can't afford to lose even though the entirety of life itself as lived within this world's ways will be lost as well someday.

We just can't afford to agree to that outcome, at least not when still convinced there be riches within this time and space, hidden within the expanse of our existence just waiting for us to come around to prioritizing the prizes we've not yet entered social competition to win. That's truly, and sadly, all that we seem to understand of life anymore. It's this undertaking of endless competition to gain crowns of glory that seem to share a greater story of who we become.

Yes, life as we live it is merely a mechanism in which we wear ourselves weary wanting for what everyone else wishes, only to end up wishing we had more than what everyone else wanted. It's never enough as this world sells only passing satisfactions clothed as passions but hiding beneath a reality spent far from the reach of reason. And yet we've plenty of reasons it would seem to keep on chasing the caustic and collapsing.

Never once realizing that our lives are a direct reflection of that with which they're filled.

Thus the call to empty. A possibility proven priceless in the promise of Christ's provision as won by His path of redemption by which we learn of repentance, through which we're once more made back upon the right path toward what we shouldn't have in a hope we shouldn't know. It's all found only when we stop trying to find our lives filled with only what's always left us feeling empty.

And so you see, just as there are both riches and poverty in life, so too is there both fulfillment and emptiness. But again, we've just learned to improperly pair the wrong partners.

We see riches as fulfillment while emptiness is defined by poverty. Because we assume that if one cannot afford something, then that something is something they'll never see. It we can't offer the worth of an item, an idea, an idol for which we seek to sell ourselves, then we see ourselves as poor, simply because we lack what we assume would bring us a bit closer to happiness.

But what if I told you that wealth isn't measured by how many bedrooms our homes have? What if I told you that our prosperity wasn't a product of some product produced by man for mankind? What if calculating our worth based upon bank accounts didn't actually account for what truly mattered most?

Indeed, what if we tried to see not through eyes blinded by silver and gold but rather through hearts warmed by an impossible love who therefore disdain all that hates He who brought about such impossibility?

It'd be a rather radical shift, wouldn't it? To determine our value not by what we have but rather by what we've been given. To trade seeing ourselves in terms of dollar signs and bottom lines for instead understanding ourselves in light of the light that died to pierce that darkness that's long kept us lost within that insanity. To embrace the opportunity to lose all we have so that we can finally have what we can't lose.

Christ.

A Savior described as having emptied Himself. I read that verse a while back and it just broke me. He made Himself nothing for a people who had sold their souls in exchange for nothing, giving Him therefore nothing but heartbreak in return for His creation and then further redemption of His creation. He left the perfection of Heaven to walk in the pain of here, so that we who have lost it all here might see that we've now the hope of that home to which He's returned. A place of which He's prepared.

2 Corinthians 8:9 says that, "For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sake he became poor, so that you through his poverty might become rich." Same amazingly moving message as that from the Philippians 2:7 mentioned above. Just this incredible truth that He left all He had to give all He had left so that we might leave behind what left us lost and find instead a promise we can't lose.

As that car commercial says, "Who does that?"

He did that. Jesus chose that. God granted that kind of grace in His Son and the plans He both wrote out and then walked out. He poured Himself out both to cover our sins and too to show us how to do what needed done. Lose. Let go. Surrender. Count everything, life itself, a loss, all "because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things." Philippians 3:8

You see, there's the real wealth of life. It's not life itself but that He gave His that we might have ours back again, but in a better fashion as this hope in which our existence is now entangled doesn't end, won't fade, cannot be stolen or sold. It's eternal. And in that offer He's made unto all, in that we find the true definition of riches and how worldly poverty is the only way to truly appreciate just how wealthy we are in Christ.

Surpassing worth. Beyond wealthy. Richer than rich. Because in Him, our value isn't measured by gold that stays behind but rather by hope which only grows deeper as we grow nearer to that most glorious day upon which we'll finally be home beside the One who never left us behind.

There are so many different lessons and leadings strewn throughout Scripture, all of which as the Word itself says, were breathed for our benefit. And yet a great many of them, most if not all in fact, paint this portrait of our being in need of the ability to appreciate poverty. Contentment is gain when it's in godliness. It's hard for the rich to enter the kingdom of Heaven. Easier for a camel to shimmy its way through the eye of a needle.

Why? Those rich in worldly wealth consider only all they have to lose. But those who have nothing worldly by which to pretend themselves wealthy, well, they've only left to gain as the pain of worldly poverty is promised to end. And should we be so bold as to dare deny the opportunity to gain in this place what we can't keep forever, perhaps we can then instead spend our time here looking toward forever and reaching for what was never here anyway.

But it's a strange path, this one of comparable destitution. Because we watch a world breaking itself to prove things such as popularity, power, prowess and other impressiveness. Yes, we're widely impressed by those who win what we've long wanted. We idolize sports stars because as kids we wanted to play in front of those roaring crowds. We bow before celebrities as they're so seemingly loved by everybody.

And yet, here's this Jesus who not everybody seems to even understand let alone want to stand next to. He's not someone that everyone would ask an autograph from should they happen by Him as He ate at some restaurant. His "fan clubs" meet on Sunday mornings when the rest of the world is still sleeping off Saturday night. And His followers are deemed fools for not partaking of said festivities.

Indeed, His way is still without worth to the many, the most, those who assume wealth is defined by a world that has nothing we need but will happily distract from all we've been so undeservingly given. Yes, that's the way of life we've come to know, come to love. It's an assumption that we'll only ever be something should we have something that everyone else wants.

Because that's the only kind of riches a lost and hopeless people can understand.

And it's also why this world so clearly doesn't understand the cruciality of righteous responsibility. Because there's no money in it. We don't gain anything by humbling ourselves to seeking righteousness. There's no trophy or prizemoney for the ones who win the race to being most righteous. Nobody cares as righteousness is seen as foolishness to those who are wasting away in a world that they're leaving behind, living as if they're staying drunk in this carefree calliope forever.

Indeed, rules are ideas made for the few losers who follow them. Faith is a fabrication, a fairytale meant to inspire guilt in an otherwise flawlessly lived life spent enjoying oneself. Truth is a subject for each to define or decide by themselves. Victory is won by those who win the competitions and first places among the races that all the rats are running. Money can't buy happiness, but it can buy all the junk that keeps a person distracted from seeing just how unhappy they are.

Afraid to be empty, because we're told that life can't be full if it's empty. But why not? Why can't life be worth living if we don't live it for what the world wants? Can we not be content in godliness, do we really need all this excess instead? And if contentment could come from excess, then where's the line where we're finally fine? At what point, what decimal place will we have reached peace?

Doesn't work that way does it? No, gluttony knows no basement as one can always dig deeper into desire to find something new that we don't have yet. And as everyone around us lives like they've not yet found fulfillment, perhaps money or fame or followers or applause or affirmations aren't the root of our worth. No, maybe they're only roots from which grow discontentment, division, death.

Guess that's for each of us to puzzle out on our own for ourselves, but personally, as there's only been one flawless life lived, just makes sense to perhaps aim for His example rather than the endlessly disappointing ideas that everyone else is trying in vain. Yes, in vain. Vanity. A performance put on to please people. Look at me. Look how awesome my life is compared to yours! Social media destruction.

Leaving a creation fleeing their Creator assuming wealth cannot possibly exist in letting go all that we must lose to find the hope promised by the cross.

Friends, if we only knew how little we know, we'd not live like we had this all figured out. Truth is that what we have understood is so misunderstood that it's amazing we can even stand, let alone stand ourselves. But therein lies the other side of this coin of choice. Stand now, bow later. Bow now, be lifted higher. Because one can only rise from rock bottom whereas it's a long way down from ivory towers.

He emptied Himself, because we need to too. Lose every loss we're letting win our time, our attention, our devotion leaving us devoid of any ability to appreciate the blessings we're given, beauty left for granted behind a billion false promises all always failing to be enough. The bottom line is that this world will never have enough, make enough to make us feel eternally complete. It will only keep us distracted by idols that can't possibly offer that hope.

No, true wealth exists only when this world and its version of value means so little to us that all we see is dust waiting to be shaken from our feet as we race toward the horizon of this life, aching to jump into the fullness of a love that can't fit here. Because it's a love this world doesn't want. No, this world loves instead all that inspires hatred and division and separation and a sinful kind of success that only satisfies for a second.

His hope lasts forever, but it asks that we lose everything else that's been allowed to get in the way of our understanding what He did and what we should be eager to do in return.

This world's idea of wealth will leave billions so spiritually poor that they end up lacking the one chance they could have freely had to enter Heaven's peace. Christ is the only way, and He's not pleased by how much we make nor how much we have.

He's the One who emptied Himself so that through His poverty we might become rich in faith, a relationship worth more than all this world has to offer. Because faith is a bridge that money can't buy. Money is just a wall that will keep people from knowing hope both here and forever.

Choose your wealth wisely, because one day every life will be called to account. And without Him, we'll only be proven bankrupt, no matter how much we left behind in a world that we thought could define our worth. No, I’d rather live trying my best to become rich in righteousness, because I know I can’t achieve it. And so such an outlook will keep me striving higher than here while I’m here. And that just makes far more sense than avoiding responsibility and reason as required to gain worldly wealth that I’ll leave behind.

Because I know He’s not impressed with the things that we have as they’re so often the things that have us. He wants all we are, but He knows we have to lose all we have before we can understand what all He’s done to give us all we shouldn’t hope for. Because money can’t buy righteousness either, but it can definitely inspire us to discount it.

#LeaveNoSoulUntold