Day 3346 of the 7 day Bible verse challenge.

Jeremiah 17:5 NIV

My strength comes from the Lord alone, not from the many opinions of man which will prove merely perspectives that can have no say in the ultimate determination of a life’s worth.

Sounds quite the contrary to this culture of collapsing chaos we’ve constructed into this destruction we see deepening by the day. No, down here at this rock bottom of disbelief and division we’ve designed as if a home fit for these kings we see ourselves each to be, well, we’ve all but lost sight of a singular service given in joyous surrender unto our only hope. Rather we’ve settled instead for the hope of appeasement achieved through affirmation affording us only an image of love hiding perhaps the worst kind of hatred underneath.

For to please man is a snare which enslaves us to people’s opinions, preferences, pretenses and pride.

And down that road, God is only inevitably forgotten.

Because the Word which He breathed for our benefit is profoundly posed upon this problem proven in serving two parties. Despite our trying anyway, as always done because we’re apparently certain we can be or become the one to finally overrule the gravity of a reality we’ve not had our hand in writing, truth is that no one can serve two masters. No one can honor two opposites. None can glory in two veering stories. Nor can any revere the designers of two different roads.

For at some point as those lives divide deeper along undeniable differences, we will be left deciding who we defend and who we disappoint.

And this is becoming something of a pressing issue anymore as this world grows ever distant from God and His design. Now that’s not to say that we’re truly doing as our ego contends and finding for ourselves a way of life lived outside of God’s control or care. No it’s merely to say that we ourselves are seeing a world seek to assume control from God as many show clearly they no longer care about God nor honoring Him in the manner and measure He is so definitely due.

No, rather we’re watching a world grow ever defiant against what God deserves, and thus we find rushing closer this decision discussed above. Each of us will soon have to decide what side of this eternal divide upon which we’ll reside as we ride out our time in this place we’re all leaving. Because the fact is that many anymore live lost in this play of pretend protecting their pretense poised upon pride’s position that we’re not leaving at all. That life here is life itself.

And we’re being asked, almost expected, nigh on directed to go along with such insanity simply for the sake of satisfying those satiating themselves upon themselves in this effort to resolve themselves continually to this idea that life revolves around them only.

Indeed, we’re scattered amongst a people assuming themselves the only gods in existence. And as humanity grows darker inside this depraved insanity which has many believing themselves not leaving these kingdoms they’ve made of themselves, we’ll be asked, almost expected, nigh on directed and demanded to go along with their diluted delusion for the sake of this almost God-forsaken affirmation that is all the rage anymore.

Yes, almost gone are the days wherein folks hold one another accountable. Almost gone are the days wherein people seek mutual edification found only in the truth which sets captives free rather than the comfort of said captivity captured inside the vain glory of going along with these selfish stories people are pretending the power to write for themselves without any clear evidence of any stance upon right itself. Almost gone are the days wherein we keep ourselves and our friends upon the narrowest of lines drawn by truth.

No, anymore the standard assumption is that to love is to leave another alone to do as they please, doing only what pleases their person at the potential expense of their peace.

And there defines this divide as designed by God caring so much about our peace that He came in flesh to take our place and die in pain paying our punishment so that we might be absolved of every moment in which we failed to care for anything more than what was pleasing in whatever season we found such selfish inclination as to deny His invitation to Heaven’s home, staying planted instead inside sins so deep that we could not, perhaps still cannot see the hope of not living life like we’re the ones who need to be honored.

Alas such isn’t the message you hear down here. No, we’re infected with this perspective that we’re supposed to please people in the manner in which they find pleasure. Lie to those who despise truth. Comfort those who consider complacency contentment. Affirm the arrogance which has so many lost so inside themselves alone that they’ve no care left of any other, themselves especially. Confirm the chaos confounded in a lack of care about anything other than what’s here, what’s now, what’s fun, what’s exciting, what’s entertaining, what’s everything.

Yes, we’re told to be everything that everyone else wants us to be, a kind of broke-back betrayal of our opportunity to build one another closer to hope, trading then that undeserved gift for the chance to merely not offend the stagnancy of those around us who make clear they’ll hate us if we don’t agree to hate what they hate.

But friends, this world hates God!

This world hates truth. This world hates responsibility. This world despises dignity, morality, reasonability, reality even. Yes, this world has so warped so many in so many ways that we’re waging war no matter what we do or how much love or mercy or care or legitimate concern we do it with. No, anymore everything we do is bound to be offensive somehow to someone somewhere. Simply because we walk a world in which everyone has decided to take upon themselves the idealizing of what they want life to be, to mean, to make.

And when we, as sinful and insane as we’ve so clearly become, become the ones who live as if we are to be pleased by all, all we can find is this outcome of a billion perspectives purchasing a billion problems that we each have to understand so as not anger or agitate anyone.

Or.

Or we can focus on One.

We can set our lives to pleasing God. We can embrace this opportunity to do as He calls us to rather than whatever everyone else expects us to. We can shoulder the burden of becoming servants seeking reverence of a singular devotion given into a single direction, aimed right at the heart of God above rather than scattered throughout this heartbreak below. We can resolve our lives to dissolving ourselves of any worry about all that’s worldly, accepting therein the outcome of letting people down.

And while that may indeed already be an entirely uncommon and widely consider uncalled for outlook, what we have to keep always in mind is that we can only serve one.

Now that one may be us. We ourselves may, as many are, be the only one who matters to us in our lives. And in that line we can live our time seeking to satisfy and satiate and ingratiate ourselves unto ourselves. We can spend our every waking moment, and even insist upon stealing those dreams we want in those slumbering seconds of sleep that evades, insisting upon winning whatever comforts or complacencies we consider worth wishing away the gift of eternity.

Or that one can be another person. We can live to please someone else. We can confirm and affirm and then reconfirm our commitment to the content that makes another content so as to never once offend their gift of being a friend. We can bend over backwards and wrap around again in search of some way to further please whatever person or people we agree is worth our work given unto treating them as if the royalty they consider themselves to be.

That one can be a group, some collective with a well-established character agreed upon by all members of the club. We can learn the lines, wear the logos, brandish the logins and perform the passwords that allow us to feel ourselves part of their community of whatever brand of confusion they consider worth becoming homogenized at the expense of the identity God’s given each of us uniquely.

Or, and the option that I personally find the most profound and productive, that one can be the One. We can set our hearts to beating in tune with the truth God has given, knowing then that we’ll not have to strive to seek out the different delusions others have designed to replace His standards of morality and reality. We can agree to the humility needed to honor God above even ourselves, knowing that such is the only way to escape the insanity found in serving ourselves.

But whatever choice we make, and make no mistake, it’s a choice we all will make, the gravity is that we’re going to disappoint someone. Perhaps many someone’s in fact. We will anger some, confuse others, part with friends and maybe lose brothers. We will have welcomes removed and comfort likely stolen with it at times. We will find ourselves sliding further into solitude as we stand solidly upon whatever stance we’ve chosen.

Indeed, we may even find ourselves all alone depending upon the decision we make in this regard to this personal responsibility to determine for ourselves who we serve, and thus what we may sever.

But as weighing the gravity of such responsibility, please doo keep in mind that God turns none away.

None who call on Him, fall before Him, ask Him to do what we often cannot seem to, forgive and the like, none of those who shoulder such a surrendered reliance upon Him will be denied His mercy. None will be refused His redemption. None will be rejected should they resolve to revere Him as the Lord of all. But the problem is proven in that He cannot be Lord of all if we do not live in such a way that shows that He is Lord at all.

And in this place around so many others who think themselves lord, king, queen, whatever, living our lives standing firm upon the outskirts not caring what this world takes away because of our belief that we’ve nothing here to lose, that brazen oddity will find for us an exclusion from this world’s embrace. We will be misunderstood, disinvited, persecuted and just simply hated for our not agreeing to go along with all that we’re seeing atop this sea of insanity watching others sink into themselves in search of something none of us can offer.

But if we’ve the courage to take such a stand out here beyond the barricades of disbelief and the hatred it inspires inside so many others, we will be the few who find perhaps a portion of what life was always meant to be.

For this is not an existence based upon the insistence of something like enjoyment. This life is not a time in which we toil through trials seeking only to try and pretend that everyone is right to do all that we know is wrong, simply because they feel good while doing it. This life is not our chance to dance inside the delusions of those around us, nor even our own that we stumble into from time to time. No, this life is not ours to keep, to design, to defend or deny as some so clearly do from within their ongoing loss to sin and the selfishness driving so many over the edge of despair.

This life is ours to give away, just not to people.

Now that’s not to say that we’re here to be reclusive curmudgeons who hate everyone and fight over every petty difference. It’s not saying that we should seek out chances to argue or aggravate or agitate. Nor is it saying that we should always avoid such conflicts as they will inevitably come so long as we’re in this world seeking, striving to never again be of this world.

It’s merely to say that serving people cannot remain our main priority, nor even can it remain even a passing consideration. Because we’re not here to seek out ways to please and appease those who clearly deny our God and thus refuse to live in such a way that shows any honor, any decency, any modesty, any honesty. We are not here to put people as equal to God, for simply put, we are not. No, we are not God nor are any others around us.

We are all human, thus we are all broken, lost, confused, prone to struggle and sometimes slaves to sin. And that is why we cannot allow people to determine for us, nor us for ourselves, what we’re to do, to be, to say. God alone has that right and He has already defined for each of us a calling that cannot waste any time taking into consideration the many misplaced contemplations of a world wrapped within itself and therefore all but unable to look to God for help unraveling the revelry of our rebellion.

And that’s the point. This world will continue to rebel against God in every way possible. For us to seek to please people will require us to play into their rebellion. Can’t do it. Won’t do it. Sorry if that offends or irritates, but honestly, I would rather offend and irritate people than to again disappoint God.

Because when my time here is done, it’s God who will determine where I spend forever. And knowing clearly the only two possible outcomes, I will not risk the misery for the sake of a fleeting chance at mankind’s mercy. Because I don’t need man’s mercy. I don’t need people to like me. I don’t need people to understand me. I don’t even need people to know me.

I just need to know God as much as He may see fit to reveal His majesty to a miscreant like me, and to then make Christ known while I’ve got a couple of hours left to try.

Whatever anyone may make of that is on them as I know what I’ve made of it. And as I personally try every day to seek out every way that I’m letting Him down, what I find is that I don’t have the time to worry about whatever this world may want from me. I’m sorry but I just can’t care.

Because pleasing people makes no sense as they’ll have no say in whether I see Heaven’s gates open or rather those of hell slam closed. And the dire difference defined in that determines where my focus is from here on out. As if working for the Lord, not for those who only pretend to have taken His place upon the throne of life.

And so I guess it’s the outskirts for me. But with His hope on the horizon, well, I just don’t find much here worth worrying about, most of all whatever this world insists I do to remain warmly welcomed in this place I don’t belong.

#LeaveNoSoulUntold