Day 3375 of the 7 day Bible verse challenge.

Romans 6:6 NIV

“because anyone who has died has been set free from sin.”

Along that little line which separates today’s verse from verse 7 as quoted above, a line drawn in eternity’s sand, it turns out it’s not what we have to lose but rather what we get to leave.

Alas, as a people the likes of whom we’ve become as but a replica of a world relishing in rebellion against everything from rhyme to reason, we see only the latter of such a truth. Because this world, which is the sort of sordid shepherd behind which we’ve all flocked into a fellowship with foolishness for the simple sake of our sharing of their seeing that having friendship is of greater worth than having faith, this world has taught us too that we’ve here something to lose that is apparently of such vast worth that it’s worth seeing this world as our home.

Thus doubting how Heaven ever could be.

But you see, that’s the gravity of our ingratitude as shown in our standing well wrapped within the wicked wanderings of a world wondering as to whether or not His wrath is real enough to worry about. In fact such doesn’t really even seem much a question anymore. Seems as though many have made their final answer in regard to His request for righteousness as evidence of hearts newly existent within the truth from which we’ve all strayed into lies that’ve starved our souls for life.

No, seems from the common mannerisms of mankind that most agree that He’s not worth the worry, both because such an insanity allows a person to feel free to do as they please without feeling bad when pleasure is all they gain, but also to worry only about said gain for the sake of whatever vain glory they might still assume of a story so stolen from the Author of everything from life to death and this teetering toward which we tend here in between.

Why is it that we do seem to straddle these halves of hope like we do? When did we agree to a hope halved at all? For where in that sort of divided delight is to be found something of true worth, a worth worth enough to weary ourselves for, toward?

As one who, like all, did indeed live lost inside that sort of loss of any outside insistence toward something of some actual substance greater than, higher than, deeper than my desires could ever help me climb, I sit shattered somedays at rock bottom as if staring up at life wondering how I fell so far as to feel it was worth nothing more than what I can now see and thus say I’ve settled for. For that is indeed the very danger of a life lived looking at all we could lose.

Eventually we get lost in those possible losses, and in there we find a fear of having nothing with which we could at least try to contend for a commendable consideration of a life considered well accomplished.

Sadly such is quite the concession toward which society has fallen, and thus we too as those who fall in line behind the blind leading us in their ways. We’re a culture of concession, always considering the costs and counting the curiosities as we try and choose what will both bring us the most gain and too leave us with the least lost. Because we, like all, have come to agree again to hope in half.

We think hope is found both half here and half in Heaven, or whatever home someone might hope toward. We believe in a belief so belittled as being both present in this present and also held just over the horizon. We consider contentment contained in the current but too solidified in the Son. We even agree to assume that some meaning can maybe be made of something that has been made by man, most likely ourselves, but also wonder as to whether what we’ve made might be worth if what He said is worth that choice He made to help us see the meaning.

And thus we’re about as confused a people as a people should be. And while so many seem so very happy so lost inside such confusion as considering staying in a place, in a way, in a world that we’re not staying, such is the meaning of the choice He made.

To die that we might share in His promise of life after death.

There’s really nothing all that complicated or confusing in regard to the Gospel. Nothing at all really. It’s actually quite possibly the most straightforward and thus easily understood concepts ever created. In fact, it’s so simple that it’s almost like it came from the mind of someone who knows what they’re doing. Almost as if it must have come from someone of such knowledge and wisdom, wrath and restraint, anger and understanding, complaint and compassion that we shouldn’t be able to allow it as confused as we’ve made it.

Because the Gospel does come from the One who knows so well what He’s doing that He not only made us in His image, but He also made a Way for us to return to what we’ve lost by leaving behind what we’ve gained that’s carried a cost we cannot allow ourselves to consider without admitting just how badly we messed up, and in that confession finding the compassion that we’ve never had aimed the other way.

No, rather than extending toward God any semblance of the kindness He’s poured into our lives, we’ve rather lived our lives as if we’ve too much to lose to risk the loss of what we’d have to leave behind in order to even admit He’s there. And in that mindset we find a madness that’s left us having to deny God to the very point that we all seem to agree that life is just supposed to be miserable.

All so that we don’t have to admit that we’ve been so foolish as to settle for gaining everything we don’t need at the expense of appreciating everything He’s given. We would rather waste away in lives lived for nothing, an existence so meaningless and unfulfilling, than to admit we don’t need what we’re keeping in the place that only He should have. And thus, since we continue to fill His place in our hearts with everything that cannot bring us His hope or happiness or healing, we remain as broken as ever before.

Just so we needn’t let go of a life we don’t want to keep.

Ain’t that crazy!

We’re watching a world implode in anger and frustration as happiness and contentment and purpose seem always to everyone figments of such imaginary possibility that they’re not fought for anymore. Nobody fights to be happy. No one wears themselves out to be healthier. None seem willing to lose something in order to have something undeniably better. We’re just complacent to a fault, finding fault in others always having what we want, or not being pleased with what we have that others want.

Life has devolved into nothing but a time of endless comparison. And yet we wonder as to why we’re never any closer to any of the good things that God is. Might it be that we just refuse to lose what we’ve already lost of a life that we simply gave away to gain what couldn’t, what didn’t bring us life in return? For where is there life inside something that fits inside our homes? Where is there life inside these dreams or goals that fit inside our minds?

Can any of us, by worrying about tomorrow, add even a second to our life? No, no we can’t. And yet we try. We worry endlessly, incessantly about everything that can possibly become an idol. We are a people so vastly lost in idolatry that we literally cannot see our hands in front of our own faces if they’re not holding something we wish to have. And as a people so lost in always having to have something we can hold, so too have we become a people entirely convinced that we have something to lose.

For when we place such value into something that our lives are allowed to feel empty without it, then should we get it, even then our lives would begin only to worry that we’d again feel empty without it.

And the problem with this path of faith is that we’ve so filled our lives with things of such personal value, albeit entirely assumptive and completely subjective, that we actually seem able to wonder as to whether His promise is worth the price being so high as He proved it to be, and even went so far as to clarify within His asking us to take up our crosses too.

For indeed, we as a people who live as if we've something to lose will always look at an opportunity for what it might cost whereas a people walking in freedom, untethered to the temporal, would instead be able to view an opportunity for the gain it might give. Yes, we are a people more worried about what we don’t want to lose than finally getting to leave behind what we happily agree we don’t want to keep. And in that we find such a mindless misunderstanding that it’s truly a miracle when any do confess Christ.

Because to do so demands still the same cost it has always carried: Crosses carried.

Why? Because those crosses we’re now called to carry kill this life as lived in a world rife with sin, the very same sin which we were born in, grew in, stay in. That is the danger in our staying who we’ve been, we will just stay lost in sin. And friends, as much as the cost of salvation hasn’t changed, nor have the wages of sin changed. The wages of sin are indeed still death, but so too is the mercy of Christ still the free gift given to all who confess Him as their Lord and Savior, a confession validated by the followed renouncing of everything which cost Him His life on our cross.

That’s the cost, and while giving up, giving away our way of life is truly a cost seemingly too high to afford as seen from eyes stained by all this glitter and gain we’ve gotten in exchange for giving our souls away, even though it is a cost too high to afford, it’s one we can’t afford to ignore either.

For whereupon we leave this world, all the gain, all the gold, all the glory, it’ll stay behind. And God will not be impressed with anything we did or had or held or kept all to ourselves. And so we will not be able to buy our ticket to His paradise no matter how much money we make or how many things we have. For there is no other Name under Heaven given to mankind by which we must be saved.

And friends, we must be saved.

Because again, and please understand this as it is most foundational to our faith, the wages of sin are death. And we’ve earned overtime all this time given over to a depraved mind so willing to want only our desires that we’ve come do deny Him what He deserves. We have lived against God, the very epitome of enmity. And if we think that that’s in any way acceptable, well then we simply know nothing of reality nor reason.

Which I fear is most clearly the case as still we waste inside want and wish, worried only about this world we’re in without a care or concern given to where we might be going should His Word be as true as contended by a few most consider weird for living this life looking to lose what they cannot keep.

Among my last few hopes is found a share of that mindset, that outlook, that judgement. To be seen as weird for living this life looking for what I cannot keep so that I can go ahead and lose it. Not because I always want to lose something I’ve come to enjoy, no, simply because I find no ability to enjoy anything more than the hope of Jesus Christ convincing those gates to open into a peace I’ve in no way earned.

That is my greatest hope, Heaven. And just so happen that I take Him at His Word, in this case specifically, the part where He said that it is easier for a camel to fit through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the Kingdom of Heaven. And so if it’s not my riches that will afford me that greatest I hope I have left, then all I have that’s held here must have so little meaning that I find this weird wonder as to whether my life might actually mean more should I have less of this world welcomed within it.

And having let Him lead me to leave some of this world behind, I can say unequivocally that yes, a life is indeed far more meaningful when we have less of this world welcomed within it. For in that humility that allows us to learn to lose, we come to find that we have nothing to lose but rather just a bunch of junk that we get to leave behind.

So don’t live worried about the losses, because hey, we’re going to lose them anyway. No, learn to see this life as something you’ll leave behind, and in that you just might come to find that when all is lost, well, only then do we have everything to gain.

#LeaveNoSoulUntold