Day 3395 of the 7 day Bible verse challenge.

Colossians 3:12 NIV

To be here still as those now knowing they’re chosen is without a doubt a gift undeservingly given, but perhaps for such a gift to be shown a proper appreciation does indeed demand we display the sort of change for which He came.

For in the simplest terms I might imagine, if such a giving of God’s grace doesn’t change how we leave this place then I just don’t know that we’ve any right to assume we’ve actually received such a gravity as His mercy. Because as a people who so blindly live so boldly as if we’ve never been in need of such a kindness, we’ve sadly become a people unable to consider anything any bigger than the brevity of this dishevelment we’ve otherwise the gross audacity to actually assume a life passed off as one well lived.

And yet how could we ever truly contend such nonsense when to pass off a life as one well lived cannot ever be done without at first confessing the temporality in which we’re living?

Because such a fleeting foundation as this firmament found beneath us, such should inspire us to consider beyond the here and now rather than being consumed with such a caustic casualty as continuing to confine our focus to this worldly existence. And yet it seems we’re unable to alter such a rampant confusion as this delusion demanding we enjoy the dilution of ourselves further only into failure and futility as seen within the glaring evidence of Pauls’ warning of 1 Corinthians 15:33 being most evident in our daily lives and their disastrous undoing.

Indeed, we look around only to see that bad company corrupts good character, as such was bound to happen perhaps being that we’re bombarded and daily berated by the billowing blasphemes of a world loving its enmity against the Author who died to prove the sheer gravity of our chosen destiny as so sinfully demanded rather than that of His design which is simply deserving of simple appreciation. That’s the horror in all this. It’s that there’ve been two incredibly distinct and eternally different choices chosen within this one story that is our lives.

Actually, no, backup, in fact there are three choices which have been chosen which now define the entirety of our lives and thus the trajectory of our eternity, two of which are so incredibly similar in their particular measure of perfect kindness that the third, which is the outlier, ought to inspire us to reconsider our stance against our Savior.

For the first of the three was God’s choosing to create you and me. It was His intention for the invention and then continuation of His creation. Man in a Garden. A people perfectly pleased to be at peace in a place that only asked that we appreciate what was given for the simple fact that He didn’t have to give it. And yet that merciful provision was met instead with what was, and sadly still far too often is, the second decision, our decision. But then in an extending again of such perpetually undeserved mercy, God chose the third choice which was chosen to overcome the second so as to restore our hope back to the first from the foolish futility of the second.

Yes, God made the first and third moves in this maze of a gift we call life. One to give it, and then one to save it. Save it from what? The second choice, which is ours, which is the outlier, which is thus what ought to inspire us to reconsider what we’re doing and how well it’s showing.

For you see, our choice in this mess was to make a mess. It was our choosing to get only to losing a way of life that needed us only to be grateful for God’s having given us all we needed for the simple sake of that it’s what He wanted. He wanted us to exist, but even deeper than that, He wanted us to be His. His people. His children. His creation consumed with the constant consideration of only considering all that He is and does and thus deserves rather than all we’ve ever since chosen to become distracted by, destroyed by.

Friends, that is the tragedy of sin. It’s that we chose to do what we wanted and so put ourselves first while the option to consider God was as easily chosen in that moment. Yes, sin is missing God in the moment, ignoring God for a second, standing there at this crossroads found between two outcomes and picking the one that best fit our impatient persistence upon only our pride being glorified within the pleasure or treasure we’ve sought to assume a better show of who we are than what we do ever could.

And that’s what has to change.

For so long we’ve agreed with the rest of this world in that what we have or how we feel is a better display of who we are than what our words or actions might say instead. We’re so incredibly lost within building something we can boast about that we’re eternally at risk of building something only we can boast about. And that’s the frailest of outlooks that I can imagine. Because what benefit is brought about by our boasting? What lasting worth is won in our winning something that we can hold high and hear the applause of people likewise lost inside assuming that it’s these idols we’ll not be losing.

Indeed, it seems we’ve rather only lost our minds to make them. We’ve lost our hearts to help them. We’ve lost our souls to serve them. And if something doesn’t change and change immediately, then we might well lose our eternity because of them.

And it doesn’t even matter what the idol is as we all have them and they all look different. No, what matters is that every single distraction that exists in our lives is nothing but a continuation of that choice we’ve chosen to live like the only think we have to lose is what we have.

What about what we don’t have? What about what isn’t here? What about the One who came here just to call us elsewhere? What about the cross? What about Christ?

How can we say we’ve chosen Him when we still daily choose to die to the hope of Heaven in exchange for just a bit more leaven that we think makes us look good to this world we’re leaving?

I’ve been the one to hold high every hope I’ve had as dreamed within this world in which they’ve all seemed to fit. And that’s become the misery of my life that I find every single day a new insistence to war against. Because I’m tired of hopes that fit here. I’m tired of assuming worth is won in things I can win in a world in which I’ve had plenty and yet have nothing. And because I can see now just how much time I’ve given to chasing those things I’ve been choosing, so too can I now say that actions speak louder than everything.

Indeed, we hear that actions speak louder than words as the effort is what gives our words their meaning. For instance, we can say we’re sorry, something I’ve said so much that I know God is tired of hearing it. Why? Because my actions have usually failed to show Him the remorse that sorry is supposed to signify. And that’s the problem in our living like what we have, what we hold, what we hear, what we say is all that can possibly convey the meaning and worth and purpose of our life in this place.

And simply put, God doesn’t need to hear us say a bunch of eloquent eulogies claiming we’ve left the past behind so as to finally agree that we do indeed need to start doing things different now that we know about the cross and the Christ and the cost that He chose on our behalf to again help us believe that we can truly be the people He made us to be after an entire way of life lived the other way in life.

He should see it.

Again, we see even this discrepancy discussed in Scripture. Matthew 15:8. For indeed, we do honor Him with our lips, but yes, often times our hearts are still so far apart that we shouldn’t actually be able to assume that our words can cover the distance our choices are designing between us. Yet we do. We almost insist on it in fact. For we get angry with God when our prayers are unanswered, do we not?

Yet there’s no sign of such disquiet or spiritual unrest when we fail to show Him appreciation for the sheer fact that we can pray regardless of the outcome.

For that is indeed what could be considered a plausible sign of humility. That we pray not to have our hearts heard or our hurts healed or our plans approved, but that we simply know we’ve already plenty to be thankful for and wish not for another moment to go by without our saying thank you. But that’d be an action, a moving of our heart toward Him, an insistence that we be the ones who for once close the distance since He’s done it twice already.

Chose to create us, chose to save us. What then are we choosing to be in light of both, or rather are we so lost in the dark that we still doubt we’ve anything to do to show Him we’ve understood all He’s done to overcome all we’ve been?

My friends, whose are we as shown in the actual action-proven evidence seen only in our actions? Yes, who do we belong to as considered by what our actions are telling the world about who we are?

See, God is a God of compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience. Look familiar? Each of them are attributes of our Father that we’ve indeed seen time and again in our lives, every single day in some cases, in some way. And where else do we see this list listed for our consideration? This verse in Colossians right? Further still, we see a slightly shortened version in both Leviticus 11:44 and 20:26, and then again in 1 Peter 1:16.

What do they all have in common, this shortened version of God’s goodness as now called to be evidenced in our lives on this side of Christ’s taking our cost upon that cross? To be holy for He is holy. To replicate now the utterly distinguishable character of our Heavenly Father. To emulate His unrelenting goodness as shown forth in compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience.

And to do so by our choosing now what we’ve never chosen before, to clothe ourselves with such attributes so that we can testify to what the rest of Leviticus 20:26 says, that He has truly set us apart from the nations to be His.

Which is what we’re called here, His. His chosen people. His adopted children. His redeemed, His renewed, His reborn and thus revitalized through unblinded eyes that see now that faith is a matter walked rather than seen or talked. No, we walk by faith and we do so doing whatever we can to make it evident to whomever may see that we are indeed not of this world but rather of God and thus ready at a moment’s notice to give reason for what we believe and why.

And ready also to make endlessly the choice we’ve not been known for all this time: To do what proves we belong to God as those He’s called apart from the world, a miracle made evident in our walking differently now, so differently in fact that none can help but notice that our crowd must also be different as such things as compassion and kindness and humility are not widely known among humanity.

Let them all be undeniably known of us, for how else might we know or any other assume that we are not the same but have instead been changed by the only One who could have ever begun such a good work in us?

Friends, let me leave you with this for today: How we walk tells those watching where we’re going. And to that, remember always that that from which we came is that to which we’ll return. And while our bodies are but dust and ash which are thus promised to return from the ground within which our flesh was found, such is reason enough to not live to please the flesh that will only refuse with this soil upon which we walk. No, let us rather live to sow for the spirit as it’s to the Spirit that our souls shall return.

Live then as God’s chosen people, holy and indeed so very dearly loved. And let us do that by choosing now to clothe ourselves with an entirely, eternally different way of life as seen and shown in whatever we say, whatever we do, however we walk, as if we know to where we going and that it is undeniably different from here.

#LeaveNoSoulUntold